NOVEL WEB Chapter 14: Courting Death
｢Yes｣
｢Incorporating external mission… Processing data… New mission has been generated. Please check the mission list.｣
Gu Nan could guarantee that there was absolutely no such prompt in the game from his past life since external missions also didn’t exist. The only possibility was this ongoing “assessment” in reality.
When he opened the mission list, the shocking content appeared:
+
｢Mission Objective: Kill Han Yueren
Mission Time Limit: One hour
Mission Reward: Medium｣
+
Dungeon missions issued by the Evil God Temple would never inform the player of the reward in advance. Instead, the rewards would be issued based on the actual completion rate. Thus, the player wouldn’t be informed of the scale of the reward.
A medium mission reward meant that this was an intermediate task dungeon… but how could an intermediate mission be so simple?
Gu Nan quickly examined his surroundings. This was a dungeon that had an ancient style. The people’s clothes around him were clearly in an old style.
An ancient setting often meant that the level of science and technology was insufficient, which meant that the security would not be strict enough. An assassination mission like this was far easier here than in a high-tech world.
Gu Nan hadn’t received a single intermediate mission ever since he transmigrated into this world.
According to the pattern in his past life, intermediate dungeons were not easy to complete. Normally, it would take at least a month or two.
But now, the time limit was actually an hour?
The slow prompt from Radiant Tower only arrived right then. A slightly cold female voice was directly transmitted into Gu Nan’s ears.
[Please kill the Commander of the Imperial Guards, Han Yueren, within an hour.]
“Han Yueren?” Qin Xuanji clearly also heard the voice and turned to whisper.
Gu Nan gently nodded to confirm. Then he paused and looked around with some deep thinking. A slightly mocking smile hung on his lips.
……
In a clean white room, a man and a woman were looking at the big screen. The picture inside was precisely Gu Nan and Qin Xuanji.
“Old Zhang, what do you think that boy is laughing at?” The woman looked at Gu Nan’s action and casually asked. Judging from her voice, she was the person who sent the message to Gu Nan and Qin Xuanji.
In fact, Old Zhang wasn’t old at all. He was a tall and elegant man. He laughed while answering, “He can’t be laughing at us… He’s most likely laughing at the mission’s low difficulty. He looks experienced.”
These two had completed countless assassination missions. They naturally understood that this environment was full of flaws. If the challenger was experienced, it would be easy to find an opening.
“Our branch finally gained two newcomers after much difficulty. Of course we had to choose an easy assessment…” The woman picked up an apple and chewed it while muttering.
“I hope they can pass… If they underestimate Radiant Tower’s missions just because we went easy on them, their deaths won’t be pretty.”
……
To be honest, the mission to assassinate Han Yueren wasn’t hard. At least for a pro player like Gu Nan, it couldn’t even be counted as a small-scale mission in the game.
“There’s no skill involved at all…”
Gu Nan and Qin Xuanji quickly hid themselves near the Imperial Guard Commander, Han Yueren — don’t ask why it was so easy. After all, four large characters with “Imperial Guard Han Residence” hung right above the gate.
“They even wrote ‘Imperial Guard’ on it. They’re clearly giving away free points!” Gu Nan complained that the mission was too easy while grinning from ear to ear because of the free reward.
“Keep your voice down!” Qin Xuanji saw Gu Nan giggling beside her and couldn’t help berating him in a low voice.
Unlike the sloppy Student Gu, Qin Xuanji was the kind of person who took everything very seriously. Only she herself knew just how much she’d suffered for the sake of obtaining this identity as a bloodline user. If she was even slightly careless, she might have died during the process.
Gu Nan pouted dully, feeling like he’s on a mission with an NPC.
However, according to the game’s usual routine, whenever an NPC assisted the player, the NPC often withdrew from the battle for some inexplicable reason, so the player still needed to complete the battle alone.
“But this is reality. There shouldn’t be silly nonsense like that…”
However, in the next moment, Qin Xuanji suddenly uttered, “Go.” Her figure immediately disappeared, rushing straight towards Han Yueren ahead.
Only then did Gu Nan see that somehow, Han Yueren was alone right now. Only a few crooked guards remained around him, but there were no personal bodyguards.
“Hey!” Gu Nan cursed secretly, just now finding out that from the beginning, this woman had no intention of cooperating. Perhaps, in her opinion, if she can complete the task by herself, then why carry an extra burden?
Even if Gu Nan didn’t originally plan to attack right now, at this time, he also had to… Yeah forget it, I’m not attacking.
After thinking about it, Student Gu Nan returned to squatting in his hiding spot.
The two people in the white room simultaneously covered their faces the instant Qin Xuanji launched her rash attack. It seemed that they couldn’t bear to watch the following scene.
Han Yueren was a beardless young man. He looked very refined and gentle, the complete opposite of such an awe-inspiring title like “Commander of the Imperial Guards.”
Perhaps because she was also fooled by his appearance, when Qin Xuanji suddenly appeared, he was first slightly stunned, then made an unexpected response.
Han Yueren showed an expression that looked like he didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. He leisurely took a step back and easily blocked Qin Xuanji’s fist.
Only then did the girl realize that the situation wasn’t good. She also realized that she had been fooled by the mission’s difficulty level and had ignored the most important thing: the strength of the assassination target himself!
“A mere Martial King dares to assassinate me? Could it be that the name ‘Han Yueren’ no longer means anything in the martial arts community?”
While speaking words of disdain, Han Yueren lifted his foot very quickly, kicking Qin Xuanji’s lower abdomen. The latter gave a muffled grunt, and her body flew out involuntarily.
“At least the Innate Realm Sixth Stage, or he may even be in the Prodigious Realm… Sure enough, NPCs will all court death and gift the tower[1] as soon as they act.” Gu Nan hid in the dark as he watched Qin Xuanji be taken away.
He had no intention of attacking at all. He wasn’t much better than Qin Xuanji in terms of a frontal assault, even though his endurance and speed were slightly better. He was still no match for Han Yueren.
“Oh? This little fellow actually didn’t attack?”
“It’s useless. Han Yueren is at the peak of their so-called Martial King Realm — that is, Innate Realm Sixth Stage. This boy can’t hide his aura from Han Yueren… It seems that when we removed all external obstructions, we actually caused them to underestimate the enemy instead.”
Old Zhang was a little annoyed. If they missed these two, he didn’t know when they could get fresh blood into the branch organization anymore.
As if to confirm Old Zhang’s words, after Han Yueren had Qin Xuanji taken away, he stood with rapt attention for a while and suddenly shouted, “Come out! Just how long are you planning to hide?”
The breeze was still, and the waves were quiet. No one responded to him.
Gu Nan’s mouth curled. Does he take me to be Qin Xuanji? That mental woman who’s so easily fooled?
Han Yueren had a sneer on his face. It’s true that he can’t grasp the other party’s specific location, but this is inside his Han Residence…
“Guards, search this place inch by inch!”
Gu Nan couldn’t sit still anymore. His figure suddenly darted out. At the same time, he loudly shouted, “Han Yueren, do you think we’re really here to assassinate you?
“To tell you the truth, this is merely a stalling tactic! Now our plan in the palace has already succeeded, hahahaha…”
Han Yueren’s expression changed wildly, and he flew into a rage. “You thieving b*****d, how dare you attack the Third Prince!”
“Third Prince… Huh?” Gu Nan murmured in a low voice as he took advantage of the other party’s pause, his figure rapidly fleeing.
Notes
[1]: Gifting the tower refers to when a player dies by the hand of the enemy’s defensive tower in a MOBA game, thus gifting their life to the tower. Basically courting death in this context.