Fatal Shot

South of Silvermoon City, outside the Town of Exiles. Coordinates: −2534, 0372.

A well-equipped, rather sleazy-looking Scout player was driving an N7 energy SUV toward the Town of Exiles while leaving clouds of dust along the way.

The Scout player looked like nothing special, with no red or yellow light above his head. Traditionally, players with white names like that would not travel to the Town of Exiles, which was full of players with red and yellow names. However, Feng Luo, who was setting up an ambush in the bushes on a nearby patch of high ground, placed the crosshairs on his head through the rifle’s scope with the Eye of Thunder.

The Scout, who was wearing a Level-40 combat uniform, had a translucent red box floating in front of his head as if the camera had locked onto his head. On the edge of the box, a row of semi-transparent messages appeared:

Call me Grandpa, Level 45 Scout, Federal Class-D Wanted Criminal.

In the past, when players with red names achieved PK ratings of over 10, they would be wanted by the system. This had been modified after the game update. Now, the original PK ratings had been divided into the two categories of “illegal rating” and “criminal rating.” Any inappropriate behaviors shown by the players would result in an increase of one or both of the ratings—no longer creating yellow or red character names—as well as the exposure of the ID.

This overjoyed some players, and the Scout player was one of them. The thought that they would be finally free from the system that made red and yellow names such a pain for them.

But they were wrong!

The Scout player who was driving started to curse with an extremely unhappy face. “Damn! I only flirted with some women! How could I be on the system’s wanted list?”

After the update, he had discovered that flirting would no longer cause the player to be labeled as a yellow name. Moreover, the other players could no longer directly determine his own ID. This was like freedom in heaven. Especially when flirting with pretty female players who had just switched their professions. They were angry about his attitude, but they could not learn his ID. Therefore, his heart was full of phenomenal satisfaction.

As for those who the system prompted as deserving of “illegal and criminal rating,” the players’ equipment drop rate upon death was increased when both of the ratings increased!

He did not think it was a big deal. How bad can it be if the drop rate increased? As a Scout with a powerful escape ability, it won’t be easy for players with normal professions to kill him!

However, he had not expected that this system modification would hide something so sinister! The increase in illegal ratings was not a big deal, but the illegal rating was cumulative.

In the three days since the update, he had been “committing crimes” until his illegal rating had reached 1,000 points. All of a sudden, he had heard a warning from the system saying that he was wanted and could no longer enter the federal city.

Immediately, he had received another message saying that some players had accepted the quest to take his bounty.

“Damn! I didn’t kill any people. Playing games is for fun, right? How could I be wanted for molesting a woman!”

“Call Me Grandpa” was very upset, but he dared not stay where he was. Once a player was wanted by the system, every five minutes, the coordinates of the wanted player would be reported to other players who had accepted the bounty order. It was clearly a condition where the enemy was shrouded while he was fully exposed.

But that did not mean he was a sitting duck! Many players were wanted in this game, but the completion rate of wanted tasks was less than 50 percent.

Previously, before the update, wanted players were those who had achieved over ten players kills. Of course, such players were not newbies, and therefore, their PK skills were extraordinary, too. Many players confidently took on wanted quests in the hope of gaining experience and points from the Hunters Guild but eventually ended up as “prey” for the red-named players.

Secondly, the players who were wanted would also be made aware that they were wanted by the system. Therefore, even if their strength was below average, they could gather a lot of friends and wait to kill the hunters.

Even single players without friends could opt for transportation to the Town of Exile to seek shelter immediately upon being wanted. These white-name hunters would not dare to break into a town that was full of players with red and yellow names.

As long as the wanted time passed, the only thing left for these hunter players was “mission failed.”

If they failed, the players who accepted the wanted order would have not only wasted a lot of time, but they could also have a large amount of quest deposit deduced, and, most importantly, they would lose hunter points.

Therefore, depending on doing wanted missions to level-up was not something an ordinary player could take on.

******

The Scout with the ID “Call me Grandpa” was driving his car while keeping part of his attention focused on the scouting gear at the side.

There would not be any monsters appearing on the roads between cities. However, it was not always true. In some cases, monsters would be chased to the middle of the road by other monsters, and some monsters with high AI levels would even hide on the hills or in the bushes on both sides of the road to ambush the players.

“Damn it! What bad luck!”

The Scout player cursed because his scouting gear showed that there were three yellow points representing monsters right beside the road less than 100 meters away from him.

However, judging by the energy response on the scouting gear, none of the monsters were high-level. Therefore, the Scout player immediately stopped the car. He did not turn the car around but picked up his military binoculars to look toward the location where the monsters were while remaining seated in the car.

With his high-level visual perception as a Scout, it could be clearly seen through the telescope that there was a Level-40 grayish-black mutant leopard carcass lying in the bushes beside the road. Blood was still flowing from the leopard. It had obviously suffered a violent death not long ago.

On top of this gray leopard’s carcass, three little monsters that looked like scorpions. The brown beetles were moving around as if rummaging through the leopard’s carcass.

“Gatherer Beetles. Level-20 Common monsters without any attack abilities?”

Looking at the detailed information obtained from the scouting gear, the Scout player knitted his eyebrows in a slightly strange manner.

“Gatherer beetles… What are they gathering?”

As soon as he finished his words, he saw a brown beetle with a claw that stood out from its body. It pulled out a blood-stained energy crystal that gave off a faint but attractive light from the dead mutant leopard’s carcass.