Story starts out with the the players in Hermes' army looking at the Arpen Castle/Palace, encouraging each other and raising their morale (ex: talking about how much loot they are going to get, how the opponents are just newbies, etc.). Deuraka, the commander of the the First Northern Subjugation Army (with his voice amplified by Shaman wind magic) declares he wants to duel with Weed. Deuraka thinks back about the report which the Hermes guild intelligence division gave which analyzed all of Weed's skills and concluded that the chances of Weed winning are less than 20% (although they are still unsure if Weed got anything from his time traveling quest). In preparation for the duel, Deuraka was given the highest quality armor, the blessing of one of the top priests in the continent, and a dark magic buff by shaman that took 7 hours to prepare. The Arpen players talk among themselves about who's going to win the duel and one of them mentions how Deuraka has the title Lord of the Lake (?), how he has won a duel against the leader of the Templar Knights (or he is one of the leaders, idk), etc. To Deuraka’s disappointment, Weed doesn’t appear and a level 430 warrior named Kamon (?) steps out instead. Kamon gets his ass handed to him and is killed quickly. More Arpen players step out to duel with Deuraka, but they all fail. After 10 overwhelming duels, Deraka declares if Weed doesn’t step out, the Haven army will attack and crush the kingdom. After waiting for a minute, Deuraka orders his army to move forward. (Editor’s note: The combat here is confusing and it’s hard to tell which side is doing which action). The Arpen players rush towards the Haven army, but they are devastated by ranged counterstrike that the Haven army gives (AoE fire magic as well as volleys of arrows). Those who managed to survive the ranged barrage then collide with a shield wall composed of Haven’s armoured infantry, which immediately crushes them. The battle is going badly for the Arpen side and Hermes players confidently declare that the battle is already over.
Hess Tiger is in the palace (?) looking at the armies (I believe this is set a little bit in the past before the two armies started fighting). He remarks how although there are a lot of soldiers, they are all pretty weak and fairly untrained. He compares it to his time (right after Weed killed the dragon) when the presence of the Desert Warriors will cause the morale of the enemy soldiers to plummet to rock bottom. In fact, they were so infamous that the enemy army would sometimes break down from desertions or internal rebellions (because they don’t want to fight the desert warriors).
Hess wonders if he should just use the time he has been given to wander like the wind, going around and enjoying life in the world, despite of Weed’s orders. He watches the 10 duels with little interest (in the past, Hess has reached level 869 due to all of his adventures) and watches the two armies start fighting. He has just made up his mind to leave to distant places (he wants to explore the ocean which he hasn’t seen before?) but then hears the cry of a little Arpen girl calling out for her dad. Because of the devotion the Arpen subjects has for their King, they willingly took up arms against the invaders. However, the place where the little girl’s dad was standing (he was an archer) was devastated by the Haven army’s magical attacks. The Haven army immediately follows up with more attacks, completely killing the people in the area who survived the first strike. This rouses Hess’ wrath and regret, his wrath because the Haven army was targeting the fallen and the injured, and his regret for not following Weed’s orders. He rebukes himself for doubting Weed and decides to take up arms, summoning his sword and armor. Normally, the resurrection skill wouldn’t be able to bring back Hess’s equipment. However, his equipment was given to him by the High Elves and the forest trees (?) still remember him, his armour and swords which kept by the woods were sent to him through the power of the fairies (the woods and the fairies also greet him).
Scene switches to Pale’s group who are still digging up treasure. Because they were buried in the ground for 600 years, all of the treasure was in a really bad state. They were currently useless right now, but it may be possible to restore them with the ability of an extremely skilled blacksmith (they’re all lvl 450+ equipment). Tired and bored of digging up treasure, the group decides to head to the Arpen palace to help, but Bel (the bard. I’m just shortening her name since google trans says “Belt” right here) remarks on how they would never reach there in time. Zephyr thinks about it for a moment and sighs, mentioning how they could ask Weed’s sister to teleport them there (although the teleportation is essential, Zephyr knows that he’ll be nagged at a lot by Weed’s sister).