Weed convinces the rebels to follow him and attack one of Hermes' policing groups (probably in order to bait out the main army of the territory's Lord). He puts on full Bar-Khan gear, summons legions of undead and crushes them. Although the policing force is destroyed, the rebel leaders start to fear him and he gains massive notoriety. The local lord leads his army into the mountains where contact with the rebels was said to have taken place, but finds it mostly covered in fog (due to the Silver Bird's ability). The army is then ambushed in the fog by a group of undead, receiving a lot of casualties. The army managed to locate the necromancer in charge of the undead and lobs a lot of spells his way. The spells are absorbed by the Absolute Magic Defense spell that Weed uses and the players in the army realize the necromancer was wearing Bar-Khan's full set. The army gets defeated and Weed marches his undead legion to the understaffed castle of the region, conquering it. He gets large drops to his faith, courage, etc. His undead force, notoriety and the Power to Reject Death skill increases.


Hermes guild leaders are having a meeting. First topic is about Weed and they decide to bump up Weed's bounty from 70 to 100 million as well as send more assassins after him. Unfortunately, Weed is extremely difficult to catch thanks to his ability to move around the continent and disguise himself. The talk then goes to how the Haven Empire is weakening economically due to the migration of players, the numerous wars destroying many facilities and killing many of the workforce. On the other hand, Arpen, albeit having a relatively miniscule economy compared to Haven's, is growing at an astounding speed. They discuss various methods of fixing the economy.

Short scene of where the Haven kingdom is worsening economically and the NPCs are starting to interact less with the players. Another short scene of where Lee Hyun is scrolling through the Dark Gamer and normal forums for information on the Weed Hunt so that he can avoid it. He also decides his next target to attack.

Lee Hyun goes and buys "expensive" seafood, shocking the vendor. It turns out that Seoyun's coming for dinner tonight. When going home, he meets Seoyun's father. It turns out that Seoyun's father was going through the neighborhood and asking about Lee Hyun. All of the things they said were fairly positive (?). They talk for a while and the father asks if Lee Hyun is having seafood for dinner. Mentally, he's hoping that Lee Hyun will invite him because he wants to have a meal with his daughter. After dropping many hints, Lee Hyun invites him. His father essentially goes "Oh no, I couldn't possibly trouble you" and Lee Hyun immediately says that it's too bad. This annoys Seoyun's father because etiquette usually means that you're supposed to reject the offer the first time and the person that's giving the offer is supposed to insist (ex: "Oh no, I couldn't possibly impose on you" -> "Oh, but I insist" -> "Thank you very much"). While he's mentally venting his frustration, Lee Hyun suddenly asks if they have met in Royal Road before. The father fervently denies it, sweating in nervousness (because Bart the Trade and Weed the God of War have an immense gap between them and he doesn't want to lose face). Weed mentions something either about how Bart failed deal (?) and the father accidentally blurts out something about him upholding his side of the deal and how it wasn't his fault. There's a long stretch of silence between them and Weed asks again whether they have met in Royal Road.


The Black Sword guild, who is currently conducting guerilla tactics against the Hermes guild, receives a letter saying that Weed will damage the Hermes guild on a certain date. Because of that, they decide to assault one of the Hermes castles on that date (the guild leader keeps the existence of the letter a secret from the other members. Weed infiltrates the staging area for the Griffon Legion of the Herme's guild. He turns himself into an extremely attractive and muscular griffon, cowing most of the male griffons (and causing the other male griffons to challenge him to establish who's the alpha male) while attracting the female griffons. Because of the assault by the Black Swords guild, the griffon knights are mobilized. Mule, the leader, notices the presence of an extremely strong and nice looking griffon and decides to ride it. One of the others asks if Mule riding an untrained griffon is wise but he just shrugs it off, saying that there's no way the rebels would take the castle anyways. Weed gets equipped with a full magical griffon armor set massively boosting his stats and they take off.

They are flying above the battle when Weed dives down at an extreme speed to the alarm of the Hermes players (he uses Wind Sprint which he got from converting his art stats to agility prior his transformation). Weed level out, barely avoiding crashing into the ground and flies towards a Black Swords member, taking out 1/3 of the level 460, fully armored player's life. They then fly up again and continue to dive bomb the Black Sword forces. A few magicians cast spells their way but Weed easily avoids them all. Mule talks to himself about how with a mount this amazing, he might become a legend equal to Bard Ray or Weed because he is invincible in the skies. Mule pulls out his weapon (Spear of Sealed Thunder) and begins to wreak havoc on the battlefield. Mule orders around 100 of the griffon corpsmembers to group up and assault the Black Sword Magicians (?). The magicians, noticing the approaching griffons, launch a massive amount of spells towards the group. Mule orders the group to avoid the attack but to his dismay, Weed charges straight into the thick of the spells. Mule frantically orders Weed to stop, straining on the reins, but Weed goes straight in. To Mule's surprise, the griffon dodges most of the spells and makes it to the magicians mostly unharmed. They do a lot of damage to the magicians and Mule declares that "his" griffon is the strongest mount. The "griffon" flies away from the battlefield, making Mule feel slightly confused but he decides to "spoil" the griffon a little bit and allow it to fly as it pleases. After a couple of minutes, Mule pets the Griffon's head and says that they should get back to the hunt. However, the griffon suddenly ascends upward at a breakneck speed, piercing through the clouds, letting out a huge roar. Mule tells the griffon that he has to stop now and go back. He is dumbstruck when the griffon suddenly speaks out, saying "Next" (he interjects here, saying "Huh? You were able to speak?"). However, he has no time to say anything else since the griffon says "It's time for your mount to leave" (I may be completely wrong here). Weed then plunges down at a shocking speed, despite of everything Mule does to try and stop it. As they approach the ground, Weed uses his beak to cut the harness and flings Mule into the ground, wiping out most of his life (his armor reduces his damage by 80%). Before Mule can recover, he is surrounded by 5 people, Weed and several of his sculptures.


Mule's death utterly destroys the morale of the Hermes army and the Black Swords are able to conquer the castle. Meanwhile Weed is ecstatic at all of the nice loot he got most of them Imperial treasures of the Kallamore kingdom (most of them increase commanding skills). He also gets the Spear of Sealed Thunder which is an amazing item (Not sure whether he's keeping it or selling it. I think he may intend to give it to one of the Dojo practitioners? ).
Scene switches to an assassin (I think it's the same one who was doing the master quest before) going around assassinating notorious members of the Haven Empire (?). Scene switches to Arpen where the newbies are prospering and the palace is being reconstructed. Scene switches to Velroth (this might be Mapan's girlfriend? I'm not sure) Something about creating new villages in order to accept the influx of refuges/slaves from the Haven Empire or something. Velroth and Mapan discuss the recent changes in the Haven Empire that were caused by Weed.


Weed goes to Blue Dragon Rautas' lair in order to return the mirror. Rautas comments on how Weed has a good scent which makes Weed extremely worried that he was going to be eaten, before Rautas says how Weed smells of nature, life, art, etc. Because he noticed Weed is such an excellent artist, he offers Weed a quest to carve the silver dragon, Kelang Tan, who was once his lover (?). Weed has access to any materials he wants, can have two tries, and a period of 1 month to make the statue. Weed is awestruck by all of the materials he gets and immediately starts carving


Lee Hyun is called by the broadcasting companies to discuss his Dragon's quest. One of the representatives hints that if Weed could "fail" the first attempt, then it would increase the tension and viewership count, thus leading to the studios giving Weed more money. The next day Weed is carving, Weed orders the dwarfs that are assisting him (the dwarves are under the command of Rautas) to ignore accuracy and prioritize on speed. This leads to them getting angry and him and badmouthing him because he's not a "real" artist. The sculpture is completed with an artistic value of 590. This angers Rautas immensely raises his hostility towards Weed. Weed gets one more try, which he notes to himself that he absolutely can't fail. He use Resurrection Sculpture to summon Darone, the one that taught him Sculptural Shapeshifting (it was because Darone spent the most time on the details of his sculptures and Weed needed that level of detail in the sculpture). They slowly work on the sculpture, with Darone using Sculpture Shapeshifting at times to transform into the actual dragon (so that they can see what parts need more detailed work). Weed requests for more materials which Ratuas accepts after seeing their work; Rautas' rage is completely gone now once he saw the partially complete sculpture. After days of painstaking work, they finally finish the sculpture. Box pops up saying that it's the apex of art on the Versailles Continent and deserves to be recorded in myths as a legendary sculpture. Weed becomes the only living being to fully master the Handicrafts skill and gets massive bonuses to all crafting and hand-related combat skills. His sculpture skills also reaches 98.9%.


Scene switches to Ray Bard who is doing his Black Knight Quests. A pop-up appears telling him that he can choose his path as an Emperor. The first one is an emperor that rules with fear and power, killing all those who oppose him. The second choice is to show tolerance, becoming a wise emperor that turns enemies into allies and rules in order to ensure the prosperity of the people. At first, he decides to choose the first one but then he changes his mind, seeing the second choice has more long term benefits for him and his guild. However, upon trying to select the second option, he is told that he cannot select that (most likely because he already murdered a ton of rebels and he can't do a complete 180). He then selects the first choice.


Weed presents the sculpture to Rautas and Rautas declares that Weed is the best artist he has ever seen (?), which gives him massive fame. He then tells Weed to return the crafting materials back to him. Weed makes some excuses and takes out many gold nuggets. Rautas then tells him that Helium is of extreme value, even to dragons. Weed reluctantly begins to take out the Helium but then Rautas makes him an offer, allowing him to exchange his contribution points he got from completing the quests for the Helrium. A message pops up showing that he can exchange 4192 out of the 4462 points he got for the Helrium. There's also a warning that if he refuses (or if he attempts to steal the helrium) he will lose a lot of fame and Rautas will become hostile. Weed accepts and then exchanges the rest of the points for a large amount of gold (equivalent to around 4.5 million gold coins I think). He is then offered another quest regarding the death of Kelang Tan. However, since his level isn't above 480 and his combat skills haven't reached Advanced level 7 yet, he is not qualified for the quest. Rautas tells him to come back when he is stronger. Weed leaves.


Scene switches to the Crimson Wings Guild who is exploring a new continent that was discovered across the Western ocean. They are currently struggling with level 700 hundred giants. Scene switches to some of the dojo practitioners who are apparently on the last stages of the quest to decide the King of the Desert.
Another scene switch. The Hermes guild decide to copy Weed and launch guerilla attacks in the North. The soldiers teleport into town under disguise, spread out, and roam across the land wreaking havoc. As a result, many beginners are getting slaughtered even in zones that are considered relatively "safe" (ex: dungeons their own level, grinding spots, etc.). Also, trade between the Northern cities has significantly slowed due to the Hermes troops attacking the caravans and many facilities are getting destroyed.


Scene switch. Some of the players were complaining about the Hermes guild and noticing how the cities were a lot more empty than usual. They wonder if the other players have started to leave Arpen because of all the disruption. Scene switch, in a large underground area in Morata, an enormous amount of players were gathered. They were in a fanatical state and brimming with bloodlust towards the Hermes guild (ex: screaming "KILL! KILL! KILL!"). Story ends.




and a few more details added by bonky

the economics part

haven empire currently gets 1.3b per month as income tax, at their peak they got 2.4b, according to raphael, total tax after uniting the central continent was 8.8b, currently its at 5.1b and decreasing by 300-400m every month, the reasons are as iheartz explained

compared to haven empire, ahreupan kingdoms monthly income tax is only 30m, however, if taxed by central continent standards, it would be 300m

raphael remarks they should hav stabilized the economy immediately after conquering central continent since now it will take years after all the damage its taken, the reason why they didnt is because they rushed to conquer the north, some of the other people ask why worry about the economy when they hav the strongest army ever, raphael answers that he isnt worried about losing battles, but the economy eventually wont be able to support it since it costs 2b gold a month to maintain

mules death part

weed got a belt, gloves and the spear of sealed thunder, the belt is a highly defensive item, he uses the glove and wants to use the spear but he doesnt hav high enough spear mastery/spearmanship, his adv blacksmith 2 reduces the adv 6 spear requirement to int 3 spear, he enjoyed using spears, especially during the hunting of the bone dragon, the thing about the practitioners was how with their martial artist class, they can just use spears

ahreupen kingdom part

many benefits of ahreupen kingdom, even though the levels are low, users have money and spend it like water since they can get more relatively easy, low tax rate compared to haven empire where its between 30-65% of the item price, even for merchants its a minimum of 20% item price, because of weeds adventures in las phalanx and selling all the japtem he collected, users wanted to be like him and started collecting every japtem that dropped, the northern continent became a frugal japtem sales culture where carelessly discarding japtem while hunting was considered wasteful

belroteu part

because she has some friendship with hermes guild, she decided on a whim to be the lord of the northern region conquered by hermes guild (hwaryeongs name was mentioned once but doesnt makes sense in context so i think its a typo for belroteu), she was also a bit greedy and wanted to rule a beautiful city with festivals every day based on tourism and its fantastic location, as her first act she built 1000 houses for settlers, reality was different so she ended up getting a 3m loan from hermes guild, she didnt bother with the army but she still spent 2.5m since it is really hard to grow towns in the beginning, she ended up contacting mapan for help with his good money sense, he secretly entered haven empire as an ordinary visitor and after looking around advised her, he asked why she was bothering with urban development, the plan he proposes involves her sending him immigrants as slaves to make a bunch of money, she refuses the advice cause of human anguish, however, as time goes by, the residents start complaining about wanting to live under weeds rules with all the benefits and to contact mapan and gamong (this is mapans girlfriend, a famous morata trader that had plans of improving the northern continent as a whole for more benefits), belroteu finally starts regretting that the process didnt matter, it would be the same result, before leaving, mapan explains to her how weeds actions affected everything, compared to her, weed was one who looked at the big picture, she herself believed that the area she ruled would eventually be included in ahreupan kingdom, mapan asks when that happens, does she think she wouldnt be exploited by "king" weed? she gets goosebumps after that and becomes extremely suspicious of his nature, elsewhere, it explains that the 3 mad sharks of becky-nin look up to weed a a mentor


the dragon part

in my summary of the v43, i called it the silver dragon skeleton mirror, it was actually silver dragon yuskulantas mirror, lautas lover, iheartz pretty much covered everything else

bradley part

among the benefits of the 1st emperor choice is emperors eye that lets him see those who are plotting insurgency in red, if he leaves rebellion alone, he will be filled with anxiety and his character will weaken, bradley was biased toward the first one since it was an endless pursuit of glory and strength that would let him show off the gap between his strength and other users, he also remembers how weed created an empire as lord of the desert in the same manner as the first choice (which ended fairly quickly after he left), bradley at this point looks back and realizes not everything can be solved with power conquered

northern region part

hermes had great expectations of getting resources from the north, but cause of the lack of slaves (im guessing haven empire made people from conquered regions into slaves, sorta like weed did in the past and that mapans earlier suggestion was a better version, exploitation on the level of weed and his large sculpting projects, just a guess though) and the fact that users enjoyed freedom in ahreupan rather than development of the conquered region, they made barely any progress at all, the slaves frequently fled to ahreupan kingdom, 200-300 swords frequently raided the conquered areas on bulls as well, eventually hermes guild switched mindsets and started investing to restore peace and stability, but they found out that to get the loyalty of the people it required consistent investment over a long period of time, not just 1-2 months like they originally thought

the story points out that it was a bit unfair to hermes guild since all guilds in central continent had done similar things so hermes guild was receiving the backlash after conquering the territories, after defeating their competitors with force, they had expectations of reaping benefits from future taxes and as army men, they would just sit back and relax as the government takes responsibility for long term reconstruction, the leadership of hermes are having trouble deciding what to do since theyre running out of money they want to increase the tax but that will create more rebels which can end up destroying more facilities and theyre back to wer they started

current tax is 4.7b but it is decreasing every month, they wer anticipating 3b from haven and kallamore regions and keeping other regions at stable tax, raphael says the battle with the rebels isnt as important as keeping people in the land, since if they leave, the land will turn into a wasteland, other guilds conquered areas of the continent came to the same conclusion, back in continent of magic, this method was also used, royal road was different, even after other virtual reality games came out, they were not as realistic as royal road, with hundreds of millions of players, using military dictatorship was a mistake, to survive they needed users to actively participate in commerce, raphael blames this all on ahreupan kingdom, without it, the empire wouldnt hav declined this much at this point in time, after the reign of fear, a period of intervention 5-10 years would hav been enough to establish a foundation, he had ignored ahreupan kingdoms low tax rate because of their countrys perspective of investing in military

the more raphael thinks, the more he realizes all bad situations can be traced back to weed, they had the perfect plan to take over central continent but suddenly ahreupan kingdom came out of nowhere in the north, raphael made a new plan, but unlike in the past,

it was relatively desperate, being placed in such a desperate situation, he used a long term plan to weaken the enemy, raphael is the original head of the guild, bradley doesnt even participate in meetings to go hunting, he orders the entire guild to not waste any more on haven empire, start 2 support lines to the northern region, minimal support to maintain current status, all luxuries are to be halved, there is severe backlash but raphael counters saying even if the tax rate is lowered, the tax revenue wont necessarily be halved since production and trade will be expanded, it will also alleviate the rebellions a bit, this was equivalent to haven empire hiding away

raphael then goes an eye for an eye and that he plans to trouble weed the same way, he tells them to gather 30,000 troops and divide into 100 units, he asks for 20,000 to be volunteers from hermes guild who want revenge on weed and ahreupan kingdom, indiscriminate hunting and slaughter in dungeons, of course if possible hide massacre like weed, all leaders think its a great plan since by destroying ahreupan they prolong havens life, they can also justify it saying weed attacked first so its just simple revenge, raphael no longer insists on a formal war, just wipe them out

grass porridge cult part
lemon is in the middle of a cult gathering, this is actually broadcasted gaining 30% viewership rating, they start their counterattack in this volume, on the forums people post how many people they killed, grass porridge cult became so popular that there was a movie with 100 kindergartners singing their song in unison, the movie wasnt released in just south korea but in foreign countries as well, unlike the last time hermes invaded, user access rate in the north spiked

Read more: