The Overlord of Blood and Iron (WN)
Chapter 29: Gathering the Punitive Force (2)

What to do…?

Kang Chul-In, even on Earth, as he got in his Mustang and headed towards his home, was preoccupied with trying to come up with a solution to that problem.

Nothing is impossible. There must be a way…

If it doesn’t work, make it work, even by force, under any circumstances. It was like Kang Chul-In’s motto.

If it doesn’t work, I need to make it work… I must… make it work… wait!

At that moment, Kang Chul-In opened his eyes wide at the sudden thought that crossed his head.

Low level?

Then, he could grow the adventurers’ levels enough to hunt the Peacock Dragon. Different from the humans in Pangaea, the dimension travelers’ growth is incomparably fast!

“I found a way.”

Kang Chul-In smiled.

Why did Kang Chul-In decide to use the help of the adventurers?

In order to solve this mystery, it was necessary to think of the relationship between a Lord and the adventurer.

There were 300,000 dimension travelers that responded to the Great Summoning,

Among them were 300 Lords.

The 299,700 remaining were called adventurers.

The relationship between the Lords and adventurers were much like symbiosis. One needed the other to survive. It could be called a ruler and subject relationship and sometimes, a client/customer relationship as well.

However, the dimension travelers were special (enough to be summoned from Earth) and therefore had faster rates of growth, which made it possible to expect tremendous growth.

Lords often joined hands with adventurers to target dungeons or ruins as well as to participate in monster subjugations. Sometimes, they invited adventurers they connected well with to come settle their territories as subjects.

There were even Lords with exceptional business mindsets that created businesses such as motels, restaurants, and even prostitution bars and opened them up to adventurers, gaining immense profit.

For various reasons, Lords associated with adventurers from Earth and exchanged for items they needed. The relationships with the adventurers were crucial for one’s growth into a strong Lord.

Therefore, even the Kang Chul-In who was extremely independent aimed to establish a strong relationship with the adventurers in this lifetime and recruit some useful individuals.

It’s not a bad plan. If I were to train them quickly, we could take on the Peacock Dragon.

It would obviously be a struggle, but the result would not be horrible.

At the very least, Kang Chul-In himself was confident that he would survive, so there were no big problems.

Gather the adventurers and teach them in a short, fast-paced course…. If I were to set the time to about 2 weeks… the remaining week I can use to hunt the Peacock Dragon.

When he came up with a plan, the rest followed.

With a plan, it was obvious that he would put it to action right away, so Kang Chul-In went home right away, turned on his Macbook, and turned on “World”, the world’s biggest online community.

World was a website that a young businessman from America created. Much like Facebook, Twitter, and Google, it had various functions and accessibility that allowed it to grow almost immediately into the world’s largest community.

Kang Chul-In’s idea was to use World’s community to gather the adventurers that usually worked in the Pandemonium area.

It was because World was a site where English-speaking dimension travelers all around the world used to exchange information.

Hm… what ID…?

He thought for a brief moment, remembered his ID, and pressed the login button.

- ID: Overlord

- Password: **********

As soon as the page appeared, he opened a category.

As soon as he clicked the large category named “Great Summoning”, he clicked on the subcategory called “Location” and then “Pandemonium”.

[Information Exchange] Organization of Monsters in Pandemonium

[Trade] Selling Level 15 Defense armor

[Recruiting] Looking for teammates

[Recruiting] Adventurers with hunting experience

Among the various types of posts, he could not find any similar posts. It probably was because it was regarding Pandemonium, which was far off from Pangaea’s mainland and therefore did not have many adventurers in the first place.

Okay.

Kang Chul-In liked that there were few posts.

If it were the mainland category, it would be blowing up. Almost all of the 300,000 dimension travelers would be in the mainland category.

Should I create some interest?

In order to gather the adventurers, he needed to write a post and generate interest.

Kang Chul-In knew better than anyone how to grab the attention of the adventurers.

First, Kang Chul-In took off the set of green bracelets that were on his wrists, took a picture of them with his iPhone, uploaded them to the network, and wrote the post.

[Item] Proof of Rare Item

Item obtained from Pandemonium.

It seems like it has great power, so I am sharing it with the users of World.

There are a couple more. I will reveal other items if the response is good.

Name: All-Stat Bracelet

Level: Rare

Item Type: Bracelet

Level Limit: None

Option: Every Stat +2%/ Attack Speed +3%

If there are any questions, ask in the comments. I am thinking of putting together a team soon. If there are any adventurers in need of a team, DM anytime.

Good.

A faint smile formed on Kang Chul-In’s lips.

Information? Search?

You could not attract attention with such things.

The best way would be through items, especially with proof of a rare item.

Kang Chul-In’s prediction was spot on.

Not even five minutes after the post, there were comments.

- Incino: Oh… one set means +4% for all Stats and attack speed +6%? It’s crazy!

- EnterLJ: Did you get it from a monster or ruin?

- TTSM: Not one but one set? Hey, buddy, where do you get such luck? :-0

- adchan: Look at this class;;

- revan: Rare-level item… wow!

In a short amount of time, there were five comments.

Let’s add some flavor.

If this were all the responses that he was getting, it would be almost impossible to gather the adventurers. He needed a sort of trick. Kang Chul-In copied the link to the post and pasted it into a messaging app, sent it to Park Du-Sik, and called him.

[Yes, big boss! Why are you calling me after two days?]

“You don’t need to know why, but I sent you a link, so have your boys comment and click share.”

[Ah! When will you send it, boss?]

“I sent it already.”

[I will check right away… uh… um… big boss?]

Park Du-Sik’s voice was weird.

Kang Chul-In was sure that Park Du-Sik was sweating on the other side of the phone. It was obvious that Park Du-Sik was in a difficult position.

[I’m sorry… but… our boys… it’s that… our boys… their backpack straps are a little short…]

“…”

He got it.

World was an English-based community with its headquarters in America. Even if translations were available, one would need to be able to communicate a bit in English to use it.

Although even gangsters now needed to go to college to survive, most were still only high-school graduates.

And… someone who was a gangster was very unlikely to have studied hard in school anyway.

“…you uneducated idiots.”

Kang Chul-In said over the phone, and Park Du-Sik could not utter a word. His face would be red from embarrassment by now.

“You should be ashamed.”

[…yes… Big boss.]

“Well, it is my fault for expecting so much from a bunch of idiots.”

“I will hang up before your idiocy transfers to me. Then, at least click share.”

[Yes…]

Kang Chul-In hung up quickly and called Old Man Kwon.

“Old man, I have a favor.”

Luckily, things worked out well with Old Man Kwon.

[Ah, really? Alright. I will get my Hong Kong boys on it. They speak some English. Would about 100 comments be enough?]

“That’s enough.”

Old Man Kwon was eager to help after hearing that Kang Chul-In revealed a new item — perhaps he smelled money. A person first needed to be smart.

[You are trying to get adventurers together. Is it a foundation beneficial for our partnership as well?]

“This and that. We will talk details later. Now is not the time.”

[Hm… I guess I will find out bit by bit. I will take care of what you asked within the hour, so do not worry.]

“I got it, old man.”

After the conversation with Old Man Kwon, Kang Chul-In casually waited for the post to go viral.

After an hour or so… Kang Chul-In’s post became ranked as one of the top posts and grabbed the attention of the World users.

Nice!

The response was explosive.

The post that was already attention-worthy, combined with a bit of manipulation, caused the views to skyrocket.

Before the post was 2 hours old, there were over a thousand comments.

And that was not all.

Personal messages flowed into his mailbox.

One… two… suddenly 50… and when three hours had passed, around 500 messages were in his mailbox.

This is still not enough.

Kang Chul-In did not stop there.

[Notice] I will reveal new items every hour.

I will go on a subjugation soon.

Adventurers who wish to join my team send me a message with your profile information, and I will respond after review.

After that, Kang Chul-In revealed one item per hour for three hours.

The World community exploded.

Kang Chul-In’s post ranked 1,2,3, and 4 in the entire “World Best Post”, creating a frenzy, and this news spread to Korea, creating noise on Korea’s internet as well.

“Easy.”

Kang Chul-In, who had created a viral post in a simple way, sipped his coffee leisurely and smiled. Honestly, the items that Kang Chul-In had posted were not that great, nor were they attention-worthy. The reasons were as follows.

First, the items that were introduced on World were low-level items that would be used in the early stages of the Grand Summoning.

Second, any Lord with enough wealth in their territories could introduce even better items than Kang Chul-In.

But the reason Kang Chul-In’s posts had gone viral was that he acted quickly before anyone could think or have a chance to.

There is a saying that “life is timing”. Whatever it was, the one who did it first would have the most gain. And through this, Kang Chul-In gained something else other than just gathering adventurers.

Because all of his posts were 1st to 4th place in the best post category in World, it was not an overstatement to say that there were almost no users in World who did not know his username, “Overlord”.

He had become famous after just a few posts.

From now on, Kang Chul-In’s posts would automatically become one of the most viewed posts, and he had gained the trust of the World users to a certain extent. It was something that he did not expect from the start.

Nice, now I will offer some incentives.

The next step was easy.

He would offer gold and items as bait to recruit competent adventurers, meet at Pandemonium, and create a team.

Although, he did have his work cut out for him as he had to look through all the thousands of messages in his inbox.

He tackled the messages right away.

There were all sorts of messages, from those questioning where the items came from to those wishing to buy the items to messages cursing him to much more. However… of the bunch… there was one that stood out to him and grabbed his attention.

“Aha….”

Kang Chul-In’s eyes sparkled after checking the sender of the message.

The account’s name was “Lumpen”.

It was a message from someone who had received the title of Overlord in the past and had been a worthy opponent for Kang Chul-In himself, Dorian Explorer!