Chapter 15: The Tax of the Hana Guild

Here is the formatted text with the Korean characters replaced by suitable English gaming/internet slang equivalents:

(Bae Hojun)

[Wow, looks like we've really pissed off the admin.]

[Or maybe we've rubbed the wrong side the wrong way.]

[LMAOOOOOOOOOOO]

[Ah, I must've ticked them off too -_-]

(Jung Jiho)

[Haha...]

[Feels like the admins are using this as a chance to clean up the atmosphere.]

As soon as the notice popped up, we immediately moved the conversation to chat.

Why? Because the admins might be snooping on the party chat.

So-called surveillance.

It sounds unbelievable, but in a rotten game like this, it happens all the time.

(Bae Hojun)

[The admin made the decision alone?]

(Jung Jiho)

[A bunch of randoms suddenly rolling in are messing up the server balance.]

[They must be getting complaints from all sides, so they’re probably annoyed too.]

[Feels like we’re really on their radar, can’t even chat freely now, haha.]

(Bae Hojun)

[So what do we do now?]

[Is this their way of telling us to quit if we don't like it?]

(Jung Jiho)

[Feels like they're giving us an ultimatum.]

I was at a loss.

Given the current atmosphere, we had three options.

1. Quit because we're pissed.

2. Form our own guild and join the fight.

3. Just join another guild.

Option one hurt my pride. All the time and effort I’d put in would go to waste.

Option two was honestly the best, but the problem was...

(Bae Hojun)

[Don't you need 10 people online at once to start a guild in Another??]

(Jung Jiho)

[Yeah, that’s the problem, haha.]

Exactly.

In this cursed game, you need at least ten people online at the same time, all on different IPs, to form a guild.

(Bae Hojun)

[Should we just try recruiting people and go for it?]

[Nah, maybe that’s too hard right nowㅠㅠ]

Forming a guild ourselves would be best, but it’s just not realistic.

No matter how much people call us Another's heretics or heroes and clap in admiration, the top rankers are already settled in the huge guilds.

Anyone who’d join us would be clueless newbies, mediocre lowbies, or, at best, alts of those rotten veterans.

(Jung Jiho)

[We don’t really have enough standing to make a guild, haha.]

[Even if we barely manage to gather enough people to form one,]

[If we don’t meet the requirements for guild war, it’s all for nothing...]

(Bae Hojun)

[Don’t you also need at least 5 top rankers for guild war??]

[Seriously, what is this,]

[They’ve really stacked things against us.]

So in the end, option three—joining another guild—was the only way.

No one had to say it, but we all knew it. The chat went silent for a while.

“Man, this sucks. We can’t just do PKs without the guild war benefits, either.”

The scale was too big to ignore.

On the Another server, once two major guilds have stabilized after the season starts, the guild war event begins.

Once a week, usually on a busy weekend evening.

The winning guild gets prize money, items, and exclusive access to the victory guild dungeon.

The best part is the guild dungeon access.

Everyone calls it Guildun.

It’s an exclusive dungeon you can monopolize for a week, with way more EXP than normal hunting grounds. Even better, EXP is distributed automatically based on each member’s level.

So, you can power-level even a brand-new level 1 character fast.

Plus, the map is straightforward and packed with mobs. Aside from rare drops only coming from bosses or named monsters, it’s the best hunting ground where you can level safely, with no worries about PK.

In fact, it's especially useful for low-level users rather than high-level ones.

But a guild's real power comes from its mid- and low-level members.

Besides, Monster World's guild war is a points system, so the power of low-level users can't be ignored.

Numbers matter, so guild masters have to maintain a strong core of mid- and low-level members.

“Guildun benefits are insane, and now they’re adding new perks on top of that...”

The new perk is a Shop Sale Card.

If you have one in your inventory, you can buy anything in the in-game shops at 50% off.

Well, considering how broken this game is, the stuff you can buy is limited. Mostly regular armor, weapons, and potions.

But potion prices make a huge difference in gameplay.

Especially for people like us who mainly focus on PK.

(Bae Hojun)

[Really want that Sale Card.]

[Struggling to afford potions latelyㅠㅠ]

(Jung Jiho)

[50% off is such a big deal.]

The Sale Card doesn’t just fuel motivation for guild wars, it also gives a huge boost to players’ struggling finances… It’s basically a ray of light.

For people like us, who have nowhere else to lean on and do frequent PKs, it’s an essential item.

(Kwon Aran)

[Early on, PK drains your potion money like crazy, lol.]

Because data resets every season, Another is starved for cash at the start.

Like most games, the only way to get money is by hunting.

We scrape by selling the little money and junk items dropped by monsters.

Later in the season, money flows freely, but in the early days, when fights are constant, money is vital.

(Jung Jiho)

[The numbers here are totally different from the main server.]

[Every fight burns through twice as many potions, haha.]

(Kwon Aran)

[I’m honestly dying here these days...]

They say PK is really just a battle of potion supplies for a reason.

(Bae Hojun)

[Doesn’t the winning guild also collect shop tax in guild war??]

[Do they still share that with guild members?]

(Jung Jiho)

[I checked, and apparently, they do, haha.]

Guild wars in MonWorld are occupation battles.

Whichever guild occupies more and holds longer in a dedicated map wins.

If you think of guild wars as classic fantasy-style sieges, well… MonWorld isn’t like that. It’s just a huge brawl in a special map.

Tax is one of the basic guild war perks.

The winning guild receives a portion of all shop profits in the town of Bijert as tax for a week, which becomes guild funds.

(Bae Hojun)

[Oh? Didn’t one guild skim off those taxes before?]

[They exchanged it for cash and split it up among themselves, lol.]

(Jung Jiho)

[That was Guild Hana, haha.]

“Wow. What a trashy guild.”

(Jung Jiho)

[Because of that, they suspended the tax system for a while before bringing it back.]

[I think those accounts got banned and even had to write a letter of apology?]

(Bae Hojun)

[That’s right, lol.]

[I heard the admin was super pissed off back then.]

Can’t blame them. It was supposed to support the guilds, and they abused it.

As Monster World’s terms state, real-money trading between users is strictly forbidden.

If you get caught, it’s a permanent account ban.

Of course, there are shady ways, but no one does it openly.

It’s an official rule, so even the infamous veterans with clout would cower before the admin in those moments, according to Jiho.

(Bae Hojun)

[Anyway, this is bad.]

[We’re at our limit with potion costs, tooㅠㅠ]

We desperately needed a Sale Card, but there was no way to get it in our situation.

Guild war participation is only open to members of eligible guilds.

The only eligible guilds right now are Karma and Hana.

Realistically, we can't form our own guild now.

To get a Sale Card, we’d have to join one of those two.

“Should we just join a guild?”

Even Ro was wrestling with the idea.

If we had to join, Karma sounded like the better choice.

But we’d made a vow to play as outlaws without a guild, and giving up on that now would be a huge blow to our pride.

So all our grumbling was just jokes in the end.

But given the situation, each of us had to seriously consider it.

“Ah, if only Karma had offered to recruit us a little later... Maybe I would’ve thought it over seriously…”

Not that it would’ve mattered. We’d turned down a couple offers before, each time with a firm refusal.

They’re not desperate for us, and they have their pride, so I doubt they’d try to recruit us again.

“What a shame, really...”

Anyway, we dove back into grinding.

[Party] Chungeun: From today, I’m in vacuum mode.

[Party] Chungeun: Jiho, you kill everything.

[Party] Chungeun: I’m going to pick up every last bit of junk in the corners.

[Party] Chungeun: That’s the only way we’ll be able to afford potions for you and Happy...

[Party] Happy: A h...ㅠㅠㅠ

[Party] Ro: This is so sad.

[Party] Ro: I’ll hunt even harder because of it.

Jiho hunted mobs—and even people—without mercy.

“Yeah… if we can’t have it, we’ll just destroy it...”

I was so down that I debuffed every player I saw, just causing chaos.

We almost got back into the thrill of PK, but… we were starting to lose in terms of numbers.

Mid-level new faces from the desert began to trickle up.

At first, we held out with skill, but soon each guild’s numbers began to overwhelm us.

Eventually, even skill alone couldn’t keep up.

[Party] Happy: Wow, I really can’t hold out anymore.

[Party] Happy: I could handle one party, but with both Karma and Hana here, it’s too much...

[Party] Chungeun: I just get steamrolledㅠㅠ

[Party] Ro: Hm, is this as far as we go...?

[Party] Chungeun: I don’t think we can move up anymore.

[Party] Happy: Yeah, this really feels like our limit.

[Party] Chungeun: Still, thanks to you two, I had a blast, lol.

[Party] Happy: We owe you too, lol.

[Party] Ro: If it weren’t for you, Happy and I would’ve been dragged out of the desert, haha.

[Party] Chungeun: You guys doing next season??

[Party] Ro: I’m in.

[Party] Happy: Me too, count me in.

[Party] Chungeun: Oh, good good good.

[Party] Ro: Down below, we’ve got Inspector and Pineapple.

[Party] Chungeun: Inspector down.

[Party] Happy: Apple ran.

[Party] Happy: But isn’t next season still a ways off???

[Party] Ro: True.

[Party] Chungeun: You guys play anything else?

[Party] Happy: Not really, lol...

[Party] Ro: I play FPS, haha.

[Party] Ro: Hope dashed.

[Party] Chungeun: Virtual reality?

[Party] Chungeun: Ah, Hope, that loserㅡㅡ

[Party] Ro: Nah, on PC...

[Party] Chungeun: Hm, want to try VR while we’re at it???

Having gotten along so well, we started talking about other games for next season.

When Chungeun suggested a VR game, I was actually tempted.

The three of us had already accepted the limits of this season, so we were seriously considering buying VR capsules.

That’s when it happened.

[Party] Chungeun: Huh? Just got a whisper from Manager Go.

“Manager Go? He’s the type who keeps work and play totally separate, what’s up? Looking for an alliance?”

It was a three-way battle, and Karma seemed to be falling a bit behind Hana due to a lack of active members.

[Party] Chungeun: He’s asking if we can have a temporary ceasefire and form an alliance??

I figured as much and grinned.

But Manager Go’s offer seemed a bit more specific.

[Party] Chungeun: ??? He’s asking if he can join our party for a bit????

[Party] Happy: What’s this, kinda scary.

[Party] Ro: Right?

We were surprised, but accepted Manager Go’s request.

It’d be more efficient for him to talk directly with us than relay everything through Chungeun.

[Manager Go has joined the party]

[Party] Manager Go: hihihihi

[Party] Manager Go: Nice to meet you, Happy and Ro.

[Party] Manager Go: I’d appreciate it if you could listen to my offer while PKing!

Manager Go came in cheerfully and got straight to the point.

[Party] Manager Go: You three saw the guild war announcement, right?

[Party] Manager Go: So I’ll get right to it. Would you guys consider joining Karma?