As the door closed behind him, Manco found himself in the hallway of a nondescript apartment building.
The place appeared to be a luxurious, high-end building that had been long abandoned. The floor was covered in trash, old condoms, and used syringes. The walls were covered with vulgar graffiti. Most of the fluorescent lamps on the ceiling were already broken. The ones that still worked were flickering non-stop, casting a sickly yellow light on everything.
Ignoring the putrid smell of garbage, urine, and feces, Manco made his way to the last door on the right, room 153. He turned the doorknob. The door opened with a creak and he headed inside.
"Yes!" he exclaimed as he took in the sight.
In the last two years as Scourge's top assassin and council member, Mahn Li had grown increasingly apathetic and despondent. Disillusioned with the guild's direction of growth, he shut himself off from most of their dealings. He would go off the radar and disappear for days on end to search for random things in the game that still piqued his curiosity: unique quests, items, mounts, places that few had set foot in. Exploring was the only thing that kept him attached to the game, besides messing with the League of Justice.
One of his long-time obsessions was the elusive gun. After several months trying to contact its former owners, a Black Mage named Fled'frid and a Ranger called Cyndrames, he eventually learned how they acquired it. From a series of obscure clues and hints scattered in diaries and dialogues with NPC, they figured out the entrance of the bonus stages and the method to pass them.
Mahn Li had followed the instructions and passed the maze and the gauntlet dozens of time. However, the third stage, the apartment, was always empty. There was absolutely nothing in room 153.
Unlike now.
Meeting his eyes were promotional posters of the game, featuring famous storyline-related NPCs: Grimbeard the Dwarven Berserker, Tarathiel the High Elf Queen, as well as many others whose names and histories he still remembered. Turning on the recording function, he headed deeper inside, grateful that the smell in the hallway did not follow him.
The apartment was quite small and felt even more cramped because of how untidy it was. Cardboard boxes were all over the place. Some were open, revealing personal items inside such as clothing or bath towels. It was as if the owner just moved here and had not bothered to unpack anything, content with digging out as few items as possible.
Navigating the cardboard boxes, he reached the guest room. It was a cookie-cutter room, with no trace of the owner. Following the giant mess of electrical cables, he headed into the bedroom.
This place was obviously where the owner spent most of his time. Occupying one corner was a pile made of pizza boxes, Chinese takeout packets, empty chip bags, and other food wrappings. Old clothes scattered around the floor. In the middle of the room was a large table which was strangely devoid of random trash.
Approaching the table, Manco realized it was actually a large integrated computer. The table's sleek black surface was a monitor. He touched it, and a quiet hum let him know the whole thing was booting up.
Several seconds later, he was faced with the desktop screen filled with hundreds of icons.
"What am I supposed to do with this?" Manco muttered as he reached out and touched one of the icons with his finger. No response.
He tried the icons one by one. Some opened up a web page. Others opened a word document. He lazily skimmed through them at first, but gradually became interested as the contents became more... interesting.
Besides its breakthrough products, Immersive Interaction was also known for a long history of lawsuits and controversies. Hostile takeovers, intellectual property thefts, mistreatments of employees, animal cruelty, bribery, corruption and so on. It had all sorts of allegations against it and somehow kept coming out on top.
In his old life, Mahn Li was never the sort to care about the drama behind-the-scenes of the games he played. Right now, however, he felt he was in the room of someone who had insider knowledge of the whole thing and could not help but felt curious.
Belatedly remembering he was still recording, he hastily scrolled through the documents, consisting of meeting memos, emails, and other sensitive information, intending to peruse them in detail later with the replay function. Right now, he needed a clue to get to the gun.
The moment he clicked on the last icon on the desktop, the screen turned off and the computer shut down.
A transparent keypad hovered in front of him.
The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.
[ Enter password ]
He entered "1-5-5."
[ Password incorrect ]
He tried again with "1-5-3-1-5-5"
[ Password accepted ]
The keypad dissolved into a thin strip of light, curving back to the hallway. Following it, he saw the light entering one of the cardboard boxes.
Opening the box, he saw a small ornate chest, the kind that contained treasures in the game.
"Is this it?" His heart pounding, Manco lifted the chest out of the box and opened it.
Inside was a small gun that could fit snugly into his palm. It had a chrome finish and an ivory grip. As he touched it, a notification screen sprang up.
〔Pick up "%-a####@!-"?〕
〔►Yes〕〔No〕
"Wait!" he hastily selected "No."
The apartment had always been empty in his previous life. He suspected that picking up the gun would trigger an event that destroyed all the objects in the apartment. He wasn't sure of it, but it wouldn't hurt to be careful.
Thus, with the chest in hand, he poked around every corner of the apartment. Most of the containers and drawers were locked up tight, saving him the time and effort to sift through the item.
Right next to the computer, he found a small thumb drive.
"How am I supposed to use this?" He muttered. He could plug it into the computer, but the thing simply refused to boot up.
"Do I need to find another bonus stage like this?" It was quite possible that whoever built this bonus stage might have built others.
He put the thumb drive into his inventory and kept searching the apartment. Eventually, satisfied that he had left no stone unturned, he picked up the gun and inspected it.
〘 The Collector 〙(Rarity: One of a kind. No, seriously!) ★
> Type: Derringer (One-handed)
> Requirement: Be smart and handsome! Quick trigger finger is also a must! Good aim is optional.
> Damage: 10 (piercing) + projectile damage. Range: 30m + projectile range. Ammunition: Magic Crystals. Capacity: 4
> Description: The person who created this weapon obviously never heard of the phrase 'With great power comes great responsibility.' Use it, abuse it, don't cry when you lose it!
> Weight: 0.9 kg
> Durability: 1/1
> Effects:
- ??? (Requirement to unlock: ???)
- ??? (Requirement to unlock: ???)
- Fragile: Durability-1 upon owner's death
- Fickle: 100% chance to drop upon owner's death
—.—
"..." Manco was speechless for a moment as he looked at the weapon's stats. Especially the 1 durability and the fact that it had 100% chance to drop upon owner's death. This is too cruel! Could this be how the original owners lose this weapon?
"Those two assholes!" He said with a sigh, "You gotta be fucking kidding me! How am I supposed to use this?"
For a brief moment, he thought about giving up the build and re-roll another character. He had only wasted a few days, he might be able to...
"Hang on a minute..." he mumbled, "Of course!"
He remembered it now! The gun used by Fled'frid and Cyndrames was not a derringer. It looked like a six-barreled handgun. Either it was a different weapon altogether, or it was still this gun but upgraded. He was partial toward the second theory. In addition, normal upgrades could not alter the appearance so drastically, which left only one explanation...
"This is a legacy weapon!"
Legacy equipment is a special type of equipment in the game. Unlike other magic items, a legacy item becomes more powerful alongside its user. This was done by completing hidden objectives that matched the achievements of its former owner. When certain objectives were fulfilled, the item would reach the next "milestone": its appearance would change and new abilities would be unlocked. Each legacy equipment had multiple milestones, requiring increasingly difficult tasks to unlock.
"So that's how it's gonna be, huh?"
Manco felt excitement coursing through him. This was gonna be fun!
He was quite certain that Cyndrames died at least once while carrying the gun, so it should be possible to increase the durability through upgrades. As for the dying part...
"I'll just have to avoid dying, I guess!" Manco chuckled at the challenge. Besides, there might be a way to circumvent this limitation.
The Magic Crystal projectile was gonna be a problem for another day. Despite the description, it was possible to use the gun to fire spells that he knew. It was limited to tier-1 spells and the damage was significantly lower, but it was better than nothing.
Right now he only had to focus on one thing: the legacy. He would need to figure out the condition to unlock the next milestone. Nine times out of ten, one of the conditions was killing things. Lots and lots of things.