What is about seeing?
The lord of Chang'an has also made progress in what Phakin wanted to see.
In a large house from the Ming Dynasty in the center of Tianjin, which has been a port city of Beijing for nearly a millennium (one thousand years),
"Master, the blacksmith has successfully carved the ten-meter golem figure."
Inside the room, there was only a man with a clean-shaven face. He was wearing glasses and was reading an ancient chess manual on an old wooden chair.
The man responded with a hum, placed the manual down, and asked, "Have you booked the plane tickets yet?"
When the AI assistant confirmed that the departure was in two hours, the man stood up and said, "Download the blueprints and the latest updated information to my phone. I will review them on the way..." He pondered for a moment and then asked, "Has that news been verified?"
Once the AI assistant confirmed, the man sighed and murmured, "A tree that grows above the canopy must withstand the wind, (It is an idiom that means being too outstanding can be harmful.)" and then said, "If I'm not mistaken, the reason we were all summoned is because of this matter."
Lilian arrived at the airport, preparing to fly from Australia to Thailand. She was frowning at the complaints from dozens of players asking for her help.
Megumi was also on her way, on a train heading straight to Osaka to catch a connecting flight.
"Is it true??"
"Absolutely true!" responded the secretary beside her with a tense voice.
"How many scavengers have we identified as being threatened?"
"Currently, about three thousand."
Megumi could only shake her head, hoping the situation could still be salvaged.
In the first-class lounge at the Mumbai airport, a muscular young man, both on and off the screen, was glued to his tablet.
"Mr. Amant, the flight from Mumbai to Bangkok will start boarding in half an hour," the first-class ground stewardess reminded him before the flight, bringing him back to reality. He then let out a light laugh and said, "The four of us each have millions of players under our command, and all are aware of this alarming matter. It's probably only my brother, who has only NPCs under his control, who knows nothing about the reason for this meeting."
During the journey of the four lords of the metropolis,
the eight surrounding cities of Silius were easily conquered one by one.
Even though in the battle of Sirius, players died once each, they shouldn't be so crippled that they lost. They lost because the 'mole' had already done their work!
The sound of tanks storming and crashing into the city walls until they collapsed could be heard. The players resisted with all their might.
A mage stood in the way, firing an explosion spell at the tank's armor, causing the gun barrel to explode. However, the tank still crushed him, unable to stop the advance of the dwarf army.
The sounds of battle were unceasing. Players lined up behind the walls in rows but could not withstand the dwarves' high-tech army.
War is business; if the dwarves could destroy all ten million players, it would mean the defensive capabilities of towns or guilds would drastically decrease.
And then, those people on Solomon Island would have a chance to expand their territory!
The defeat of others is one's own victory.
Tangmo was having breakfast, her eyes fixed on the TV, which was broadcasting aerial footage of waves of dwarves slowly breaching the city's walls and advancing into the city.
Tangmo rolled an entire fried egg into her mouth, her big eyes staring at the screen in confusion. "Why can Seven Lakes City withstand the attack?" Compared to Seven Lakes, she noticed that the dwarf army attacking other cities was significantly smaller.
Then it dawned on her that Sagittarius had prepared numerous catapults, as he realized he needed to deal with a heavily armored, slow-moving army. He had equipped the city with appropriate defenses.
These other cities had also emulated Seven Lakes, with stone throwers and powerful magic-wielding mages. Despite being fewer in number, they shouldn't be losing so pathetically.
... Hmm.
No matter how hard she tried, Tangmo couldn't make sense of it. Her parents, sitting across from her at the breakfast table, looked worriedly at the war around Silius City.
A wave of green-tinted metal slowly moved into the city, with explosions trailing its wake.
"This is unbeatable. The businesses in the surrounding cities will have to relocate. What was the gaming company thinking, causing economic instability like this?" her father shook his head, frustrated at the game company's lack of foresight regarding this issue.
But in reality, MGC had thought about this issue. They intentionally caused it.
Remember, this is a game world, not the real world where the economy is the top priority.
If the game considered the economy as well, the "flavor" of fantasy that strategists and planning enthusiasts cherish would be lost to reality.
The game has already afforded significant privileges by not destroying businesses. When cities were captured by dwarves, business owners could simply move to new cities. After all, relocation and transport costs are all just zeros and ones.
Her mother was also concerned. "It seems like no one can stop them. They might need to reset and bring down the Asgardian gods for help, as that CEO mentioned."
But Tangmo didn't believe that. "I think Sagittarius will definitely do something. He won't lose easily!" After a night of dungeon running together and then selling a guide on how to beat the dungeon faster, which brought her fame and gold—already earning over three gold coins in just a few hours since launching—she was convinced Sagittarius was competent.
Her parents took their eyes off the TV, interested when their daughter mentioned Sagittarius with such strange confidence. Her mother cautiously warned, "Mo, he's the lord of a metropolis. Don't get ahead of yourself."
Her father added, "Don't get involved too much. I saw you sneaking back home last night, with a European car dropping you off, and you were in different clothes than when you left."
Her mother inquired, "Sagittarius is out of reach. Just be good friends with him and support each other. But who was the person who dropped you off? Was it a man or a woman?"
There was no way Tangmo could reveal that they were the same person!
She could only say, "He's a friend of the groom at a wedding in Hong Kong that I need to attend. We met at a restaurant with my friend and her partner, to collect the wedding invitation together."
"Wow, Mo is the bridesmaid, and the mystery man is the groomsman. It's fate!" Her mother's matchmaking spirit ignited.
Her father frowned, protective over his daughter. "Who is he, older or younger than you?"
Tangmo didn't answer and quickly said, "I'll be late for work!" She downed her juice and rushed upstairs to her capsule immediately. Last night, both her parents had already grilled her, and it took all her effort to evade their questions. She wasn't staying around to be interrogated again.
The updated promotional image for the event was displayed.
The dwarf army swept through, expanding the territory of Sirius City into nine districts. It started becoming like a metropolis for players, with subsidiary cities set as another layer of defense. Then, the image cut to a mocking scene before ending, to stir the players' desire to win.
A golem kicked a catapult, cutting to the cockpit where an evil dwarf was laughing.
"You weak humans!"
And the screen went dark.
When CEO Butter arrived in Bangkok, he went straight to a hotel near Ratchaprasong to immediately join a meeting with the five metropolitan governors.
"This noon, this advertisement will be released across all social media channels," the CEO said as he closed the image.
At the six-seat round table, Phakin thought about the advertisement deeply. Before entering this banquet room, Ms. Megumi had informed him of the background just like the other metropolitan lords. His weakness was that he was farther from the players than the other metropolitan lords, so he didn't know that,
"Currently, players who are scavengers are being extorted for items obtained from the Sirius City War by a group with no known affiliation. Both player and dwarf items. The amount of money spent coercing these scavengers to sell has reached ten million gold coins," CEO Butter said in English.
"Unknown affiliation?? The GMs are your subordinates. How can you not know who these people are affiliated with?" said a man wearing dark glasses.
CEO Butter smiled and responded, "Mr. Li, it's true we know, but we can't disclose it. It's part of a confidentiality agreement with the players."
"But you can meet with us," Lillian interjected.
"And you're also asking for help," Megumi added.
CEO Butter kept smiling without changing his expression. Truly a big businessman whose actual motives no one knew. "It's not exactly asking for help. After I learned the situation from the GM reports, I fed the data into a supercomputer to calculate the probabilities. It turns out that you five are crucial to this event's outcome. Whether it succeeds or fails depends on you…"
A muscular Indian man, Amant, waved his hand and interrupted, "No need to beat around the bush. Let me guess." He then looked at Li Wei, also known as Guhai Wubian.
Li Wei took off his dark glasses and said to CEO Butter, "You want the five of us to join this advertisement at the last moment?"
Aman continued, "You want us to recruit players to fight against the dwarves, to give everyone hope."
CEO Butter, smiled and didn't respond. Phakin hadn't said anything from the beginning. After organizing the information, he spoke directly to the point.
"The five of us are in the light. The other side is in the dark." He glanced at the CEO, Butter, with slight displeasure for not revealing the name of the group spending ten million gold coins, or a billion US dollars, to gather those weapons and equipment. Then he continued, "What that group fear is us. What the dwarfs fear is us. If we show our stance and are ready to be the big tree everyone can rely on, everything will become clearer and more evident."
The CEO, Butter, clapped his hands and said, "It's no surprise given that you've managed the colony on Mars before. You see the overall picture."
Phakin didn't accept the compliment and said, "I see even further than that..." He looked CEO Butter straight in the eyes and slowly spoke in English, "You prefer the five lords balancing each other and growing together, with no one having power over anyone else. No one has complete control over the game. But now, there's a group using the new map event to create a new power bloc that, if left unchecked, will consolidate all power within the game, which you don't want to see because that would no longer make this game yours."
Dead silence.
…
Everyone stayed quiet, not saying a word.
The four lords understood and were aware of what Phakin had said, but they didn't speak it out loud. As for the CEO, Butter, he was frozen. The smile on his face was evidently forced.
Phakin, with a calm face, said, "I apologize. As a technical person, I'm used to speaking directly. Time on Mars is money, every second counts. We can't afford to beat around the bush... Since you want us to step in, to stop the dwarfs from expanding their territory and to prevent this investment group from collecting items, resources, and creating destructive weapons to take over all the cities, then state the conditions and compensation. If they are not satisfactory... I myself am considering waiting for this group to reveal themselves and take over several cities first, then confront them head-on at that time."