NOVEL WEB Chapter 288: Guinevere the Beast, Captured!
\[Due to your consecutive victories over several powerful opponents in the arena, your total winning streak for "Relentless Advance" has now reached 78 wins.]
\[Due to your unyielding willpower, you defeated a formidable enemy while gravely injured in a prolonged battle. "Relentless Advance" has triggered: your Endurance has increased by one rank, and your skill "Bravery in Desperation" has risen from Rank B to Rank A.]
\[Your current base stats are: Strength B, Agility B, Endurance A, Mana C, Luck C]
\[Skill: Bravery in Desperation · A]
\[The closer you are to death, the closer you approach the true essence of martial prowess. All your attributes increase based on the severity of your injuries. At the same time, you're more likely to break through your limits in battle, elevating your combat skills to a higher level.]
\[When near death, you gain damage reduction, increased health and stamina regeneration, and can continue fighting for a short time even after receiving a fatal blow.]
\[Additionally, thanks to the effects of Bravery in Desperation, during your battle with the fairy Fionn, you felt a faint sense of an opportunity to advance your skill "Supreme Style: My Own Way" to an even higher level.]
\[Due to your unprecedented ten-win streak in the arena, your prestige level in Edinburgh has risen, and you have gained the respect of the Northern Fairy Army.]
\[After that day's battle in the arena, you remained unconscious for a full day and night.]
\[When you woke up, you found all your wounds completely healed—apparently the result of the medical fairies' tireless efforts while you were unconscious.]
\[After some thought, you decided to seek out Nochnare to formally resign your role as Chief Researcher of the Phantom Factory and request to be reassigned into the military ranks.]
\[You've come to realize your deep fondness for battle, and you hope for more exhilarating fights in the future.]
\[Nochnare accepted your request and granted you the authority to freely select soldiers from the Northern Fairy Army to form your own vanguard unit.]
\[Following this, you moved into the Northern Fairy Army barracks.]
\[Thanks to your astonishing performance in the arena, you were immediately respected upon arriving at the Northern military camp. No fairy dared to trouble you.]
\[In the days that followed, rather than rushing to form your vanguard unit, you participated in the Northern Fairies' daily training. You trained alongside their soldiers and frequently challenged those whose attributes surpassed your own.]
\[During this time, your "Relentless Advance" win count continued to grow.]
\[Meanwhile, through frequent sparring, you quickly built strong bonds with soldiers of the Northern Fairy Army—particularly with Fionn and Diarmuid.]
\[A week later, your total wins reached 89, and your Strength and Mana each increased by one rank.]
\[Your current base stats are: Strength A, Agility B, Endurance A, Mana B, Luck C]
\[However, to your disappointment, even as your stats increased to the point where further victories no longer added to your win count, you still failed to grasp the advancement of the Supreme Style you once sensed.]
\[Meanwhile, Nochnare often visited the barracks to inspect the troops, frequently calling you aside to ask about military strategy.]
"Look at this—it's a military manual I collected, supposedly drifted here from Proper Human History. But I can't understand the script. I've heard it's from an ancient Eastern nation in Proper Human History. So far, even my human translators have only deciphered a small portion. Guinevere, do you recognize this?"
Then, as Nochnare handed over the volume of The Art of War, Guinevere fell silent.
...
\[You asked Guinevere to help decipher the ancient tome from Proper Human History. To your great surprise, the strange characters in the book turned out to be Guinevere's native language.]
\[With Guinevere's help, you quickly understood the remaining content of The Art of War.]
\[Your quest "Decipher the Former Queen's Ancient Text" is now 100% complete. Quest reward will now be issued.]
\[Your skill "Queen's Pact" has increased to Rank A+. You have unlocked additional formation modes.]
\[Formation: "Forest" unlocked. Formation: "Fire" unlocked. Formation: "Shadow" unlocked.]
Finally, it's done…
Looking at the newly expanded skill list, Nochnare let out a long sigh of relief.
Thanks to Guinevere, this personal quest that had troubled her through many simulation runs was now finally complete.
Yet The Art of War was not, as Nochnare had claimed, a drifted text from Proper Human History. Quite the opposite—it had belonged to the previous Northern Fairy Queen, Mab.
She had no idea where Mab had acquired it, but when Nochnare found the book among Mab's relics, the system immediately issued the quest to decipher it, with the reward being an upgrade to her "Queen's Pact" skill.
Originally, "Queen's Pact" was far weaker and limited in function. For one, applying the "My Beautiful Warrior" buff to her subordinates could sometimes be resisted by those with anti-magic traits. Moreover, although the buff greatly increased offense and defense, it also came with a debilitating skill seal, which gave Nochnare constant headaches.
She had once drawn a minor enhancement from a previous successful simulation: as long as the target agreed, she could bypass resistance and contract with them, even issuing some limited commands.
But the skill's overall usability was still middling—her enemies would never agree to a pact, and the sealed-skill debuff made things worse.
That all changed when she triggered the ancient text quest and received partial rewards early, which overrode her old skill. With the enhanced Queen's Pact, it finally became powerful:
Wind Formation accelerated movement, Mountain Formation enhanced defense, and Thunder Formation pierced invincibility.
Now, with three new formations unlocked, her army had gained three additional tactical options.
But with formations sorted, Nochnare naturally turned her focus to another avenue for strengthening her forces:
The Palball assembly line factory.
This brings up another key aspect of "Queen's Pact"—the power to grant magical energy.
To the fairies living in Edinburgh, this ability merely appeared to grant strength and the identity of "Royal Kin."
While not incorrect, that was only part of the truth. Every fairy granted the Royal Kin status, along with their own power and that granted by Nochnare, would feed that power back to her, becoming the source of her strength.
Ordinarily, this effect only applied to fairies, and only if they respected and pledged loyalty to Nochnare.
But with the Palballs in the picture, the entire concept changed.
Unlike a certain pair of hopeless idiots, Nochnare saw immediately the military value these balls offered: they allowed her to share power with monsters—and receive feedback in return.
With enough Palballs, her power would surge dramatically. And the monsters empowered by her formations would become a formidable force, potentially matching the combined might of the Woodworth Fairy Alliance.
And as luck would have it, Edinburgh was never short on productivity.
While Guinevere remained active in the barracks, the first wave of Palball factories had completed production. Over 10,000 Palballs had been created in a short time.
...
\[After the successful mass production of Palballs in Edinburgh, Nochnare quickly distributed them to the entire hunting force and personally led an expedition east of Edinburgh for a new round of monster capturing.]
\[This time, her targets expanded from four-legged riding beasts to all mana-bearing monsters.]
\[You were, of course, invited to join her in this new capture campaign to bolster Edinburgh's forces.]
\[However, you declined, still intoxicated by the thrill of training and sparring with Diarmuid, Fionn, and the others at the camp.]
\[One day, after exhausting sparring matches with both Diarmuid and Fionn, you received an urgent message from Artoria and her companions, begging to meet you immediately.]
\[Without resting, you rushed toward their royal palace residence.]
\[But on the way, passing through a narrow alley, you were ambushed.]
\[Still fatigued from recent intense battles, you failed to react in time and were struck by the first blow.]
\[Though not severely wounded, the moment you heard the familiar sound effect and saw a red sphere splitting in half before you, you realized resistance was no longer an option.]
\[The attack had come too suddenly. You didn't even see the faces of your assailants before it hit.]
\[Your final memory before losing consciousness was of that red orb hurled toward you.]
\[You vaguely recognized it: a top-tier Palball.]
\[A flash of light engulfed you. Then, nothing.]