---Third POV---
Nary Town's surface level was already well-trodden territory for most players.
Housing was an issue both NPCs and players had to deal with.
Houses with good security and low rent, of course, were also listed in that strategy guide post on the forum.
After helping settle Sally in and paying a month's rent for her, Lux finally waved goodbye to the dazed-looking girl sitting on the bed.
"You can stay here for now. If you're not used to it, you can switch rooms. I already talked to the landlady, she's fine with giving you a one-month trial. If you change your mind, you can just come back and renew anytime."
Sally touched the clean, well-kept wooden bed beneath her.
"Really… I can live here?"
Safe, clean streets.
Fully furnished.
And the price, so cheap!
It was so much better than she'd ever hoped for.
After being kicked out of the church, she thought her life would be a mess. And honestly, things weren't looking great. By morning, the only place she'd found to sleep was a drafty shack just outside the slums. At that point, she really thought things were going exactly as she feared.
But then Lux appeared and changed everything.
This new room, it was even better than the tiny place she'd had beside the church.
As a magic apprentice, she could easily afford it.
No more burdensome church duties.
No more strict head nun.
She could even sleep in on her days off. Her heart felt like it was soaked in pink bubbles full of sweetness.
How could someone be this kind and generous, so in line with the teachings? Not only was this nun willing to go into the slums to preach to fallen believers… She was even willing to help a heretic find a place to stay.
To know of such a good house, it must be the result of all the good karma she'd accumulated…
Her eyes sparkled with admiration.
"So this is the doctrine of the Radiant Church? You really are a nun as warm as sunlight. No wonder Bishop Kasse recognized your identity at a glance. Your virtue is a dazzling gem among a pile of stones!"
Lux looked a little awkward.
"Uh-haha… well, if there's nothing else, I'll be going."
She'd been praised a lot since taking on the role of a holy figure, sure… But such heartfelt, passionate flattery, spoken with such emotion, it made her toes curl with embarrassment.
She quickly found a preaching-related excuse and slipped away.
Only after walking a while down the stairs and out the door, did she realize something was off.
"Wait… Bishop Kasse recognized my identity at a glance?"
What identity?
A nun of the Radiant Church?
No way, even she wasn't sure how convincing her act was.
How did the bishop see through her??
---
Clink.
In the wealthy district, NeverShowOff set his teacup on the coffee table.
"I logged off and asked the player who stayed in Honeyvale Town to go find Viktor. But it'll take a bit of time before we get the investigation results."
LootGoblin, wearing a face mask that looked like seaweed, was lying alone on a two-seater sofa.
With exaggerated drama, he let out a long sigh.
"He stays holed up in town all day, how does he keep getting into trouble?"
"Pfft. And someone's been running to the Mage Guild every day, yet still hasn't found the entrance to the dungeon!" Hedgehog sneered.
LootGoblin shot a sharp glare at him, like blades slicing through the air.
"How was I supposed to know the Mage Guild was so useless? A transnational organization like that, shouldn't it operate independently of local gangs and political forces?"
Who knew the Mage Guild wouldn't live up to its name at all?
It even got turned into a public thoroughfare, with people walking in and out as they pleased.
Truly a shame to the name!
"Tch. Maybe you just didn't try hard enough!" Hedgehog threw out some harsh words.
"If your observation skills were better, or if you worked harder to gain your sugar mommy's favor, maybe she would've told you the secret by now?"
"I've told you already, she's not my sugar mommy, she's my girlfriend!" LootGoblin protested furiously.
Hedgehog gave LootGoblin's 1.2-meter height a slow, meaningful look.
He didn't say anything, but somehow, that said everything.
LootGoblin's rage shot through the roof. He almost called for someone to throw Hedgehog out.
NeverShowOff watched the two bicker, half laughing, half sighing.
LootGoblin's recent journey had been rather simple.
Relying on his disguised shota face and his silver tongue honed from years of online dating, he successfully maxed out the affection of a vice-president of the Mage Guild.
He earned himself a luxury villa and stepped right onto the road to greatness.
NeverShowOff had met that vice-president too.
She was a red-haired woman with sharp eyes. Though she looked only about twenty-two, her presence was unusually mature.
Of course, her help didn't come for free.
LootGoblin promised to bring in some wild mages with natural magical talent, to help her boost her performance metrics.
This was why he had openly posted magic spell guides on the forum and welcomed other players to seek his help.
When NeverShowOff and Garble saw the post, they felt something was fishy. After some investigation, they successfully uncovered LootGoblin's true intentions.
To stop them from spreading the intel, and shattering the promises he'd made to the vice-president, LootGoblin had been offering help to the Lucky Stars Team again and again.
Knowing the full story, Hedgehog couldn't care less about LootGoblin's threats to kick him out. He even pulled his eyelid down and made a face.
"Bleh! Go ahead and try it!"
"If you kick me out, I'll go tell everyone you've been using other players to pad your achievement numbers! And seriously, what's with your obsession with beauty-themed potions? She just sees you as a son anyway."
Even though the sweet talk from the 21st century was enough to make a sheltered NPC dizzy, for those like NeverShowOff who knew the whole story, it really did seem like she was raising LootGoblin like a child.
"Heh."
LootGoblin gave him a look of utter contempt.
"You know nothing. In every era, a pretty face is the ultimate cheat code."
Hedgehog twitched at the corner of his mouth.
If you had to call LootGoblin's rise a cheat code, well… that was fair. Especially the "cheat" part, it was definitely gold-level.
Just the potion ingredients they'd seen him handle, could fetch over 100,000 Sols at any magic shop!
"More than your face, I'm curious, where did you get all that money?"
"Your sugar mommy's allowance?"
"Heh. As if!"
LootGoblin snorted again.
"The biggest difference between humans and animals is knowing how to use every tool around you. Like… yourself."
His dwarf identity came with severe limitations.
Nary Town allowed dwarves to pass through and stay temporarily, but discrimination and rejection were inevitable.
On the second night, he had been ambushed by locals, shoved into a sack, and sold to slave traders.
While still barely alive in a cage, he learned something unexpected... Because dwarves were born with innate magical talent, even their corpses could sell for a good price!
So he spent six full days… selling himself five times!
Every time he revived, he'd run straight back to the slavers!
Eventually, the players in charge of guarding the respawn point had to go on the forums to complain about how fast players were killing themselves.
[The refugees dying in the wastelands every day aren't enough to exchange for all the resurrection materials this one dwarf is burning through!]
When talking about his entrepreneurial journey, LootGoblin shook his head and sighed.
"Sigh, I really didn't expect making money in a game to be this easy."
"..."
Hedgehog was fuming, fists clenched.
"Damn those special-race players!"
When will humanity finally rise up?
There was one more thing Hedgehog just couldn't accept.
"You mess around like this, and your SAN value still isn't zero?"
"I wasn't trying to die on purpose, it was a rescue attempt to save some slaves, but the slave traders turned on me!"
LootGoblin flashed a smile.
"Rules are just another part of the game to exploit."
Otherwise, how could he have only died five times in six days? He could be full-on reckless every minute.
Hedgehog held back for a long while, then finally let out a single word to sum up his feelings.
"Fuck!"
He mourned his own SAN value, barely over 50.
Watching the back-and-forth between the two, NeverShowOff chuckled.
That part, at least, he was familiar with.
Players carrying signal amplifiers could monitor survival status within a given area. And it was thanks to that little loophole, that he had been able to quickly investigate the reason LootGoblin released the spells.
Suddenly, the screen in front of him flickered.
His smile vanished instantly. He sat upright, gripping the armrests.
"'Child, I Want to See Rivers of Blood' just died!"
"If you want to see blood, why not browse…" Hedgehog said casually, then suddenly turned sharply.
"Wait?? You said Child died?"
He immediately stopped arguing with LootGoblin and pulled up his game panel, flipping through the pages rapidly.
"Let's see if he left any last words… Got it!"
The underground area was still within signal range. That guy really had managed to access the forum and send them a message.
He swiped and shared the info Child sent with everyone present.
"But I didn't get a private message from Garble."
"Me neither," NeverShowOff replied as he scanned the message.
"He probably thinks he won't die anytime soon, busy with something else."
Checking Child's last words wasn't a bad idea either.
In under thirty seconds, Child had posted several small essays.
Due to the urgency, and the fact he was typing telepathically, the formatting was a mess. There were also random, off-topic thoughts scattered throughout.
Things like "game food sucks" and "highest success rate formula for blowing up the school," etc.
Wait, that last one was just strange!!
But the actual information was explosive...
As they kept reading, the three of them grew more and more silent. You could hear their breathing in the still air.
Once they finished reading:
Hedgehog blinked. "Wait… they found Edgar?"
NeverShowOff frowned. "You can sneak into the casino during the Opportunist's Trial?"
LootGoblin lit up. "There's a deluxe version of that special bathhouse in the underground city?"
The other two slowly turned to stare at him.
LootGoblin cleared his throat.
"Ahem, just pretend I didn't say that."
Back to the serious topic of dungeon analysis... NeverShowOff summarized the key points.
"In short, Edgar has been located, we've got intel on the sirens, and the main storyline has advanced by at least 40%. This mission's results far exceeded expectations. All we need now is a message from Garble."
Hedgehog rubbed his hands in anticipation.
"And we might even get to fight a Level 80 boss! That's way more exciting than chasing rabbits on the wasteland!"
The dangers on the wasteland were limited. If victory wasn't absolutely certain, and the necessary sacrifices were minimal, even the lurking nomads wouldn't make a move.
Even the most clueless player, after dying once to a surprise attack, could eventually pass freely through the wasteland.
It was even safer than the area around Honeyvale Town.
LootGoblin didn't quite agree.
"I'm not interested in dying for nothing. Either we hand this person over to Viktor and Edgar to deal with, or we break them out before the auction."
"Once I get my reward, I'm heading to the royal capital with Aurora."
Being a player focused more on life-sim and social gameplay, he was actively pushing the main questline forward. Because he was betting that once the main quest concluded, players would gain far more freedom, just like after the Goblin War arc.
"The capital? You mean the capital of the Yoan Kingdom? Your sugar mommy got promoted?" Hedgehog asked, surprised.
"Once you guys help pad out her performance numbers, of course she'll get promoted."
LootGoblin couldn't help but brag a little.
"And not just the capital of a vassal state like the Kingdom of Yoan, it's Sylvia!"
"A mid-sized, trade-oriented independent nation, and right next to the Elven Forest, Firenzé."
"I'll livestream some elf girls for you when I get there!"
NeverShowOff glanced at him.
"I remember on the Mage Guild's map, the distance between Sylvia and the Elven Forest is at least 7,000 kilometers."
LootGoblin just shrugged.
"Well, ever since the Age of Gods ended, tensions between races have only gotten worse. Still, it is the closest human country to Firenzé."
Most of the land between them was monster-infested no-man's-land or diplomatic isolation zones.
The three of them discussed their cooperation going forward.
A main quest this difficult was clearly not something they could handle alone. But thanks to their head start, they definitely weren't going to miss out on their share of the rewards!
"Hoo! Hooo!!"
Just as the three of them were about to start fighting over the loot split, the eyes of the owl sculpture above the fireplace suddenly lit up red and let out a series of strange, piercing cries.
Loud and jarring.
NeverShowOff looked up at the sound. "Aurora coming to see you?"
"No, it's an intruder!"
LootGoblin leapt from the sofa toward the fireplace and twisted the owl's head to the left.
Immediately, the wall above the fireplace shifted to show a live feed of the scene outside the courtyard.
In the grass just outside the iron fence, a head of deep blue, seaweed-like hair was spread across the ground. Gaeman lay unconscious, his face as pale as paper.
Hedgehog's eyes went wide.
"It's Gaeman! He made it out!"
Although Child had mentioned in his last words that Gaeman had gotten the map from Edgar and might escape... This was way faster than expected!
LootGoblin instantly understood what had happened.
"He must've tried to force his way in, and triggered the magic array's backlash."
Seeing the dark red blood smeared across the leaves, NeverShowOff quickly stood up.
"We need to go get him now!"
Gaeman looked seriously injured, and there might still be pursuers nearby. They had to retrieve him fast!
---
Shhhkk!
A massive mechanical arm was sliced open by a wind blade. Spools of rope tumbled to the ground.
Bloody wastewater dripped from gashed fingertips and landed on the floor with a wet plop.
Garble's expression didn't change as he kept moving forward.
The moment his left foot stepped onto the purple-red fox-fur carpet, his body, drained of magic, collapsed forward with a heavy thud.
Boom!
At that same moment, the Scarlet Casino's grand hall erupted in wild cheers.
"YES!!!"
"He actually did it!!"
"Unbelievable!"
"Well done!"
Everyone in the hall was flushed with excitement.
Garble had cleared the trial in just half an hour.
His story, and the personality he showed through it, had captivated everyone there.
Some cursed him as a ruthless scoundrel with no morals.
Others defended him, saying he was just trying to survive.
Some scoffed that he was just a desperate speculator trying to sneak into the underground city... But when he actually made it through alive, battered and staggering, everyone stood up and cheered for him.