The shaking takes a while to calm down, and the cold sweat remains to sting the eyes.

It stinks worse than usual, fear's stench ingrained into the salty aroma.

Some of the blood's smell also lingers around, though the warm wind blows it away fast.

Since the bodies disappear as they die, it seems like nothing even happened.

No loot to speak of, and no splatters either.

The injuries and the bandage used to treat them are also gone once they heal, and it doesn't take long in this game.

It's much later until the war drums in the ears calm down enough to let the birds chirp through.

The entire struggle went down before the Angels got here.

It reveals how this Burn Taji event kicked off when they should have come in ten seconds at most.

The first one landed that much after the arrows finished off the last fucker.

Oh, God, that felt good, let's hope it doesn't mean I'm a psychopath.

And then, losing their reason to be around, they passed over the little alley and despawned.

Talk about immersion-breaking and disappointing.

The system won't allow the players to even mention metagaming in front of the NPCs and then this.

It's like comparing Selena and Tank to the ratting villagers, from max effort to zero in two seconds.

Okay, this must be a bug so at least this isn't normal.

When that fancy player got the ganker treatment, the Angels were faster and took into the skies once it was over.

They were too late back then too, though not by this much.

And by the way, where's Tank?

He was always here, in this very spot, day and night, and he's gone, right when shit hits the fan?

He might be on some bandit-related crap with another player.

Or did he try to intervene against the thugs earlier? Can he even do that?

It's PVP after all, he has no reason, and, wait, can these NPCs die?

He's crazy high-level and tough as nails but who could survive an ambush from twenty of those thugs at once?

Would he respawn like the players, or if they're gone, they're gone for good?

Thinking about life and death after murdering those shitheads seems appropriate.

Even if there's no entry to the Training Grounds after the tenth level, I'd feel bad about Tank going down.

And holy shit that mechanic seemed stupid, but it sure saved my skin here.

It was still very close, two healing potions and a pack of bandages gone.

If you spot this story on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

Thank God, a complete recovery that would be months in real life only takes seconds here.

Talk about fast-paced; too bad no such potions exist outside fantasy titles.

So what now? There was no alert about the security status going down since it was self-defense.

Some players saw the first moments of the fight, but nobody was there to witness the murder.

Well, this game is all about PVP anyway.

The Angels were also on their way to kill the fuckers for starting a fight, except they weren't fast enough.

None of this should matter, it's over already.

It was a first for me, at least the first where it wasn't one-sided, but these are everyday occurrences for others.

All right, there is stuff to do, the govt quest still hangs over this spinning head. Thanks for the eighteen hundred Exp.

With the weapons gone only the dagger and the bandit's bow remain.

The battered shield didn't disappear but it's even more beat up as the name suggests now.

Yeah, they last long when all they encounter is zombie claws and rats, a few swings from that mace almost broke it.

The avatar has no armor, which made this fight even more hairy, and all it has equipped is the Exp boost items.

Those worked great, that fourteen percent meant more than two hundred extra points.

That's like six or seven zombies in one minute.

And wow, the newbie thug paid a hundred, while his high-level friends five hundred each.

It's tempting to stay and find a place they can't reach, then rain down arrows during their next rampage.

If it's the same twenty gankers, and they all pay this much, that's over ten thousand.

That said, this would piss them off for sure, and let's not get on their wanted list.

They're annoying already and the tenth level is still fifty thousand away.

Nine hours left to scrape it together, and the character still didn't even buy the gear needed.

It's great that while the market is large and full of NPCs, it doesn't matter which part you are in.

As soon as you're at the farther edge of the little alley, the system offers the trade window for the entire thing.

Staying out of sight to conduct business will be vital with these fuckers around.

And there is so much to buy. The list for DragonS' guide's open and after this encounter let's make sure to get the armor set he recommends.

No cheapening out on that, and buy some extra shields as a backup.

While it's unfortunate that the nice set of weapons is gone, this can happen in the dungeon too.

This won't make the shopping list any shorter, damn it.

There's a hundred and forty-two gold in the purse, the small backpack, the dark cloak, and the rest will cost a fortune.

Well, it's surprising that all the loot sold for this much in the first place.

The avatar wasn't that poor in the end, though much of it was that lucky mistake the Pharmacist made.

It was worth collecting the rat tails.

The inventory is almost empty though, so let's fill it up.

He puts a lot of tools on the list, that are cheap but weigh a ton.

Taking ropes on the journey makes sense, but who would have thought a coil's six kilos?

There are lighter alternatives, of course, and the price shoots up from one silver to ten gold.

And it's only relevant in two of the five possible dungeon types, so let's leave those for last.

He recommends taking torches too, as they're cheap, each lasts an hour, and can double as weapons.

Those weigh each the same as the oil lamp though, and it's already here.

Decisions, decisions.

At least thinking about a shopping list finally sorted out the crazy heart rate from that fight.

And thanks to those thugs, stuff often found on players is dirt cheap, since their loot flooded the market.

Armor will be tough.

The lowest price for a plus-four is a hundred and twenty, and the plus-five costs almost three hundred.

Even the cheaper option would leave less than twenty gold for everything else.

And weapons also cost a few dozen coins, damn it, the purse is still short.

How could I make more money fast? The ratting jobs are gone and they didn't pay shit anyway.

There's no time to grind before, well, more grinding.

There might be only one option left, giving me the chills.

No, that's... That's wrong. It never happened before, and I swore not to do it.

But this is an emergency, even if it's worse than stealing or killing, I have to do something.