I Became the Blacksmith NPC

After some careful probing and piecing together what Lonely as a Song had told him, Liu Kongkong finally got a clear picture of the current situation.

Yesterday morning, everyone had been grinding dungeons to level up, but Big Dumb Duck had suddenly led a large group of people to the Ten-Eyed Spider's location. The reason was simple — someone had tried to sneak in and kill the boss. How did the two of them find out? As the spark that ignited the first village-wide war, after the [Village War] ended, the boss had been placed under surveillance by both him and Night's Gentle Chill's people. That was precisely why the boss still hadn't had its first kill to this day.

But yesterday, a group of free players launched a sudden assault. Banking on their higher levels, they tried to quickly take down the boss and claim the first kill — only to be spotted by both sides immediately. The free player squad was sent back to the Starter Village in an instant.

However, those five players weren't pushovers. After returning to the respawn point, they were furious and started ranting at Night's Gentle Chill and Big Dumb Duck in the village.

"A bunch of pay-to-win dogs throw some money around and think they own the server? That boss belong to you? You're not killing it but you won't let anyone else either!"

They kept ranting for two hours straight, and word eventually reached Big Dumb Duck's ears. In a fit of rage, he had his people camp those players for three hours. But one of the camped players was a stubborn type — you're camping me, so what? Dying once only costs 1% EXP. What can you do to me in a game?

So he walked out of the respawn point again and again, and got killed again and again — until Big Dumb Duck's people ground him all the way from Level 10 back down to Level 1.

"A thousand times, holy hell — they were killing him every two or three seconds." Lonely as a Song had clearly been watching from the sidelines for a long time, and his description was vivid and spot-on.

Getting killed a few times might just draw spectators, but being camped all the way down to Level 1 while still shouting about pay-to-win dogs oppressing free players — after a while, many people couldn't stand to watch anymore. Gradually, more and more players joined the chorus of condemnation.

"Duck Bro is someone who cares a lot about face. The more people cursed at him, the bigger the crowd watching — so he chose to dig in and fight to the bitter end..."

Impressive. Hearing this, Liu Kongkong couldn't help but marvel at Big Dumb Duck's audacity. There were groups that dominated Starter Villages — like the Star Expedition Corps he'd seen before — but those groups had the numbers. How did someone with so few people dare to pull something like this?

"But Duck Bro has been recruiting a lot lately. When he called everyone in yesterday out of anger, he had nearly a thousand people!"

That really was quite a few... Liu Kongkong took back what he'd just thought. A thousand people, if organized and disciplined, could manage just fine as long as they weren't going up against the entire village. And from the looks of things, that was exactly the direction this was heading.

Sure enough, Lonely as a Song continued: "Once he had people behind him, he got bold. He started dragging out the loudest voices one by one and killing them — and then it just snowballed out of control..."

Still too impulsive. Liu Kongkong could easily picture it — Big Dumb Duck surrounded by a mob hurling insults at him, with hundreds or thousands of spectators standing around watching. In that kind of situation, getting someone with Big Dumb Duck's personality to back down would be nearly impossible.

As for Night's Gentle Chill — he was completely caught in the crossfire. As one of the two most well-known big spenders in Starter Village No. 0113, he'd barely been passing by and people were already taking passive-aggressive jabs at him the whole way.

He'd originally thought it best not to get involved — besides, his arch-rival Big Dumb Duck was the one in trouble, so he was practically delighted. But when he didn't react, the most aggressive hecklers assumed he was scared, and started going after his entire family!

"Hold on, everyone — what does him camping people at the respawn point have to do with me? I haven't bothered any of you in normal play, have I?" Night's Gentle Chill didn't understand. He wasn't even on Big Dumb Duck's side. The enemy of my enemy is my friend — from a certain angle, he and these free players should've been on the same side!

But asking only made things worse. Grievances big and small came pouring out. Many players jumped up to accuse him and Big Dumb Duck's people of using their numbers to steal monster kills outside, even blocking dungeon entrances and claiming the dungeons were "contracted" — pay up in game currency or you don't get in. Those players had eventually been killed by a group of free players, but the resentment had been building ever since.

"Some people from both of their groups had also been harassing female players outside. So a few people, as 'payback,' kept shoving Ye Weinuan around."

Liu Kongkong raised an eyebrow. That was probably why Night's Gentle Chill had decided to step in.

With Night's Gentle Chill joining the fray, the long-simmering tensions between both sides finally exploded. The fighting had started inside the Starter Village, but then someone tried to steal the Ten-Eyed Spider during the chaos. Both sides suspected the other, so they both rushed to the boss's location, and the battlefield shifted there. On the way over, Night's Gentle Chill and Big Dumb Duck found common ground — since their opponents were all free players, why not team up and have some fun with them?

The Ten-Eyed Spider probably never imagined that it, a level-5 boss, could cause thousands of people to beat each other bloody. At this point, the boss had stopped being about a simple first kill and its rewards — it now represented the question of who was stronger: free players or guilds.

"From yesterday afternoon until now, they've been fighting through the night, and nobody knows when it'll end." Lonely as a Song was a bit frustrated. The fighting had nothing to do with him, but now a lot of people had lost interest in running dungeons and were over there brawling, spectating, and picking up equipment dropped by dead players. "Duck Bro's Sword of Radiance even dropped, and who knows who picked it up. Because of that, a lot of people are just hanging around waiting to loot gear and sell it..."

Impressive. Liu Kongkong knew exactly how valuable that weapon was. And it was obvious this wasn't going to end as simply as the [Village War] had. Back then, both sides at least had their own leaders — if they wanted to fight or stop, the heads just needed to talk it over. But now the other side was a mob of free players with no leader at all. Even if Night's Gentle Chill and Big Dumb Duck wanted to call it off, there was no one to negotiate with.

After all his years of gaming, Liu Kongkong had to admit — he'd never seen anything like this in a Starter Village before. Other games had new-player protection, so even if conflicts arose in Starter Villages, it was just trash talk. Nothing like this game, which had only been live for a few days and was already in this state. But for him, this was good news.

Now that he understood the situation outside, he sent Lonely as a Song a new quest and got back to crafting Level 5, Level 7, and Level 10 equipment. It was almost funny — he'd originally been working on Level 15 gear, and now he was going backwards.

Throughout the process, players trickled into the blacksmith shop one by one, buying weapons and equipment ten or twenty pieces at a time. They were probably people from Night's Gentle Chill's or Big Dumb Duck's crews who were too busy to come themselves and sent subordinates to buy on their behalf.

His hammer swung until sparks flew, and by the end Liu Kongkong was regretting not having leveled up [Time Is Money] higher — producing two pieces at a time simply wasn't enough to keep up with demand!

"Looks like I'll be working overtime tonight."

* * *

By evening.

Liu Kongkong shut the shop door and collapsed into his chair. Several hours of high-intensity crafting and selling had left him a little worn out, but watching the game currency in his inventory keep climbing made it impossible to stop.

But before anything else, he still had to head over to the Village Chief's place for the meeting.

Today's meeting had nothing particularly special — the villagers' attitude toward the fighting outside was the same as before: ignore it entirely.

After paying one gold coin, Liu Kongkong marched back to the blacksmith shop with renewed determination.

"Bring it on. No matter how long you all keep fighting, I'll make sure you're supplied with weapons and equipment!"

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