MONSTER MMORPG: Mayhem Online

—-Yes, I've informed the king.

"Great job, I can see it."

[Quest information for 'Cleansing of the great Sahhan Empire' has been updated.]

[Quest progress: You have heard some bad rumours about the king of Drisica, all that is remaining is to find out whether the king himself had fallen to the devils or not.]

After gaining the unexpected rival, I was pretty agitated about the whole situation. If Lycan ended up completing the quest faster than me then wouldn't that mean I will automatically fail the quest?

Thankfully, I had given communication stones to everyone including the king. Although the king wasn't responding to my communication requests, which was kind of annoying, my loyal knight Gomchul immediately responded and delivered the message to the king.

Which in turn updated my quest. Since there wasn't any reason to stay at the Lordir city, I set the destination to the capital of Drisica kingdom.

It took me about two hours to reach the capital and successfully enter it as a noble of the Sahhan Empire.

I had shown the tag of my earl, which easily got me inside with the utmost hospitality from the guards. This was also the plan of the emperor, which was quite reasonable. Because there was no way I'd be able to get close to the king without using my identity as an earl.

Although it'd definitely be suspicious because of the current situation, the king would still have to show some face to an earl of the great Sahhan Empire.

The Drisica kingdom was a kingdom of snow. It was very cold and snowy throughout the whole city. But as soon as I entered the castle's grounds, I felt like all the snow that I had seen till now was a mere illusion.

The atmosphere felt like spring, and there was a warm yet refreshing feeling throughout the beautiful garden of the king. There were various flowers and fruits growing on the trees and gardeners roaming about continuously.

It felt like an atmosphere out of a fairy tale, and everything looked beautiful. Everything apart from the people. The gardeners were all skinny and looked like they were barely holding on to dear life, and even though there was so much greenery around, there wasn't a single animal or bird around the area.

Of course, most passersby would be too mesmerised by the beautiful garden to even think about other people or birds, but my surprisingly good insight and my monster-like race's senses were ringing all red for unknown reasons.

"This way, Earl Shura. I have already informed the king of your arrival, and he's expecting you in his court."

"Haha, yes. Please lead the way, Minister."

I said to the cunning looking person who was currently guiding me. He was one of the minister's of the king, and his eyes alone looked like the eyes of a cliche villain.

After a while, I entered the King's courtroom where all his ministers were gathered up with the king sitting on his throne.

My eyes darted to the creepy-looking hooded person standing beside him.

'Man, this situation is too obvious. He's not even trying to cover it up. Does he think I won't make it out alive or something?'

"Welcome, welcome Earl Shura! To think a Duke of the empire would grace us with his presence! How fortunate!"

The uptight looking man sitting on his high chair spoke in a dignified voice. If I didn't know any better, I'd mistake him for a model king… with a creepy minister who's always beside him in a hood.

"It's nothing big. I was just passing by and decided to check out the northern kingdom of Drisica! I've long heard about the king's garden, truly the people didn't overpraise it."

I said in a polite voice, talking about random topics to see their reactions and gauge the current situation.

The king, who's name was displayed  as Ian, squinted his eyes in displeasure before faking a laugh.

"I didn't know Earl Shura had such interest in gardens. I also didn't know that an earl like you existed. If I may be so bold, can I ask when did you become an Earl?"

Ian said as he gestured something with his fingers which were kept on his hand rest.

All the soldiers inside the courtroom mobilised and surrounded me behind my back. I felt extremely out of place, but I still kept on with the innocent Earl act as I replied to Ian, as if he was actually serious about my whereabouts.

"I have recently been granted the title of an Earl due to small merit."

"Oh? So are you really powerful?"

Ian asked with an extremely creepy smile.

"Not really, It was mostly due to luck."

I replied while embarrassedly rubbing the back of my head.

"That's alright. But you shouldn't have come to these parts. Don't you know about the ongoing war right now? It's extremely dangerous in this part of the empire."

"Ohhh! I know about all that, I just came here because I heard an interesting rumour."

Ian's brows knitted together when he heard that.  In return, he asked me back a question as if to confirm his doubts.

"What rumours is the earl talking about?"

"Oh, it's nothing much. Just some crazy rumours! Haha! Some idiots are spreading rumours that you have colluded with the devils! Who would even believe that?"

I said while laughing sarcastically, looking at the person under the hood.

"Kill him! Don't leave a single body part intact! Everyone should know the consequences behind infiltrating the king's castle!"

Ian ordered his guards who surrounded me from every angle, leaving no opening.

"I would have given up trying to kill myself if I were you. Isn't that true, Katty?"

I said as I looked at the hooded person staring intently at me before taking off their hood. Inside was a beautiful woman, also known as Katty. She was the 19th in overall rankings and the number one in dark magician's rankings.

"How?"

She asked with a surprised expression. I could understand her sentiments as she should have been very proud of her stealth skills as a dark magician. But I had various factors that made me more viable to discovering stealths when compared to other players.

First of all, I had a high insight stat, secondly, there were two experts living inside my body, one of which was a sword ego extremely sensitive to everything.

"You don't need to know that. Anyways, this is how you use stealth."

As soon as I said that, I used my own stealth skill.

"????!!"

All the guards who were surrounding me suddenly became alert and started swinging their weapons into thin air, hoping to end up slicing their stealthy enemy.

"Use magic skills, idiots! Magic!"

The king, Ian roared as he jumped up from his seat, the skin around his eyes turning bright purple in rage.

'Well, that confirms it. My job here is done.'

As soon as I confirmed that the king had indeed fallen into the hands of the devils, and a player was controlling him, my job was done and I received notifications which confirmed that my quest was completed.

Now all I had to do was to report this situation to the king and wait for the chained quest that would follow after it.

"Where is he? Damn it!"

The guards stomped their feet in rage, as I slowly walked out while trying to avoid them.

[You have been discovered by 'Intermediate Search Magic'!]

[Stealth has been turned off!]

".....What?"

As I was carefully making my way out of the king's castle, I received some ominous notifications.

Looking behind, I found the reason behind my current predicament.

"Heh, newbie."

Katty smirked as she stomped her staff with a skull on its tip on the  ground.

"I get it! There is no free lunch in the world."

I sighed. Just when I was feeling that all this was too easy, this happened.

"Don't even think about leaving alive out of here."

The king who spotted me, roared in rage.

"Skin that bastard alive!"

"Wahhhhh!"

Ian ordered and all the guards roared out. There were at least two dozen of them in the courtroom alone, and quite a few dozen standing outside, ready with their blades.

"Yeah? You want to play it the hard way? I am in!"

I said as I activated multi-blades.

Actually, it was multi-blades level 2 combined with wind magic.

"....what the…"

"What is this…."

"It's the god of war's reincarnation…."

"How…."

The guards froze in their tracks when they saw the scene in front of them.

[Multi-Blades casting is being used.]

[Multi-Blades have been fused with wind attributed mana.]

[Eclipse's skill, Multi-Blades has evolved.]

[Multi-Blades Lv2 → Soaring Blades Lv2.]

[You can now freely control the clones of the blades at will with enough mana.]

Although my mana was draining like water out of a dam, I felt like a devata controlling myriad  weapons.

'The fuck are you guys waiting for? Go!'

I shouted at the dozens of Cyan blades floating in the air.

—Ssssk! Sssk! Sssk!

"Arghh!"

"Noo!!"

"Watch ou— Argh!"

"Take cover everyone."

A rain of blades started drowning the guards of the corrupted king.