Ramen, Guild War, and PatchNote’s Quirks

I pulled the hood of my padded jacket deep over my head and, as if possessed, headed for the ramen aisle.

‘I’m not usually someone who only eats ramen, but when I actually think about cooking something, laziness just washes over me.’
‘Ramen is a complete food, so it’s fine.’

‘It has carbohydrates and fat, and you can get salt from the sodium, right?’

I stood in front of the ramen aisle, contemplating which ramen to get.

‘Ramen varieties are so diverse these days; it’s hard to choose.’
As I gathered ramen into my supermarket basket, my phone, which I had casually shoved into my pocket, vibrated.

‘What is it? Was there someone who would call me?’
I tilted my head slightly and checked my phone.

[Mrs. Jung]

…Damn it. It had to be a call from Mrs. Jung.
I bit my fingernail, pressed the call button, and Mrs. Jung’s voice came through the speaker.

– Why are you answering now?

“—I was doing something for a bit… What’s up?”

– What were you doing?

“—I was grocery shopping.”

While exchanging trivial conversation with Mrs. Jung, my eyes quickly scanned the ramen aisle.
‘Ah, this one was delicious when I tried it last time. Should I buy this?’

– Really? Make sure you eat well. Don’t just eat ramen. Instant food isn’t good for your body.

“—Oh, I know. I was buying ingredients to cook at home.”

It was a lie.
I would eat ramen today.

Of course, I would eat ramen tomorrow, and the day after that too.
I quickly put my pre-selected ramen into the basket and headed to the checkout with an indifferent expression.

– When are you coming home?

“—Um… I’ll drop by sometime soon.”

– Come and stay for a few days. I made oxtail soup.

“—Okay.”

– Alright, son, you know Mom loves you, right?

“—Of course.”

I picked up the bag after paying and left the supermarket.
As soon as I exhaled, my breath misted, and I looked down at my phone, which had disconnected.

I hadn’t done anything particularly bad, but I somehow felt heavy in my stomach.
I dragged my weary steps home, tossed the bag casually in the kitchen, then pulled out a packet of ramen and crushed it.
Normally, I would have cooked it, but I wasn’t in the mood right now.

I mindlessly chewed the bite-sized pieces of ramen and turned on my computer.
The booting felt unusually slow today.

Instead of immediately logging into Frisia, I went to the free board and checked the comments on my post one by one.
No Hanbit Guild members were particularly noticeable.

‘What’s going on? There’s absolutely no reaction.’

‘Did I overreact?’
‘It’s too quiet for them to be planning a second war, involving other guilds too.’

Crunch, crunch,

the sound of ramen being finely crushed in my mouth spread through the quiet room.
And then I understood why they had been silent on the free board.

‘No one’s here.’

It meant exactly that.
No guild members were logged in.

Most of them were adult office workers, but they were all hardcore gamers, so there was usually at least one person online whenever I logged in.
‘This was the first time I had seen such an empty guild window.’

[Beta Noona.]

[If no one’s logged in, what happens to the guild war?]

[Im Hyerin: It just doesn’t proceed until they log in, I guess.]

[Im Hyerin: We have to kill them to get points, but if no one’s on, we can’t get points.]

[Really?]

[So Hanbit is staying quiet?]

[I’m the only one logged in right now.]

[Friend PatchNote has logged in.]

[Guild member PatchNote has logged in.]

[Oh, one more appeared.]

‘Look at the timing.’
‘I never imagined he’d log in right after I did.’
‘This guy must really have nothing to do either.’

[Guild/PatchNote: Hello.]

[Guild/DontOrderMe: Hi hi.]

[Guild/PatchNote: Um…]

[Guild/PatchNote: I’m going to Iskaria, wanna come with me?]

[Guild/DontOrderMe: Shall we?]

Unlike my worry that he would cause trouble again as soon as he arrived, PatchNote simply requested a party quietly.

I smiled contentedly at his calm and peaceful demeanor and immediately accepted the party.
Just as we were about to form an Iskaria public party, a system message appeared at the top of the chat window.

[<System> The guild [ArrogantFire] declares war on the guild [RunawayTrain].]

[Party/PatchNote: Uh…]

[Party/DontOrderMe: ? What are they?]

‘Their guild name isn’t exactly easygoing either, huh?’

(5)

[Shout/YongYongYou’llDie: It’s a festival!!! Sound the trumpets!!!!]

[Shout/UniversityTuition: Runaway is a guild specializing in guild wars???]

[Shout/WhyTwoTexts: Why is it typing twice? Why is it typing twice?]

[Shout/Soulless: Look at their guild names LOLOLOLOLOL. So funny LOLOLOLOLOL.]

I pulled out my phone, notified the guild group chat that a war had broken out, then immediately sent a message to PatchNote.

[Party/DontOrderMe: First, let’s beat those guys up, then we can go to Iskaria.]

[Party/PatchNote: I’ll ask my acquaintances to report their location.]

[Party/DontOrderMe: I’d appreciate that.]

First, given our small number of logged-in members, we were definitely outnumbered.
No matter how much we raged, there was no winning against being ganged up on.

In situations like this, there’s no strategy as useful as guerrilla warfare, but I don’t know if they’ll just fall for it.
PatchNote seemed to be thinking the same, as he posted a message confirming the enemy guild members’ location.

[Party/PatchNote: They’re all gathered in their guild house.]

[Party/PatchNote: They seem to know that our numbers are low.]

[Party/DontOrderMe: Cowardly bastards.]

‘No, not cowardly.’

‘Rather, it’s an advantage.’
‘Last time, it was whatever, but now PatchNote, the peak of firepower, is sober, isn’t he?’

[Party/DontOrderMe: Come into voice chat.]

[Party/DontOrderMe: The one we used last time.]

I entered the voice chat room and immediately turned on my microphone, waiting for PatchNote to join.
If the strategy, or rather, non-strategy, forming in my mind worked?

Destroying a guild with just the two of us would be no problem.
Eventually, I heard the chime indicating PatchNote had entered voice chat, and I opened my mouth.

“—From now on, the two of us will quickly end this war.”

– The… two of us?

“—Yes. Just the two of us.”

The biggest drawback of Frisia’s guild wars was that the first side to reach 10,000 points won.
At first glance, 10,000 points might not seem like a drawback, but if you think about it closely, it’s different.

First, the points gained per kill were 50. For guild executives or the guild master, it was 100 and 500 respectively.
This meant that if you killed the guild master 20 times, the game ended.

Also, due to the nature of guild wars, the PK system was forcibly applied to all users belonging to the guild.
Because of this, users who desired peaceful gameplay would sometimes leave the guild mid-war, disliking the conflict.

If you just forced them to fight a guild war, well.
Would people who purely wanted to enjoy the game stay?

“—As you know, the kill points given for PK are all the same. No matter how good their specs are or how strong they are, they give the same amount of points as a newbie who just started the game.”

We used teleportation to move to the area where the enemy guild’s guild house was located.
I positioned PatchNote behind me, following my orders, and continued speaking.

“—They know that too, so they’ve gathered their guild members in the guild house and aren’t letting them out. If they knew our side was short on numbers, they’d be even more inclined to do so. They’ve probably even set up separate revival points close to the guild house for quick backup, even if they die, focusing on tanks that can endure.”

– Only their core guild members would have their guild house as a revival point, then. Mainly tanks who can endure.

“—That’s right. So we’re going to dump a few of our widest-range and strongest damage skills, then immediately bail to create cooldown time.”

– I’ll get ready right away.

The moment PatchNote finished speaking, a series of flashy buff effects exploded around his character.
At the blinding radiance, I unconsciously curved my lips into a gentle smile.

“—Money truly is good, isn’t it…”

– What?

“—Nothing…”

Unless he was a healer, how many buff skills would a DPS have?

The effects that just exploded were buffs that could only be purchased with real money from the cash shop.
Moreover, they were area-of-effect buffs that applied to all party members nearby.

“—Attack power and critical hit increase… Wow, that’s really too much of a waste…”

– It’s not much.

“—Even if it’s not much, a waste is a waste. What are they to deserve real-money buffs…?”

Isn’t it human psychology that even if you have several stacks of 99 consumables, you still feel it’s a waste when you actually try to use one?
That’s why I don’t use consumables much.

“—Let’s just mess them up first, then think. Since it’s come to this, I hope they release a guild war patch. It’s too garbage.”

– Hmm… Won’t they do it after this guild war ends? If they don’t after two people completely obliterated an entire guild, they’ll definitely get a lot of flak.

PatchNote’s low chuckle reached my ears.
I scratched my ear from the somewhat ticklish feeling, then nodded, agreeing with his words.

‘Indeed, it was a situation where a major patch couldn’t be avoided.’

I twisted the corner of my mouth, looking at the flurry of attack skills that seemed to burst through the monitor.

‘We’ll win more easily than I thought.’

After breaking through their front line with PatchNote’s burst damage, I turned around and dealt with the enemy’s ranged DPS line one by one.
Even a Berserker in a coffin class isn’t scared of ranged DPS if they have real-money buffs!

While delivering combos, if a target fell, I immediately attacked another nearby enemy to keep the combo from breaking.

After taking down a good number of enemy guild members and seeing the points accumulate, I immediately gave PatchNote the order to retreat.