The abandoned land at the northern edge of the Yura Republic.
Gold arrived at the rendezvous point there.
As he entered the promised location, the crumbling wooden window frames and moss-covered bricks awaited him.
He tried to ignore the sad state of affairs and went further inside, only to find a prison-like room barely warm enough to thaw a body.
And there, about ten faces awaited Gold.
“Finally, you have come. Former Lord Ober.”
“It’s been a while. Former Dean Einhardt.”
Gold, the former Lord Ober, brushed off the dust from his golden beard and greeted the former Dean Einhardt.
Once the head of the Magus Society, Einhardt was forcibly resigned due to his responsibility for the Blue Shock incident and lost all his reputation after being exposed for receiving a massive bribe from the Gilbert Consortium, ultimately leading him to bankruptcy.
The others gathered here were similarly disgraced.
Some were fugitives who had helped Gray with his dirty deeds too much and were now on the run,
Some went bankrupt after receiving bribes alongside Einhardt during the Blue Shock incident,
Some were fugitives after their noble houses fell due to tax evasion scandals involving eight families,
And others became fugitives due to the Triad’s illegal businesses getting exposed.
In short, they were nobles ruined by the Irene School.
Most of them were either “Connected Ones” or had transactional relationships, and Gold called them together.
“So, what do you want to propose to us, Ober?”
“If you brought us all the way to this northern end, it must be something worthwhile?”
As everyone gathered, the meeting began.
Gold spoke calmly to the fallen nobles who had nothing left but their pride.
“What I want to propose is revenge and compensation.”
“Revenge and compensation?”
“Yes, don’t you want revenge? Don’t you want to tear apart those detestable Irene School members who ruined us?”
The air froze at Gold’s words.
All those gathered here were people who had been ruined, directly or indirectly, by the Irene School.
Naturally, they all desired revenge against the Irene School, if possible.
“That needs no words!!!”
“Our families were shattered because of those bastards!!!”
Of course, most of their ruin was due to their own mistakes or those of their families.
But the mindset of criminals differs from ordinary people.
To them, their actions were a legitimate right, and the Irene School was the target of their revenge for having used that right to bring about their downfall.
“So how are we going to take revenge?”
But revenge required ability as well.
Apart from their connections in the Minister’s Office and Commander’s Department, the combat abilities of Sage Irene and her disciples were no joke.
It’s a well-known tale that her disciple Yuren defeated the prince of the Kingdom of Ra, known as the Mad Dragon, using martial arts rather than magic.
In response to their doubts, Gold placed a crystal ball emitting a purple and dangerously magical energy on the conference table.
“Twenty years ago, one of our society’s magicians conducted research on something called a ‘Monster Wave.'”
“M-Monster Wave!?”
The ‘Monster Wave’ does not generally occur with different species of monsters grouping together.
However, there are extremely rare occasions when the spawning, breeding, and movement cycles of each monster overlap, leading to the spontaneous formation of groups of monsters.
Once a monster group is formed, they absorb other monsters and exponentially increase their numbers, invading the most vibrant villages filled with life and prey.
Witnesses described it as monsters flooding in like waves, giving rise to the term ‘Monster Wave’ for that calamity.
“We were researching a spell to artificially induce and control a Monster Wave. During the research, a little problem arose, and one village vanished, but the research succeeded, and the magic created by that research is right here.”
Everyone in that room swallowed hard.
‘Monster Waves’ were disasters that occurred only once every hundred years and were nearly impossible to witness, but when they did occur, they were recorded as disasters severe enough to require military intervention.
But a spell that could artificially induce such a calamity… everyone present realized they had stepped into something far scarier than they had imagined.
“If this magic triggers a sudden Monster Wave, those Irene School bastards won’t even have time to flee, and their city will be reduced to ruins. Then we can retrieve what we lost from their city. Who knows? We might even get our hands on a Dragon Heart Stone?”
“Th-The Dragon Heart Stone!?”
“Was the rumor true that the Irene School had the Dragon Heart Stone?”
The legendary magic amplifying artifact said to exist only in two copies even in the Empire, obtaining it would mean resurrecting a family would not be such a difficult task.
While the gathered crowd was still caught up in the dreamlike proposal Gold presented, Einhardt, who had kept his wits, spoke up.
“But if we’re found out to have caused a calamity like a Monster Wave, won’t we be in serious trouble?”
At Einhardt’s words, the conference room froze again.
The ‘Monster Wave’ was a calamity that would truly annihilate cities.
If it were discovered that they had artificially induced it to destroy a city, they could meet a fate far worse than death.
In that atmosphere, Gold spoke up.
“Then will you continue to be the defeated dogs?”
With a quiet rage never seen before, Gold glared at everyone as he spoke.
“As you all know, we are already ruined. Even if this plan succeeds, we won’t be able to regain our former glory… So, at the very least… shouldn’t we make those who did this to us share the same fate?”
There’s a saying that the most fearsome person in the world is someone who has nothing left to lose.
And that’s exactly what Gold and everyone else in that room were feeling right now.
They had nothing left to lose.
Because they had already lost everything except their lives.
So if they could bring down those responsible with the lives they had left, they thought it would be a deal worth making.
“I’ll do it.”
“Me too!!”
The seed of rage thrown by Gold ignited and flared among those who had nothing.
Eventually, even the most moderate Einhardt agreed with a ‘whatever will be, will be’ attitude, and thus the ‘Monster Wave’ plan began.
A wave of monsters was about to crash into Irene Land.
*
Honestly, I admit it.
While it’s my belief to seriously research the field before developing a game, this time with ‘Metal Core,’ it’s just too much.
[Alterion No. 27], the mecha known as the Magic Armor Knight that Sylvia named, was way over-specified for what was necessary.
But there was no other choice.
The opportunity to create a bipedal mech with my own hands had been given to me, and it felt like it was just within reach, so how could I stop now?
For me, and for all the dreamers who participated in the project, it was an exceedingly cruel choice.
After gathering all the necessary data for the game testing post-production, [Alterion No. 27] was put into storage and planned to be used as a festival tool to be demonstrated once a week during festival events.
The dream of having a giant bipedal robot seemed to be in our DNA, as just walking around made children ecstatic. Even though the game hadn’t released yet, Alterion toys were flying off the shelves.
And so, we plunged back into game development.
For ‘Metal Core,’ many modifications were made to fit into the other world.
The setting was revised to revolve around a mecha called a Magic Armor Knight created by an ancient civilization, which was destroyed by the war among those golems and sealed away.
The story would begin when the protagonist acquires one of those golems, [Alterion], with a plot reminiscent of a protagonist in a comedic or super robot genre.
However, the game mechanics retained as much of ‘Metal Core’ as possible.
It allowed players to combine various parts to create their own robots, and fun came from competing against different Magic Armor Knights made of different parts.
Thanks to the crystal ball’s connection interface, the control scheme was much easier than the original, which was a bit of a downer.
I wished the otherworld gamers could experience that troublesome -beep- interface…
Yeah, game development was progressing smoothly.
There was still much work to be done, and while Jiren, Julia, and Lauren might occasionally escape, it was a standard game development routine where I’d have to catch them and get back to work.
Just as I was thinking this, the news came suddenly.
Boom!!!
“Haah… Haah…”
Startled by the sudden loud noise, I turned to the door.
There stood Sora, breathing heavily with a seriously grave expression.
“Sora? What’s wrong?”
“Y-Yuren! Please look at this.”
“This?”
Sora brought me the crystal ball and showed me a document.
I didn’t know who sent it, but it was a map of the southern region where Irene Land was located, and it sent chills down my spine.
“Sora… could this be…?”
“Yes… Professor Howard just sent it a moment ago… In three days, a wave of monsters will hit this place…”
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