kscans

Chapter 14 - Penalty

Hayato had made his way to the Royal Capital Anhemudal.

The Royal Capital, said to be the most prosperous of the six nations, was also known as a place with a large number of players. The primary reason players gathered here was likely its good access to hunting grounds.

Even though teleportation magic existed, it didn't mean you could go anywhere. It was limited to registered locations. Places where players respawned when they were defeated, that is, clan bases, churches, and temples.

Therefore, to get to places where you hunted monsters, you had to travel on foot or by vehicle. And this Anhemudal had easy access to all sorts of places.

The reason Hayato was in such a place was to go to the base of the clan he had previously belonged to.

The base of the clan Hayato had belonged to was in a prime location, right next to the Royal Capital. Hayato had first teleported to the temple in the Royal Capital and was now on his way to that base.

After listening to Esha and Ash, Hayato had decided he needed to check the main story, but he had no intention of starting the main story quests from the beginning now. In the first place, Hayato couldn't progress through the main story.

Most quests required combat. And Hayato had no combat power whatsoever. On top of that, he had invested almost no points into STR, or Strength, the stat required to equip weapons and armor, so he couldn't equip most of them.

Just like skills, stats had a fixed total value. You had to manage within that, but Hayato, who specialized in production, had set his Dexterity, or DEX, to 100, so his Strength, STR, and Magic, MAG, were at their minimum values. And linked to those values, his HP and MP were also low.

(Even if I equip a knife and attack, my damage will be 1 at most. And if I'm counterattacked, I'll be defeated immediately. There's the option of progressing through the quests with someone, but I think there's a solo quest somewhere along the line. It's supposed to be easy, but it's impossible for me.)

A solo quest could only be fought alone. Even if you had powerful companions, it was meaningless if they couldn't participate in the battle.

From these circumstances, the answer Hayato had arrived at was to ask someone about the contents of the main story.

There used to be a site that summarized the story, but it disappeared around the time the Clan Wars started. The reason was unknown, but Hayato surmised that it might have been considered strategic information for winning Clan Wars.

For that reason, he decided to ask his former clan members who had been doing the main story.

(I heard they brought in a replacement companion before the preparation period, so in terms of combat power alone, they should be stronger than when I was there. I don't think they lost, so it should be fine to go. But if they did lose, would it look like I went to laugh at them as a taunt...? I should probably check the Clan War results just in case.)

Hayato stopped heading towards the base and turned his feet towards the facility where the results of the Clan Wars were displayed.

The facility was a large, four-story building made of brick. Many people were coming and going from its entrance.

Right after a Clan War, it was quite crowded, so Hayato, who disliked crowds, didn't want to get too close. But today, he resigned himself to it as being unavoidable and stepped into the facility.

As Hayato had expected, the inside of the facility was packed with people. This was also the place where you submitted applications to form a new clan, so Hayato had come here once when he left his clan, but the crowd was incomparable to that time.

Hayato immediately tried to check the results of the Clan War and approached the bulletin board, but at that moment, a loud voice shouting, "You've got to be kidding me!" echoed through the facility.

It seemed a player and an NPC at the reception desk were arguing, but it was more like the player was one-sidedly angry. A crowd had formed, and he couldn't hear the details, but even Hayato could tell that a problem had occurred.

Hayato didn't want to get involved in anything troublesome, but his curiosity won out. He spoke to a player dressed like a barbarian who was standing nearby.

"Did something happen?"

"Hm? Oh, it seems he submitted an application to form a new clan, but it was rejected. He seems to be making a fuss because he's not happy with the penalty."

"Huh? Something like that can happen? Not being able to form a new clan."

"From what people around are saying, the clan the player who submitted that application belonged to was a newbie hunting clan. You know how newbie hunting clans keep their members and just repeat forming and disbanding a clan to maintain their F-rank. The clan leader who disbanded the clan can't make a new one for a month, but they can join another clan, and the members can make a clan. It seems they were taking turns being the clan leader and always making a new clan, but it seems that was deemed a fraudulent act."

(Newbie hunting? Could that be yesterday's opponent?)

The player shouting at the reception desk looked like one of the people he had fought yesterday. He recognized the Orichalcum armor he was wearing.

"Apparently, if there's a possibility that the clan system is being abused, an NPC investigation will be conducted on that clan. Things like remaking a clan more than necessary, or having a high number of forced member removals, or frequent member changes, those seem to be subject to investigation."

"Abusing the system? But there are cases where you have to do those things out of necessity, right? Are all of those subject to punishment?"

"I don't know, but isn't that why an NPC investigates? It seems that if fraudulent activity is confirmed after the investigation, you can't create a clan. Oh, and I just heard this, but the receptionist said that if you want to lift the penalty of not being able to create a clan, you have to pay 100 million G."

"One hundred million?! A high-ranking clan might have that much, but that's impossible for a normal player."

"Yeah. And on top of that, as a fine for the fraudulent use, they said you have to pay one million G every month for six months, the same period they were committing the fraud. And if you can't pay, they'll confiscate your items and equipment."

"...That's pretty intense. I almost feel sorry for them."

"Yeah. But newbie hunting isn't exactly an admirable act. There might be cases where it happens out of necessity, but they were intentionally doing it to earn prize money, so you could say they brought it on themselves. As for whether the penalty is light or heavy, that's a difficult thing to judge."

Hayato nodded at those words.

(This is it. Even if it's systemically possible, if you do it, you might receive a penalty. In that case, I think they should just make it impossible to do from the start in the system, but maybe that's difficult from a game programming perspective. The NPC's AI is also linked to the game, so maybe it can't be easily modified.)

"Oh, by the way, they were talking about something interesting too."

"Something interesting?"

"Apparently, a giant dragon appeared in their Clan War and mowed them down with a laser. He was complaining, asking if that wasn't cheating."

"...Oh, really."

"Everyone's gossiping that maybe the opponent was a clan created by the admins to annihilate cheater clans. Well, considering how the admins have acted so far, the possibility of them intervening is probably low."

"That might be true. By the way, what did the receptionist say about the dragon? That it was also cheating?"

"No, they didn't say anything like that. Their response was more like, 'What's wrong with that?' I mean, tamers and summoners also participate in Clan Wars using monsters, so that's only natural. I don't know what kind of dragon it was, but it seems everyone is trying to find it. They said it was a golden, humanoid dragon. Do you know it?"

"Never heard of it."

"I see. Well, I'm going to head out soon. The Clan War is over, and I want to just adventure normally for a while."

"Ah, yes. Thank you very much."

The player gave a small wave and left the facility.

The player who had been arguing with the receptionist also retreated after being told, "I'll call the guards." With that player gone, the crowd naturally dispersed. And now, a crowd formed around the bulletin board where the results of the Clan War were posted.

(It seems Ash is fine, but it looks like there are a lot of things you're not supposed to do. Having NPCs in the clan itself doesn't seem to be a problem, but I'm scared they might do something eventually. For example, if I let the Demon Lord into the clan, we might become hostile to humans and not be able to enter towns. From now on, I'll properly screen people before letting them into the clan.)

While thinking such things, Hayato looked for the win/loss information of the clan he had originally belonged to.

The clan "Kokuryu" was A-rank, but among them, their ranking was on the lower side. So, Hayato checked the A-rank wins and losses one by one from the bottom of the rankings.

And when he found it, his eyes widened in surprise at the result.

(No way, you've got to be kidding me. They lost in a perfect game? They were all defeated without taking down a single opponent? In a battle between A-rank clans?)

On the bulletin board, next to "Kokuryu," LOSE was displayed, and for their opponent, next to the word WIN, the red letters PERFECT, signifying a perfect game victory, were displayed diagonally overlapping it.