Chapter 47 The Wild Beetle Beast

The chosen players were the dungeon's three highest-reputation players: 【xX_ShadowBlade_Xx】【Arthur】【Sylvana】.

The other players were a little deflated, honestly. Most of them had ground themselves half to death and STILL didn't crack the top three in rep — you'd be disappointed too, admit it.

Sharlock squared up, checked himself in the mirror the core projected, confirmed that he looked appropriately majestic, and strode out.

The three top-rep players were already waiting — and xX_ShadowBlade_Xx was busy telling Arthur:

"I bailed on a date with my girlfriend for this hidden quest. No clue how long it's gonna run, man."

Arthur said nothing. He was still wearing plain old Diamond Armor, event-reward short sword in hand, and said, deadpan:

"I don't know either."

Arthur wasn't wearing his auction-bought armor or sword — and not just him. None of the others were wearing their auction loot either, because all that gear was currently sitting with Sharlock.

After the auction of Kramo's six drops, everyone except 【xX_ShadowBlade_Xx】 — who'd flipped his greaves to 【BurningChestHair】 on the spot — had requested soulbinding and gear insurance.

Sharlock had it all planned: when he went to Frostlake City, he'd buy everything that needed buying. Surely he wasn't going to burn a teleport scroll on Frostlake City just for six pieces of gear?

Naturally, he couldn't tell the whales "I don't feel like wasting a teleport scroll." Instead he went with "insuring the gear takes time" — so after the soulbinding was done, the whales' equipment stayed with Sharlock for the time being.

And since Sharlock planned to bring the three of them to the conference, obviously they couldn't show up in full armor hauling weapons. They were just there to play gofer. Arming a goblin felt pointless — better to put them in tailcoats.

All three already owned tailcoats — exchanged back during the caravan event — but three goblin tailcoats don't exactly break the bank, and more to the point, Sharlock wanted them dressed even sharper than that.

Sharlock had the three stow their weapons and armor in the core hall for safekeeping, then pulled out a teleport scroll and addressed the crowd of onlooking, chattering players:

"Brave citizens of the Eternal Kingdom dungeon! Through your courage in battle, we have defeated the dreaded and evil kobold chieftain Kramo and earned an invitation from Frostlake City! This glory belongs not to me — it belongs to YOU. Brave warriors, your deeds shall echo across the entire Underworld..."

With the speech done, Sharlock tore the teleport scroll. Amid the players' cheers, the magical glow of teleportation wrapped around Sharlock and the three players, and they vanished from the spot.

"Cutscene over?"

"So what now?"

"Grind coins, obviously! Y'all buy your private plots yet?"

"Nope... ten silver for two square meters — how am I EVER affording that..."

"Grind, grind."

"LFG! Spider Nest, farm spiders!"

"Group for what? Locke's not even in the dungeon — who's gonna rez you?"

And so the players left behind in the Eternal Kingdom chatted away and went right back to grinding quests.

Borne along by the players' cheers, Sharlock teleported into Frostlake City.

This reproduction came from without the author's permission; the chapter at its source supports the person behind it.

xX_ShadowBlade_Xx and Arthur had been to Frostlake City once before — but just once, in a rush, and they'd basically seen nothing. Sylvana was a first-timer, absolutely floored by Frostlake City's grandeur.

The moment she saw beastmen, abominations, werewolves, banshees and more bustling through the portal reception hall, Sylvana's jaw stopped working entirely.

"Our first time, we made just about the same face. Moros was taking tickets at the door back then — right at that spot."

xX_ShadowBlade_Xx was giving Sylvana the warm tour-guide treatment, though by now a gnome was the one stationed at the door. Arthur stayed as quiet as ever.

Passing under the giant dome mural painted with demons, xX_ShadowBlade_Xx said, buzzing:

"That's the great demon Rogilankaimi laying waste to the surface world — 'The World Ender.' That guy nearly wiped out the whole surface back in the day."

"How do you know all this? The official site doesn't say anything about it."

Sylvana looked openly skeptical.

"I wrote it up in my guide-and-review post — clearly you never read my threads, because I am NOT making this up. First time we did the quest, when Arthur and I came through here, Locke gave us the intro. No tour this time, though — probably first-visit-only flavor."

Once xX_ShadowBlade_Xx finished, Sylvana looked genuinely envious.

While they chatted, Sharlock had already led them out of the portal reception hall and onto the street.

Simulated sunlight spilled a soft glow overhead. Sharlock glanced up at the "sky" — the magic-made version was honestly pretty convincing. It was still morning, hours before the conference opened, so he had plenty of time to pick out his own clothes, pick outfits for his three player-servants, and buy the small item-teleport magic arrays and other necessities — plus rent a beetle beast. A WILD one!

A beetle beast was barreling down the north-suburb tunnels of the neutral city Frostlake City, letting out wild roars as it went.

The other beetle beasts and assorted crawlies making their way through the tunnel got the scare of their lives from this sudden maniac and scattered to the sides.

On the wild beetle beast sat one demon and three goblins, and one of the goblins was hollering with maximum attitude:

"Make way! MAKE WAY!"

The bystanders watched that demon and his wild beetle beast with fearful eyes.

By the look of it, this was probably some dungeon lord rushing to the conference with his goblin servants in tow, flexing for the crowd.

The beetle beast rampaged every which way and very nearly rear-ended the butt of a slow, elderly beetle beast — only a last-second squeeze along the edge avoided a serious traffic accident.

"Going that slow, you TRYING to die?!"

The furious roar faded into the distance along with the demon and his beetle.

"Damn it, who the hell are you?! If you've got the guts, come yell at me when you're an instanced boss!"

On the back of the slow beetle beast, the goblin with the big green name-tag 【xX_ShadowBlade_Xx】 over his head jabbed an angry finger at the distant demon and hollered.

Beside him sat two more goblins — one tagged 【Arthur】, the other tagged 【Sylvana】.

They were no ordinary goblins. They were players from another world.

And seated behind the three of them was the great Demon Lord Sharlock himself.

"How come this game doesn't just teleport us straight to the conference venue once the cutscene ends? Instead we're riding this slooooow beetle inching our way there?"

Sylvana asked, baffled.

"Totally normal. The beetle's this slow so we take in Frostlake City's cityscape — same as any new map, you gotta get the lay of the land first."

xX_ShadowBlade_Xx replied.

"Once players get real mounts, are we all supposed to crawl across maps like this? I wanna post a forum suggestion for teleport points or something so we can fast-travel — I mean, games these days are all about the instant-gratification experience, right?"

Sylvana asked again.

"I think riding like this is great, actually. Back before WoW hit the level-70 era, there weren't even flying mounts — everybody saved up forever for an epic mount. Now THAT was fun..."

xX_ShadowBlade_Xx said, all warm and nostalgic. Sylvana rolled her eyes:

"Old man, that patch came out forever ago — you're dating yourself."

"Oh, like YOUR name doesn't date you? With a handle like that, you're probably born in the '80s — '90s at the absolute latest. No way you're Gen Z."

xX_ShadowBlade_Xx fired back.

"Who says Gen Z doesn't play WoW? I play."

Sylvana fired right back.

Arthur said nothing for a long while, then suddenly blurted:

"Back in five! Gotta grab a package!"

With that, he slumped over and started breathing slow and even — not asleep. Logged off.

Behind the three of them, Sharlock wore the expression of a demon who had fully run out of will to live. Fine, riding this glacial beetle was one thing — but he also had to endure three players chirping nonstop the entire way. Technically it was xX_ShadowBlade_Xx and Sylvana doing the chirping, with Arthur chiming in on occasion.

A FULL HOUR of this!

Where in the hell do these otherworld players find this much to talk about?!

But even the slowest beetle beats walking. After an hour of crawling, they were finally closing in on the venue — the whole way there, they'd passed plenty of others headed the same direction, presumably all conference-goers.

To be clear, Sharlock wasn't renting this beetle to pinch pennies. Broke or not, he was still sitting on four thousand-plus magic stones — after the outfit and assorted junk, renting a beetle was zero problem whatsoever.

It's just that by the time Sharlock raced over to rent one, they were sold out — way too many people heading to the conference had rented beetles. This was the only one left: the one the owner had been planning to keep for his retirement... as future food. No choice — Sharlock rented it for two hundred magic stones. Still beats walking for hours on two legs, right?

Arthur came back shortly, snapped bolt upright, and immediately demanded:

"We there yet? This game experience — any other MMO, I'd have uninstalled already."

"Well, this isn't any other MMO. Don't like it, go smash your gaming pod."

xX_ShadowBlade_Xx had barely finished when Sylvana shrieked and pointed ahead:

"Are we almost there?!"

Sharlock had been waiting for the three of them to start squabbling — free entertainment — but at Sylvana's shriek he lifted his head and gazed into the distance. Far down the tunnel, an enormous complex of buildings had come into view.

Almost there.