I Entered a Gacha Game That Had Been Abandoned for 10 Years

7 – The Wolf (1)

The Wolf (1)

Knight Alto, even though the day had already darkened, was returning to the territory almost as if he were running, not camping for a moment to quickly distance himself from Larthania.

Thanks to that, the surrounding area was filled with the sound of heavy breathing, and the soldiers had even abandoned the carriages they brought from the territory, but the knight did not reprimand those soldiers.

No, he couldn’t.

In his mind, surviving was prioritized over scolding the soldiers who had abandoned the carriages right now.

‘This wasn’t the mission I was given…!’

Alto’s mission from the lord was clearly just to go to the failing territory and retrieve the territory stone shards.

To receive good treatment, he had traveled far from the Northern Continent, not knowing much about it, but according to the lord, Larthania Territory had a significant prestige ten years ago.

To Alto, the mission seemed very easy, and until the middle, he thought the job was going smoothly.

The Larthania Territory he visited was, in fact, not even at the level of being called a territory.

That is, until it appeared.

Knight Alto recalled the scene from earlier.

A leap with red eyes, a sight he had never seen before, where hundreds of monsters were split in an instant.

And the Ling Tribe, who committed the unbelievable act, stared at him with a clear expression of anger. The knight unconsciously gnashed his teeth.

‘Monster, that guy is a monster…!’

He quickened his pace.

Now, more than just walking fast, it was almost a sprint.

The knight, driven by a sense of duty to quickly inform his lord of this fact and escape from the trembling fear, ran non-stop to escape from the red eyes.

– To escape from the red eyes, he moved without a moment’s rest.

And so, just as Knight Alto was about to climb the uphill path of the mountain.

Thunk!

His body suddenly lurched forward.

Thud! Thump!

Feeling a warm pain in his chest, Alto frowned, feeling a slight sense of embarrassment.

No matter how immersed he was in fear, he knew very well how he would appear to the soldiers following him right now.

‘Hurry up and get up-‘

So, trying to overcome the embarrassment as if nothing was wrong, Alto tried to lift his body.

“?”

He felt that something was strange.

The lower body felt light.

For him, clad in plate armor that could withstand even an ogre’s club—a weight so immense that a regular knight wouldn’t even be able to put on—the sensation was excessively unfamiliar.

Naturally, when he turned his gaze back, he noticed it.

“Huh?”

Alto could see it.

Unlike his own contorted figure moving forward, his two legs were still firmly planted on the ground.

And then.

Splat!

From the severed surface of that leg, red blood was pouring out.

The moment he realized that, a horrifying pain, incomprehensible until then, began to register in Alto’s mind.

“Nooooo!”

He realized that his two legs had been severed.

And that too, before he could even comprehend it.

Simultaneously.

“Do you think you can escape?”

He could see Merilda, with eyes mingled with terror, now standing on the hilltop of the mountain, looking down at him.

“Attack! Attack!”

Alto opened his mouth involuntarily, facing the red eyes that looked at him with an endlessly insensitive gaze devoid of any emotion.

However, naturally, there was no soldier responding to the knight’s words.

Because the soldiers who had climbed the mountain with him were already.

“Ah-“

All dead.

Shivering-

Alto, with trembling eyes, turned his head and looked at the dead soldiers, unable to even scream.

Each one of them, their bodies divided into thirds or heads gone, unable to even scream, lay on the mountain path, staining it red.

Watching that, Alto turned his gaze back to the red eyes.

Still with an emotionless expression, illuminated by the moonlight, she slowly moved forward, approaching Alto.

“Sa-save me-!”

Simultaneously, Alto screamed.

He didn’t even think of resisting those red eyes.

No, I couldn’t.

Because of the fatal wound?

No.

From the start, Alto had realized it sooner.

That he could never defeat the monster in front of him alone.

Hence, the instinctive scream that burst out, like a cry spat out to survive.

But the crimson eyes merely moved silently towards him, step by step.

“If you lay a finger on me, do you think you can stay in our territory!? Our Halansia lord enjoys the protection of the Kalan Kingdom!”

Despite the increasing fear from her actions, Merilda continued to walk in silence, even though Alto’s polite tone, which had thrown away the distant threat, had erupted from his mouth.

However.

Just as the red eyes approached, about to raise a fist emotionlessly.

“Yes, if you kill me, it seems the lord of Larvania will be safe!?”

Thud!

At the scream from Alto’s mouth, like a cry, Merilda’s movement halted, and at that moment, Alto instinctively realized.

This was the weakness of the red eyes.

So Alto began to play his mouth to survive.

“If I don’t return, the lord will naturally send an army, knowing something happened to me! Can you stop that army!?”

“No!? You can’t stop the army of our territory! We have three heroes in our territory!”

“Of course, you can escape!! But can the lord you wanted to protect escape?! No! Impossible! Your lord will be captured by the army sent by our lord and face an inevitable execution!”

Alto shouted like a scream to the standing Merilda.

In fact, his words were intricately mixed with lies within the truth.

Indeed, it was true that there were many soldiers from Halansia.

It was also true that there were three powerful heroes and more than fifty knights who could be considered upper-class warriors.

The only thing wrong here was that all these forces would not move just because one hero who entered the Halansia territory this time died.

At least until the lord made his judgment, the soldiers would not move.

The lord he had seen was that kind of person.

However, as Alto, it was not important at the moment.

Surviving alone.

Seeing the red eyes shake, Alto mixed a cunning lie within the truth and shouted,

“So, if you kill me here, your-“

Alto, with a smile of vindication, looked at her, who had stopped completely with her fist raised, about to speak.

“-“

Alto stopped speaking.

His throat wasn’t cut.

His neck was still firmly attached to his body.

His tongue was also properly attached.

His eyes, nose, and mouth, everything was perfectly fine.

Yet, the reason Alto stopped speaking was-

“Say it again.”

“Ah-“

Thump-thump-

His body trembled.

Due to the aura emitting from her, as she glared at him like a demon, with her red eyes, he felt as if he would suffocate.

“What did you say?”

Thump-thump-thump-

The knight couldn’t respond.

He simply realized one thing.

The weakness of the lord of Lartania, who had fallen into ruin for ten years without achieving anything, was not her.

The lord was-

Crack-!

-The red eyes’ entourage.

An absolute taboo that should never be touched, an entourage.

Alto, realizing too late that he had done something he should never have done, and also realizing that his right arm had been pulled out, screamed.

Soon, as he yelled or not, his grip on the knight’s head with his eyes locked onto hers remained.

“Listen carefully.”

“Ugh-!”

“No one, absolutely no one, can touch my master. If they dare to touch her-“

Facing Alto’s trembling eyes filled with fear and agony.

“-I will do whatever it takes to kill them all.”

Crack-!

He clenched his fist and smashed the head, killing him instantly.

Thump! The head burst open.

The crimson-eyed wolf, which casually tossed Alto’s lifeless body, gazed towards the north where the Haransia territory was.

“No, absolutely – absolutely not,” he muttered, staring at the red eyes.

“Nobody can touch the owner.”

The red eyes flashed.

“Anyone.”

Clutching a small gift box in his arms.

####

About two days after the end of the Labyrinth Break incident, Kim Hyunwoo drew up blueprints to restore Larutania and began working in earnest.

Of course, there were occasional problems.

No, to be frank, there were many.

Currently, except for the Lord’s Castle, there was not a single intact building in Larutania. The few remaining residential houses in the territory were mostly dilapidated ruins, not even considered buildings by the territory window.

But it was okay.

Ten years ago, just like playing a game, Kim Hyunwoo could solve such problems using in-game currency.

If there were no resources to build a building, he could use in-game currency to purchase resources.

Thanks to that, he had accumulated high-quality wood, suitable for building entire houses and structures around the entire territory, higher than the Lord’s Castle.

Similarly, he had prepared an abundance of resources such as stone and iron, which could be used without limitations.

Moreover?

The desolate land had been transformed into arable land using the “Blessed Water of the Castle,” a product that could be purchased for 2000 gold, allowing cultivation of a small percentage of the total area.

Now, all that remained was to construct various necessary buildings, build proper houses for the territory residents, and actively consume labor for primary industries.

The problem arose right here.

‘There’s too little manpower even if I don’t consider the lack of labor.’

As Arteil explained repeatedly, the number of territory residents was crucial.

The number of territory residents directly translated into available labor.

Given Arteil’s constant consumption of resources, generating labor to produce resources was an essential and indispensable factor.

Currently, Larutania’s construction window maintained a meager workforce in the 90s.

—-

[Construction List]

Estate Repairs [Time Remaining: 208 days, 5 hours, 22 minutes] [In Progress]

Building Residence [Time Remaining: 92 days, 2 hours, 15 minutes]

Training Camp Construction [Time Remaining: 182 days, 9 hours, 30 minutes]

—

It was an extremely dire situation.

Even if Yeongjimin had mentioned 90 people, the actual number of individuals capable of working was not even close to 50, causing a problem. Even if all 90 were to contribute to labor, this catastrophic number wouldn’t diminish.

‘…It would be great if we could buy labor with cash currency.’

Kim Hyeonwoo thought, clutching his head as if in pain. However, from the very beginning, when enjoying Arteil as a mobile game, it was ironically only sinister in terms of BM elements related to heroes. When it came to managing the estate in BM, it was rational. In other words, whether it was cash currency or in-game currency, there was no way to purchase labor unless Kim Hyeonwoo properly established a trade post or received labor support through establishing friendships between estates.

So, Kim Hyeonwoo had been pondering how to solve this problem, until yesterday.

Yes, until yesterday, he had been contemplating.

“Estate influx rate, isn’t it misreported?”

[Yes.]

“…Why all of a sudden?”

[That, I…]

—

Estate Influx Rate: 292%

※ The correction for the decrease in influx rate due to development will disappear due to events!

—

Until such a display appeared in front of Kim Hyeonwoo.