A different world game? A different world game!

Warship port.

As the true core of the entire expedition team and the gathering place for all resources, the warship center, which expanded from the core, was still just as special.

Not far away, a large number of adventurers gathered.

Task Issuance Center.

You can only see this thing here, because there are almost no civilians here, only adventurers.

However, it is said that in about six months, once the development zone has stabilized and officially entered the initial development stage, the first batch of immigrants will arrive.

Anyway, there's no official news, but everyone's rumors have made it sound like a real story.

The sea breeze, carrying a salty, damp scent, blew through the spacious arched entrance and into the bustling mission release center.

Sunlight streamed through the tall windows, casting dappled shadows on the polished oak counter and the smooth stone floor.

The air was filled with the smells of sweat, leather, and faint herbs, as well as the smells of rust and seaweed wafting from the distant dock.

Adventurers, after all, there's constant fighting here, so you can't expect them to be very good at personal hygiene.

The registrar, Colm, was a lean man with dark circles under his eyes that almost reached his cheekbones.

He was holding a dip pen, writing in a flamboyant style on a huge parchment scroll, his feathers almost ruffled from shaking.

A small mountain of mission scrolls lay beside him, exuding the mixed smell of aged ink and new parchment.

A huge light screen hung behind him, densely packed with mission titles and danger level markers.

The red ones look like they're about to bleed, while the green ones are pitifully few.

These tasks scroll and refresh like a waterfall, emitting a faint hum.

"Hey! Colm, old chap, still panting?" A loud voice cut through the noise in the hall.

Daniel, an orc, pushed aside several novice adventurers who were studying the quest, and his massive body slammed against the counter with a loud thud, making the ink bottle jump.

He was still covered in rotten jungle leaves and swamp mud that hadn't been wiped off, and a strong, fishy smell wafted over you.

Colm wrinkled his nose in disgust and said with dissatisfaction, "You don't lack the money, but before you go back, can you give yourself a little cleaning spell? Don't you feel uncomfortable?"

Although he said that, his hands didn't stop. He skillfully took the wet, heavy leather bag that Daniel handed him. Inside were the teeth of some kind of sharp creature, mixed with green slime.

Only then did he begin to answer the other person's awkward question.

"I'm panting, but I'm better than you in terms of smell!"

Colm retorted irritably. He knew this old orc all too well. "The Sting Scorpion E-7 mission? Two days overtime? I knew those surveyors were writing reports in their dreams again."

"It's more than just a dream!"

Behind Daniel, the elven mage Lia rubbed her temples wearily; her usually meticulously combed silver hair was now somewhat disheveled.

"It was supposed to be a small to medium-sized scorpion nest, but it almost turned into a kingdom! The mother scorpion was laying off her young like crazy."

"And those damned acid worms, who knows where they came from. If it weren't for Colm reminding us to bring two extra 'Night Watch Special Flasks' before we left..."

She gestured as if throwing explosives, "We'd all be crushed into scorpion droppings! These days, the rations we eat on the way to and from missions are almost as much as the effort we put into fighting monsters."

She complained, her tone revealing lingering fear and deep weariness.

It's hard to believe that an elf, an elegant elf who could be described as beautiful, could speak such vulgar language.

That's the allure of adventurers, that's the allure of the Night's Watch.

"One who stays near vermilion gets stained red, and one who stays near ink gets stained black; they all learn bad habits in one fell swoop."

“Is this even a big deal?” A short figure nimbly climbed onto Daniel’s shoulder; it was the halfling scout, Pick.

While chewing on some jerky he'd somehow acquired, he yelled in a high-pitched voice, "You guys didn't see Hogg and his unlucky bunch last month! In the Sawtooth Swamp, they ran into a bunch of bone-eating pangolins. Their skin was so thick that even a neutralizer couldn't bite through a jar."

"With a 'crack,' the jar shattered, the medicine was wasted, and I still had to risk my life. These days, when you take on a mission, you not only have to bring enough money, but you also have to factor in all the monsters that might spawn along the way. It's unbelievable!"

He made a face, which drew laughter and echoed complaints from several adventurers who were also waiting to turn in or accept quests.

But there's no way around it; manpower is indeed limited right now, and there's a shortage of people everywhere, especially for night watchmen.

Colm sighed, put down his pen, shook his aching wrist, and pointed to the chilling red area at the top of the screen: "See that? There's another row of high-risk red missions compared to last month! Why?"

"Controlled area? Hmph, this territory is expanding outwards at lightning speed. In just half a month, only half a month! Before the iron flowers were even fired, the forward outposts were already almost 300 kilometers away!"

He lowered his voice, leaned closer mysteriously, and unconsciously poked the top of his head with his finger.

"Did you see that huge spark floating in the sky outside? It's the Night Watch's thing... It's all very mysterious. Ever since it started operating, those engineers have been acting like they've taken a berserk drug. I heard that even a place like 'Black Rock Pass Outpost No. 2' suddenly became active yesterday."

"Manpower? Where are we going to find manpower? Even my clerk was transferred to support the 'Iron Cliff' defense line yesterday!"

He spoke in an exaggerated tone, just as a soldier in a night watch uniform carrying a magic crystal box hurriedly ran by, accidentally bumping into Colm's stool and causing him to stumble.

"Oh my! Look at you! You're walking with a swagger!" Colm complained, rubbing his shoulder.

The Night Watchmen have been incredibly busy for the past two weeks; apparently, the global situation seems to be facing some problems.

However, they were adventurers, not Night's Watchmen, and their information was not as readily available as the Night's Watchmen's, who were not informed almost in real time.

He paused, his expression turning somewhat serious: "But to be honest, those brothers up ahead really had it tough... That void thing is too eerie."

"I heard that if you get touched by that thing, even if you drink 'holy light', it won't help! Every piece of your internal organs that gets burned away will never grow back."

"It's only been a few days, and some crazy blabbermouths are already babbling about 'doomsday countdown' on the radio? Heh..."

Colm shook his head and picked up a dirty cloth to wipe a drop of ink that had accidentally gotten on the counter.

"I used to take it as a joke, but now that I've been here for a while, it sounds like a death knell."

The clamor in the mission hall seemed to freeze for a moment, and the smiles on the faces of the adventurers around them faded.

They had all heard some rumors in the past two weeks, and some adventurers had even seen them with their own eyes.

Those void creatures.

The reason they are not well informed here is that the adventurers and night watchmen who have been fighting have not returned at all.

Instead, adventurers and night watchmen kept coming to their aid, but what returned were mostly unconscious bodies, mangled wounds, or the corpses of night watchmen.

Damn it, they had never seen rows and rows of Night's Watch corpses before.

Who knows how intense the war was there?
Moreover, according to people on a merchant ship that came from afar a few days ago, traces of those void creatures that are said to bring about the apocalypse have also appeared in other places.

The Night's Watch is fighting all over the world.

Other parts of the pioneering area.

Blackrock Pass. The frontline "fortress" of the Steel Shield Adventurers.

The wind, carrying sand and metal fragments, howled across the newly established "Black Stone Pass Pioneer Zone".

There is no salty sea breeze here, only dryness and bitterness, mixed with the lingering smoke of gunpowder from afar and a faint, almost imperceptible, smell of blood.

This is the pioneering area, a territory that some powerful adventurer groups have conquered themselves.

The Steel Shield Adventurer Group was the one who conquered this place.

The Steel Shield Adventurers' temporary base—a small fortress barely built up from metal plates, rough wood, and some locally sourced stones.

It stands in a relatively flat area inside the pass.

It's more like a large shed than a fortress, with traces of temporary welding and repaired magic pattern patches visible in many places.

They didn't need such advanced technology before.

The regimental commander, Klaus, a burly man with a scar on his face and a large frame, was leaning against a corner of the outer wall.

He wasn't wearing a helmet, and his dusty hair was blown around like weeds by the wind.

He held a small dagger in his hand, casually slicing a piece of compressed jerky as hard as a rock—a high-energy food bar supplied by the Night's Watch.

This stuff tastes bland and is good for nothing but filling your stomach.

But it's said that the Night's Watch also have special internal rations that taste much better than this. Everyone who's tried them says they're delicious. It's a pity I never had the chance to try them.

But of all this stuff, only half a truckload arrived today.

"Only two boxes of medicine were delivered. Where are the promised 'hemostatic gel' and 'secondary vitality medicine'?"

Pharmacist Leah emerged from the half-open back storeroom door, her brow furrowed, and slammed two nearly empty medicine boxes onto the ground with a clatter, raising a cloud of dust.

One of the boxes still had a label on the bottom that read "Special Medicine of the Night's Watch Merchant Guild".

"The price has gone up! That old bastard Morin from the Night Watch said it! He said that the 'City of the Rings' is giving priority to supplying the major defense zones on the front lines. Our quota here was already tight, and now we have to pay more. One unit of gel will cost an extra thirty gold coins."

Her voice rose in anger, drawing the attention of several regimental members who were maintaining their weapons nearby.

A young man, dressed more elegantly, sat on a relatively clean stone slab nearby.

He is a representative of a noble alliance, Sebastian Vickers.

He shook the gold-trimmed cuffs, trying to brush off the dust, but to little avail.

"Hmph, potions? This is nothing."

He let out a haughty snort, but his tone was more filled with resentment. "My uncle, Viscount Vickers, his fleet! On the Emerald Sea route, three ships were sunk in ten days by those purple flying serpents that emerged from the cracks! Three whole ships! The loss wasn't just money and cargo, but also manpower!"

He stomped his foot hard, kicking away the few fragments of rock-armored beast skulls stuck to his fine leather boots.

There were three ships in total. The main problem was that some of the pre-received supplies were to be transported here, and he even paid for them!
He even paid for it!

Damn Void! I don't know what the Void looks like, but damn Void!
His money is gone!
The young nobleman seemed to be holding back a lot of anger. He looked around the simple but vibrant stronghold, his gaze sweeping over the still-wet bloodstains on the walls and the rows of gleaming weapons on the racks. His tone suddenly became agitated.

"Wangdu! Those old bastards in Wangdu, what do they know! All they do is hide in their reinforced cellars with bottles of liquor! Holding their damn 'doomsday tea party'! Discussing how to hide their gold coins and valuables even deeper underground! And what they say..."

Sebastian mimicked a pretentious tone, his voice extremely sarcastic and mocking.

"Don't the Night's Watch have that flying iron ship? Their ships are bigger than castles! Let them handle it!"

He spat out a mouthful of saliva, his tone becoming increasingly angry.

"Bullshit! They don't even know what a rift looks like! Who knows which nook or cranny hasn't sprung up some contaminated stuff?"

His voice was filled with contempt and disdain for the old aristocrats in the country who held positions of power without contributing anything.

The Night's Watch has greatly disrupted the original world order. Now, all the nobles in high positions are in a precarious situation.

However, while they hated and loathed the Night's Watch, they dared not confront them at all.

On the other hand, they cannot do without the Night's Watch, purchasing large amounts of supplies and things they could not otherwise enjoy from the Night's Watch.

Young nobles like them knew of the Night's Watch's rise from a very young age.

In addition, there were the Night's Watch members scattered throughout the world, and the various novelties in the newspapers that had been published earlier.

This generation of young nobles witnessed firsthand how the Night's Watch grew step by step.

The words of elders cannot erase the truth of reality.

Year after year, day after day, the Night's Watch's propaganda about the apocalypse and protecting the world eventually influenced these young nobles.

By now, a certain mindset has already shifted within the younger generation of nobles.

This kind of thinking will torment them later, but it will also give them a new life.

Klaus stopped slicing the jerky, expressionlessly tossing the last crumb into his mouth and chewing it, making a crunching sound, as if he were grinding his teeth.

“Tell them,” he said in a deep voice with an undeniable force, “either send them supplies in real money, or send some real men from those silver-plated ‘knights’ you keep at home to help with the guard duty!”

"Stop fucking counting gold coins while clutching the magic crystal mines in your territory! Can that stuff be eaten or used as armor? Are you going to wait until that void thing crawls into their 'tea party' before you start crying? It's utterly useless!" He hadn't finished speaking.

"Whoosh—Bang!!!"

A piercing siren and a loud crash shattered the tranquility of the pass almost simultaneously.

That was the loud noise of the alloy door being violently slammed.

A desperate alarm blared from the watchtower high above: "East! A massive swarm of crystal cluster worms is coming! Captain! They've bypassed the second sentry post! We need molten explosives!"

Klaus, like an enraged bear, suddenly stood up, grabbing his massive warhammer in an instant, his metal boots sparking as he stomped on the stones.

"Everyone move!"

His roar instantly drowned out all the noise as he charged toward the door, which had just been struck and was now groaning like metal.

"Sebastian! Send the message back! Send it back word for word! Tell those old parasites—either send supplies! Or send troops! Stop hogging the toilet and waiting to die in the mines! What a load of bull, this noble honor!!"

His roar was drowned out by the violent explosion of alchemical explosives further away.

Outside the stronghold, the enormous silver-white iron flower structure that floated far away in mid-air and rotated silently was rapidly adjusting the direction of its extended energy light curtain, condensing into a more solid light that covered the east side of the stronghold.

The light flowing across the leaves swept over the wall, illuminating the dust on the faces of the team members rushing to their posts, the bloodstains that had not yet been wiped away, and the fighting spirit burning in their eyes.

Survival is always the most straightforward and hardcore rule in this pioneering area.

To protect the wealth they've worked so hard for, we'll have to use blood and flesh! (End of Chapter)