World Quest — Royal Overthrow

"Influence?"

I hadn't known bandit guilds had a feature like this. I'd heard of World Quests existing between regular guilds, but it never occurred to me that they applied to bandits as well.

My influence in the Avis Kingdom currently stood at 17%. And once it hit 60%, it seemed I'd be able to do far more than merely pick the kingdom's pockets — I could swallow the entire thing whole.

I'll have to deal with the fallout, of course.

"So a World Quest popped up?"

"Just the notification that I qualify. It says if I reach 60%, I can topple the royal family."

"Well, you did wipe us all out, so I suppose you've earned it. I never got one, not once."

"...By the way."

I turned my head. Even after I'd taken the name from the former Crazy Bitch guild and returned to the Annihilation hideout, the Annihilation Guild Master was still standing there. I'd meant to let him go as payment for the information, so why was he still lingering?

"Why haven't you left?"

"You confiscated all my stuff."

"Oh."

Right. When I'd killed him while he was pulling things out of the vault, he hadn't been able to transfer them into his inventory. The items still lay scattered across the table. I'd moved to stop him from grabbing them, but apparently they were system-locked because they'd come out of the vault — I couldn't touch them either.

But that was only a matter of time. Once I claimed this place, ownership would pass to me.

"Should I give them back?"

"Yeah."

"Why would I do that?"

"Because if you don't, I'll report you to everyone — the bounty office, the Bandit Alliance, all of it. Your appearance, your abilities, your personality, the way you talk. Everything."

He glared at me. Honestly, I wasn't planning on taking this bandit life seriously anyway — I just needed to farm points. I didn't intend to plunder anyone either, not without a grudge or a debt worth collecting. But my identity spreading in every direction could become a real problem. The fact that Lily and Rafina were the same person was something that could never come to light.

"If you don't want that, then just hand over the—"

"No thanks."

But it was already too late. It had been a while since I'd spoken with Jackal, the master of the Jackal guild, and I'd crushed five bandit guilds by now. The name Rafina was already public knowledge, whether I liked it or not.

Clunk!

The vault door swung open.

"......"

"Just kidding. Since you gave me the information, I'll let you keep everything I don't need."

"You're unbelievable."

"What, you don't like it?"

If he didn't like it, he could die. As it happened, I was short on PK Points, so that worked out nicely.

"...Crazy Bitch."

"So you don't like it?"

"I didn't say I didn't like it."

There was nothing special in the vault. The vast majority of it was items worth under 100 PK Points, and the ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠Veil of Blockade I actually wanted, unsurprisingly, wasn't there.

According to the Guild Master, this vault was a kind of "respawn random box." If you ran your bandit guild and hideout well, bandit-exclusive items would spawn at regular intervals — and the higher your influence, the better and more plentiful the items became.

I claimed every remaining hideout in the Avis Kingdom, Annihilation's included, and checked each vault, but there was nothing worth taking. Most of the good stuff was long gone — other bandits had grabbed their loot and slipped away while I'd been wasting time with Jackal and Annihilation. All that was left in the vaults was a single potion that looked freshly generated, worth ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠1 PK Point.

After downing a sip of the strawberry-flavored potion, I claimed the last remaining hideout and checked my guild system.

For the new hideout, I'd demolished Jackal's old one and raised a fresh one in its place. There were several reasons, but the biggest was location — this spot sat dead center among the bandit guilds of the surrounding area.

Makes a fine control tower, too.

A three-story black hideout, similar to Jackal's but with its own character. Its clean sheen and the large white X-shaped scar emblazoned across one wall made it quite eye-catching. For the record, I hadn't built it by hand — I did the customizing, and the system raised the structure for me.

Not so different from building the Academy.

It felt much the same as casting magic as Lily. No real difference at all.

Creeeak...

"Oh."

The hideout was cleaner than I'd expected. The hideouts the bandits had been using before were a bit grimy, as if nobody had bothered to maintain them, but this one looked like some upscale fixer's office. A black leather sofa in an L-shape, a table that looked fairly expensive. And embedded throughout the ceiling and walls were X-shaped markings — Rafina's sigil.

Wmmm...!

Clunk!

The newly built vault on the second floor rattled and produced an item. What came out was a 50 PK Point trinket — Deception (Single Use). Its effect: it could conceal the kill log that appears during a PK, exactly once.

The price seemed cheap for what it did, but given that it was single-use and only hid a nickname, the valuation made sense.

Five points every three hours. That's forty a day — not bad. With my current PK Point total at 1,800, I could just leave it alone for a month and afford the Veil of Blockade outright.

There was one problem, though...

The moment I logged out, the hideout would inevitably fall. Unlike a siege war — where you formally declare hostilities and fight over a castle — a hideout simply changes hands the instant it's occupied. Seize the entire hideout and neutralize every hostile player inside, and it's captured. And since hostiles are judged by online status, no matter how strong I am, it means nothing if I'm not logged in.

No one to leave guarding the place, either... and using magic would be pushing it.

I have the power to turn a hideout into a sanctuary. Eli Academy, for one, is wrapped in a divine barrier that wouldn't so much as flinch if a meteor dropped on it from the sky, and the same goes for Elbritte's castle and domain. And even if something breached the barrier, dozens of trap spells would be waiting for any intruder — entry is simply impossible.

...Assuming I'm Lily, that is.

Rafina can't use magic. Her abilities are purely physical — superhuman bodily prowess and assassin-specialized skills like her daggerwork. Techniques to instantly crush and subdue any intruder who walks in are things that simply cannot exist for her.

There were trap items sold in the shop, admittedly...

"Yeah, that's not it."

Poor value for their price. Even students taking my classes — or honestly, any ranker of decent caliber — would shrug these off as nothing more than annoying decorations. And as for stationing someone here to guard it? Every candidate had already been shown to the world as Lily. Pharaoh, Rasty, Sre, the Shadow Spirit... every one of them a face revealed through my broadcasts.

If only I'd run into Jeokma as Rafina instead — then I might have left him here.

"...Guess I'll just slap something together and play it off as having hired a mage's help, then...?"

Voices.

People. Coming this way.

I immediately activated Stealth and slipped outside. In the far distance, figures clad in silver armor were marching in perfect lockstep.

A knight order? Had a subjugation order already gone out?

"This is the place?"

"Yes, sir, that's correct. This is the center of their operations."

"Scavenging scraps like vermin wasn't enough for them — now they arrogantly expand their numbers and stretch their territory?"

Shff.

"These gutter rats don't know their place."

About thirty of them.

Not a large number, but judging by the resplendent armor and weaponry, they were no half-baked knight order. Their levels sat around 70 on average, and the knight at the very front stood a full head taller than the rest — looked to be somewhere in the 80-to-90 range. Not on the level of the Imperial Knights, perhaps, but they were competent men nonetheless.

If they weren't facing a ranker, every bandit here would have been slaughtered.

Even without me involved, the fate of the bandits in this kingdom was already sealed. And among the knights, the one man in different attire—

"That's right, sir! Hehe. He was a real piece of work in our world too, absolutely shameless!"

A player.

Ding!

A quest. And one involving another player, no less.

At this first encounter with a quest type I'd never seen in all my time playing Deoen, an old remark of Yena's surfaced in my memory.

'World Quests sometimes put players on opposite sides, you know. Once you take one side, you inevitably end up fighting the other.'

'Since you don't run a guild, Miss Lily, you probably won't run into it much — but someday you will.'

And what happens if you do collide? Well, one of two things.

"How fun."

You find a compromise with each other.

Or you shatter them completely.