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Chapter 351: I Shall Return
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“Shit… shit…”
She cursed and cursed, and cursed, and cursed.
Julia was in a rock forest outside of Dakar. It’s not that she wanted to hide here, but it’s just that she was led here while being chased around by these five members of the Elite Circle of The Illuminati.
“God damn it. Not only had my identity exposed, my location has been compromised as well. Hell is this situation…!!”
She just wanted to know who that knight is. But she didn’t expect that this is going to escalate into this big of a mess.
“I still haven’t recovered from that shock earlier.”
She was getting tired. Although none of them are injured in anyways, that ‘hell’ had a clear effect on her psyche as a whole.
For some reason, he can’t forget that voice and those pair of eyes. It’s like somewhere in her mind right now was that demon, lurking, waiting for her to sleep and snatch her soul away to put into that purgatory once again.
This made her cringe in fear and only the fact she was being chased right at this moment that she is able to tell that she was alive and breathing.
She knew that that ‘scrying result’ had placed a bane on her soul. She just didn’t know how to remove it.
“I’ve killed three of them already but these five are really strong.”
The Circle of Elites… The Illuminati… it was the most open secret organization in the game. Only the best of the best are aware of its existence and of all the other Pro Gamers Organization in the game, the clients of The Illuminati not only pay big time, they also numbered many.
It wasn’t even a joke to say that being part of this organization will make you rich… because that is indeed the case, if you’re skilled and capable enough to be accepted in it.
But then again, entering this organization is easier said than done amongst Pro Gamers.
All its members must not only be strong just by themselves alone, but they also must have ethics and pride to their work… like real mercenaries.
“Damn it. Damn it all.”
Julia had always wanted to be part of this group but a simple blunder made her the enemy of the entire organization. In a certain mission, she didn’t know that a target of a contract she had with the NPC organization “Chthonian Contingents” would burn her aspirations to shreds and pieces.
She killed the target and gained a few important loots… only to find out that the person she PK’ed was a member of that Circle of Elites.
What more, one of the loots, the ‘Memory Orb’, is one of Senior Dante’s prized possessions and the person she had assassinated was his secretary.
Ever since then, she became a fugitive and it was Senior Dante himself who had issued the official bounty on his head.
Her only saving grace was her real identity was a female player.
But now, even that had been compromised.
She was really in a dire strait.
“Why did I have to care so much for this tattered cloak anyways…”
In truth, she could have worn other disguises in the past but because she was poor, she held any and all of her belongings with high regards.
This cloak was one of her first items and it just so happens that it has the same style and color as her idol’s famous tattered gray cloak.
Even though she started earlier than Siva, she had always taken special liking for this cloak ever since she found out about that similarity.
And so, despite the risks she didn’t throw this away and even made it so it was part of her own persona as [Julia] when doing her ‘job’.
But she didn’t expect she would be cornered like this…
“Shit. Although I can always choose to start again, I’ve already invested time and effort for this main character of mine. I can’t let it just pass like this.”
She looked back and saw the five shadows of the pursuers: four men and a woman, all of them with their state-of-the-art S-Ranked gears. It made her cringe and shiver.
One on one, she can win against anyone of them.
Against two, she can probably injure them and run away injured as well; against four, she’d lose without questions asked. But—
“But there’re five of them!”
It was overkill.
And to think that these are the only ones who were online and had a T-Device at the time that FlowerLord had called on them.
“Shit!”
CRACKLE~!!
A Stun E-Grenade exploded far away from Julia and only because she controlled Baphomet that the sunning electric charge was blocked from touching her.
“You’re not getting away!” surprisingly, the woman in the lead was the leader of the four men. “There is no longer a safe place for you… you are being officially hunted by Terroa since an hour ago. Do you know what this means? You are now officially an International Criminal…!! Hahaha~~!!”
—I know!
SNIFF!!
—I already know… uuuuuuu… (T.T)
Julia looked back and clicked her tongue. Their distance was 40-50 meters and instead of flying which will make it easier for her, she used the rock forest to hide from time to time from her pursuers.
Flying consumes stamina and resources. And unless it was only dangerously necessary will she use her very limited resources.
After using that short spark of light, Julia hid in the cover of a giant rock, trying to recover.
She puffed and heaved, chasing her breath. Her avatar’s ‘STA’ wasn’t that high and that’s why she was already tired after an hour of continuous battle and running.
The five landed outside the range of her 20m radius because they knew that the 20m area from a BlackTech User is a danger zone.
“You are not getting away this time.” The woman shouted. “We have reinforcements on the way here as we speak and you… will be surrounded.”
Julia remained silent as she tried to regain her breath.
“Haa… Haaa… I don’t have enough Mana…”
She pulled up a blue potion and drank it, then called people for help… but no one replied. Not even those ‘friends’ she had once done favors before.
She really wanted to cry right now.
“Damn you all. I’ve helped you all in the past with my identity at risk every time but now you ditch me when I’m the one in need.”
She tried to contact other people but no one tried to help her. Tears were already in her eyes and only right now did she regretted everything.
If she could only turn back time, then she’d choose to not accept that contract. If only she did not need that money to buy food to live, she would not have made enemies with Senior Dante.
“I hate this. Do you people know how expensive an insurance account is? I’ve worked my ass out for a year and only managed to buy one damned account just last month. Fuck this game. Fuck it.”
She thought then, “Everything should have been okay if I had just given away this item. But it just so happens that it was also the best Enchanted Artifact to channel my Initial Ability.”
In her hand was the gem, the [Memory Orb].
Although the ‘scrying data’ had already been used in it, the lingering sensation of fear she felt earlier was still implanted on her memories. But along with this fear… was her reliance.
Her Initial Ability was called «One Day’s Memory», a result from 90% investment to Mana (turning it into ENERGY), and 10% DEX.
The Initial Ability’s flavour text (the text that tells you about the content) said that it was an Initial Ability that has that capability to tap into the world memory —the Life Stream— where all events that had happened in the universe are archived and is kept safe for no one but to those who are allowed to peek in it.
Support creative writers by reading their stories on Royal Road, not stolen versions.
By this ability alone, she can only ‘see’ what had happened in the past 12hrs of a target, but when it is cast as a spell through the [Memory Orb], the effect doubles and he get to even have a ‘pebble’ for collections purposes, allowing her to be able to view those ‘saved’ memories whenever she wants.
And aside from that, the [Memory Orb], by itself, has a unique ability to ‘scry’ [Memory of Identity] just by itself.
It was one of the best ‘tools’ for a spy-fanatic.
This [Memory Orb] is a unique top-grade item. It is classified as a «Divine Artifact».
Equipment Items
Accessory Items
General Items
Rune Items
MOD Items
Artifacts
In this game, these are the classifications of items that can be found by just anyone.
Weapons and Armors are generally Equipment Items; Talismans and other decorations fall under the Accessories; everyday seen and consumable items are simplified as such, plainly just General Items; Runes are «Runes»; MODs are MODs; as for the Artifacts… these are items that borders in between being an Accessory and a Consumable Item —with some having strong «Enchantments» in them that they can practically be used as just like any other normal Enchanted Weapon to channel a Wizard-styled player’s spell.
Artifacts are either limited in use or just like the Memory Orb, a “Unique Artifact” that doesn’t have a limit in activation but has a limit in how many times it can be used in a single day.
(A/N: please remember description about Spatial Artifacts in Volume 5 chapter 24)
Today’s usage limit had been met and now, it is simply just an ordinary gem in her hands.
But that’s not the reason why she held it in.
Julia, right now, was feeling remorse.
“Am I really going to die here?”
While she asked herself that question, she was in deep thought on whether to abandon everything she has as [Julia] or persist and preserve until she find someone who can help her in the game.
But…
She had already contacted, called, and emailed, everyone she can in her contact list but no one made any attempt to even contact her back.
They knew her current predicament and that’s all the reason how and why she found herself alone and abandoned at this moment.
“Uwaaaaaaaaaaaa….”
Her tears finally fell.
The sound of her crying could be heard by the five and for some reason, the men found it hard to hunt her down now because they could feel that perhaps… they had pushed the girl too far and made her feel scared so much.
“Don’t be fooled!” the woman shouted. “She’s a liar and a thief. She’s just fooling around with us.”
The four men thought for a moment before they all agreed; this… is nothing more than but another of those ‘jobs’.
Nothing personal….
..…just pure business.
Left with no choice, they just have to shut their brains out hold their breaths, put their muscles to work, and then be done with it.
—or at least, that’s what they thought.
POOF!!
“Watch out!” shouted the woman. Too late.
A grenade was thrown towards their direction and it exploded right over their heads. Bluish white, cold gas erupted like a dam that just released its waters, scattering in every direction like clouds upon a peak. It blocked their visions and messed up their sense of direction, the rock forest not helping even a tiny bit for them to get out of that rising sense of danger.
“Smoke screen!”
“Perimeter!” The men jumped in and formed a four corner perimeter defense zone upon their team leader’s commands. “Peel your eyes open. She’s going to be attacking soon.”
“Che. I can’t see anything!”
“Darius! Don’t get too far from us!”
“Wangmalu, in front of you!”
SWOOSH!!
As soon as she finished speaking, a shadow went passed over their heads.
Three of the men followed its direction the last one looking at its origins. The woman gazed at the direction she last knew where their target had hid herself and just when she had pulled out a fragmentation grenade to throw at her and gain the lead on this situation, she saw her appear… in front of them!
The only man who did not look away from where the shadow came from, Wangmalu, also saw their target and he could clearly see the tears in her eyes.
—so I bullied a girl to the point of crying!
—what would my girl say if she knew this…
Julia wore a look of savageness, like a cornered rat lunging in for a killing bite. Because of private troubles, Wangmalu couldn’t pull himself to attack her.
“It’s a last struggle attack! Be careful!” the woman in their group yelled. She pressed the button on her frag-grenade and was about to throw it when her eyes saw something went passed her left ear.
“Huh?”
“Eh?”
“Is that…”
“Shit.”
It was also a grenade but it wasn’t a frag-grenade.
“Spark Bomb.”
She gasped but her thumb already pressed the switch on her own grenade at the same time the spark grenade burst apart.
CRACKLE!!!
Thunder exploded, the area engulfed by plasma smoke screen ignited into an infernal fire of bright blue and orange colors.
Rocks flew in all directions, dust clouds remained as the single moment of thunder passed.
Around the crater, there were empty avatars.
There are four of them, the woman included. The last man was Wangmalu who only suffered a lost limb and a few bruises. Aside from that, he was very much alive.
“God damned, crazy bitch…” he cursed as he saw the corpse of the attacker. But he soon changed his mind when he saw her move her right hand —the only limb she got left— as she summoned her player panel.
“You think I will let you?”
His reservations were gone. He tried to rush her to finish her off but he could not even make his third step when he entered her 20m radius and—
SHOOF!!
Baphomet appeared and killed him with a two handed smash.
“Shit. I never knew that Siva’s style really was this effective… many people tried to copy him but all of them couldn’t afford to even buy 100 of the items he always throws around like a rock. And I only even bought a pair of them for fun…”
She moved her hand, not because she wanted to pull out a red potion but because she was trying to convert all items she can convert into item files to be transferred into the real world.
“……while I’m still alive…”
Because… Julia, no, the silly teenager behind the avatar [Julia], the person who carried so much regret because of a single mistake, had already decided to end her life with that name.
She converted all of the items she can convert into [.itm files] and only after she was done did she looked up at the remaining items in her inventory.
“Ah, I should have went into the bank to convert all my Zentra into Credits last night. Pity.” As she murmured her words, she also saw an item on her inventory… [Memory Pebble].
There were a bunch of them ‘pebbles’ in there, all part of her collections.
But the latest entry in the list had a date stamp in it that she would never forget.
“Come to think of it, I planned on selling whatever this information is to the Contingents but now that they abandoned me, might as well use this item for my own good.”
These ‘pebbles’ were like women; once ‘opened’, its ‘virginity’ couldn’t be repaired.
With regret, she pressed on the item and opened its menu. And there, she saw the events recorded within, the knight’s memory of the past 24hrs; the [memory] became a playback that imprinted itself on her retina and it played the entire events as if it she was really there.
And although it took exactly 24hrs in the vision, in the game world, it was actually just a moment.
Only after she was finished did she start laughing like a crazy maniac. What she there is something that even in her wildest dreams couldn’t even be imagined!
“To think, to think I would stumble on this secret!”
She laughed and laughed to who knows how long until she had enough of it and stopped laughing.
“Forget about that scene of a Grand Knight trying to bribe him, in Terroa right now, well, I don’t know of other female Archmages around that age and with that graceful beauty, but any smart brain with a pair of eyes could immediately connect that knight and that Archmage to only two people. In Terroa, there is only one person with an Archmage as a companion… and he fucking killed a Dragon singlehandedly!”
There was an endless amount of veneration on her face despite the bloody gore she was into.
Still, because of the game’s features, she couldn’t feel much of its pain. Only a mild muscle cramp and the fact that she doesn’t have any other limb except for her right hand.
“Ah, I’ve decided... I’m going to join his company.”
Having laughed enough, she crawled towards a direction and pulled out the Primary [Form] of her BlackTech from her right hand. It was a glove.
“At least, let’s stop the bleeding.”
As she murmured, she pulled up a Red Potion and drank it. The bleeding on her severed limbs stopped but the wound is still open though it’s not that severely looking like before. Only a few drops of blood were trickling.
She gave it a thought command and Baphomet carried her like a baby towards a rock valley in the distance. Quickly, they flew away from the scene.
Only BlackTech Users with a humanoid [Form] can enjoy such smooth riding. She made sure that Baphomet was carrying her fast enough towards the dessert rock valley so that the traces of her blood would be hidden by the fast moving sand.
Here, she chose a secluded spot between two big pieces of rock walls and in her mind, drew a map as she put the gloves and the items she could not convert into [.itm files] inside of it.
She had so many items so she put them all into a large bag, summing everything she owned into one big lump of treasure.
Next, Julia made a hole and put her all ‘treasures’ there —even the armor she wore and the rest of her weapons— everything that she had in her, she put them all into the bag.
She wouldn’t let anyone else have them.
“I worked really hard to get these items.” Julia is a poor gamer and she lived her life inside Terroa, abandoning the real world and its problems.
When she was finished, she was butt naked. For a teenager, this was such a humiliating and very embarrassing exhibit but she wasn’t an ordinary teenager. She was a spy-fanatic teenager from the 22nd century and she had long steeled her resolve to be able to do anything when in regards to her survival.
—being naked or even sleeping with men or even women at that, in that regard, included.
After all, everything in Terroa is just mental.
This little embarrassing scene is nothing.
She didn’t care about being naked in the middle of the desert. The only audience here would be monsters and even if there are players, she was a single armed corpse so what’s to lust over her?
“In my next life, I want to be as natural as I can be and without regrets and with a lot of friends. I’m going to stop my espionage here with Julia… my next life will be my own Alternate World Life that’s full of fun adventures!”
Having said that, she covered the glove with her single hand and summoned Baphomet.
With imagination alone, she made sure to cover the traces of her activity in there and only when she was satisfied did she stop.
Looking at that gap between the tall rocks, even she couldn’t tell that it was a place where a set of treasures are hidden.
She summoned Baphomet and made it carry her towards the 20m maximum radius from the glove.
As she was still alive, Baphomet was still in being.
And because she was still alive, as Baphomet’s owner, it was still following her commands.
But after she dies, Baphomet will dematerialize and the glove and the treasures within the bag in that secret ditch will be ownerless. From that point on, it’s a first come first serve treasure bag.
Julia glanced at the cliff edge in the distance.
“Well then.”
She closed her eyes and then gave a command.
Baphomet threw her towards the cliff edge with a monstrous strength and she could feel herself float and fall, no weight, no nothing, towards the cliff and to what lay below it… monsters.
The wandering desert mob in the edge saw her and started to chase after her.
A naked girl with one arm is still food.
Soon, a horde was following her fall and a sport occurred where the monsters tried to contend on who would be able to catch her.
In fact, as she was falling upon that cliff, the sight alone of a naked body falling from the heavens and into hell, with the background sky, was some spectacle on its own.
The monsters were the devils and a wounded and hurt angel was on her way to the fallen world.
A hill made up of monsters formed to catch her.
They stepped, bit, pulled, they wouldn’t let just anyone grab that food. It was a real contest.
30m from the ground, the strongest and fastest monster jumped up to catch her; its maw larger than Julia’s body.
All this time Julia had her eyes closed. She does not want to see the sky she loved as the last thing to see……
“—because I’ll come back… in three days, as the soonest.”
…and, deep in her heart, that’s the last thing Julia felt before being forcefully logged upon the monster’s first bite.
[You are dead]
[Game Over]
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Will the death of Julia bring good news?
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Next Chapter: The people affected by her death!
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