---Third POV---
After the intruder entered the room, they headed straight for the bed. The thin blanket was suddenly thrown off.
But there was nothing underneath!
Gaeman had hidden ahead of time after hearing movement. And as for Child, he wasn't sleeping there at all.
Clearly, the intruder hadn't expected this outcome. Their slow demeanor upon entering the room shifted, and they quickly turned toward the nearby cabinet.
Then under the bed, the chair draped in a thick cloak…
Nothing!
Just as they raised their head to look at the beam above, Gaeman held his breath.
Outside, the timely sound of a whistle echoed. It was the militia on their scheduled patrol. The intruder muttered a curse under their breath and hastily shut the door before leaving.
The hallway returned to silence, but Gaeman still didn't move.
The silence was so absolute that his strained breathing was all he could hear.
Another three minutes passed.
Squeak—
The door opened again.
The intruder poked their head in, scanning the room one more time. Finding nothing again, they shut the door for the last time.
Gaeman waited a long time, ensuring they wouldn't return. Finally, on the verge of suffocation, he took a slow, deep breath, then exhaled just as carefully.
Safe.
That was what his sixth sense told him.
Still perched on the beam, he stared blankly at the weak moonlight filtering through the window.
Three, there were at least three accomplices with the intruder.
Before the door closed, he distinctly heard the sound of three other doors shutting. Coincidentally, his employers numbered four people as well. Their actions had clearly drawn someone's attention... A sack of coins was tossed to the innkeeper for a day's stay.
The intruder and their accomplices slipped into a nearby dark alley. They darted through the narrow pathways, climbing and weaving, until they entered an underground room.
A nobleman draped in luxurious silken robes was already waiting there.
"My lord!" The intruder knelt respectfully, bowing his head to the nobleman seated with his back to him.
"Where are they?"
The intruder lowered his head further, ashamed.
"With so many visitors arriving recently, the militia has increased their patrols, giving us very little time to act..."
"So, you didn't capture a single one?" The nobleman interrupted coldly.
"Forgive me!" The intruder was utterly panicked, bowing even lower, too scared to utter another word.
The nobleman pinched the bridge of his nose. Ever since those four strange people entered the city yesterday, he had been keeping an eye on them.
Four peculiar magicians with innocent faces and a unique, incomprehensible language.
Three of them openly wandered the town, asking questions without restraint. Though they seemed to be searching for someone and hadn't uncovered any sensitive information, there was no guarantee that unforeseen circumstances wouldn't arise.
That might lead them to inadvertently discover the secrets of Nary Town. The best solution would be to eliminate them in one swift move.
Unfortunately, the perfect opportunity had already been missed... It wasn't that he lacked the power to bribe the militia. But doing so would inevitably alert his superiors, making him look incompetent.
The room fell into a deathly silence.
The intruder's clothes beneath his bearskin cap were already drenched in sweat, with large beads dripping to the floor.
After what felt like an eternity, the nobleman finally spoke again, "Forget it. Since you couldn't capture them, don't alert them further. Go back and accept your punishment according to the rules. As for those four magicians, assign two people to monitor them at all times."
Judging by their unchecked magical fluctuations, they were, at best, novice magicians.
Hardly capable of stirring up a storm.
Every so often, clueless adventurers would wander into Nary Town. These four just happened to be louder and flashier. They'd likely leave soon or meet their end in the Great Oak Forest.
And if they did manage to uncover something... On his turf, there would be plenty of opportunities to deal with them.
The intruder, feeling as if he had been granted a reprieve, quickly bowed his head in gratitude.
"Thank you, my lord!" He then retreated hastily.
The nobleman stared at the flickering torchlight by the doorway. "Let's hope they're really just here to find some ordinary knight..."
---
At dawn the next day, Child sprang out of bed, shouting, "Haha! I have returned!"
The bed in the inn's room was originally solid, resembling a modern storage unit. But in the hands of players, it was soon hollowed out into a space barely large enough to hold a person, tighter than a coffin.
Once offline, their bodies didn't need food or air. Perfect for stashing themselves like oversized luggage in the oddest corners. They weren't completely naive, after all.
Without a save feature on this new map, they cherished their lives more than anyone else.
So they quickly devised these methods to hide themselves, treating their bodies like non-human objects.
His hiding method was still relatively normal.
Next door, NeverShowOff had even hollowed out a wall!
After a brief moment of silence for the innkeeper, he immediately noticed something was off.
"What's this..." He picked up a strand of dark blue hair from the floor. With his sharp eyes, he could clearly see several strands scattered around.
He then looked at the bedside cabinet. The hair he had used as a marker was gone.
Glancing at Gaeman curled up in a chair, yawning wearily, he asked in shock, "Was someone else in the room last night?"
Gaeman finished his yawn and turned to glare at him with a face full of resentment. It was as if his eyes were saying, "What do you think?"
Under that clear, penetrating gaze, Child felt a pang of guilt. So there really was a special event?!
Initially, he had hidden himself just to play it safe, avoiding accidents to the greatest extent possible. But he hadn't seriously considered leaving a kid to face a group of intruders alone...
Come to think of it, he had even pulled out a few of Gaeman's hairs to use as markers.
Child silently turned his head away...
Not long after, the other three players logged in one after another, also noticing traces of the break-in. Realizing that the only one who didn't need to log out was their temporary "ally," they all gathered in Child's room, where Gaeman had stayed up all night.
Lux held a blank piece of parchment, sitting across from Gaeman and gently asked, "Do you remember what those people looked like yesterday?"
"And how many there were, or what their goal might've been?" Child added from the side.
If a true native adventurer discovered their room had been breached so easily, they would've immediately realized the intruders were part of the local underworld, clearly a group not to be trifled with.
They'd read the warning loud and clear, tone down their conspicuous behavior, or leave the city quickly.
But to players, this was a rare hostile faction and special event. The more mysterious and dangerous the enemy appeared, the more excited they became!
Based on Gaeman's description, Child and Lux wrote furiously, their eyes shining with excitement. They couldn't wait to hit the streets and capture the assassins described on paper!
After all, combat was the fastest and most cost-effective way to gain extra experience points and level up.
Unfortunately, killing NPCs from non-hostile factions would result in a significant loss of SAN. This left players with no shortcuts to take. But now, an NPC had appeared who attacked players indiscriminately, without provocation.
This type of NPC would automatically be categorized as part of a hostile faction, and it applied to all players universally. Once this news spread, there would surely be no shortage of players eager to join the counterattack.
The sketch of the strange figure was slowly refined. Because the target was heavily disguised, and their voice had been altered, it was impossible to determine their gender or how many people were involved.
Their height, including boots, was estimated to be a little over 1.7 meters, and their build was slim.
After reviewing the NPC profile drawn by Lux, Garble shook his head with little hope.
"This isn't going to work. These details are way too vague."
The average height of townsfolk wasn't very high, and unless they were wealthy, they couldn't grow overweight either. Even with these conditions, there would still be hundreds of suspects among the townsfolk.
Child, hands in his pockets, pondered aloud, "Actually, we could start with the local area. They were able to bribe the innkeeper, so it's likely this wasn't their first time. They might be connected to a local gang or underground force."
Gaeman suddenly looked up.
Lux's eyes lit up as he pressed on, "Do you know something?"
Gaeman froze for a moment and, after much hesitation, nodded slowly. "There are three possible suspects."
He refused to elaborate further.
Child frowned. "Another three-way choice?"
"At least it narrows down the target pool by a factor of ten; that's already an improvement," NeverShowOff responded.
Garble nodded in agreement. "Trying to identify them just from the people involved last night is too difficult. Starting from the root forces behind them is indeed the better approach."
"What? Then my profile is useless?" Lux sighed, disappointed, as she put down her pen.
She had been looking forward to cosplaying as a criminal profiler! Her earlier enthusiasm felt wasted.
NeverShowOff shook his head and dismissed her doubt, "No, the profile is still useful. For now, we can't confront them head-on."
He had just analyzed why the attackers had targeted them. If it wasn't the feud between Lux and the coachman, Child sneaking into the wealthy district and getting discovered, or their suspicious Ship-Carriage Guild identities being noticed… Okay, admittedly, they had left a trail of problems.
The only other reason could be that the town held some secret that couldn't be openly investigated. And someone didn't want them digging deeper.
After listening to NeverShowOff's analysis, Lux was full of question marks. "Were we really that conspicuous yesterday?"
Garble nodded silently.
Because the Ship-Carriage Guild had a basement, when they investigated other places, they practically turned the shops upside down. He had warned them, but no one listened. Maybe it was the leftover habit from other games where players treated the entire world like their own backyard…
"No invisible walls" was equivalent to "free to enter"!
Child looked up, frowning, unable to understand. "In a bustling border town like this, adventurers wandering around town seems completely normal!"
"It might seem normal, but investigating the town's military forces? That's bound to uncover some secrets," NeverShowOff countered.
Then he reflected on his own actions. "Part of this is also my fault."
Even though he knew the NPCs in the game had decent intelligence, he had underestimated the complexity of the new map's operational systems. Even ordinary intelligence-gathering tasks could trigger an overreaction from NPCs.
Looking around at the group in front of him, he said, "Even though we've all accumulated a few extra resurrection chances from earlier main quests, the experience points we've earned during this initial exploration of Nary Town are significant. It's better not to throw our lives away needlessly. Let's first find Edgar and complete the mission Viktor gave us. Along the way, we can keep an eye out for anyone suspicious matching Lux's profile. Once we've saved our progress, we can come back and go big."
Child was the first to agree. He slapped the table and stood up. "Sounds good! I'm all about the fights! I've been waiting for this mission to get me 10 levels up!"
He had been wanting to say it for a while now. Carrying around too much unsaved extra experience made every move feel risky and stressful!
Garble also agreed. "By then, the dimensional crystals we ordered from the Ship-Carriage Guild should arrive, and we can bring more players into the fray."
Four people weren't enough. But with forty or fifty troublemaking players? Counterattacking the enemy wouldn't be an issue at all!
Lux's eyes showed concern. "I don't think that'll work. According to the branch store owner, the Nary Town guild doesn't have any quick means of sending messages. To order dimensional crystals from headquarters, they'd first need to send a message to a nearby, more developed town, and then have them dispatch a flying magic device to headquarters for approval. Crossing the vast wilderness back and forth… It'll take at least a month."
Child scratched his head. "We're dealing with magic here, and communication between cities is still so backward?"
"Because of the wilderness and magical creatures, their transportation network leaves a lot to be desired," NeverShowOff added. "So, chances are, we'll have to act without reinforcements."
He leaned on the table with both hands and issued a stern warning.
"We need to be extremely cautious!"
At least until they saved their progress, their information-gathering activities needed to be far more restrained.
"No problem!" everyone replied in unison.
---
On the third day after the four players left the forest, Honeyvale Town welcomed an unexpected visitor.
Within the Inverted Space, a group of players crouched before a teleportation array, fiddling with it.
"Pouring magic into it doesn't work. Why isn't this like the teleportation array in the Giant Pit Ruins?"
"No kidding! This one's clearly more advanced!"
"Do you even understand the difference between minimalist lines and ultimate color design?"
"Maybe it needs a special incantation?"
Since Viktor had refused to grant other players permission to leave the Great Oak Forest, some defiant players were determined to figure out a way to sneak out.
Naturally, for a group of players who weren't even Level 5, an 80% success rate just to reach the outskirts of Nary Town was considered lucky.
There was no way he would allow them to engage in such a pointless, suicidal endeavor.
It would only waste the energy of the dimensional crystals.
Activating the teleportation array required at least the magical power of a mid-level mage.
If they could really figure out a way to activate it, he might even let them leave. He didn't intervene, and the players refused to give up.
The only one suffering was Gavin, the townsperson responsible for guarding the teleportation array.
He stood anxiously to the side. Every time he saw a player touch the runes on the ground, his heart skipped a beat, and his eyelid twitched.
"Please, I beg you to leave quickly! If Lord Viktor finds out…"
"Oh, relax! he is easy to talk to!"
One of the players, who had activated the translation function, brushed off Gavin's concerns while glancing at the subtitles that kept popping up.
"We're just looking around. Even if the array's defense mechanism blasts us to bits, we won't damage it."
Other players chimed in with agreement.
"Exactly! It's a high-level magic array; it's not that easy to break!"
Beads of sweat formed on Gavin's forehead. What he feared wasn't the array's defenses harming them, it was the array killing them!
Was it his understanding that was off? Or theirs? Could this really be such a trivial matter?
At that moment… The array beneath the players' feet emitted an almost imperceptible glow…
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60 advance chapters!
[email protected]/Malphegor