Chapter Summaries

Chris organized Bich Town and three nearby villages into production groups to address famine, develop agriculture, and obtain materials for gunpowder. As he struggled to keep people fed and production moving, returning players brought back bad news.

• Chris brought the three hunting villages and Bich Town under his control, while surviving bandits surrendered after routed soldiers raided their mountain hideout and stole their food.
• Isaac departed for El Province with companions and trade goods to settle smuggling profits and seek saltpeter for Chris.
• Chris arranged for townspeople to mine volcanic sulfur and restricted grain purchases with coupons to manage the food shortage.
• Chris formed production brigades and teams to dig irrigation channels, plant potatoes and sweet potatoes, mine sulfur, burn charcoal, and hunt for food.
• Chris recruited skilled players as agricultural officers and established public toilets to collect waste for fertilizer and saltpeter.
• Players returning from exploration brought Chris bad news.

Barbarossa spent half a month wilderness camping on a cliff with his leopard-like pet Ah Huang, but his solitude ended when he spotted an armed, disciplined column heading toward Bich Town. He planned to warn the other players and considered capturing one of the strangers.

• Barbarossa left the other players and climbed into a sheltered hollow on a cliff to camp alone.
• He tamed a leopard-like creature that attacked him and named it Ah Huang.
• Barbarossa and Ah Huang survived together on the cliff for half a month, hunting, gathering water, and collecting salt.
• Barbarossa spotted an armed column of over a hundred people and twenty mountain horses marching toward Bich Town.
• Barbarossa decided to log out and warn the other players, then considered trying to capture one of the column’s members.

Chris learned that an unidentified force was approaching Bich Town and left its defense to the players. Barbarossa infiltrated the force’s valley camp, but a cannon barrage began before he could capture a prisoner, and Alibaba told him the night raid was starting.

• Chris realized that an unidentified force had arrived sooner than expected and decided to have the players fight them.
• Barbarossa and Ah Huang climbed down a cliff and reached a rocky ledge above the force’s camp.
• Barbarossa prepared to lasso a sleeping man and haul him up for questioning.
• A cannon barrage struck the camp, killing the watchtower sentries and alerting the attackers.
• Barbarossa recognized Alibaba, who told him to join the night raid.

The Extreme Warriors and other players launched a nighttime raid on an unidentified force camped in a valley, routing the defenders with concentrated cannon fire and a musket volley. Barbarossa joined the aftermath and discovered an unconscious officer carrying a flag marked with the Minicia Kingdom’s royal emblem.

• Barbarossa missed the warband’s plans after turning off his private messages and wandering in the wilderness.
• Marion rallied more than twenty soldiers around himself and a raised flag as the raid began.
• Alibaba fired a flare to mark the defenders’ position, and three Crouching Tiger Cannons blasted the gathered soldiers.
• A hundred musketeers fired into the camp, breaking the defenders’ morale as armored players advanced and other players blocked the valley’s exit.
• The raiders defeated or captured the enemy force without losing anyone, and Barbarossa found an unconscious officer beside a flag bearing a blue dolphin.

Marion Carly woke in his tent bound and wounded, where Lin Ruoyu and Home Alone waterboarded him until he revealed that he was a Minisia palace guard sent to retrieve Prince Chris. His disclosure that Minicia-backed troops controlled nearby Bolas Fortress left Lin Ruoyu and Home Alone alarmed.

• Marion woke bound in his own tent and mistook Lin Ruoyu and Home Alone for enemies who had attacked him.
• Lin Ruoyu introduced himself, covered Marion's face with a towel, and waterboarded him until he broke.
• After Marion lost control of his bodily functions, Home Alone summoned people to clean and redress him.
• Marion told Lin Ruoyu and Home Alone that his name was Marion Carly and that he was a captain in the Minisia royal palace guard.
• Marion revealed that the queen had sent him to find Prince Chris in Bich Town and bring him to the Minicia Kingdom.
• Marion said Minicia supported the Republic of Bagnia and that Minician soldiers guarded nearby Bolas Fortress, prompting Lin Ruoyu and Home Alone to exchange grim looks.

Lin Ruoyu briefed the players on the tangled conflict among Minisia, Bagnia, and the Bohemian Empire, while Chris decided to move his forces toward Bolas Fortress to give players a new war storyline. The game’s first chapter began with an announcement opening four hundred new closed-beta slots.

• Lin Ruoyu told the players that Marion was seeking Prince Chris and that Minisia and the Bohemian Empire backed opposing sides in Bagnia’s civil war.
• Chris ordered Connie to keep interrogating Marion for details about Bagnia and Bolas Fortress, and to put the other Minisia prisoners to work on Bich Town’s reservoir.
• Chris studied the disputed territories on his map and decided to take the troops near Bolas Fortress on an expedition, even if they might have to retreat.
• Chris announced that the game’s prologue had ended and opened four hundred new closed-beta slots for Chapter One.
• Players rushed to claim the slots, and one celebrated getting a place while another complained that they had sold out almost immediately.

Bruno received orders to select one hundred militiamen to escort supplies as Prince Chris prepared to march to war, though neither he nor Chris knew who the enemy would be. The militia accepted the call after Bruno warned that Bich Town’s grain stores would not last until harvest, while Chris sent the new and veteran players ahead and learned that Isaac had returned with saltpeter and a request for more sugar.

• Bruno began his first day as battalion commander and received Prince Chris’s order to select one hundred militiamen for the army’s march.
• Bruno told the militiamen that Bich Town’s granary held too little food to last until harvest, persuading them to join the expedition.
• Chris sent the veteran and newly arrived players ahead with three days of rations to avoid trouble in Bich Town before the grain convoy departed.
• Chris prepared for war without knowing whom his forces would fight, while Isaac returned with saltpeter and reported that Popoli needed more sugar.

Mia studied Chinese until a crowd gathered at the barracks to enlist in Chris’s grain transport crew. After learning that the applicants needed strong work records, Mia headed for another entrance because she wanted to go to war and help Chris.

• Mia read her handmade Chinese textbook beneath a poplar while Bich Town’s residents gathered at the barracks to sign up for the grain transport crew.
• A clerk rejected applicant 988 because his work points and performance evaluations did not meet the requirements.
• The crowd threw 988 out of the line, and Aisha knocked him unconscious after he landed near Mia.
• Mia went around the crowded main gate and ran toward another barracks entrance so she could try to join the war effort.

Chris refused Isaac’s request for sugar, then asked him to lead the newly equipped Mountain Rangers in the campaign to capture the fortress near Bich Town. Isaac accepted after requesting three Crouching Tiger Cannons, while warning Chris not to repeat past mistakes.

• Chris refused to trade Isaac sugar, explaining that he needed it for the army and its black powder supplies.
• Chris said his immediate objective was to capture the fortress blocking access to Bich Town and its surrounding mountains.
• Chris asked Isaac to lead the roughly hundred hunters he had organized as the Mountain Rangers.
• Isaac requested three Crouching Tiger Cannons, and Chris approved the requisition.
• Isaac pledged to fight for Chris but urged him to remember what had happened before, and Chris replied that war could be necessary to end war.

Call Me Aku confronted the aftermath of a village massacre and struggled to accept the suffering he witnessed. Knife-in-the-Butt encouraged him to see the players’ mission as stopping such atrocities, and the army searched the village, burned the dead, and continued onward after finding no survivors.

• Call Me Aku entered a village with Mountain Tiger’s vanguard and discovered that its residents had been massacred.
• Aku broke down over the deaths of a mother and child, and Knife-in-the-Butt explained that an organized army had looted the village for food.
• Knife-in-the-Butt reminded Aku that Chris’s goal was to end the war and that the players could oppose any army that massacred villagers.
• Knife-in-the-Butt ordered the players to search for survivors, keep watch, and gather the bodies for burning.
• The main force joined the search, but around four hundred players found no survivors, burned the bodies, and sent two players back with a report.

Malken watched old Duka die under the overseer's whip as captured villagers were forced to build defenses below Bolas Fortress. From a nearby hillside, Call Me Cool Bro studied the fortress and wondered how the players could possibly take it.

• Malken saw the overseer whip old Duka, and a soldier killed him after he collapsed.
• Malken recalled how white-robed soldiers captured his village, seized its food, and drove the men away to labor.
• The soldiers forced more than a thousand captives to dig holes and build rammed-earth walls, while linking them in groups of ten with ropes.
• Call Me Cool Bro surveyed Bolas Fortress through a spyglass and saw its defensible keeps, gun emplacements, and the prisoners' new fortifications.
• Call Me Cool Bro worried that the fortress would be difficult to capture and wondered where Little Knife and the others had gone.

Knife-in-the-Butt and the Mountain Tiger veterans raided watchtowers around Bolas Fortress, but smoke signals and skirmishes alerted the defenders. Colonel Bernal Bowen put the fortress on its highest level of readiness, while the approaching Restoration Army commander reacted angrily to the news.

• Knife-in-the-Butt led veteran players up a mountain and killed the guards at a watchtower, then lit its signal fire to confuse the fortress defenders.
• Mountain Tiger veterans raided peaks around Bolas Fortress, killed nearly thirty sentries, and left smoke signals that prompted the defenders to send scouts into the mountains.
• New players led by Call Me Cool Bro confronted Knife-in-the-Butt over keeping the raids secret and exposing them to skirmishes.
• Bernal Bowen examined a captured flintlock, recognized the threat, and ordered Bolas Fortress to its highest level of readiness.
• The Restoration Army commander learned of the fortress's alarm from scouts and cursed inside his tent.

Chris’s force encountered evidence of the Restoration Army’s atrocities while marching toward the besieged Bolas Fortress, and Knife-in-the-Butt’s report revealed that the enemy knew a third party was nearby. Chris called the player warband commanders to a meeting to decide how to proceed.

• The Restoration Army began besieging Bolas Fortress after its surprise attack failed, while Knife-in-the-Butt discovered its scouts had spotted his group and ordered a retreat.
• Chris and Isaac found a third village burned by the Restoration Army, with its residents killed, and discussed the militia’s anger and discipline.
• Chris halted his stretched-out column to organize camp, then received Knife-in-the-Butt’s urgent report about the siege and the enemy scouts.
• Chris judged that the Restoration Army’s security perimeter made exploiting the siege dangerous and summoned the player warband commanders to discuss their next move.

Isaac tried to reach Prince Chris’s tent to discuss the Militia’s camp and supplies, but Mia guarded the entrance and told him Chris was meeting with four warband commanders. Isaac remained curious about their discussion, still doubtful of Chris’s decision to keep the small warbands separate.

• Isaac recalled opposing Mia’s joining the army because she was young and her presence could cause problems, but Chris let her come.
• Mia and Aisha had defeated Isaac when he tried to stop Mia, and he thereafter avoided challenging her.
• Isaac offered Aisha sugar and Mia candy, and Mia told him Chris was inside with four flag-bearing commanders.
• Isaac reflected on his unsuccessful attempts to persuade Chris to combine the four warbands into one infantry battalion.
• Isaac wondered what Chris and the commanders were discussing inside the tent.

Chris assigned the four warband leaders a month to capture and hold Bolas Fortress, rescue its captives, and help refugees, then ordered his own troops to withdraw from the unsafe camp. At the battlefield, the Restoration Army advanced under cannon fire as Sergeant Monte prepared his volunteers to defend the earthen wall and watched deserters face brutal punishment.

• Chris told the four warband leaders to take and hold Bolas Fortress, save its captives, and help displaced people, while leaving their methods up to them.
• Knife-in-the-Butt volunteered to lead a trusted group against the fortress and promised to punish anyone who burned, murdered, or pillaged.
• Lin Ruoyu said the Extreme Warriors would not blindly enter battle, and Chris left the four leaders to divide their tasks.
• Chris ordered Isaac to break camp and move to a hidden, safer location because the battlefield was only fifteen kilometers away.
• Field watched the Restoration Army advance as its cannons opened breaches in the defenders’ earthen wall.
• Sergeant Monte prepared his nervous volunteers to fire, while guards shot a fleeing man and soldiers slaughtered those sheltering with him.

Cool Guy watched the Restoration Army prepare to attack Bolas Fortress after days of fighting players and gathering timber. The siege began with the defenders sending bound civilians forward as cannon fodder, leaving Cool Guy horrified.

• Cool Guy and other players fought the Restoration Army’s scouts for days, dying and reviving as the army secured the nearby woods.
• The Minisians sent a night raid toward the Restoration Army’s grain stores, but players ambushed them and took their armor and weapons.
• Players later disguised themselves as woodcutters and entered the Restoration Army’s camp while trying to rescue civilians.
• On the eighth day, the Restoration Army began its assault on Bolas Fortress with stone cannons, matchlock gunners, and advancing infantry.
• The Minisians sent more than two hundred bound civilians carrying clubs and hoes out ahead of their troops, and Cool Guy reacted in horror.

Cool Guy witnessed the Restoration Army and the Minisians use enslaved laborers as expendable barriers, then decided to join Knife-in-the-Butt’s nighttime rescue raid. A day earlier, Ajax had infiltrated the Restoration Army’s woodcutters’ camp and bought the men’s goodwill with copper coins.

• The Minisians forced more than two hundred bound slave laborers into the Restoration Army’s gunfire, and many were killed or wounded before the attacking troops withdrew.
• Cool Guy realized the Minisians were using the captives to waste the Restoration Army’s ammunition and stall its advance.
• After seeing the laborers suffer another attack, Cool Guy told his companion he wanted to join Knife-in-the-Butt’s call and help rescue the survivors that night.
• A day earlier, Ajax entered the Restoration Army camp disguised as a woodcutter and found the men eating poor-quality barley soup and black bread.
• Ajax gave the woodcutters five copper coins each to gain their trust and cover his presence in their camp.

Ajax bought the lumberjacks’ silence with copper coins, while Barbarossa’s dangerous search beneath Bolas Fortress finally uncovered the hidden passage used to draw water. Barbarossa planned to mark its location and tell the other players so they could plan an attack.

• Ajax gave the camp’s lumberjacks copper coins, and they decided not to report him to the Restoration Army soldiers.
• Barbarossa and a badly injured player continued exploring the river beneath Bolas Fortress after most of their companions had died or been hurt.
• Barbarossa reasoned that the fortress needed a hidden route to the river because its height made other ways of drawing water impractical.
• Barbarossa spotted a torchlit opening and a bucket being lowered into the river, realizing he had found the passage’s submerged exit.
• Barbarossa swam toward the surface to mark the location and notify the other players without alerting the fortress guards.

Little Knife reconnoitered Bolas Fortress before preparing to attack it with his players that night. Nearby, a disguised noble and his guard watched the fortress and awaited a signal from their contact inside.

• Little Knife confirmed that the raised drawbridge and constant sentries blocked a direct approach to Bolas Fortress, while only about a hundred of his players had made it across Bolas Gorge.
• After receiving good news from Barbarossa on the fifth day, Little Knife abandoned his original supply-depot ruse and planned to capture the fortress outright.
• On the eighth day, Little Knife heard the Restoration Army's artillery firing and left to rest before the night's operation.
• A hundred meters away, a blond noble and his chestnut-haired guard watched the auxiliary fort while discussing the risks of their mission and their contact inside.
• The guard said Count Dirac's diversionary assault would begin after midnight, with explosions signaling them and their contact.

Barnett went to fetch water for the colonel and encountered Carrot and his men, who had infiltrated Bolas Fortress through an underground river. Carrot captured Barnett and began interrogating him about the fortress’s layout.

• Barnett led an ox and cart through a cavern to replenish Bolas Fortress’s cistern after the colonel took a bath.
• At the underground river, Barnett discovered the ox was missing and fainted when he saw Carrot’s blackened men.
• Carrot ordered his four companions to guard the cave entrance, the ox, and the river while he bound Barnett.
• Carrot doused Barnett with water to wake him, then threatened him and asked whether he wanted to live or die.
• Barnett said he wanted to live, and Carrot demanded information about the internal layout of Bolas Fortress.