#3
[It seems it was too difficult. I understand. It must be hard to think straight when you’re confused. It was inconsiderate of me. Hmm, but since it seems everyone knows the answer, I will just add a brief explanation.]
The man once again pushed up his monocle. The monocle, reflecting light, flashed ominously. Nonetheless, no one could take their eyes off the man. Likely, everyone was looking at the man floating in their field of vision, regardless of the concept of distance, accompanied by a consistent voice in their heads.
[The Elix on the official server will offer you eternal rest if you die here. At the same time, I must inform you that it will ‘reclaim’ your empire. This essentially means the destruction of your empire, so please strive to survive. Now, everyone, please look at the portal created before you.]
Anger, sorrow, fear, and despair began to shift towards the portal one by one. Among them were those who quickly grasped the situation and coldly schemed for survival.
[These are the grand creations of yours. If you are a player with your own empire, you should be able to recognize the location of the portal at a glance. A side note, the citizens of your empire are eagerly awaiting the return of their king in various ways. However, do not assume that their intentions are friendly. Also, it’s your choice to go through the portal.]
The man narrowed his eyes, issuing a bizarre warning with a sly appearance.
Right now, Bilwill was looking for an example. It was clear enough to surmise just by watching his crafty eyes move back and forth. The first to be caught in that trap was a middle-aged man sitting among the crowd, eyeing the portal with a look of reconnaissance.
As the corners of Bilwill’s deceitful eyes twitched like threads, the middle-aged man staggered to his feet, pushing through the crowd toward a portal from which treacherous light was pouring.
“Ha! Favors? Are they deciding on their own to favor the king?! How dare they? How have I raised those guys? To come out and not greet me, instead feasting among themselves? The time I poured into that place is worth more than a vault of gold!”
[Please make sure to awaken yourself before crossing to your empire.]
Bilwill said, smiling with a polite gesture. Following his words, the middle-aged man with a belly as big as a mountain scornfully snorted and heavily touched the empty air.
As his finger touched the void and lifted away, rough flames erupted from the man’s feet. The fire, leaving behind only ash, slowly engulfed the man’s body. When the flames that burned like combustion extinguished, the middle-aged man with a belly the size of a mountain had become a monster with fiery, volcanic skin, and fierce, bloodshot eyes.
Amid the trembling crowd which seemed to jeer at him, the middle-aged man proceeded through the portal with the pompous bearing of an arrogant king.
At the moment the multicolored shining portal swallowed the king-turned-middle-aged man, a crisp sound echoed in the void.
[Please look over here.]
Bilwill spoke evenly, still in the posture of snapping his fingers. Behind the expressionless Bilwill stood a mirror so vast it could swallow everyone. As the surface of the still mirror began to distort with afterimages.
All the beings in the subspace gasped in horror.
“Ah… Ahhh…”
“What is that… what is that?!”
“Ugh!”
As the mirror’s image grew clearer, the groans of despair grew louder. The man in the mirror was the middle-aged man who had just crossed the portal after awakening, with fiery red skin like lava and fierce eyes.
However, the man who was once filled with pride now screamed hideously in fear, desperately scratching the ground, leaving trails of blood.
Screams and retching burst out from various quarters. There were people holding their mouths tightly shut, crying with their eyes wide open. Sehyun’s eyes painfully closed.
The middle-aged man cried for salvation, but his pleas reached no one. As if having anticipated this day, the empire’s knights and soldiers began skittering up the walls, skewering the man’s body with spears and dragging him like an animal.
As chunks of flesh were torn and blood flew in the gruesome scene, the middle-aged man gargled in desperation to live. However, once dragged to the top of the wall, his body impaled by dozens of spears, he met a live death.
It was a death devoid of significance.
The one who beheaded the king, gasping for bloody foam, was his own retinue filled with hatred and resentment. The king’s head was displayed atop the wall on a spear.
As those unable to witness the atrocity turned their eyes away, the earth seemed to collapse in a loud roar, an earthquake signaling the fall of the empire.
The retinue, having chosen the path of destruction by killing the king, accepted their end with resolved visages. It was the last stand of the vassals who had sealed their fate by their own hands.
The quake persisted until the empire crumbled to dust. As the impregnable fortress vanished without a trace, the bright portal turned to ash gray, like something dead.
[Despotism, tyranny, indulgence, corruption, neglect, omission, sloth, oppression, reign of terror.]
Words that sounded like soliloquy floated over the heads of the frozen people. The eyes behind the monocle slowly closed and opened.
[This is the corrupt politics all players have once pursued and committed. Many kings have realized their faults and rectified their policies, yet many have not. The outcome is unforeseen by everyone. Don’t assume that they wait with goodwill only. They are not NPCs programmed with 0s and 1s.]
“That, those are living people?” someone asked.
[A bit of explanation is needed. The citizens of the empire you’ve founded, the servants, are all higher beings than yourselves. There are no lower beings than those living on Earth’s planet through levels 1 to 500. Moreover, each player and empire have their different species and characteristics. That’s because empires allocated to players belong to different planetary species.]
Each empire had a different species. The characters provided to players after their aptitude tests each had a different species and appearance. Not a single overlapping species between players, nor a grand duke the same as another player, had ever appeared.
This was why everyone was so excited about Elix. Each user, each empire had its distinct color, capacity, culture, and political methods— a kind of uniqueness.
As the empire grew, the loyalty and trust of the servants provided varied greatly depending on welfare policies, and with every setting being so diverse, strategy guides and macros shared by players merely regressed to basic game information.
Their very own empire. People were drawn to this uniqueness. They wracked their brains over strategic cultivation, tenaciously building up their empires for survival and resurgence.
[In other words, the citizens of the empires you founded are creatures from other planets. Rather advanced ones. They have been eagerly awaiting the arrival of their king, and today is that fateful day.]
“What if… I mean, if there’s no empire or… even if there is, what about those who can’t go there….”
Someone asked in a quavering voice. At those words, some of the people sitting in stunned silence quickly lifted their heads to look at Bilwill.
[If you don’t go, it is as simple as that. Kings have the power to found an empire. That simply means you can found a new one. If there’s no empire, you build one; if you can’t go, you just don’t go. However, a king with an existing empire cannot establish a new one. In which case, the citizens may seek retribution against the absentee king. Of course, that is merely an example.]
“Retribution…”
“Then… is there no way to renounce an empire?”
✧˚·̩̩̥͙˚̩̥̩̥·̩̩̥͙✧·̩̩̥͙˚̩̥̩̥˚·̩̩̥͙✧ 𝑔𝓇𝒶𝓋𝒾𝓉𝓎𝓃𝑜𝓋𝑒𝓁𝓈 ✧˚·̩̩̥͙˚̩̥̩̥·̩̩̥͙✧·̩̩̥͙˚̩̥̩̥˚·̩̩̥͙✧
