Chapter 70

Noquia, who had decided to join the Territorial War, ran herself ragged. First priority was raising affinity with the bosses she planned to align with. At first she’d intended to focus only on Ord’s affinity, but when guildmates warned her to prepare a backup in case she couldn’t raise it in time, she began working on affinity with lower-ranked bosses too.

Juggling several bosses left her feeling like twenty-four hours in a day simply weren’t enough. In the end, Noquia set everything else aside and threw herself into boss-grooming—using Retai Powder and everything—until it was almost obsessive.

A few days later, Noquia sat in a daze in the central hall of the guild house, the shadows under her eyes dragging down toward her philtrum. She looked exhausted.

She kept downing vial after vial—tiny finger-sized bottles—of a tonic laced with Retai Powder. A dozen empty bottles were scattered across the table.

“Hey, are you okay?”

Holanghee approached with a worried face and rubbed Noquia’s back. Noquia blinked up at her, tonic dripping from her mouth; her complexion had the color of dirt.

“I’m fine, haha, I’m fine.”

She smiled like a machine and poured another mouthful of tonic in, most of it spilling back out.

“Why don’t you pace yourself a bit?”

“There are too many kinds… I can’t.”

“Then let me help. What do you need me to get?”

Noquia, staring blankly at Holanghee, lowered her gaze and began folding down her fingers one by one as she muttered the list.

“First, go to Pillat Mountain and get the hundred-year-snow mountain-goat meat that Ord likes; then head to Gaia Sanctuary and get the cream leaf Gunter prefers; after that go to Kalsia Gorge and fetch the cliff-peaches Libraitz likes; when night falls, go out to sea and bring back the moonlit-wave that Jezenia loves. Repeat this cycle… over and over…”

“……”

Holanghee’s expression said she was fed up. The most common way to raise affinity with a boss was to visit and talk to them often, but the faster route was gifting the boss the items or foods they favored.

“Okay, then I’ll fetch some of it—just close your eyes for a bit, will you?”

“Why sleep? If we split up and go together, we’ll get twice as much.”

Holanghee gave a silent smile, but in her head she let out a string of curses. What a maniac.

Having drained the remaining tonic, Noquia hauled Holanghee out of the guild house with more energy than should have been possible. Theo watched the two of them leave—Noquia springing ahead, Holanghee trailing listlessly—and sighed, shaking his head. Now was definitely not the time to get involved.

Shortly after they left, Father and Aslan returned to the guild house. They walked in with grave faces, deep in conversation—probably still dealing with the mess from Blaine’s photo incident.

Aslan, caught up in the discussion with Father, spotted Theo and Blaine sitting at the central table and waved with a smile. When Theo waved back, Aslan and Father came over to the table.

Father took off her admiral’s hat and tossed it on the table, smoothed her long hair back with her hand, and sat down.

“First, I’ve handled every guild we could contact.”

Her tone was light, relieved. Theo nodded and praised her for the hard work, and Blaine offered his thanks.

“Aslan worked harder than I did. He ran himself ragged saying he’d find every single person who had the photos.”

“I invited that party, so I’m responsible too. Hana-hyung said he’d lend as much support as he could.”

Father nodded as if that were obvious, then rubbed her stomach.

“Anyway, I’ve been running around all day—let’s go eat something good. Want to come?”

Her offer was for Aslan, Theo, and Blaine. The three of them agreed, stood up, and left the guild house together.

Holanghee, who had tried to help just once, ended up stuck with Noquia for days. She’d tried to run off screaming a few times, but Noquia always caught her and dragged her along.

Thanks to Holanghee’s efforts, Noquia managed to fill affinity with Ord, Gunter, Libraitz, and Jezenia. All that remained was choosing a faction.

After thinking it over, Noquia picked a faction and followed Theo to Cottonflower Hills. The two of them stood at the entrance, nodded to each other, and spoke with the faction selection NPC.

Time flowed like water after Noquia chose her faction. With all her affinity maxed, she had nothing to do but wait obsessively for the Territorial War to begin.

A few days later, as Theo left the house, he paused at the mailbox where a mail notification floated. He opened it and found several letters inside. Most were quests, but Theo didn’t bother reading them; he discarded the low-tier ones at once. He could tell the grade just by the color of the sealing wax.

White for common, green for advanced, blue for top-grade, and gold for rare. Theo usually accepted top-grade first, so he trashed the whites and greens—minor quests were a waste of time and offered little reward. Scanning quickly, he froze when he saw a gold-wax letter.

It was a Territorial War support request.

“Is that a quest?”

Blaine, who had been waiting for Theo in front of the house, came over and looked at the letter in Theo’s hand.

“Yeah. Territorial War support request. Didn’t you get one?”

“Huh? Oh… I didn’t check.”

“You didn’t check before leaving the house?”

“Y-yeah…”

Blaine stammered, a little embarrassed. He glanced away for a moment, then hurriedly opened his display to check his mail.

Theo, who’d been watching him with a skeptical look, suddenly asked something that had just occurred to him.

“By the way, which faction are you in?”

“Huh? Didn’t you know? I’m Ord too…”

Blaine answered with a slightly petulant raise of his brow, as if offended Theo hadn’t known. Theo rolled his eyes and tried to dredge up the memory, but no matter how hard he thought, he couldn’t recall ever being told Blaine’s faction.

Theo was a little stunned by Blaine’s hurt reaction, but decided to play along since he’d made Blaine feel left out.

“Is that so.”

“……”

Blaine seemed even more hurt by Theo’s answer, but Theo didn’t dwell on it and asked,

“What are you going to do about the Territorial War? Are you joining?”

“And you?”

“I’m in.”

“Then I’ll join too.”

“All right. It starts in three hours—get ready and be at Lucilvania.”

“Okay.”

They stopped by the storage to grab what they needed for the war, then took a carriage from the relay station to Lucilvania.

When they entered the guild house, Father and Holanghee were already in the central hall. The two waved as they saw Theo and Blaine walk in and called out,

“Territorial War?”

Theo only nodded and climbed the stairs, and Holanghee, glancing back at them, frowned and muttered,

“Why isn’t Noquia here?”

Father checked the time and added,

“Yeah—she’s been waiting on that war forever, so where is she?”

At their complaints, Theo sighed slightly and said,

“Oh, Quia—she’s in Intelligence. I think she’s over in Jezenia’s faction.”

“Intelligence?”

“Really?”

Father and Holanghee both asked in surprise—the thought of Noquia choosing Intelligence on her first deployment had clearly stunned them.

“She actually managed to snag that slot.”

Father sounded impressed, but it wasn’t that hard to secure Intelligence in Ord; the faction was so strong that an infiltrator’s sabotage wasn’t as crucial as in weaker factions.

“Then let’s go.”

When they learned Noquia wasn’t coming, Father led the way out of the guild house and the three of them followed.

They rode Father’s carriage to Cottonflower Hills and entered the Ord faction area immediately. Since the war had been declared, the moment they stepped inside some parts of their clothing shifted to Ord’s silver hue.

The faction area was packed with users and the monsters that lived in Cottonflower Hills—a total crush. The four of them found an empty tent and settled in.

They checked positions: Father and Theo were Combat, Blaine was Support, and Holanghee was Escort. All that remained was to finish prepping gear and wait for the war to begin.

Father and Holanghee finished their checks and stepped out to find familiar faces, while Theo leisurely inspected his Actions, inventory, and equipment.

Blaine, pretending to tidy his gear while sneaking glances at Theo, scanned the swarm of users outside and asked quietly,

“By the way, isn’t Aslan participating in the war?”

Theo, who had been focused on his gear the whole time, looked up at Blaine.

“No, he’s in a different faction.”

Blaine’s eyes flickered with unease.

“So that means—he might fight us?”

He clearly feared facing Aslan as an opponent. YesYesu’s strength was intimidating if they turned enemy. Theo waved his hand with a smile.

“No, he’s not in the faction fighting us.”

Blaine finally exhaled in relief.

They passed the time talking inside the tent—their gear had already been tuned long ago. Theo pulled up his display to check the remaining time.

Before he could finish, a huge timer appeared suspended in the faction’s airspace. The crimson countdown announced how long until the war would start.

Ten minutes remained.

Theo and Blaine left the tent together.