"What the hell is this?!"

What greeted Alair was the sight of a raging inferno. It seems that she spawned in the middle of a village, to her conjecture this was the beginner village, typical of most MMORPGs. But unlike those ones, this village, in particular, is currently burning to cinders.

"Kekeke, burn everything, leave no one alive!"

"What about the women, boss?"

"Then take them, if they resist just kill 'em."

As she heard malicious voices among the raging flames, a game window pops out in front of her.

The player quota for the Beginner Village #8314527482 has been reached, initiating the welcoming sequence.

The Beginner Village is being raided by bandits, after being 'persuaded' by the passing noble army to give supplies for the war effort the village had many of their able-bodied men conscripted and almost no supply. Seeing the opportunity the bandits began their assault after the army had left.

You will be given two options, escape from the village and report the incident to the nearest lord or army garrison or drive away the bandits and rescue the remaining villagers. You will be rewarded when you have accomplished either objective.

"Are there any other choices?" Alair asked just in case, this game did promise a sort of free reign.

"Might as well test out how I'll do in combat I guess," she began to inspect her weapons and her armor. Craftsmanship seemed crude, it won't hold out for long in extended fights, fighting against a heavily armored opponent with this would be suicidal. "Hey, can I use their equipment? The bandits I mean."

Players can indeed take and use the equipment of NPCs, but after death, their equipment would always be converted to a lower quality than what they used when they're alive. Please expect for their items to not be in the best conditions. On the other hand, players can take supplies and money from NPCs, hostile or non-hostile without any problems as long as you kill them.

While Alair was thinking she was interrupted by a bandit that spotted her.

"Well lookie 'ere, it's me lucky day," the brigand said, licking his lips and looked at her maliciously. "What ya doing around 'ere girlie?"

|Damn they sure are going for realism here, no mercy for twelve-year-old children!| Alair thought and immediately put her hand on her knife handle.

"A little huntress eh?" he said as he eyed the bow on her back. Of course, it would be weird to see a young girl to carry hunting equipment around, but the bandit thought nothing of it apparently. After all, she's just a kid. Meanwhile, that little girl was thinking about how advanced the A.I. was to allow even random NPCs to have such thought processes.

"Let's have a little fun for a bit, come 'ere!"

The bandit began to walk towards her with a dagger, normally anyone would've frozen in fear and would lose their lives or get captured, and for a little girl like Alair, if she was captured, one could only imagine what kind of horrors would she experience. Not that the game developers would allow that though, they do need to be a little bit PG, otherwise, a lot of people would be very unamused.

You have been spotted, escaping is now harder, and only death awaits you if you were to be captured. Upon the death of all the players, the village will be destroyed, and the residents will perish along with it. In consideration for beginners, you will not receive any penalty upon reviving in the village, if it survives or in another surviving beginner village. You will still keep your items. Good luck.

After the window disappeared, the bandit suddenly struck at her with his dagger. Alair calmly avoided it by a hair's breadth, and then she grabbed the man's arm with both her hands and using the momentum he had when he attacked, she flipped him onto his back. Hitting the ground hard in an instant the bandit was dazed, using the opportunity, she immediately slit his throat with her knife, he started to emit gurgling sounds as he slowly drowned in his own blood as it filled his lungs. Even as the man died in silent agony Alair still took it all in stride.

"That was anti-climactic, " she commented as she wiped the knife on the bandit's clothes and sheathed it. "He didn't know what hit him. But then again, those youngsters... I mean, those players over there would normally wouldn't be able to react properly in this situation."

"HELP ME!"

"What the hell is this shit game! This is way too hard!"

"Uuuu, mommy...."

"MUHAHAHAHA where did all these wimps come from? Whatever more people to kill!"

"Kekekeke, boss it looks like there are more women in this village than we thought!"

She couldn't see them clearly through the flames and smoke, but judging from the noise around her it seems that most of the new players are having a rough time. She can already predict that looks like among the thousands of the beginner villages that the players spawned into most of them would be destroyed. For a welcoming rite, this had gone way overboard.

While she was there thinking, the chaos ensued, and it seems that no one else would come to her so she proceeded to loot the dead bandit's corpse. She got a dagger worse than hers, meaning that it might be around the same quality as the one she's using right now before he died. She got a few copper coins but no food.

|Aren't they too poor even for bandits? I guess they won't be pillaging if they weren't.|

The symphony of screams and blades clashing went on as Alair admired the realness that the game showed. The fire made the surroundings hot, she can feel it with her skin, she even sweats because of it too. The smoke acts like real-life smoke, it smells like burnt grass, wood, and even flesh. To her surprise and depression right after that, this scenario was somewhat overly familiar to her. Giving her flashbacks to the things she saw back then. Vietnam war, the two world wars, the rebellions, the crusade, and all those other wars she had witnessed personally in her travels. Now that she thought about it, humans really like fire, don't they?

|Isn't this game way too hard for most people? I don't think you can keep a profitable player base with this kind of difficulty.|

They did do a good job with realism, well so far. , too real in fact. Now the players are having their lives flashing before they eyes as they get cornered and butchered by brigands.

Alair decided to not dwell on it too much, if the game fails to stay alive then she will wait for a new one, even if it takes a hundred more years, hell, even a thousand. For now, she should just enjoy the game, as morbid as it is right now.

She began to move carefully, looking around her while trying to find a path to the ruckus she was hearing for a quite a while now. She followed the noises of fighting among the crackling of burning wood and straw, and as the sounds became more distinct the stench of blood grew stronger. There seems to be quite a large amount of people fighting.

"Hehehe, is that all ya can do?!"

"Ugh... what's with this shit game, this is way too hard!"

"Should've got me a shield instead, this is impossible!"

"What the hell are these wimps mumbling about?"

"Dunno boss, they might have gone mad with fear. Kekeke."

Alair saw the 20 players and a few dozen villagers surrounded by forty or so bandits at the village square. They were being toyed around by the bandits as entertainment. There were many corpses strewn about, villagers, and even players, there were no bandit corpses, they couldn't put up a fight against them.

It was a slaughter, there were probably a hundred or so players here, she could tell from how similar the leather armor they all wore. The villagers had none, not even proper weapons. The players probably died to the initial attacks when they panicked and didn't know how to respond, the survivors are probably those who were either fast enough to gather and fight back or those who are lucky enough to be ignored.

The remaining ones were currently fighting for their lives while being played around by the bandits. Despair was at an all-time high for them, soon those who were fighting would be killed and the rest would soon follow the same fate, maybe worse.

One of the players fighting one of the bandits was desperate, it was a teenage boy that had the sturdier but less flexible leather armor, he's wielding a sword but clearly wasn't good at it, the only thing that was going through his head was to survive. He even forgot this was a game, he felt fear and despair. As he wildly flailed his sword around, the bandit struck his weapon away, knocking him off his feet at the same time.

The bandit looked at him with malice, clearly enjoying it. Then he even gave a nastier grin as he raised his own weapon to chop the head off the fallen player. But before he could even swing it down Alair took aim with her bow and shot him in the neck. The bandit's eyes went wide and he gurgled as he crumpled down, blood spraying all over the boy who was horrified and on his butt, backing away.

|Pretty sure I aimed for the head that time, is it the quality of the bow or my deteriorating skills?|

She thought as she continued firing all of her arrows at the bandits that were fighting with the players. She found it hard to do it in quick succession as this body is not exactly trained.

What the A.I. said with the players starting with the same physical prowess and health was true enough, even if her character was a little girl, she estimated her current strength is around an average healthy male. She wouldn't be able to grab that bandit earlier or even pull the bowstring enough to fire the bow.

It seemed fine when she did calisthenics but it seems that fighting without training the body would be hard. Even with her thousands of years of experience, and with a body she's not used to, even Alair would need to be careful.

Alair made sure that she maintained a good distance from the enemies while firing her bow. Moving after she fired each arrow. The bandits were caught off guard as they saw one of their own suddenly die, but those who were not fighting the players immediately went to chase after her.

"Kill her!"

"She killed Ed! Unlucky bastard!"

"What the hell are you dawdling for!? End her!"

She managed to shoot down six bandits before one of them reached her. She immediately discarded her bow and unsheathed her hunting knife. The bandit came at her with an axe and swung it down. She sidestepped it and it got stuck in the dirt, allowing her to drive the knife into his throat, killing him.

"Dieee!"

"Do you really have to scream every time?" Alair said in annoyance as she dodged a dagger swipe from another bandit who attacked from the side. She quickly grabbed the man's arm and flipped him over, slicing his throat just like she did with that bandit her earlier encounter.

This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

The bandits who were also charging at her were taken aback, isn't this girl a bit too fierce? While they were slowing down, hesitating she immediately took the dead bandit's dagger and threw it at the frontmost bandit that was wielding a shoddy sword. The bandit was surprised to see a handle jutting out from the center of his chest, he hit her straight to the heart. He collapsed as he died clutching the knife.

As Alair was busy handling the bandits that went to pursue her. The struggle of the players and villagers continued. One by one a few players and villagers were killed. But a few players were able to hold off their opponents, but soon they would be overcome.

The bandit leader, a big brawny bald man wielding a saber saw that a random little girl was handling his men like children, decided to take it seriously.

He barked orders for the men to kill the rest quickly and that he would handle the girl himself.

While Alair dispatched six more bandits by slicing their throats with her knife and using the weapons of their fallen comrades to injure them. She easily avoided their clumsy attacks with her skill and her smaller stature. In fights, reach may be important, but against complete idiots like these who are coming at her one at a time, she can easily kill them one by one, if she had infinite stamina, but even the greatest of men, or women, grow tired. Her exhaustion had piled up, then she saw a big man with a saber walking towards her.

|Wow, the final boss already came. I thought they wait until the goons die out. This is too much realism!|

"I say, ye are quite impressive lil' girl, but ye made a big mistake not tryin' to run while ye can," the bandit leader said with a gruff angry voice as he menacingly walked towards her. He knew that she had accumulated some fatigued already. With this, she would be less of a threat.

Once he was in range, he immediately swung his saber, Alair was only able to block the strike but her dagger got knocked out of her hand, landing a few meters away.

"Heh, not so much of a fight left in ya...huh?!... argh!"

Alair's hand went numb from that, fighting in this body is definitely challenging. As her only weapon got removed, instead of backing off she immediately closed in on the bandit leader, because he was careless and he was using a saber, he couldn't react in time as she shortened the distance.

She immediately used one of the most effective but dirty moves in fighting she knew, a knee to the solar plexus. She struck with all her strength and the big man fell on his knees groaning dropping his weapon the process. Alair didn't stop there, but also executed another dirty move, punching him in the throat. With having the air knocked out of him and having difficulty breathing, she grabbed his head and twisted his neck with all the strength she could muster.

The bandit leader met his end, with his neck broken while holding his family jewels.

Trying to catch her breath, she picked up the dead man's saber and saw that even after the post-looting quality deterioration, it was still a bit better than her dagger. She tiredly picked up her dagger that was knocked away and stared at the scuffle among the survivors and the remaining bandits.

There were only a dozen players and a dozen more villagers remaining now. While the bandits were still around thirty, they are clearly outmatched and outnumbered. They seem to be trying to kill everyone immediately, no more playing around. But because they were completely preoccupied and having full confidence in their leader, they didn't even notice him perish. Alair got an idea to turn the situation around.

Rayne was an ordinary RPG fan. He loved playing these types of games, from the time he was a kid and even now that he had his own family. A world where he can be a warrior, a marksman, or even a wizard, he really enjoyed that. He also liked the fantasy genre too, so he was a bit disappointed when it was announced that the game had no magic in it. Heck, it even had no level system. How is this still an RPG? But being a video game addict that he was, he still saved up his money that he dedicated for his hobbies so that he can buy the VR gear and the game so that he can judge it for himself. And boy did it cost him a lot, but it was fine, cutting edge technology wasn't cheap.

Now back to the present situation, Rayne realized that this expensive immersive experience might give him PTSD. They have been thrown straight into hell and then the game expects them to fight these bandits to save the village or try to flee.

|Flee my ass, we got jumped by these guys from the get-go.|

Rayne ground his teeth from anger, now he realized why this game was for those who are 17 years old or above. This game promised realism, and it delivered, the violence and tension are way too real. The only respite they had is that the pain they feel is greatly reduced.

His character was designed to be a middle-aged warrior with a buzzcut and a scar on his cheek. He wanted his character to be intimidating, but right now, his legs were shaking as he was being cornered by three nasty-looking bandits. Along with less than a dozen other players and a few of the villager NPCs that were somehow able to fight back, they are currently struggling for their lives as they surrounded those who couldn't fight in a circle. But Rayne knew it too well it wouldn't last.

There was another person that was fighting the bandits. Looked like a girl, a kid even, how did a child manage to be allowed to play this game? The probably just customized their character to look that way. Small or not, that person killed quite a lot of these bandits with a bow and arrow. Seemed to piss the bandits off, as a big scary man among these guys, definitely their leader went to deal with her himself. Then the bandits went at them for real, reducing their numbers to this state.

Some of the players couldn't take it anymore and tried to retreat but were cut down by the brigands, some just collapsed on their knees and cried, and they also got killed. The villagers though fought with everything they have. The few women and children were their reasons to fight. But the players like Rayne however, have no reason to stay even, if they could log out they would've left and complained about it on the internet.

While Rayne was struggling to defend himself, he heard somebody scream, a bandit broke through their line and attempted to kill the non-combatants in the back. His target was a mother and child. They cowered and fear, the mother immediately hugged her child and tried to shield her with her own body. They reminded him of his family.

At that point he suddenly moved without thought, he threw his shield and his sword at the bandits that were cornering him and immediately turned around. He ran straight to the center and tackled the bandit that tried to swing at the two villagers to the ground. He managed to wrestle the man's dagger off his hands and started to stab him many times.

"AAAAAAAAAH!"

He kept screaming and screaming as he stabbed the bandit until he stopped moving. He tumbled back in horror as he saw what he had done, it felt too real, the feeling of stabbing flesh, the blood that gushed out, it was... warm. He dropped the knife, and then felt stinging pain at his back, one of the bandits slashed his back. He turned around and saw another bandit hack off his arm with an axe. It didn't feel as painful as it should be, otherwise, he would've fallen into shock. But it still made him feel like he dropped a heavy rock at his foot, it was an incapacitating sort of pain.

"Aaargh, SHIT! MY ARM! MY ARM!"

The pain might be reduced, but Rayne is not the sort of person to handle this kind of pain. He sobbed as he held the stump where his right arm used to be, as he watched a huge amount of blood gush through and then slow down. He collapsed on the ground and right before he lost consciousness, he saw the mother and child look at him in despair.

|Was that really all I can do?| He thought as his mind faded into darkness.

The remaining survivors huddle together as now they number sixteen. Eight players and 8 villagers consisting of women, children and elderly. While the bandits were somehow reduced to twenty due to the suicidal attacks of the desperate villagers and the braver players who were all dead. What remained was a weak rabble that managed to survive and people who cannot fight.

The bandits were bloodthirsty, they were really mad that this simple raid gave them many casualties. That mysterious archer killed a lot of their men and made the others braver. A cornered rat may still injure a cat, they learned that now the hard way. The villagers that fought were desperate and did not even flinch when they got skewered by sword or got gashed open by axes. The weirdly dressed people that suddenly appeared also gave them a hard time, but it was only a few of them that really fought valiantly, and they're all dead now, even that damned archer is probably dead too, nobody escapes from their boss alive.

They slowly inched to the survivors with weapons raised, no more funny business, their boss gave them orders to kill them, and they will kill them all. They learned a valuable lesson this time, underestimating their prey cost them a lot of their comrades.

As they approach the cowering players and villagers, something came flying from the side and rolled in front of them.

It was their leader's head.

While they were stopped in their tracks, from the back they heard one of their own emitting muffled gurgling noises, he fell down with a thud, dead. His throat had been slashed. Only when they have noticed, that a lot of their fellow bandits were dead, in the same way. While the people at the front were dealing with the survivors, someone had killed those that were isolated and distracted, silently by slitting their throats.

They furiously looked around trying to find the enemy, but no trace. For a while now they're being killed off one by one.

"Stand together! The bastard won't get us if we watch each other's ba--"

The bandit that tried to reorganize the confused bandits was interrupted, by a blade that jutted out from the back of his neck. Then Alair, who got behind them and was now in front of the remaining players and villagers, kicked the dead bandit to remove the saber blade.

The remaining players were amazed and were somewhat thankful that some help arrived, but a little girl was an unlikely reinforcement.

Without looking back at them, she said.

"The hell are you guys looking at? FIGHT FOR YOUR LIVES!"

"You bitch! Die for me!"

The bandits regained composure at that moment and charged right at her. The players that lost their fighting spirit also followed, charging straight at the numerically advantaged bandits.

|This is going to be hard.| Alair frowned as she parried a clumsy sword swing from a bandit. |But not impossible.|

She then ducked under a sideways axe swing and slashed her saber at the attacker's knee, making him collapse and bleed profusely. Another sword strike came at her, she sidestepped it by a small margin and then thrust the point of her saber into a charging bandit. She continued to dodge and parry every attack from the bandits, inflicting fatal or crippling counterattacks at every opportunity. Watching this the players attacked with renewed vigor.

The bandits' morale dropped seeing that their members were being played with and killed one by one in the middle of their group. Since they focused too much on Alair, the players were able to sneak in attacks that injured them or killed them outright. The villagers that couldn't fight resorted to throwing rocks at the bandits around the edges, making sure to not hit their protectors. This brought Alair enough leeway to dodge and attack the enemies around her. Even with her skill, her body could no longer keep up, as she is now continuously gaining small wounds. Her fatigue from fighting their leader earlier is now growing. Soon she would no longer be able to fight.

After fifteen minutes of fighting, there only remained three bandits. There are only two more players left aside from Alair. All of them are exhausted, even she felt like collapse, but she stood her ground, she had been through worse.

"*pant* Hey, are you really a player? Those are some sick moves, god damn this game is hard."

"Do you think we can log out after we die? Or would we really die for real? Is this like that anime? Ugh, I feel like dying right now."

"How old are you really to know that reference?"

Alair retorted these two are on the verge of death. While she had numerous small wounds, these guys had gashes all over their body.

The bandits were not better off either, they had many wounds from Alair and the players. They are now frantic and fearful of her. She had singlehandedly collapsed their group, and had personally killed a dozen of them. She was like a demoness that ripped their bandit group to shreds.

The villagers had run out of rocks to throw and were afraid to move an inch. Glancing back at them, Alair knew that it was not over yet, they have to kill these bandits and find a way out of this burning village. Strangely enough, the fires have not died down yet. The smoke is also getting to them.

Both sides were glaring at each other, they are all injured and dead tired. The stalemate was broken after one of the players collapsed. The bandits took this an opportunity to attack.

Alair managed to block an attack, but her stance collapsed, her fatigue is already at dangerous levels, she was surprised she was still standing. Then pain assaulted her as an axe hit her right shoulder, a long gash ran through her shoulder and her upper chest. She spat blood as she was knocked back a few steps, she stood her ground, fall now and she would never stand back up again. The other player got cornered by the third bandit that had a mace. He blocked the strikes with his shield but with every impact, his legs were close to giving up.

|You can even spit blood in this game? This game went all out, cool.| She thought as she wiped the blood off her mouth with her right hand. Now she can only use her weaker left arm, she can barely move her right arm.

Knowing that she can no longer swing the saber properly, she dropped it and took a stance with her left fist in front, and her right arm dangling uselessly. She felt weak, she was so tired and was bleeding from all over too. It's been a long time since she felt like this. So fragile, so small.

"Heh, ya bitch, DIEE!"

The axe-wielding bandit charged at her, swinging his axe over his head. The bandit grinned as the edge of the axe neared her head, but Alair once again to dodge it by a narrow margin. She drove a punch straight into the man's stomach, stopping him for a bit, then kicking him in between the legs. He collapsed on his knees, and she jumped and straddled his head and twisted her body, snapping his neck as they tumbled over. The second bandit who was brandishing a sword thought that she was done for when the first guy swung at her, but when he saw that he got on his knees he acted a second too late. He tried to swing down at Alair with his sword as she was still down on the ground. But she rolled at the last moment, and by sheer luck, the sword tip got stuck. She immediately drew out her dagger with her left and stabbed the bandit in the chest, penetrating his heart and killing him.

The other player was still struggling with the last bandit, his shield was now broken and the bandit kept wildly swinging his mace, not being able to avoid, he tried to block with his one-handed sword, but the impact numbed his hand and his weapon flew from his grasp, his balanced also got displaced and he tumbled on his back.

"Bastard, die for me!"

The bandit tried to swing his mace from above to crush the player's head. He blocked his face with his arms and braced for his death, but it never came and what he heard instead was the sound of a sharp object penetrating flesh and bone. A dagger was sticking out from the side of the bandit's head, his eyes wide open as he collapsed to the side, unmoving. The mace falling between the collapsed player's legs.

The player was so scared that he fainted right after.

|Oof he almost got his balls crushed to an omelet.|

That was the last thing on her mind as Alair also fainted and fell over still in a throwing pose.