Queen Roline of the Spider Elves was a bit surprised. She was in the middle of discussing grand plans with Zog, fantasizing about the glorious prospect of musically crushing those sunbathing-addicted Elves.

For the past two hours, all of the clan’s best singers had taken the stage. And while Zog had selected a few, his expression made it clear he wasn’t particularly satisfied.

’Hmph, damn this stubborn pride of mine!’

’Zog could look down on us Zor for being weak, and that was fine. We couldn’t beat him in a fight, after all.’

’But that look on his face screamed, "So the Zor’s singing is nothing special after all."’

’Now *that* was something they needed to talk about.’

’Does he even have ears?’

’Does he know anything about music?’

Just as she was racking her brains for a way to prove the Zor’s musical prowess, a child rushed out from the audience.

As the leader of a clan with a notoriously low birth rate, she had always been tolerant of children.

But he’d smashed the harp. What was that supposed to mean?

————————

Zog was also a bit surprised.

He’d been listening to Zor compositions for two hours. While the singers were all highly skilled, listening to the same style for so long had become a little tiring.

Besides, he was looking for someone who could sing lines like "A fire burning in my heart" and enrich osu!’s library with tracks better suited for rhythm games.

It wasn’t that the singers were bad; they just weren’t the right fit.

It was like asking a master of operatic bel canto to sing pop music—the more proficient they were, the more awkward it would sound.

He’d kept a few candidates, partly out of politeness and partly because he’d suddenly realized the Zor had the perfect disposition for gothic metal.

He was just pondering how to describe the type of singer he needed to Queen Roline...

...when a child burst in.

But bursting in was one thing; smashing a harp right in front of the queen? ’How punk rock is that?’

————————

Xiaode was stunned.

’What did I just do?’

The brain tends to short-circuit when faced with a huge shock.

Xiaode’s first thought, surprisingly, was that he had just smashed his only valuable possession. ’Is Mom going to beat me when I get home?’

He was so stunned he just stood there, unsure of what to do next.

"We want to sing a song!" His bandmates rushed in after him, clutching what looked like scrap-heap instruments. "A dedication to the Queen and Lord Zog."

Their drum kit was even cobbled together from barrels.

The Zor were Elves full of such contradictions. In their daily lives, they treated life and death with indifference, always ready for a fight if challenged.

Yet, when someone earnestly announced they were going to perform, everyone would grant the performer the utmost respect.

Even if they looked completely amateurish.

"Give him an Arpeggio Harp," Queen Roline commanded, thoughtfully refraining from mentioning the smashed instrument.

"Could we give him the Arpeggio Harp with the Distortion Magic?" Zog chimed in.

The Arpeggio Harp was an instrument similar to a guitar. With distortion, it was closer to an electric guitar, but it was still an acoustic-bodied instrument with rather stiff strings.

This made string bending and shredding somewhat difficult. It seemed guitarists on the Feilin Continent would have to spec into Strength and rely on brute force to play.

"That one’s tone hasn’t been tested yet."

"Then let him be the one to test it."

Zog looked at their determined stances and felt like they were about to start singing about friendship, bonds, and all that jazz.

"Fine."

Xiaode was handed an Arpeggio Harp that looked more expensive than everything his family owned combined.

On the back of the neck was a fancy insignia in Elven script—the mark of a Legendary luthier from the turn of the era.

There was also an indecipherable Magic Array on the instrument’s body.

Xiaode strummed it tentatively. The slightly distorted, tearing tone was both alien and familiar to him.

Alien, because he’d never heard an instrument like it.

Familiar, because this was the sound he had always dreamed of. The traditional Arpeggio Harp was too restrained, unable to express the turmoil raging inside him when he sang.

But this harp was just right.

He nodded to his drummer.

"CLICK, CLICK, CLICK, CLICK!"

Four crisp clicks from the drumsticks set the tempo for the entire song.

The Arpeggio Harp and bass rang out.

A chord was struck, and Xiaode let out a scream that teetered on the edge of a voice crack, heralding the birth of a musical genre the Feilin Continent had never heard before.

Zog, however, couldn’t really understand what he was singing.

He wasn’t fluent in the Elven Language to begin with, and the dialect the Zor spoke had slight differences.

Plus, Xiaode was singing with a bit of punk and a bit of -core style, so his enunciation wasn’t very clear.

But that didn’t matter. The emotion was what counted.

It made Zog’s leg start bouncing, his heart pounding. He had the sudden urge to hold down the W key, buy a P90, and rush B.

’I wonder if shooting games would be popular in this world,’ he thought.

When the song ended, the hall fell silent.

The other Zor were stunned. What kind of singing style was that?

You couldn’t call it noise, because it had a melody. But you couldn’t really call it a song, either, because it felt an awful lot like noise.

Xiaode stood dejectedly in the center of the performance area, completely at a loss.

He knew the Zor who bullied him were in the audience, and he could already imagine their taunts.

’Did I just make a complete fool of myself after all?’

"Uh, I think..." Roline decided to smooth things over. The boy hadn’t done anything terribly wrong, after all. Smashing the harp was probably just a sign of his ferocity.

’A bit of ferocity is good,’ she thought. ’We need that for our raids.’

"I think it was fantastic!" Zog stood up. "They’re the ones!"

All eight of Roline’s eyes widened. She was beginning to have doubts about the grand promises Zog had been making. His taste in music was more than a little questionable.

Having found suitable musicians in this impromptu talent market, Zog didn’t linger.

The Zor’s domain lacked proper lighting year-round, and staying too long felt suffocating.

He teleported back to Twin Tower City with his new Zor recruits.

Arriving in the largest city on the surface for the first time, the Zor, who had never left their homeland, were all visibly excited.

While the architecture of their underground city-state was just as magnificent—perhaps even more refined than Twin Tower City—everyone enjoys a change of scenery.

Besides, the level of modernization here far surpassed that of their underground home.

They stared out the window, marveling at all the novel contraptions.

All except for Xiaode.

He practically had "unhappy" written all over his face.

It looked like he’d taken a major hit from the performance earlier and was now in a full-on emo phase.

Zog scratched his head. ’Am I going to have to deal with teenage mental health issues now, too?’

Heart-to-heart Uncle Zog went online. "You sang really well, that’s why I picked you," he said. "Have some confidence. You’re young, you’re supposed to be aggressive. If you’re not, can you even call yourself young?"

Xiaode looked up. He wanted to say something but didn’t dare to in the end.

’This Ancient Red Dragon must have terrible taste,’ he thought. ’He’s lived for so long, he’s got to be a little weird.’

’Why else would my own people hate it, while only Zog says it’s great?’

Seeing how repressed the kid was, Zog worried. ’He’s not going to invent post-punk and post-rock on the spot, is he?’

’Nope. He has to at least sing the theme song for *Firepower Young King* before he can get all emo.’

Where could he find an audience that would immediately appreciate Xiaode’s music?

Zog thought for a moment, then said, "Come with me. I know people who will like your music."

「Two hours later.」

The band arrived at Furnace Castle, shabby instruments in tow.

Zog found Bane Furnace engrossed in a game of auto chess. "Your clan had any brawls lately?"

"What, a brawl?" Bane replied, cursing under his breath about someone denying him his units while he made his move.

"Of course there’s a brawl! You should be asking what day a Dwarf *doesn’t* have a brawl. Last time we played chess against the Iron Hammer Clan, they surrendered the moment they saw I had a Three-Star Furin. They robbed me of my satisfaction! If we don’t fight this out, this grudge will never be settled.

"Why? You want to get in on it? That little Sub-Dragon body of yours would get smashed to pieces."

"Not me," Zog said. It would be too cruel if he joined in. "Do you guys need battle musicians?"

"Huh?"