Legacy of the Betelgeuse

Ivonna smiled apologetically at Grisell while helping her stand up. Kingstar then unsheathed his sword and drew a line where Grisell was falling to the ground while Grisell explained what the debuff does to them to confirm if the information that Leo and Hans gave them is valid. Kingstar then looked at them.

"We must tell everyone to not get close to the city from now on. We will think of a solution to this matter. It's not that we don't want to help Trevor, but even if we entered the city, we can do nothing and it will be a suicide mission."

  They all nodded in agreement, but then Grisell ran toward Francesca and the others and started smacking them on the back while scolding them because she was listening to their conversation back then.

Ivonna then looked at the city.

"That's true, but what if we just send the players to the walls and towers to help Trevor from the distance? That should be plenty of help for him, right?"

Kingstar hummed while thinking, but Queenstar shook her head.

"Well yes, but knowing that the debuff making our stat reduced to 1, I don't think they can do much. It would be harder for them to reload the catapults and ballistae and even the trebuchets since the boulder is too heavy to lift with just 1 STR. If they entered the city, they will at least need 4 people or more to just load the boulder, and not to mention the stamina is reduced as well because their VIT becomes 1. It will be faster for everyone to get the exhausted debuff on them. Not to mention that they can't regenerate their stamina with the debuff on them."

Ivonna hummed with understanding.

"So basically there's nothing we can do to help him. We can just wait until the aura disappears then we can enter the city."

They all nodded in agreement. Queenstar rubbed her eyebrows.

"Unfortunately yeah."

Aspen looked at the city.

"But entering the now is not a problem right? I mean either we are out here avoiding the debuff and entering the city with the debuff is not making any difference as long as we are not too close to the fight between Trevor and Shazjae."

Kingstar shook his head.

"No, I don't want to risk a single life of the player. We don't know what will happen around us and we can't anticipate any unexpected event or accident. So, it's a no for me."

Aspen hummed and snapped his fingers.

"How about we entered the city an hour before the debuff aura disappear? We can use that time to be in a position, and when the debuff aura is gone, we all are ready to fight Shazjae. It's better like that rather than have to enter the city when the debuff aura is gone and have to force Trevor to endure for another hour to buy us time to be in position."

Kingstar looked at Grisell and called her. Grisell and the others approached them.

"Grisell, what is the duration for the debuff on you?"

Grisell looked up.

"The Limit-Zero debuff's duration is 6 hours, 57 minutes, and 42 seconds..."

Kingstar looked at Aspen.

"That was a really good suggestion, but it seems that the debuff is not affected by the aura, so if we entered the city an hour before the debuff aura disappears, we still be getting the debuff and the duration will be 7 hours."

Ivonna put her hands on her waist and looked down while sighing.

"There's nothing we can do, let's just use this time to rest or help Grisell and the others making the bombs. I will tell Trevor that we won't be able to get inside the city for the next 7 hours for this reason. I hope that he understands and can survive for that long..."

Everyone nodded and looked at the city with worries.

Leo and Hans looked at the message they got from Ivonna and they both looked at each other while smiling nervously.

"Hans, what are we going to do now? Do you want to leave the city or we can do something to help Trevor?"

Hans looked at Leo while rising his eyebrow.

"Help him with what? Dude, I only have a bow and arrows. You only have your spellbook and your staff. My arrow can't do sh*t, your spellbook and staff are pretty much useless now. What do you mean by helping Trevor? We barely can do anything in here."

Leo shrugged.

"Well, even if we leave the city, there's nothing we can do as well. With this stat of ours, we won't be any help to them. If we are here, maybe we can look around, and maybe we might find something useful?"

Hans scoffed.

"Dude, if we got hit by the debris, we are going to die like an idiot. Remember, if we die, we can't be resurrected or respawned for 12 hours. I don't want to risk it. Why do you want to go around the city anyway?"

Leo shook his head with disagreement.

"We will be fine. I have something in mind. You do realize that the whole city is empty right? We can enter the armory or the warehouse. There must be a black powder in there, right? I remember the royal families said that they used them to create the secret tunnel. We can gather the black powder as many as we can and then make a bomb with that."

Hans looked at Leo with excitement.

"Oh! You're right! You're f*cking genius! But wait, if we have black powder why don't we just take them and use them as a bomb before? Why do we have to use a mineral like sulfur to make one?"

Leo furrowed his forehead.

"You didn't know? The royal families forbid us from using those things. They said it was too valuable to be used for this."

Hans furrowed his forehead and leaned back his head.

"Seriously? What an ass... well, let's steal it then. F*ck those royal families."

Leo and Hans then left the towers.

They both ran stealthily while looked at Trevor fighting Shazjae. They both were confused because Trevor seemed fine as if his stat value wasn't reduced by the debuff, or was it because he was dead from the clap earlier so he was freed from debuff. But the question they had in their head was, how is he managed to respawn even though it is said that a player couldn't during the debuff is active.

Leo and Hans went around the city to avoid any debris that is thrown by Shazje. They looked at the street and saw so many dead bodies of NPCs. Even if this is just a game, they looked so real and it really made them both feel uneasy with it and felt disturbed by the view.

They finally arrived at the armory and immediately went inside to check if there's any black powder inside the building, but they couldn't find them and they only saw weapons and armors in there, so they left the armory and went to the warehouse which is not that far from the armory. When they entered the warehouse, they found so much steel and iron laying and stacked on the ground. Then they found a door that leads to the basement. They both were confident that the black power is placed down there, and they were right about it.

"Holy... Hans, if we used all of them, do you think we can blow Shazjae's head off?"

Hans chuckled and nodded.

"Not just his head, but if we placed all these on his body, he would blow up into pieces. How the hell did they manage to make the black powder this much? Not to mention that this is just one of the 8 kingdoms. Imagine if all the kingdoms have this much black powder, they could blow up the entire empire of Aarus Empire or Eluna Empire."

Leo looked at Hans with curiosity.

"Do you think that is their plan? I mean, there's no other reason for them to make this much black powder. We both know that the Alliance Kingdoms' situation isn't looking good at the moment, and we both heard from those royal families' conversation about their plan that will be 'delayed' because of this invasion."

Hans looked at Leo and nodded with a sour face.

"I think, we need to keep this a secret from everyone... I mean, we are a part of the Alliance Kingdoms' faction, and if we blew up their plan, the whole faction will be punished by the system. So, let's turn a blind eye for this one..."

Leo nodded.

"Yeah, that's right. Anyway, let's grab as much as we can and then leave this place."

Leo and Hans grabbed the empty sack near them and started to fill them with black powder. After they filled a dozen of sacks with black powder, they put them in their inventory and then left the warehouse. They both weren't talking about it and just kept walking back to the tower.

Hans looked at Leo.

"Should we ask about this to Trevor? I think he knows something about this 'plan'."

Leo nodded.

"Oh, definitely..."