---Third POV---
Three figures instantly assumed combat stances. Moments later, three more arrows shot straight at their foreheads.
But all were evaded with remarkable speed.
Child and Garble chanted incantations, vanishing from sight in a flash.
Meanwhile, NeverShowOff broke into a sweat as he continued reciting fire-based spells.
Child wielded a machete and flung it forcefully into a patch of ash-gray grass thick with resilient blades.
"Found you hiding here!"
Splashes of blood stained the stalks of the tall grass.
A narrow path was forcibly carved through the dense thicket.
He yanked the machete from the ground, dodged incoming arrows, and charged forward in pursuit.
Thunk!
Garble raised his arm to block an arrow aimed at his chest. He somersaulted to the side, knocked a dagger from an assassin's hand with the back of his blade, and slashed the assailant's throat in one smooth motion.
Warm blood splattered across half his face.
"Four archers in total, two left!" he reported, ignoring the blood dripping from his wounds.
"No, just one now!" came a voice from nearby.
Garble turned and saw Child's pants stained crimson.
However, at that moment, the ground beneath them softened unexpectedly. The mud seemed alive, binding their legs and holding them in place.
It was a swampy mire!
The mud crept up their legs, reaching their thighs in no time.
Garble's pupils constricted. "Magic! There's a mage hiding besides the archers!"
He attempted to retreat but only dragged a large portion of the mud along with him.
Whoosh!
Whoosh, whoosh!
More arrows sliced through the air. The two continued to block with their arms.
Hiss!
Garble couldn't suppress a grunt of pain. The final archer was undoubtedly the strongest of the four, each shot carried a massive recoil.
Suddenly, two fist-sized fireballs struck the mud around their knees. The pitch-black sludge dried instantly, cracking apart. Taking advantage of the moment, he broke free and quickly distanced himself from the watery grasslands, shouting, "Are you okay?"
"I'm fine! Watch out, there's something in the pond we just left!" Child also freed himself, shaking his recently trapped leg in lingering fear as he sprinted toward the last archer's position.
He yelled, "Are you done puking?"
"Coming!" Behind the grass, the sound of retching had ceased. Lux crawled out, clutching her chest and gasping for breath. She wiped her face harshly with a cloth, nearly cursing aloud.
"Seriously? This had to happen while I was car-sick?"
She pushed Gaeman, who was about to step out, back into hiding. "Stay put!"
Then, she pulled out a leftover coconut melon bomb from a previous goblin hunt. "Catch!"
The bomb arced through the air. Child caught it deftly and tossed it to Garble.
Fireballs and the coconut bomb were thrown into the mud pit simultaneously.
Boom!
A massive explosion sent a three-meter-high wall of foul-smelling mud flying.
At the same time, Child plunged his machete into the heart of the final assassin.
Thud!
It was over.
A distant flock of birds took off in alarm. The crimson-fanged horses neighed wildly, while leaves rained down from the trees like a downpour.
After confirming the assassin was dead, he dropped the machete as if burned. Its green, ghostly glow unnerved him.
"Holy crap! This game's blood effects are way too realistic!"
Hearing this, NeverShowOff approached with a chuckle. "Didn't you spend half a month chopping goblins? I thought you'd be used to it by now."
"Green-skinned monsters and humanoids are totally different," Child muttered, inspecting the corpse with curiosity.
"I've got to say, the pain-threshold system blocking psychological effects gets a full score from me!"
Otherwise, he doubted he could have done it.
"Stop chatting, or you'll bleed out!" Lux ran over with bandages and a disinfected machete. She handed it to NeverShowOff.
"Help me sterilize this."
"Sure."
With the disinfected blade, Lux expertly removed the barbed arrows from Child and Garble, applied bandages, and cast a healing light spell. Apart from their pale faces from blood loss and magical exhaustion, their injuries were no longer a concern.
Gaeman stared in a daze as the players efficiently cleaned up like seasoned combat veterans.
This level of professionalism... A group of novice mages with beginner-level skills displayed a sense of order and ruthlessness, as if they had fought countless battles.
Each move was calculated to kill in one strike. They weren't learning simple combat, they were mastering the art of killing.
Of course, players had died countless times on battlefields. Over time, they figured out which injuries to avoid and where to aim for maximum damage.
With the pain-threshold system in place, they weren't afraid of pain, they simply went all out.
His shock was misinterpreted by NeverShowOff, who thought the boy had never seen such carnage before. He ruffled Gaeman's hair reassuringly.
"Don't worry, we're safe now. We are… uh… good people."
He glanced at the blood-soaked players rifling through corpses and added awkwardly, "At least, most of the time."
Just then, something moved in the exploded mud pit. The group's demeanor changed instantly.
Lux hurled another bomb, which Child and Garble passed along. NeverShowOff ignited it.
Boom!
The mud pit doubled in size.
After confirming no further movement, NeverShowOff exhaled deeply. "Now it's completely safe."
"…"
The archers wore common gray-white grass-woven clothing typical of displaced refugees. They bore scars but no tattoos, offering no clues about their identities. Apart from their well-developed muscles, unusual for malnourished refugees, there was little to go on.
The players placed the archers' corpses aside and turned their attention to the magic user in the mud.
Child uncovered the figure buried under grass and mud and froze.
"A fishtail?"
"What?" Garble quickly cleared away the remaining mud.
The figure was lifeless.
This mage, who had hidden under the mud to launch their attack, was not human.
It was…
"A mermaid?" Child scratched his head, struggling for a better description. "Uh, no… an ugly mermaid?"
Its appearance was nothing like the legendary beauties known for their singing.
Blue skin, scattered facial features, scales covering its body, and protruding fangs…
Lux glanced at the figure, its facial features scrunching up in distaste.
"Why does it look so strange?"
"It should be the siren mentioned in the background information," NeverShowOff, who had studied the background lore, explained. He lifted the fin hidden beneath the siren's hair, further confirming his theory.
"Look at this, these are the siren's unique ear fins."
Lux stared wide-eyed in shock, taking a step back. "My image of sirens is shattered!"
"Maybe it's just an outlier, a LootGoblin among the sirens?" Child tried to salvage the sirens' reputation.
Garble couldn't help but laugh. "The LootGoblin joke isn't going away anytime soon, huh?"
Ever since LootGoblin had infiltrated the goblins as an undercover dwarf and snagged the main storyline MVP, his appearance had become a running gag among players.
He had started out trying to become a gaming heartthrob through relentless leveling, only to end up a comedic figure.
They examined the siren but found nothing on it that could indicate its identity, leaving NeverShowOff with more questions than answers.
"A siren infiltrating a human nation as an assassin?"
"This doesn't match the intel we gathered earlier," Child said, arms crossed, nodding repeatedly.
"Wasn't it said that the various races have refused to interact for years?" Lux tilted her head, thinking hard.
"Uh... I can't figure it out. Let's go back and ask Viktor later. He's been around long enough to know everything."
Staring at the siren's three-meter-long fishtail, Garble had concerns. "Can we even fit this on our carriage?"
When buying the carriage, they had tried to save money. It could barely fit four passengers and a coachman, with hardly any space for luggage.
NeverShowOff stroked his chin, pondering.
"We'll hang four archers off the sides, and the siren, being larger, can be strapped horizontally to the back of the carriage. As long as Child doesn't drive, it shouldn't fall off."
Child protested, "That was an accident earlier! I'm convinced the horse bolted because of those assassins!"
"Yeah, sure," Lux said mercilessly. "Funny how it only bolted with you driving."
After throwing up the green blob soup from the past two days, she no longer trusted his skills.
As the two were about to start bickering again, a hoarse voice filled with disbelief interrupted them.
"You're taking all these corpses with you?!"
NeverShowOff turned toward the voice, following the subtitles, and locked eyes with Gaeman's horrified expression.
The look in his eyes was as if he were staring at a group of corpse-obsessed lunatics.
NeverShowOff wondered if they'd come across that way.
To avoid further misunderstanding, he quickly explained, "We're just taking them back so others can help identify their identities."
"Yeah, and to make some use of them," Child added.
Since players' bodies could be converted into resurrection materials, there was no reason the bodies of human NPCs or the siren couldn't be used similarly!
These were valuable resources!
NeverShowOff facepalmed in exasperation. "Don't say things that cause misunderstandings. Rest assured, our repurposing methods are entirely legitimate and reasonable!"
The players hastily ended their investigation into the assassins' origins, focusing instead on moving the bodies near the carriage. Ignoring the horse's distressed neighs, they began strategizing how to hang the five corpses on the carriage.
"No way. Garble, your throat-slitting was too strong. I'm afraid his head might accidentally pop off mid-journey."
"Then... strap him to the red horse?"
"Neigh—neigh—!"
"…Forget it. That might drive the horse mad."
"Hey, I've got a wooden plank that can be used as a carriage roof."
"What?! You're carrying something like that in your inventory?"
"Just tell me if it's useful or not!" Once Child pulled out a massive wooden plank, the other players, though feigning shock, also produced matching hammers and nails from their inventories.
They enthusiastically began modifying the carriage, hammering away noisily.
Gaeman stood frozen, his gaze vacant.
He was still hung up on the earlier conversation with NeverShowOff.
Wait, what?
How could there possibly be legitimate and reasonable ways to use corpses? If they wanted to identify the assassins, wouldn't taking just the heads be enough to cast a tracking spell? Taking the whole body, dripping with blood, would undoubtedly attract hordes of monsters!
Weren't they worried at all?
No, from the way the four left no survivors earlier and their perfunctory investigation of the assassins' identities, they seemed to be actively looking for trouble. It was as if they weren't just unafraid of death but were actively trying to draw more threats and enemies to chase after them.
His frown deepened.
The more time he spent with these four, the less he could understand them, their bizarre thoughts and behavior, their inexplicably powerful skills and magic…
They were far too much like...
Bang!
A loud noise interrupted his thoughts. The mud and blood on the ground morphed into sharp blood arrows and mud blades, piercing through the wooden plank and shooting straight at the players' faces.
His eyelids twitched.
"Not good!"
The siren was faking its death! He sprinted toward the players, shouting hoarsely, "Get down!!!"
Thud!
Before he even finished yelling, the players instinctively dodged the blood arrows and skewered the siren with their blades.
"How… how can your... urgh!"
The siren coughed up blood, its eyes filled with disbelief.
"Your reflexes… and casting speed… it's impossible…"
Before finishing its sentence, it breathed its last. Even in death, its eyes remained wide open, filled with eternal disbelief.
Child pulled out his blade, lovingly wiping it clean.
"I have to say, starter weapons are the best, good for chopping wood and stabbing enemies!"
NeverShowOff frowned, staring at the subtitles that hadn't fully translated. "What was it trying to say just now?"
The ambush had been so sudden they'd reacted instinctively, accidentally killing it with too much force.
Garble thought for a moment. "It seemed to think our reflexes were too fast?"
"Ah, just a standard villain's dying lament. Don't overthink it," Lux shrugged casually. "Our physiques are just that overpowered."
This had long been noted on the forums. Players only needed to train in the game for a few days to develop muscle layers far exceeding real-world progress. Their speed and sixth sense might start off as average, but once they gained extra experience, their growth rate became absurdly fast.
It was no big deal, just a universal player perk.
After ensuring the siren was truly dead with a few more stabs, Child finally relaxed.
"This time, it's really over, right?"
If they'd been a second slower, his head would've exploded. This game's NPCs were ruthless, always going for one-hit kills without following the typical villainous routine of disabling the limbs, monologuing, and then delivering the final blow.