"Make way for the king!"

A cavalcade of knights with banners of golden lions trotted by the walled fortress. At their head, atop a muscular stallion, was a 7-foot tall man bedecked in a fullplate suit made of what seemed to be polished dirt – unimpressive-looking but in fact a Tier 4-4 material, Giniiron. His retinue were similarly massive, although not as well equipped or levelled, The Slums unable to afford to send most of their members to the higher zones abroad.

The NPC trainers manning the fort bowed at the imposing figure, and the players, passing by to battle the wolves, out on the fields slaughtering and being slaughtered, gave a rowdy cheer. The newbies, not yet steeped enough in the lore of Suchi to recognise the knights, found the sight unimpressive compared with the wolf army.

Up on a watchtower, Handsome Dan rubbed his chiselled chin. “Who are they, Big Bro?”

“Our saviours," Henry answered sarcastically.

Who knew what might happen? Maybe these clown thugs would save him from the rest of this troublesome Imbahalaala questline.

“Not The Saviour," corrected the Village Bowman beside them, sniping at wolves. "That's King Leon. King Ramiro wouldn't come out for an incident this minor."

“What does that mean, Archer Bro?”

The Bowman went on to explain The Slum's politics to Dan.

Henry—who didn't care about the Empire beyond the fact they were the part of why he hadn't finished this tutorial yet, their union preventing him from hiring a personal trainer—studied the 'King’, who was himself studying the marquee tent atop the hill overlooking the fortress, where the over-sized boar’s body was being processed by The Company's workers ignoring the wolves.

A figure on this level was normally below Henry's radar. What he knew about the guy came entirely from a profile in the information gathered by the corrupt director this morning. King Leon, former username ‘Lil E The Authentic Skinny Choppa’, now rerolled as simply 'Leon', real-life name ‘Ethan Miller’, from Michigan, USA. He was a Tier 4-4, Level 100 Crusader who’d pledged allegiance to the God Psatus, a melee-orientated deity of the sand and the sea - with Miracleworkers and Crusaders, their choice of patron deity changed some of their spells. In the past, he'd led an insignificant mid-sized gang, a bunch of frat dudes who just played Saana to party and get intoxicated on the game's myriad of magical drugs. After he'd allied with Ramiro a.k.a. The Saviour early in the latter's bid to unify The Slums, Leon had been made 'King' of The 'Kingdom' of North America. He seemed to be a puppet ruler, Ramiro promoting the guy due to a past that contained no fatal controversies.

Below, ‘King’ Leon made a show of ordering troops to patch imaginary weaknesses in the defences, then his retinue charged out onto the battlefield.

Given that a Level 100 entity was about 750 times stronger than a Level 3 one, the fight that followed was very, very one-sided. At the head of his charging knights, King Leon had a four-metre trident of water spinning around him skewering wolves like a fork through ravioli. From his body radiated a golden energy that made the weapons of the riders behind him glow, their thrusts and swings becoming even more destructive, the wolves exploding in puffs of furry gore.

Handsome Dan, amazed by this sight, turned to Big Bro to see his reaction, only to find the latter with eyes squinted like he’d stepped into a shoe with a dog poo inside.

“What’s wrong?” asked Dan.

“Nothing,” lied Henry, not wanting to draw the attention of the Bowman, a loyal Villager by the sound of his previous explanations to the meathead.

What was wrong: the Crusader spell ‘strengthening’ the 'King's' allies, , was heinously stupid to use in this situation. Because AOE effects in Saana did not discriminate between friend and foe, the 'King' was buffing the wolves as well, who outnumbered the players and therefore benefited more. The 'King's' troops still wouldn't lose, but the disastrous impact could be seen for any poor low-level shmucks whom the 'King' rode within 15 metres of, who were dying miserable deaths.

More absurdly, because everyone in the 'King's' retinue could already one-shot wolves, the buff did not help them in any meaningful way - he was simply doing it to appear cool.

But no one else aside from Henry seemed to notice this tactical abomination. At the flashy display, the noobs went bonkers.

“Woo!”

“King Leon! King Leon! King Leon!”

“Long live The King!”

"I love you, King Leon. Have my babies!"

The Wolf Emperor, sensing the turning tide, howled. In unison, its thousands of underlings stopped attacking and dropped the boars they were dragging, and they beat a hasty retreat, fleeing back into the cover of the forest.

The smart choice for King Leon here would have been to chase The Wolf Emperor with their faster mounts, destroying a path through the forest and simply ignoring the smaller wolves who could not harm them until they'd chopped off the leader's head.

Instead of that, the 'King' ordered his retinue to halt.

Spinning his horse around, he swept a hard glance over the battlefield, over his subjects drenched and panting with exhaustion amidst the piles of mutilated wolf pieces, their blood-crazed gazes seeking his direction.

To these warriors, and to the newbies admiring from the fortress, King Leon raised a triumphant fist. “For now, we have beaten back the armies of the beast! A minor victory, perhaps, but let us celebrate what we can with a feast! In The Slums, we fight hard, but we also PLAY hard!”

Henry in the watchtower lowered his binoculars and sighed.

Perhaps this was a demented, karmic punishment for never fixing this shithole, death by clown.

Suddenly, from out of nowhere, a caravan of wagons pulled up to the fortress laden with chests of food and alcohol, enough to feed and inebriate the thousands gathered.

The warriors in the fields cheered.

Throughout the fortress, the newbies cheered.

Beside Henry, the handsome meathead and the Bowman cheered.

Henry, to his horror, but not to his surprise, watched with increasing disgust as the carcass-littered battlefield was transformed into a festive scene of drunken revelry, the noobs invited to join the Villagers in celebration. From amongst those that'd been fighting, adventurous Cooks got to processing the wolf-meat for the kids, Performers whipped out instruments to enhance the mood with music, while Village Recruiters got to work charming the unsigned.

The progress of himself and all these thousands was now to be stalled...by an impromptu frat party.

What an atrocity.

The party came; the party went.

King Leon—after a bit of socialising, after a chugging contest—retreated to a command tent, outside of which stood a hooded figure, who gave him a high five. As the two entered, soldiers surrounded the tent's perimeter.

In the time it took to devise a terrible plan, a soldier opened the tent flap and blew a trumpet, the blaring noise bringing the music and celebration to its end.

“Gather up and listen to The King’s orders!”

When The King emerged, he cast a severe gaze on the crowd chowing on their pork ribs and sipping their Wolfblood Soup.

“There are troubles ahead, but in the eyes of those here, I see enough bravery and strength to overcome them...”

The King's speech outlined that he'd need about four or five hours to gather a force to defeat the monster horde. In the meantime, the low-level players would fulfil the crucial role of preventing The Wolf Emperor from bolstering his numbers. With members of his kingdom organising them, they would attack critical wolf dens that had yet to be converted into Sentience. He emphasised that only the players here could achieve this, for his own troops would trigger the Sentience, falling for The Wolf Emperor's malevolent plans. By fighting against the beast, these new players joined the mission of The Empire of The People, proving to the watching world that world could not neglect the heroism of all its citizens, rich or poor, towering or small.

The newbies, their spirits already lifted by the boozing, were at once enraptured by the grand rhetoric. Never would they have expected to be caught up in such a massive quest so soon. How thrilling!

In a discrete spot outside the fortress, where its wall cast a shadow from two of Saana's three moons, Henry'd been maximising the use of the time wasted by the party to practise a mix of spear, rapier, and spell-casting drills, pulling these tools also out of the cob-webbed recesses of his career. Overhearing the 'king's' speech, he threw down a spear in anger, the pole clattering off the dry soil.

"Pure drivel," he swore.

Triggering Sentience could be a problem, sure, but not when the level gap was this huge – otherwise, Henry wouldn’t have done it himself with the boars. The force Leon had brought along had been more than sufficient to slay the over-sized wolf.

Even now, with the monster having retreated to the forest, the 'King' could just call over a couple thousand more troops. Splitting them into groups of 50, he could have them spread out through the zone. When one group encountered the big furry bastard, they could focus on containing it while the rest of the troops converged to their location. Badabing, badaboom, the problem would be solved, twenty minutes max.

The 'King' possessed enough smarts to realise this. His inefficiency was intentional, a calculated manoeuvre to drum up engagement for the newbies and earn publicity. A few clips could be edited from the event and shopped around to news organisations, in turn promoting The Slum Empire and luring more idiots into the trap.

Tactics like this were how The Empire overcame the problem of being based in the slum of a Tier-0 Starting Zone with no access to resources or high-level challenges. They kept their members engaged through a strategy of polishing dirt into diamond, embellishing the local mundane happenings to compensate for their insignificance, building a system of motivation and reward parallel to the rest of the world. It was basically how a cult or a religion worked. Their event planners had become remarkably proficient at such fraud.

Henry might've admired their craftiness if he weren't now one of their victims.

Interestingly, the one masterminding today's fraud seemed to be the head honcho of The 'Empire' himself. Henry'd noticed Ramiro sneaking in while practising, the guy using what appeared to be an unaltered avatar, muscular yet chubby like a pig. The way he'd snuck in had been oddly smooth, but Henry supposed stealth skills were a necessity when trying to survive in The Slums, murderers and cannibals lurking down every alleyway.

As 'King' Leon finished up his speech inside, he handed control of the operation over to an underling, 'Duke' Liam, a clean-cut Arcanist who stepped forward to much applause.

Leon, after a few more heroic words, told the players to "wolf" down their meals and prepare for war. While the noobs began to chatter excitedly about the upcoming missions, he jumped on his stallion with his retinue and galloped back to The Slums, the small matter of these Level 3 Wolves way beneath their interest.

Henry spotted a chubby horseman riding off shortly afterwards in a different direction, leaving behind a trail of thick cigar smoke. As their moonlit silhouette passed under the hill with The Company's marquee tent on top, they lifted an arm towards the site and flipped it off.

Henry, able to spy upon this private act of defiance aimed at himself as much as his guild, laughed. "Interesting guy..."

Suddenly coming up with ingenious solution to these growing problems, wondering why he hadn't thought of it earlier, he pulled out a scrap of paper and scribbled down a quick note.

A short while later, the beginnings of a phoney monster-hunting operation.

In the boar fields, the trainers were gathering their students to prepare to undergo the ritual for learning the ability so they could join the campaign ASAP.

Instructor Apari, with his group, jumped when someone brushed past him, slipping their hand into his pocket.

“Wha—“

The passing figure held an index finger to the lips of his monkey mask. “Read it.”

Instructor Apari nervously pulled out a note.

'Listen, bald trainer, here's the plan. Once I've killed enough wolves to level up, you, me, and your buddy with the wagon are going to ditch everyone else and head over to the next Killing Grounds, where you're going to help me continue levelling in private.

'In return, I will give you five million (5,000,000) gold coins. Additionally, so that you don't have to worry about incurring The Union's wrath, at no extra charge, I will relocate you and your loved ones out of this dehydrated hellhole to ANY location of your choosing. Town, city, farm, forest, snow, lagoon, even a swamp - think of where and you are there.

'Signed, Bob.'

The instructor looked up, the student innocently sitting down with a boar for the ritual.

Henry, locking eyes with the teacher, gave a conspiratorial nod.

Instructor Apari, smiling, nodded back in agreement with the scheme.

Henry, convinced he'd just bought the secret level skip for this tutorial, nodded again to himself - success.

Unfortunately, he was about to fall victim to a comic misunderstanding. Henry believed the instructor, after telling him to take up claiming the boar's corpse from his friend, had met his guildmate, which would have demonstrated the trustworthiness of his word and his capability to pay out the exorbitant bribe. However, because of his impatience, he'd left the site prematurely and never learned that the instructor and the other trainers had first been kicked off by a gang of murderous thugs, whom the bald trainer mistakenly associated Henry with instead.

Instructor Apari, continuing to maintain his fake smile, mirrored the second nod, while trying his best to think of how to escape this death trap.