One Saber To Conquer The City’s title looked normal. However, no matter what title it was, the skill it granted the player was really useful. For example, Little Tan’s title, [The Flustered Ambusher], was shaggier than One Saber’s and One Sword’s titles; however, the skill granted from his title, the [Retreat and Chop Rapidly], could give him more space in fighting.
Whether a player had a weak, strange or even a perverted title, the skill it granted was, no doubt, pretty practical. A bad title could always give a useful skill, and thus, absolutely no trash skills existed. Of course, ‘practical’ and ‘powerful’ are two different concepts. Intimidating titles would go along with intimidating skills.
The [Falling Head] skill by the title [Basic Saber Technique] was the same.
[Name: The Falling Head]
[Special Ability Type: Active]
[Effects: User can appear behind the target’s back in just a blink and be able to chop at the target’s neck with a strength of quintuple (5 times) his maximum strength. (Cool-down time is two hours. This skill can be applied only on human-shaped mobs. When activating this skill, user has to stay within three meters from the target.)]
[Remarks: The Unrivalled Saber Guan Xiaoyu had created this strike. That year, our Knight Guan was 18 years old and, of course, he looked ferocious with tiger temples and dragon beard. After a training course of three years, he registered to be an executioner. At that time, the royal regime was corrupted and eunuchs were in power. Guan Xiaoyu had beheaded many good and bad officers during the period, which made his consciousness surged. When he was 23 years old, Guan Xiao Yu decided to enter the world of martial arts to live a happy and envious life. He had written the ‘Beheading Saber Technique’, which soon became the current peerless technique. [ The Falling Head] is the first strike of that technique.]
One Saber To Conquer The City suddenly launched his attack. When he was about three meters away from General Zaroff, the corner of his lips curled just like this BOSS’ skull was already a toy in his hands.
One second later, One Saber quickly disappeared from their sight and reappeared again behind Zaroff’s back in just a flash. His saber then strongly slashed down on the man’s nape.
Next, a thudding sound echoed.
Zaroff seemed to know his opponent’s location in advance as he elbowed One Saber in his chest when he had just reappeared.
Before the saber in One Saber’s hands touched Zaroff’s skin, he was blown away, hitting the wall and gushing out a mouthful of blood. One Saber opened his eyes widely in fear. Surprise and pain had taken the ability to move from him.
The previous counter-attack was strangely strong that it severely damaged One Saber’s organs. Although there was no open cut on his body, the ribs in his left chest were almost all broken. The jagged broken bones flooded his chest with blood. His status was [Bleeding] now.
One Saber’s Stamina Value had directly plunged to 5 and still decreasing. The others didn’t have the chance to help him since Zaroff had blocked their way, using his sincere but cold tone to tell them, “Look at your friend. He acted impolitely and recklessly.” He didn’t glare at One Saber who was lying on the ground as he knew this player wouldn’t be able to get up again.
“If he could endure that strike, perhaps I would save him, cure his wounds and give him the best medicine, food, and training, so as he could join my hunt again. Too bad…” gestured Zaroff.
Ivan saw his commander’s gesture and immediately came to One Saber To Conquer The City. He took out his revolver and aimed at his glabella.
“Help…” One Saber hardly spoke up. He had just uttered one word before he got a headshot. His body immediately turned into a white halo and disappeared.
“Party member: One Saber To Conquer The City, dead.”
Everything had happened so fast that the other four didn’t have time to help him with his impulsive action.
Feng Bujue, on the other hand, thought his action wasn’t different from committing suicide. He knew that at the beginning of the scenario, no matter what kind of simple and strong methods a player wanted to use to complete the scenario early, he would never succeed unless this guy was the protagonist with the upright tyrant aura. If a player wanted to show that he was smart and lucky and did something risky, no doubt that he would end his life soon.
One Sword’s countenance paled seeing his friend die in just a short while. In fact, he had the same thought with One Saber, thinking that those two BOSSES didn’t look so strong. After several scenarios which had bulls, snakes, and ghosts, these two had the same appearance with ordinary humans that made them simply the ‘Goodwill Ambassadors’ in his eyes. Ivan looked a bit ferocious, but General Zaroff didn’t look dangerous at all.
Anyway, One Sword didn’t have such skills like [The Falling Head], so he didn’t come forward to attack them directly. He had thought that he would discuss secretly with One Saber and then they could launch the attack together. He didn’t expect that One Saber wanted to be famous quickly by storming forward with his special skill.
And, no one had ever thought that this BOSS could easily break his attack by interrupting a super skill before it had performed its effects. Moreover, he killed One Saber in just a strike.
Feng Bujue sighed begrudgingly. However, a plan instantly popped up in his mind: use One Saber’s death to ask for more information. “It’s true, General. My friend is reckless, what if I say that—” he took the M1911A1 Pistol from his bag, but he didn’t aim his gun and just caressed it with his hand—”… I know how to use advanced weapons.” He threw a look at the General. “You aren’t able to catch the bullet, are you?”
“Ha, ha, ha…” Zaroff laughed again. “Of course, my friend. How could a human catch a bullet?” He knocked his knuckles on his chest and a low, thick sound arose from under his suit. “So, I’m wearing a defensive thing.” He paused for a second before adding, “Anyway, I know that you are an excellent hunter, and your shooting skill isn’t bad. If you could shoot my head with one shot, I would die for sure.” He glared at Ivan standing next to him. “But I suggest you not to do that; because, Ivan will take revenge for me at any cost. Losing his commander, he’s not a soldier anymore, but the strongest wild animal in this world.”
Feng Bujue got what he wanted to know, so he then put his pistol away and smiled. “Thanks for your good reminder, General. I think we should say goodbye here.”
“Ha, ha… See you, my friends.” Zaroff cheerfully smiled. He was polite and sincere yet cold and cruel at the same time, and that gave him an attractive villain image. His performance was so much at ease. It seemed that he didn’t have any weakness. This shivered people even though they didn’t feel cold.
Feng Bujue blinked to his teammates, who weren’t OVER yet, as a signal for them to retreat.
Five minutes later, the four of them gathered again at the stone ground outside the castle. Along the way out, they didn’t even dare to breathe hard or run away. They even thought twice if they wanted to make a sound.
It could be said that after the scenario had begun, this General Zaroff started to wear his makeup and became the BOSS, giving people the biggest desperation and a suffocating pressure. From Feng Bujue’s point of views, besides the voice and the images of the Lord of Time and Satsuma Diehl, among the NPCs he had met, only Oink could give him the impossible-to-kill vibe. A mutant like Dr. Ashford could be likened to General Zaroff; both of them could be killed with only a dagger.
Finally, Feng Bujue used a brief tone to speak up, breaking the silence between them. “Apparently, the human shape of General Zaroff doesn’t speak up anything. From the game’s point of view, he is a monster with a strong physical build, maybe 10 times stronger than us. His mind is flawless. He is an experienced, powerful hunter. And, we are his targets… or his preys, in other words.”
“Nonsense. We know it without you telling these things,” said One Sword.
“I don’t know if you got it from the convo between Zaroff and me, or when One Saber To Conquer The City got killed in just a strike, anyway, One Saber-Ge got it too late.” Feng Bujue said, “Fortunately, we still have a chance to discuss now…”
“Wait a minute,” One Sword To Conquer The City intervened. “I’ve thought that you are the type of player who like to ‘play drama’ and thus you have babbled too much with that BOSS; in fact, you seem to know what Zaroff wanted to do. What’s going on?”
“Yeah, it will waste our time to explain this. Moreover, if I don’t say anything, you will not let me come to the main job.” When Feng Bujue said these things, with the expression on his face, everybody could fill their mind with the verse ‘If you sincerely wanted to know, I would answer you with all my mercy.’ (1)
“Enough time for you being cocky, spit it out,” said Like Rain.
Feng Bujue got exposed; he smiled and said, “Alright, the plot of this scenario must come from a story called ‘The Most Dangerous Game’. This is not a long story about a protagonist… Argh, a famous hunter got tricked by Zaroff and entered the island. He then became his prey and survived the hunting game which lasted for three days.
“With his survival skills and the knowledge of hunting, he hid and prepared traps to play with the General and successfully survived the game period. Moreover, he returned to the castle and won the game.”
He paused for a while. “Actually, according to the novel, Zaroff can kill the main protagonist right on the first day. However, he wants to enjoy the hunt, and for him to play more the next day, he spares the protagonist’s life.
“Later, when they have encountered each other in the forest, Zaroff lost several hunting dogs, but he escaped the main protagonist’s traps right at the last minute. At most, he just got minor wounds, but it gave him excuses. And, every time he has an excuse, he will stop chasing the protagonist, return to the castle and recover. Afterward, he will go hunt him again.”
“He wants the hunt to be as fair as possible?” asked Like Rain.
“From the big difference between us, this is just a good wish…” Feng Bujue forced a smile. “The General just wants his entertainment to not end too soon,” he paused then continued, “however, Zaroff is really a gentleman. Although he is a serial murderer, he will not cheat or deceive us, or change his mind in case he loses. He did give us a sincere caution about the deadly swamp. It seems that he really hopes that we can be tougher. If not, his hunting will not be very interesting.”
“Yeah, then let’s talk about our real situation.” When Feng Bujue said that, he started to leave the stone ground and everybody followed him to the adjacent forest.
In spacious, clear areas, the moonlight could shine brightly. However, when they got to the jungle, besides Feng Bujue, the other three took out their light-emitting devices. Like Rain used her portable lamp, while One Sword and Not Afraid had used their flashlights. However, their flashlight’s models were slightly different.
Feng Bujue picked up a random broken tree branch and started to draw on the muddy ground. “When we were in the exhibition room, I stood in front and saw a map on Zaroff’s desk. When he showed us the ‘Ships Pitfall’, and the guiding light shone on the coastal line clearly, I confirmed that the image on that map is this island’s map.” He drew an oval shape which looked like an olive. “The Island looks like this. The castle is located in the middle, in a higher area where they could observe the whole island.” He suddenly looked up, “Do you know how to find the north?”
“Yes.” One Sword looked up to the sky to find the direction.
Not Afraid pointed at a side of the sky. “Is that the Polaris?”
“Good,” answered Feng Bujue. He pointed his stick at the map on the ground and continued his narration, “This is the north. This is the south. The swamp is here…” He pointed at a place on the olive. “Before we plan our escape, I want to tell some differences between the novel and this scenario.”
When Feng Bujue did his reasoning, he looked calm, mature and reliable. At this moment, people couldn’t find any sense of a casual and frivolous guy. When he was talking, he even exuded a special attractive force and persuasiveness.
“First, I remember the name of the main character in the novel is Rainsford. Lucky us, he has to play the whole three days, but we just need to survive for five hours. It seems easy to survive with the shorter time, however, good things are not always good. Just like what I’ve just said, General Zaroff has let Rainsford go many times because he doesn’t want the game to end soon. However, our situation is different; when Zaroff finds us, he will finish us.
“Besides, the novel doesn’t mention there are other animals on this island. But when I was talking with Zaroff in the room, he stated clearly that there are snakes, wolves, tigers and other animals here. Even the boars are able to attack us. Thus, besides staying away from the General’s pursuit, we also have to be careful with the wild animals at night.
“But… you’ve seen that this guy is too strong to be a human. The novel also describes him very powerful, but it is just a thriller novel and not the sci-fi novel or supernatural story. Now, we are facing General Zaroff, who can kill people with only one elbow, so he is absolutely the type of strategy BOSS that we can’t confront directly. From the content of the Main Quest, we can see that the main meaning of this scenario is how to survive his pursuit successfully.”
One Sword intervened, “By the time you took out your pistol, didn’t Zaroff say that he would be killed if he got hit? If I got the gun in my hand, at that short distance, I would shoot him soon. With such short distance, the chance I could hit the target is really high.”
“If I did as you said, we would all be doomed.” Feng Bujue shook his head. “I took out the gun at that moment just to check Zaroff’s reaction to this weapon and found more useful information from his mouth.” He looked up with a countenance that didn’t express anything. “As far as I known, the modern form of bulletproof vest first appeared in the 20th century, the 50s, and the author of this novel had passed away in 1949.”
“Despite that fact, Zaroff was calm enough to tell us he was wearing a bulletproof garment. Moreover, he seemed to disdain my M1911A1 Pistol. Thus, apparently, what that BOSS said are the reminders that the system gave us,” said Feng Bujue.
“So it’s impossible to kill Zaroff with firearms?” Like Rain was the one who got the fastest reaction.
Feng Bujue snapped his fingers. “Correct.” His eyes raked over One Sword To Conquer The City and Not Afraid. “The system had based on players’ actual situations to generate the scenarios. I think the four of us, also the one who was OVER now, One Saber To Conquer The City, none of us are specialized in shooting or have good firearms.”
He naturally said that because among the four of them, only him had a pistol, moreover, he had only four shots left. Also, he was the player whose Shooting Specialty ranked highest here.
“In fact, I had asked Zaroff some information, and with the game’s point of view, we can explain that in case we use guns to deal with him, hitting him in the body is useless, so we have to hit him on the head.”
“Usually, there are two situations that we can do that. First, just like what you’ve said, we should murder him in a short distance. Second, at some point in the dark night, with our appropriate specialties, we can luckily hit that very alert and incomparable Cossack.
“Apparently, the first situation is more reliable, but even if we succeed, it is futile. Because, just like the General said, Ivan would turn into a violent state.
“I guess he would replace Zaroff’s BOSS position and attack us insanely. At that time, the scenario setting may be similar to ‘the real world’, and after that Ivan gets mad, he would turn into Hulk. I wouldn’t be so surprised then. Once it happens, it’s impossible for us to get out of the scenario alive.”
“Phew…” Feng Bujue exhaled and said, “In short, the topic of this scenario contains just one word—RUN.”
“What are we waiting for? Hurry—”
Feng Bujue signaled him to stop while he hadn’t finished yet. “I’m about to tell you how to run.”
“How to run?” asked One Sword.
“Split up and run,” answered Feng Bujue.
“Why?” Not Afraid seemed to be more anxious.
Before Feng Bujue could answer her, a second later, another problem arose that disturbed his whole plan.
They then saw Like Rain turning into a white halo and disappearing. The system’s voice then arose, “Party’s member: Like Rain, disconnected.”
———————————
(Japanese: ロケット団の名乗り Rocket Gang’s self-introduction) is a motto that Team Rocket members often recite and/or live by. Team Rocket consists of Jessie, James, and Meowth. The Team Rocket trio first appeared in Pokémon Emergency, in which they took over the Viridian Pokémon Center. After their first defeat at the hands of Ash’s Pikachu had convinced them of its extraordinary power, the trio made their main goal to capture Pikachu.