Chapter Summaries

Dorok hid from the manhunt in Treasure Island City as fewer than ten players remained alive. Meanwhile, Gray Shadow secretly poisoned Young Charles on King Charles’s orders, and the prince’s reported assassination drove the Royal Guard and the nobles deeper into conflict.

• Dorok hid in a cellar, learned that fewer than ten players survived in the city, and waited for the dead players to return.
• Gray Shadow and the Sardines infiltrated Hawk's former residence and gave Young Charles a bottle that put him to sleep before carrying him away.
• Gray Shadow told King Charles that the mission was complete, while concealing his guilt over Young Charles’s fate.
• News of Young Charles’s assassination spread through the Royal Guard, whose soldiers blamed their generals for handing the prince to the nobles.
• Distrust fractured the Royal Guard, while the Royalist Faction and Council Faction escalated their conflict with secret assassinations.
• King Charles welcomed the chaos and prepared to emerge once his enemies had weakened one another.

After Charles engineered a mutiny in the Royal Guard, he used the soldiers’ anger over the Prince’s death to seize command and turn them against the nobles. The Royal Guard launched attacks across Treasure Island City, plunging it into civil war.

• Gray Shadow’s loyalist officers and the Sardines incited the Royal Guard soldiers to confront General Roderick, and a clash sparked a mutiny.
• The mutinous soldiers killed Roderick, drove out or killed other generals, and took control of the camp.
• Charles appeared before the soldiers, blamed the nobles for the Prince’s death, promised them land and promotions, and won their allegiance.
• Charles reorganized the Royal Guard and sent it out under cover of darkness to attack noble private armies and estates.
• The Royal Guard and the nobles’ forces fought across Treasure Island City as fires and street battles spread.

Dorok discovered that Minisia’s Royal Guard was slaughtering and plundering Treasure Island City under Charles’s orders. As Charles prepared to celebrate his victory, Gray Shadow poisoned him and then killed himself, and Prince Young Charles found their bodies.

• Dorok and Owl took shelter in the cellar as the Royal Guard fought through the city and killed gang members as alleged rebel accomplices.
• Dorok ventured outside and saw the Royal Guard burning buildings, looting homes, and killing residents and defenders indiscriminately.
• Dorok realized Charles’s forces were purging the city, then fled back to the cellar and told Owl that it was hell.
• Charles celebrated his victory in the palace and planned further purges while the city burned outside.
• Gray Shadow appeared as Charles died from poison, told him the kingdom would have a better master, and stabbed himself with a poisoned dagger.
• Prince Young Charles entered the hall with Royal Guard officers and found Charles and Gray Shadow dead beside each other.

Diu Ni Leimu led the Holy Crusade Army toward Treasure Island City while investigating why the Minisians had not obstructed their advance. A Minician court clerk arrived to discuss surrender terms, leaving Diu Ni Leimu convinced that a serious crisis inside the city might bring the kingdom to the negotiating table, though he expected further resistance from its privileged classes.

• Diu Ni Leimu reviewed railway plans and military reports in his carriage as the Holy Crusade Army marched toward Treasure Island City.
• After learning the army was less than twenty kilometers from the city without facing major resistance, Diu Ni Leimu ordered the march accelerated and engineers sent ahead to survey and improve the route.
• A messenger reported that a party under a white flag, led by Minicia's chief court clerk, requested an audience with the army's commander.
• Diu Ni Leimu admitted the clerk and two Royal Guard soldiers after ordering them searched, and the clerk asked what guarantees Bagnia would offer if Minicia surrendered.
• Diu Ni Leimu outlined possible surrender terms during a discussion lasting more than two hours, while concluding that events in Treasure Island City had made surrender a serious possibility.
• The meeting delayed the army's march, and Diu Ni Leimu expected that Minicia's nobles and generals might continue fighting even if the royal family surrendered.

The Holy Crusade Army reached Treasure Island City, where Young Prince Charles surrendered and claimed that nobles had poisoned King Charles. Diu Ni Leimu offered condolences and deferred decisions about the prince and Minisia to King Chris, leaving the army waiting for instructions.

• The gates of Treasure Island City opened, and Royal Guard officers and civil officials led Young Prince Charles out to meet Diu Ni Leimu.
• Young Prince Charles said that nobles had poisoned his father, King Charles, and begged for the Kingdom of Bagnia's protection and revenge.
• Diu Ni Leimu offered the prince condolences but said King Chris had to decide how to handle his request and Minisia's affairs.
• Diu Ni Leimu ordered a staff officer to report the prince's words to King Chris and ask for urgent instructions.
• Diu Ni Leimu arranged to protect Young Prince Charles with formal courtesy while the army awaited King Chris's response.

After Young Charles surrendered Minicia to Diu Ni Leimu, the Holy Crusade Army entered Treasure Island City and slaughtered the Royal Guard soldiers still rampaging there. The players cleared the city while protecting and supplying civilians, leaving Lydia and the survivors bewildered by their ruthless yet disciplined conduct.

• Young Charles surrendered to Diu Ni Leimu, while the Royal Guard soldiers left behind continued burning, killing, and looting Treasure Island City.
• Diu Ni Leimu ordered the Holy Crusade Army's players to enter the city and kill the irredeemable routed soldiers.
• The players killed the looters while rescuing civilians, giving them food and water, and guiding them to safety.
• Lydia watched the players spare civilians and leave supplies at a family's door, and she wondered if the King's Guards were paladins.
• The players eradicated the remaining routed soldiers in a day, then cleared wreckage, treated survivors, distributed food, and searched buildings for hidden threats.
• Dorok surveyed the devastated city and watched fearful civilians accept the players' help in a temporary refugee camp.

Diu Ni Leimu realized that Charles’s purge of Treasure Island’s nobles might have turned Minisia into a powerful, centralized war machine if Charles had survived. Meanwhile, Young Charles adjusted to life in the Bagnian camp and watched the players’ strange mix of playful chaos and military precision, growing curious about the kingdom that had conquered his own.

• Diu Ni Leimu reviewed the events in Treasure Island City and concluded that Charles’s elimination of the nobles could have unified Minisia and prolonged the war.
• Diu Ni Leimu arranged for Young Charles to receive comfortable lodging, regular reports about Treasure Island City, and lessons in Chinese.
• Young Charles wandered through Bagnia’s camp and saw players wrestle in armor, decorate a cannon, parade a dressed-up donkey, cook, compete, and sing.
• Young Charles noticed that the players instantly shifted from joking around to disciplined action whenever orders arrived.
• Young Charles watched the players and wondered what kind of people they were, feeling both fear and growing curiosity about Bagnia.

Chris mourned Charles but arranged to make Young Charles a powerless Duke of Treasure Island, using the title and a new army to secure Bagnia’s rule. Minisia’s scattered resistance collapsed, and its starving royal fleet surrendered to Bagnia without a fight.

• Chris decided to invest Young Charles as Duke of Treasure Island, restrict his authority, and have him form the Blue Banner Army away from the city.
• Bagnia’s promises to preserve Young Charles’s royal line, restore order, lower taxes, and fight bandits weakened resistance across Minisia as players swiftly defeated holdout nobles.
• Diu Ni Leimu gave Bagnia’s naval players the location of the Minicia Fleet’s harbor, where they found the ships neglected and their crews starving.
• A Minicia picket crew surrendered to the arriving Bagnia fleet, explaining that the ships lacked food, ammunition, and leadership.
• Bagnia’s players distributed food and water to the surrendered sailors, and the remaining Minicia fleet also gave up after Young Charles surrendered.

After Minicia's collapse, Retalia and Bohemia intensified their diplomatic and intelligence efforts in Votradnoi to assess Bagnia's strength and intentions. Chris ended Bagnia's saltpeter smuggling with Bohemia and ordered his agents to monitor foreign recruitment efforts without interfering unless they involved illegal coercion.

• Retalia and Bohemian agents gathered information in Votradnoi about Bagnia, the King's Guards, and Chris's plans after annexing Minicia.
• A Bohemian border patrol raided a saltpeter smuggling warehouse, and Chris told Connie to end the trade with Popoli.
• Chris explained that Bohemia feared Bagnia and said overseas saltpeter mining would soon replace the smuggled supply.
• Connie reported that Bohemian officials were offering high salaries to railway staff, and Chris ordered the Intelligence Bureau to monitor them without obstructing lawful recruitment.

Marquis Dirac Siso toured Ankandela’s industrial district and sought an alliance with the Mountain Tiger Warband while arranging to buy guns and locomotives. Meanwhile, Colonel Ivyra and the Holy Crusade Army fought through the Snake-Men’s swamp stronghold, where the players defeated three giant venomous salamanders and continued exposing the evil structure at the lake’s center.

• Marquis Dirac Siso saw Ankandela’s factories and polluted waterways, then planned to ask Knife-in-the-Butt to expedite his purchases of field guns and steam locomotives.
• Colonel Ivyra led the Fifth Battalion of the Railway Guard Corps in supporting the Holy Crusade Army’s advance through the swamp and repelling Snake-Man attacks.
• The players pumped poison from the central lake, exposing more of the bone-and-rock structure and drawing three giant venomous salamanders out of the water.
• Hua'er Daji directed the flamethrower squad as players and artillery trapped and fought the salamanders, while Ivyra’s forces held off Snake-Man reinforcements.
• The players killed all three salamanders at the cost of heavy casualties, restarted the steam pumps, and demanded that the Engineering Corps bring a Siege Heavy Cannon to destroy the exposed structure.

Chris watched the campaign against the snake-men as Byron warned the player commanders that the lair was an altar where the snake-men planned to sacrifice themselves and summon their evil god. The players avoided a direct assault and prepared an industrial-scale plan to destroy the lair, while the snake-men remained unaware of what awaited them.

• Chris watched the players' livestream and anticipated the use of supplies Diu Ni Leimu had requisitioned for the battle.
• Byron sensed the snake-men were gathering inside their lair to prepare a sacrifice that could summon their evil god.
• Byron urged Hearts of Iron and the other commanders to avoid bombardment and destroy the altar or kill the High Priest before the ritual began.
• Hearts of Iron explained that the players would drain the lake, pour concentrated sulfuric acid into the lair, and then burn it with flammable liquids.
• The snake-men stayed inside their lair as the players continued pumping out the lake, unaware of the industrial attack being prepared.

Chris and Hearts of Iron used sulfuric acid, waste fuel, and fire to destroy the Snake-Men's lair and its inhabitants. The inferno left the evil god’s fate uncertain, but Chris prepared explosives in case anything survived.

• Chris relied on cheap industrial waste and sulfuric acid to avoid sending soldiers into the Snake-Men's lair.
• Hearts of Iron ordered players to pump sulfuric acid into the exposed lair, corroding its structure and weakening the evil presence within.
• After waiting an hour, Hearts of Iron ordered the players to pump waste oil and diesel into the lair.
• Thousands of acid-scarred Snake-Men burst from the lair, and players poured in more fuel as the creatures charged across the lake bed.
• Hearts of Iron threw a flaming javelin into the fuel, igniting a fire that engulfed the Snake-Men and caused the lair to collapse in explosions.
• Chris watched the inferno, declared cleanup complete, and prepared explosives in case anything had survived.

After the Snake-Men were defeated in Suvano, Chris disbanded the Holy Crusade Army but continued searching for survivors who might have fled north. He granted Elena's request to appoint Julie as an assistant court lady in the Internal Affairs Office archives, then considered using the placement to keep her faction in check and recognized the need for an internal surveillance organization.

• Chris concluded that some Snake-Men may have escaped north and sent Inquisitor players to search northern Minisia for traces of them.
• Elena asked Chris to give her maid Julie an official position as a court lady, signaling her effort to build influence for herself and her Minisian allies.
• Chris appointed Julie as an assistant court lady in the Internal Affairs Office archives and advised Elena to have her proceed cautiously.
• After Elena left, Chris reasoned that placing Julie under his oversight would help manage her faction and considered recruiting her to his interests.
• Chris finished a pastry and realized he lacked an internal surveillance organization.

Chris appointed Julie as an assistant court official in the Archives Hall and secretly tasked her with building an informant network inside the palace. Julie accepted the assignment with fierce loyalty, while Chris wondered whether Elena’s pawn might eventually ensnare her instead.

• Chris summoned Julie and told her that Elena had recommended her for more important court duties.
• Chris appointed Julie as an assistant court official in the Internal Affairs Office's Archives Hall, and Julie eagerly thanked him.
• After Julie misunderstood Chris’s request for a secret conversation, they became intimate.
• Chris ordered Julie to secretly investigate palace attendants and build an informant network, promising that her future would depend on her performance.
• Julie pledged loyalty to Chris and left to prepare for her new duties, while Chris considered how her appointment might affect Elena.

After annexing Minicia, Chris restructured Bagnia’s government to manage its expanded territory and balance political power between the old kingdom and the new regions. With Marquis Dirac accepting his appointment, Chris turned to weakening the Sea God Church through bureaucratic delays and support for its religious rivals.

• Chris created new departments in the State Council, elevated the Military Affairs Department to a council, and planned fair assessments to recruit officials from Bagnia and Minicia.
• Chris appointed Marquis Dirac Deputy Minister of State Affairs while leaving the Minister of State Affairs and Minister of the Interior positions vacant.
• Dirac considered Chris’s immense public prestige and chose cooperation over challenging the government reforms.
• After confirming Dirac would not oppose the reforms, Chris focused on the Sea God Church and decided not to suppress it openly during Minicia’s integration.
• Chris planned to grant the Sea God Church legal recognition but delay its other applications, while encouraging the Earth Mother Goddess Church and the Goddess of Agriculture Church to compete with it.

The Macon League and Pomerelia League sought diplomatic relations with Bagnia, prompting Chris to approve trade talks while refusing military commitments. As negotiations began, Pomerelia focused on commerce, while the Macon ambassador urgently sought a meeting with Chris and offered Dirac a hundred pounds of gold.

• Marquis Dirac received diplomatic letters from the Macon League and Pomerelia League and went to ask Chris how to respond.
• Chris welcomed diplomatic relations and trade with both leagues but rejected military cooperation for now, ordering officials to gather intelligence on the southern nations.
• Chris suggested using the leagues’ rivalry to secure favorable commercial terms and instructed the Department of Commerce to negotiate tariffs and trade.
• Pomerelian ambassador Fabian endorsed trade talks and offered to share Pomerelia’s commercial measurement system.
• The Macon ambassador urgently asked to meet Chris and offered Dirac a hundred pounds of gold for the opportunity.

Chris consulted Prince Hohenlohe before meeting Makon Alliance ambassador Alvarez, who failed to persuade Bagnia to halt its technology deal with the Retalia Empire but requested weapons and mercenaries for Casarina. Chris considered accepting the mercenary contract and selling weapons at a high price, while planning to consult Hohenlohe about the sale.

• Chris divided the hundred kilograms of gold from Marquis Dirac and decided to meet the Makon Alliance's ambassador after consulting Prince Hohenlohe.
• At a private dinner, Prince Hohenlohe warned Chris that the Makon Alliance likely wanted to sabotage or delay Bagnia's technology deal with the Retalia Empire.
• Alvarez asked Chris to halt the technology transfer to the Retalia Empire, but Chris refused and affirmed Bagnia's commitment to its agreement.
• Alvarez requested five thousand Flintlocks, twenty Siege Cannons, and a regiment of Bagnian mercenaries to fight Snake-Men on Casarina Island; Chris said the proposal needed further study.
• Chris decided he would probably accept the mercenary request after negotiating better terms, and planned to ask Hohenlohe about selling the weapons to the Makon Alliance at a high price.

Chris and Prince Hohenlohe agreed to profit from the Makon Alliance’s urgent need for arms by selling weapons at exorbitant prices and sharing the proceeds. After Lynch negotiated a lucrative draft contract, Chris recognized the value of players’ expertise and considered promoting him.

• Chris told Prince Hohenlohe about Alvarez’s request for weapons and mercenaries, and they agreed to sell older weapons at inflated prices while securing the Retalia Empire’s tacit approval.
• Chris authorized the Department of Commerce to assign Lynch negotiations with the Makon Alliance, and Lynch recognized the political bargain behind his pricing instructions.
• Lynch used aggressive negotiation tactics to secure high prices for weapons and demanding terms for the mercenary contract, while Prince Hohenlohe’s public intervention increased pressure on Alvarez’s delegation.
• After three days of negotiations, Alvarez signed a draft contract priced at roughly four times the market rate and prepared to send it home for approval.
• Lynch reported the results to Marquis Dirac, and Chris considered rewarding him with a future promotion in the Department of Commerce.

Alibaba and Yixiu struggled to contain violent crimes committed by newly arrived players, prompting King Chris to consider a powerful Arbitration Tribunal. After reading a veteran player’s analysis of the cultural clash behind the disorder, Chris began considering ways to guide unruly newcomers, including sending them to the Makon Alliance as mercenaries.

• Alibaba restrained a player who had stabbed a man for his rapier while Yixiu tried to save the victim, and Alibaba’s police officers arrested the attacker.
• Alibaba and Yixiu read a royal decree establishing Arbitration Officers with broad powers to try and punish offenders, but Alibaba worried the officers might abuse their authority.
• Chris reconsidered the tribunal’s powers after receiving Alibaba’s concerns and read a forum post explaining that mainstream newcomers brought different gaming attitudes from veteran players.
• Chris concluded that punishment alone would not solve the clash between player cultures and considered stricter screening, beginner guidance, separate areas, and quests to channel newcomers’ behavior.
• Chris decided that the unruliest newcomers might be sent to the Makon Alliance as mercenaries alongside elite players.

No Fun No Play was forcibly conscripted as a penal soldier after recalling that he had groped a woman in the capital. After the train reached Omdur, the penal soldiers rioted against the military police, but their rebellion was brutally suppressed, leaving No Fun No Play unconscious.

• Uniformed player police seized No Fun No Play and forced him onto a crowded train, where an announcement declared him a penal soldier who had to earn atonement points through military service.
• No Fun No Play realized his offense had been groping a woman shortly after entering the game.
• After two days and a night, the train reached Omdur, where military police ordered the penal soldiers to assemble and hauled away the bodies of players who had deleted their characters.
• A penal soldier attacked a military police officer, triggering a riot as hundreds of penal soldiers charged the outnumbered officers.
• No Fun No Play avoided most of the fighting but kicked an officer who was wrestling another player; the officer then choked him unconscious, and the military police suppressed the riot within minutes.