Bandits Robbing Bandits
"Killing a few more of you won't bring in much anyway."
'Alright! Your account has been created successfully, so now let me walk you through a few precautions.'
'First of all, our dear Rafina must absolutely never reveal that she's Lily. Of course, since you're a hidden ranker now, that goes without saying, but...'
'As you know, NPCs aren't fools. Just because your account is different doesn't mean an ordinary Lily walking up to them will register as "Rafina"... and it goes the other way around, too.'
Aaaargh!!
'So you must, and I mean MUST, keep your identity hidden while you're out there!'
'Because if you get caught...'
"Where do you think you're going?"
"You're insane...! Where the hell did something like you come from?"
The white—no, the black-shrouded White Savior sheared through the legs of the fleeing bandit.
Since the severed flesh dissolved into blue particles, there was nothing grotesque or sickening about it, but the bandit had clearly lost all will to fight, sprawling on the ground and scrambling backward on his elbows.
The weapon I was currently wielding was the White Savior, shaped into a pair of daggers through Metamor.
Metamor is a substance that can freely shift its form. If you know how to handle it, it can become anything beyond a spear or a hammer.
Still, I would have preferred to use the spear or the hammer—but as Leo said, I had to hide my identity.
'A spear and a hammer are way too distinctive.'
I had swung that spear and hammer countless times on stream. The way I handled a weapon, the way I moved—all of it had spread far and wide already.
I could certainly fight differently from my usual style, of course... but there would be limits to how convincing that was.
My dagger work, on the other hand, was something I'd almost never shown.
The only time I'd used it was briefly when I got the Green Hermit, and even then I was copying Yena's dagger techniques, so there was no way it would give me away.
Even if someone raised suspicions that Rafina and Lily shared the same dagger style, the foundation of that style was Yena, so no one could ever confirm it. And Rafina has no intention of copying Yena in the first place.
"F-fine! Take it! Take it and spend it here!"
"Of course. I'll put it to good use."
Thwack!
[PK! You have killed user Kim Cheol.]
[PK Points increased by 12.]
[Bandit experience has increased slightly.]
[Bandit Level -2.]
[Acquired 3 gold coins, 21 silver coins.]
[Low chance: Acquired a serviceable machete.]
[High chance: Acquired Low-Grade Potion x5.]
Put it to good use, huh.
Two bandits killed so far. Compared to when I was an ordinary player, the loot certainly came in much faster.
'Twelve PK points. That bandit named Sanggu earlier gave me fourteen...'
Bandits could accumulate PK points to spend at the PK Shop. The shop sold all sorts of items, equipment, and stat boosts to aid bandits—and among them, the Veil of Blockade I wanted was priced at 3,000 points.
That was the kind of total you'd only amass after killing two or three hundred bandits. It was an outrageous figure, unless your goal was to stamp out banditry entirely—but thankfully, the system apparently granted more points for killing higher-level users.
If I hunted the ones sitting at the top of the bandit rankings, the points would pile up quickly enough.
"Hhk—hic!"
"Sh-shut up!"
?
Come to think of it, things had been noisy behind me for a while now.
Glancing back, I saw four of their crew trembling like leaves, sneaking away backward step by step.
I wondered what their problem was—but right now I wasn't Lily, the user everyone knew by sight. I was Rafina, the bandit.
Yes, I'd slaughtered my fellow bandits, but that was simply a fight over hunting grounds. And now that I'd claimed the territory, it was time to hunt in earnest.
"Th... uh..."
"Why are you running?"
"W-we're sorry!!"
One of the group held out both hands toward me. Resting in her palms was a single gold coin, some silver, and a handful of copper.
Apparently that was everything they owned to their name...
Pfft.
Clank.
"Huh? Wh... what?"
"Don't be scared. Killing a few more of you wouldn't bring in much anyway."
They were such a low level that wiping out the whole lot of them would net me twenty points at the very most—if I was lucky.
I placed the plundered gold coins back into her hands.
Receiving money should naturally be something to rejoice over, and yet...
"...Ah. Yes."
"Th-thank you..."
Their bowed heads were filled not with gratitude but with wary, guarded expressions.
After that, I pumped them for whatever rough information they had on the other bandit crews, then let them go. Right up until the moment they left, they never once let their guard down around me.
At this point, I was certain.
'I don't think I'll get caught.'
The current me was using no divinity at all. Every trace of it radiating from my body was suppressed, and my hair along with most of my coloring had been shifted to black.
Even my mana had been transmuted into a dark shade.
I did briefly consider using the Shadow Spirit lounging around in the Void Space, but if I brought that thing out, the fact that I was Lily would be glaringly obvious. A modestly darkened palette was the smarter choice.
On top of that, I'd layered on every other precaution—covering most of my face, altering my voice—so there shouldn't be a problem.
"Well then, shall we get going?"
To the bandits' hideout.
Chaos had broken out among the Jackal, a bandit guild and one of Avis Kingdom's longest-running thorns in its side.
They had been sending requests for cooperation to the surrounding guilds to expand their territory, broadening their reach alongside their allies.
"Wh-who got hit?!"
"The Annihilation guild got hit! And they say the Kkeuk guild over there is under attack too..."
"Boss! The Brainless guild got wiped out! They sliced the whole building down clean—not just gutted it, erased it!"
"The Haejuma guild is right now—!"
--!
-----!!
What on earth was happening?
Only two hours had passed. All they'd done was expand their turf and start raiding, and now every bandit guild that had taken root in Avis Kingdom was getting torn apart, one after another.
To be fair, none of these were guilds of great renown. Compared to the upper-tier bandits, their forces were far smaller, their levels and gear lacking—but they had one decisive advantage: the terrain itself.
'Lawless ground.'
This place was almost entirely bereft of royal authority or policing, making it the perfect environment for bandits to grow without interference.
Besides, the very reason they had survived for so long wedged between so many great powers was that those powers had turned a blind eye to them.
'We're the ones raising the value of the trade routes! Then why...!'
The more the regions beyond the trade route fell into ruin and danger, the easier it became for the great powers to manage Avis.
A kingdom too weak to stand on its own had no choice but to lean harder on its powerful neighbors.
"Who is it?! Did some mega-guild finally invade?!"
"We don't know! Sanggu and Cheol aren't answering either...!"
"Judging by the pace, it's an organization."
Schwoooook...
Steel split. The building split.
KRAKOOM!!
An entire section of the wall was sheared away and came crashing down, kicking up clouds of ancient dust.
Through the swirling haze, the silhouette of a robed figure emerged.
Slice.
The intruder stepped over the rubble and entered the building.
"...Just one?"
One person. There wasn't a whiff of another presence anywhere nearby, and the robed woman didn't seem to be waiting for any follow-up force either.
She was truly alone.
"Enemy!"
"Where the hell does she think she is?!"
"What's one person gonna do?!"
"Wait! Hold—"
Slice.
The five bandits who'd charged the intruder were cut down where they stood, dissolving into blue particles.
For an ordinary user, it would all have been over in the blink of an eye—but Jackal, at level 80, could just barely read the traces of her movement.
'...Insane.'
That was exactly why he was horrified. He might have been better off never seeing it at all. Half-understanding it only plunged him deeper into despair.
'A ranker at minimum! And a top-thousand one at that...!'
Who was it?
Were there really assassin rankers of this caliber besides Yena, the Shadow Fiend, and the Dagger Fiend?
Jackal's mind raced through the possibilities, but no satisfying answer came.
Shk.
Instead, a dagger pressed itself against his throat first.
"So this is the last of them."
"...Who are you? A hidden ranker or something?"
"Call it half right."
"...Damn it all. I never should have pulled this stunt."
He'd let that fool Sanggu talk him into it, for nothing.
Jackal exhaled a long sigh. If the woman before him truly was an assassin ranker, there was no way out.
Every other guild had already been smashed to pieces, and this was the last one standing. Running would never outrun an assassin's speed, and logging out—thanks to the combat penalty—was as good as admitting defeat.
"The bounty on you must be awfully sweet. How much did they pay?"
He had to know.
For a single person to sweep away every bandit in a kingdom even the great powers chose to ignore would have been impossible on reputation alone. Some other faction, some kingdom, must have promised to back her—and she must have been paid a fortune for it.
The intruder tilted the dagger at his throat idly, then gave a soft, mocking smile.
"I haven't received any bounty. I'm a bandit."
"...What?"
A bandit?
"That's right. A bandit."
"Then why would a bandit—?!"
"Is there some law against bandits robbing bandits? If anything, this side of the business looks far more profitable."
"You absolute—!"
Bandits did not attack one another.
It was an unwritten rule, a code passed down—but it existed for good reason.
Bandits were targets for everyone, NPC and player alike. If they started tearing into each other on top of that, what would happen? They'd be ruined before they managed to plunder anything properly.
And so the code arose: you didn't have to like each other, but you did not attack your own kind.
Even the Grim Reaper himself, for all his power, only extorted other bandits with threats—he had never butchered them wholesale like this.
"You Crazy Bitch! Do you have any idea what you've just done?!"
"And what would that be?"
"Bandits don't rob bandits! You're breaking a rule so obvious it shouldn't even need saying...!"
"Oh. So there was a rule like that."
The woman nodded, as if conceding the point, dagger still leveled at his throat.
"But so what?"