Emperor! Can You See Stats!?

[Eurius, 35th day of training.]

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[The Great History of Human Flight]

“Wow…”

Eurius was lying on the floor, reading a book.

It would have been a scandalous sight if Marius or other officials had seen him, but there was not even a chair in this white space, so it was a natural posture.

‘If I had just one of these F-2X fighters, I wouldn’t have to fight so hard, would I?’

He read the book with an interested expression, but soon shook his head.

‘Well, I can’t make one anyway.’

He knew that much by now. But there was plenty of inspiration to be found.

‘Even if it’s not a plane, wouldn’t it be useful to have a means of flying in the sky?’

He thought that far when he heard a familiar sound.

[Have you read enough? It’s time for training.]

Yellow Dragon appeared in the white space with a pop! 

At the same time, the surroundings changed.

Pop!

Suddenly, Eurius was standing in a gray metal room.

“Is it already that time?”

It seemed like a free space when he said he was acquiring knowledge, but his schedule was quite tight.

[0th day of training]

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[Ahem! Shall we begin?]

Yellow Dragon cleared his throat and snorted.

[This is your timetable. There is no time to rest if you want to acquire knowledge in the shortest time possible, so be prepared.]

“Timetable?”

Pop!

Something appeared in front of his eyes.

[06:00~06:30: Wake up, review]

[06:30~10:00: Watch educational materials, read books]

[10:00~12:00: Written test, rest as soon as you finish]

The morning focused on acquiring knowledge.

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[13:00~20:00: Training]

And the afternoon was like now, training for combat.

[Let’s start.]

[Simulator activated.]

Pop!

Three gray dolls appeared on the other side of Eurius. 

His task for today was to destroy them all.

Bang!

He sprang out with a terrifying speed and swung his sword, but the dolls were surprisingly agile.

Swoosh!

Eurius’s sword only cut through the air. But he was already used to it and raised his hand to point at one of the dolls.

Crackle!

A spark flew and a bolt of lightning hit the doll that had dodged it.

[…]

The remaining two dolls quickly tried to retreat, but…

Fwiiing!

Crash!

Eurius’s sword was faster by a split second. 

It pierced through two puppets at the same time.

[Stage 30 cleared]

[Proceeding to the next stage.]

“Phew…”

[Too slow. You won’t make it in time at this rate!]

Yellow Dragon shouted like a thunderbolt. 

He was not satisfied with the result. 

What Eurius was doing now was training his combat skills as a player.

[You still have a slow reaction speed, so you need to work twice as hard as others.]

“Reaction speed?”

According to Yellow Dragon, the combat power in the virtual world depended on the reaction speed. 

It was how much one could do in a short time that determined the outcome.

“Ah!”

He thought for a moment and nodded. 

He remembered his fight with Emperor Scharnos. 

He used various techniques to push Eurius back.

[This is what they call physicality. Actually, you wouldn’t need this if your aptitude was high.]

He said that this reaction speed was influenced by the player’s aptitude. That meant Eurius had no choice but to make up for it with practice.

“Hmm? But wait.”

He expressed his doubt here.

“What does this have to do with my future actions? There are no other players in this world, right?”

[That is related to ‘clearing’.]

“Grr…”

Eurius frowned. 

His fundamental question was still unresolved.

‘Why did I go back to the past?’

‘What is the reason for the system or Yellow Dragon to make me do this?’

Of course, he had no choice but to do the quests. 

Even if he stayed still, the cults and sects would pick a fight with him. 

And it seemed that his death in his previous life was also related to them.

‘I can’t just sit back and take it. They look suspicious from what they do anyway.’

And Eurius’s personal interest also played a part. 

He couldn’t help but be curious about the players since this happened.

Yellow Dragon also briefly explained it.

[The secret will be revealed as you approach clearing. And achieving that would be good for you too, not a bad thing.]

Eurius repeated the keywords briefly.

‘Player, aptitude, and clearing, huh?’

***

“…”

Soon Eurius finished his flashback.

“Emperor Scharnos?”

“Phew… I’m glad you’re safe.”

“It was really thrilling when we fell.”

The people who rode the aircraft thanked him with a look of relief. Eurius also stopped his thoughts and gave orders.

“Let’s go down for now. It seems impossible to bomb like this.”

Shwoosh.

They landed on the ground and decided to set up camp in front of Cheonmagwan. 

It was unfortunate that they couldn’t take it easily with bombing, but this place was not very dangerous or had high walls.

“It’s a shame, but we’ll have to go for a frontal assault here.”

“I agree with that idea. Let’s rest today and prepare our formation for a full-scale attack tomorrow.”

The force gathered here was not ordinary. And Eurius was there too, so it wouldn’t be too hard to take down one gate.

***

“General! It seems that Jeongdomaeng’s dogs are retreating.”

“They relied on their strange flying devices and got what they deserved.”

“Hmph!”

Sa Yeo-han let out a satisfied moan and felt awe for the sect leader after receiving the report.

‘You seem to have seen through the whole situation. Even I, the best brain of the Demon Sect, did not think of such a method.’

Saying that, he wanted to open the remaining silk pouch right away, but he held back.

“What should we do? Don’t you think we can show the righteous faction a bitter taste now?”

Meanwhile, his subordinates next to him were restless and requested a counterattack order.

“That won’t do.”

“…!?”

He shook his head and explained.

“Why should we, who have occupied the advantageous position of the castle, make an unnecessary assault? Those guys have no choice but to come this way anyway.”

“But just defending like this is…”

“Of course! The best defense is offense. I’m not ignorant of that.”

“…!?”

Saying that, he lit up his eyes. 

The leader’s scheme was indeed amazing, but he also had to live up to his nickname of Demon Brain, didn’t he? 

He already had a plan in his mind to deal a fatal blow to the enemy.

“They have to do us one more favor.”

Before he knew it, a cunning smile formed on his lips.

***

And the next morning at dawn.

“Great Leader! General! Urgent report!”

“What!”

The leaders of the Demon Slayer Unit were startled by the urgent report. 

They came out of their tents and observed the Sky Horse Tower and groaned.

“Huh…”

“How could they do such a thing?”

Eurius also came out after hearing the report and tilted his head.

“Huh?”

A huge structure that was not seen yesterday was erected in the Sky Horse Tower. 

The leaders who confirmed it could only open their mouths wide.

“A catapult?”

“Isn’t it twice as high as yesterday? And what’s with that size?”

It was a huge structure that looked like yesterday’s catapult doubled in size. 

It was an unbelievable size.

“It’s almost like a small hill, isn’t it?”

Eurius also muttered with an incredulous expression. No matter how many experts they had, could they make such a structure with manpower in one night? And with dirt?

Moreover, that dirt hill had three peaks, and they connected them with cloud bridges and placed experts on them.

“…”

“Oops!”

There was no word among the leaders when Jegal Seung-woon let out a big groan. 

He realized the intention of the Demon Sect.

“What’s wrong?”

“We have to retreat our formation right now.”

“…!?”

Before his words were over, the Demon Sect’s attack began.

Piiing!

Shooook!

Chang!

“It’s an attack from the Demon Sect!”

The experts of the Demon Slayer Unit were startled and began to fend off the arrows and hidden weapons flying at them with their weapons.

“Retreat!”

Jegal Seung-woon quickly made the experts retreat. The height of that hill was not for decoration. 

If they attacked from above, it would be hard for even decent experts to approach.

“How could they use such a method…”

He bit his lip and blamed himself for being careless. If he had known that they had such a skill, he would have launched a full-scale attack yesterday even if it was a bit risky.

And what poured down was not just arrows.

“Bring me some rocks! Let’s show those righteous bastards some heat!”

“Wow!”

The experts of the Demon Sect joined forces to bring a huge and round rock to the top of the hill.

“Watch out! Retreat further!”

Eurius, who was observing the scene from afar, drew his sword and shouted. But before he could drive away all the experts, the Demon Sect launched their attack.

“Begin!”

“Roll them! Sweep them all away!”

Rumble!

At the command of Sayeon, the experts on the hill pushed the rocks down at once.

The rock that the Demon Sect’s experts brought was bigger than a person’s height. 

It was also shaped to roll easily. And the height of the hill was almost a hundred meters!

Rumble!

Dozens of round rocks started rolling down from the hill. 

The rocks, which gained a terrifying speed, rushed towards the experts of Cheongma-dan along the road that led to the wall below the hill.

“Stop them!”

Clang clang clang

Eurius quickly erected a wall of ice to block the path of the rocks. 

At the same time, he swung his sword and smashed any rock that came close.

Crash crash crash!

But he couldn’t stop all of them at once.

Bang!

“Ugh!”

“Argh!”

“Retreat!”

The other experts also tried to stop the rocks, but it was futile. 

Dozens of them who were in the front were crushed or bounced off by the rocks and suffered serious injuries.

On top of that, arrows and hidden weapons rained down from the sky. 

The situation was completely reversed!

“Fall back! We have to recover from the damage first!”

Bang!

Thanks to Eurius and a few other experts who blocked the rocks, and other commanders who ordered a retreat, Cheongma-dan barely managed to regroup after retreating for a while.

“Grrr…”

“We were completely outsmarted.”

“It’s a disaster.”

They had been winning too easily until then, so the shock of defeat was also great.

“…”

Then, in the silence of the commanders, a resolute voice was heard.

“It’s good to blame ourselves, but shouldn’t we think about how to attack there?”

It was Jegal Seong-woon, a military man, who brought up the topic first. Of course, the others knew that too.

“Hmm…”

“The sky is blocked, and it won’t be easy to break through that hill, right?”

The reason they couldn’t speak easily was because they knew that it would be impossible to break through Cheonma-gwan with any ordinary method once that hill was built.

“…”

Eurius, who was sitting in the center, was lost in thought for a moment. Even in his eyes, the defense power of that hill was beyond common sense.

‘How did they build that hill and get those rocks? Even with wind magic?’

It was impossible to build such a fortress and prepare dozens or hundreds of rocks overnight. If that were possible, there would be no concept of siege warfare.

No, according to Eurius’s knowledge, it was theoretically possible.

‘Did they bring some heavy equipment from the Demon Sect? But how could that be…’

“Huh?”

As he thought about it, Eurius suddenly remembered something.

‘Come to think of it, I made an airship too.’

In fact, it was hard to reproduce that with this world’s technology. But he also used some tricks to make it somehow.

Surely this time the Demon Sect used a large amount of soil and rocks.

“Aha!”

Eurius finally realized what had happened.

‘It was a simple problem.’

And after finding out the reason, he could roughly guess the opponent’s next strategy. He quickly called Je Gal Seong Woon aside.

“…If the opponent has this ability, what will they do next?”

“Amazing… Not only the ability, but also a very original idea, even though they are enemies.”

He was also astonished, then thought carefully.

“…”

The answer came out soon.

“Could it be…”

“Yes.”

Eurius smiled and gave the answer.

“It seems like we have to catch the mole first on this occasion.”