Game of the World Tree

【 WAR PROFITEERING 】

During major battle events, the players’ experience gain is usually set to the highest possible level.

As a result, orc corpses were a rare sight on the battlefield.

Instead, what stretched out as far as the eye could see were heaps of scattered bloodstained armor and weapons, glinting brilliantly under the setting sun.

Cheers erupted from the encampment walls.

The players were visibly excited with some raising their weapons and laughing, while others shouted at the top of their lungs in celebration of victory.

Then, without hesitation… they bolted out of their camp to loot those dropped equipment.

If the realistic combat in Elven Kingdom thrilled and captivated players, then post-battle cleanup was by far their favorite part of their experience.

This part was a race of reflexes and luck and those who were fast enough on their feet or had sharp eyes always reaped the greater rewards.

This time, the orcs had clearly deployed their elite forces,and so, the equipment they left behind was definitely top-grade.

Many of the armors and weapons they carried would be considered high-quality even by human standards. From a player’s perspective, most were above blue rare grade, and many even reached purple epic-grade quality.

The only major difference from those sold at the in-game exchange store was the lack of special effects.

Of course, there were exceptions.

For example, the gear worn by the heavy-armored orc warriors who had charged at the front lines.

As the vanguard of the first wave, they wore the finest equipment among all the orcs. Some were even engraved with simple magical runes which were clearly supplied by the Sauron Trading Group.

Now, all of it belonged to the players.

The gear dropped by the orcs who had made it into the camp had long been picked clean.

But beyond the walls, there was more.

Some had fallen when their wielders were killed atop the wall. Others belonged to orcs crushed by catapults or ballistae. Still more came from those felled by arrows, elemental grenades, or long ranged spells.

All of it were prime loot for the players.

Some climbed swiftly down the siege towers left behind by the orcs, while others cast [Feather fall] or [Light body] spells and leapt. A few tank-class players simply unequipped their gear and jumped straight off the walls.

The camp’s walls weren’t that tall which were only about eight meters but they weren’t exactly low either.

And the ground outside had long been ravaged by magic, turning it into uneven terrain.

Much of it had been petrified, and in certain spots, there were still lingering magical residues like earthen spikes or wooden stakes which were cast earlier by players and had yet to dissipate.

Thus, unsurprisingly, many of the players who jumped straight down accidentally fell into these traps.

The high-level players managed fine as their agile reflexes helped them avoid hazards. The worst they suffered was a numbed foot, after which they laughed it off and eagerly began looting.

But those lower-level players weren’t so lucky.

Plenty of them twisted their ankles or even broke their bones.

Some were even so overexcited—or just had poor vision—that they jumped into the wrong spots and landed right on the spikes.

Watching those scenes… were pretty gruesome.

But even broken bones or bleeding injuries couldn’t dampen the players’ enthusiasm for looting.

With their pain settings dialed down, they didn’t care about mere injuries.

Even while limping or crawling, they kept on scavenging the battlefield.

From a distance, though, seeing these scene was downright eerie.

At least, to Evé—who stood on the encampment’s wall watching the battlefield—her face was showing a rather complicated expression.

She saw more than one player with limbs bent at unnatural angles, or blood spurting from various parts of their body, still grinning and happily bouncing around as they looted the battlefield.

Frankly, it was a bit creepy.

Of course, those injuries they sustained weren’t life-threatening. If they had been, these players would’ve instantly toned their antics down.

The battle was now over.

Therefore, dying at such a time would be a total waste.

Resurrection tokens required a hefty chunk of contribution points, after all.

The war-themed music in the battlefield channel had already faded.

Now, a new BGM had began playing.

Unlike the heavy, electrifying music from earlier, this new tune was much lighter, almost cheerful.

It sounded like a celebration of the players’ victory.

With such uplifting music, the players spirits rose, and their looting speed increased. They took everything in sight without hesitation, stuffing everything into their inventories regardless of whether it was useful or not.

At times like this, the advantages of owning a spatial inventory item really began to shine.

Ordinary players could only hang their looted equipment on their bodies. Once they were full, there was no way to carry anything more…

But those with space gear?

They could take more.

Tens of thousands of players swarmed across the battlefield outside the camp like a swarm of locusts.

And the battlefield which was once littered with discarded weapons and armor after the chaos of battle was quickly stripped bare in mere moments under the relentless looting of the players.

Even the arrows that had been shot were thoroughly picked clean.

From a distance, the ground looked as if it had been ploughed by a herd of oxen.

After their looting frenzy, the players, as if by silent agreement, all made their way back to camp—heading straight to the holy statue of the Goddess at the rear.

And the first thing they did was look around, checking to see if their Big Sister, Zero, was somewhere nearby.

Once they confirmed she wasn’t, everyone let out a collective sigh of relief. Then, without missing a beat, they sneakily pulled out ritual paints and happily began drawing offering arrays onto the ground…

Meanwhile, noticing the growing number of players heading toward her holy statue, Evé split her consciousness and connected to her Divine Kingdom.

“It’s about time…”

She murmured to herself.

Not long after her consciousness returned to her Divine Kingdom, a barrage of offering notifications began pouring into the system.

Of course, all of them came from the players.

As the playerbase grew, Evé had long since programmed an automated system into the game. So as long as the divine network verified an item being sent as valid, the offerings would be automatically transported to her Divine Kingdom.

Within moments, mountains of gear had piled up within Eve’s domain.

However, the vast majority of these equipment was damaged.

Though there were now smithing players capable of repairing equipment, the value of contribution points had dropped to the point where re-exchanging for new items in the in-game shop was often more cost-effective.

As a result, unless an item had powerful effects or rare bonuses, players usually chose to offer to the Goddess these broken equipment in exchange for contribution points.

It wasn’t a lot, but every little bit counted.

Hence, it had become second nature for the players.

Evé glanced at the items being offered, then casually snapped her fingers. Divine power swept through the area, enveloping the pile.

When the light faded, the broken junk had been restored to their pristine condition, with a few subtle design changes.

She snapped her fingers again, adding random effects to these equipment, and then promptly tossed the entire pile into a corner of her Divine Kingdom wherein it would gather dust alongside other similar items.

That corner now held over a hundred thousand sets of equipment, all generously offered by the players. Some had probably circulated between her Divine Kingdom and Seigües dozens of times already.

But most of it had come from the recent war, looted piece by piece from the battlefield.

“Gathering spoils of war really are the fastest way to earn a profit. I’ve already got more than enough equipment for the upcoming second batch of public-beta players,” Evé mused with a leisurely tone.

༺⟐༻

The battle was over, and the spoils were rich.

Within the player camp, the atmosphere was light and cheerful.

But things were far grimmer on the other side among the orcs.

In the city lord’s hall of Sandstorm City, the Oracle-King Bazaan sat with a brooding expression.

To his right sat the Chief Shaman, his face equally grim.

On his left, an elder mage from the Sauron Company furrowed his brows in deep concern.

Below them, the chiefs of the various great tribes and the elders of the royal court all hung their heads in silence.

A heavy tension filled the entire hall.

After a long pause, Bazaan rubbed his temples and looked toward an orc priest holding a scroll, scribbling away.

“How’s the report?” he asked.

The priest set down his brush and respectfully answered:

“Your Majesty, in today’s battle… we lost nearly forty thousand warriors in total. That number includes 325 Silver-ranked warriors and 44 Behemoth Beasts…”

Forty thousand casualties in just a single day.

Spread across the player base, it might not even amount to one kill per person but such numbers was still terrifying.

Reality and games were ultimately two very different things.

Battles were far more complex, the tides of war shifted constantly, and a lot of time was lost on non-combat activities…

Due to terrain constraints, the orc army hadn’t been able to fully deploy and go head-to-head against the player forces.

Most of their casualties occurred during the climb up the encampment’s walls.

And on the players’ side, only a portion were ever in combat at a given time, limited by the length of the camp’s wall.

The army rotated in shifts, and some players never even got the chance to fight before logging off or leaving the battlefield altogether.

That’s also why, despite how much equipment the orcs dropped, there were even more players on the battlefield.

Which explains the chaotic scramble after the battle—when every player rushed out like their lives depended on it, desperate not to miss out on looting a single item…

To truly achieve large-scale enemy casualties, they would have to wait until both sides were evenly matched and could fight on open ground.

Unfortunately, in the past, the Orcs had always holed up inside their cities and refused to come out. And although they had mobilized fully their main army this time, the players lacked the confidence to wipe them out in one strike.

All they could do was launch a wave of attrition to wear them down.

Perhaps the loss didn’t seem too great from the players’ perspective, but to the Orcs, these number of casualties were staggering.

Forty thousand!

That was equivalent to four large tribes!

Even after all the development under the Lionheart King Imsh, the total Orc population across the Desert barely reached one million. There were fewer than thirty large tribes in total.

And the forty thousand fallen were not just any warriors either. They were the best of the best and the strongest among the new generations of Orcs!

This was truly a devastating blow.

For a moment, murmurs spread across the hall as the atmosphere grew restless.

Bazaan’s expression darkened as well.

Although he had been observing the battle from atop the Sandstorm Tower and was well aware of their faltering offensive and heavy casualties, he hadn’t expected their loss to be this severe.

Forty thousand…

That was over a tenth of their entire army.

And the Behemoth beasts which were already few in number had lost nearly half of their forces in this single battle!

These creatures were the backbone of the Orc military might. With such losses, their ability to raid the human lands in the future would be severely crippled.

Yet even that wasn’t what weighed heaviest on Bazaan’s heart.

What chilled him the most was the fact that, despite all these sacrifices, they had still failed to break through the Elven defenses at all.

The Elven encampment had only been established mere days ago, yet it stood like a fortress.

Previous intel had already warned Bazaan of the Elves’ formidable strength, but witnessing it firsthand revealed the truth which was even worse than he imagined.

Not only were the Elves more powerful individually, but they also showed no fear of death at all. On top of that, their army had a disproportionately high number of spellcasters, which inflicted catastrophic damage on the Orcs throughout the battle.

Bazaan couldn’t begin to fathom how they were supposed to continue the war if the Elves actually managed to complete a teleportation array and reinforce their position.

Damn it!

How could the Elven Forest spawn such an overpowered troops?!

Just when did the Elves become so terrifying?

He couldn’t help cursing inwardly.

And alongside that fury, a sliver of fear began to rise within him…

He dreaded the future that awaited the realm of Seigües if these ruthless long-eared monsters weren’t stopped.

A storm of bloodshed and chaos seemed inevitable if these weird elves continues to exist.

After a long silence, Bazaan turned to the representative of the Sauron Group.

“Honored mage, is your group able to dispatch more mercenaries for support? Or perhaps send some high-ranking experts?”

Sauron had previously promised to support them with mercenaries. However, after further discussions, the agreement had shifted to supplying them with equipment instead.

The Orc army already had the numbers so what they truly lacked proper gear. Compared to that, the small number of soldiers the merchant guild could offer was pretty insignificant.

Thus, equipping more Orc warriors with proper gear made more sense.

Hearing Bazaan’s request, the elderly mage shook his head.

“Your Majesty, given the current situation, even if we send more reinforcements, I fear they would make little difference.”

Bazaan looked disheartened.

He understood the logic.

Even with the full support of the Sauron Group, they couldn’t possibly supply an army of tens of thousands. At most, they could muster one or two large mercenary groups—ten or twenty thousand men—which wasn’t enough to fill the void left by the forty thousand Orc warriors.

Yes, there were spellcasters among human mercenaries. But the Elves, being magical creatures with high affinity with mana themselves, had far more spellcasters in proportion.

As for high-ranking experts…

The Elves’ camp had a divine barrier, two powerful dragons, and even a legendary-rank Spider Queen guarding it.

Under such overwhelming might, any reinforcements below legendary rank would be useless.

Moreover, those at the legendary rank were likely part of Sauron’s leadership—therefore, they wouldn’t possibly be dispatched.

In lieu of all this, the conclusion was clear.

Even with all their power, the Orcs alone would not be able to take on the Elven camp by force.

The plan to use the might of the Orc main army to force the hidden power behind the Elves to act publicly had completely failed.

At least… relying solely on their current forces would no longer work.

With that thought, Bazaan let out a long, weary sigh.

“This operation… is no longer something we can control,” he muttered before looking at the chief shaman beside him.

“Ask the Totem Guardian to take action.”