Role Playing the Dark Horse Character

Chapter 24: A New Alias Debuts

The Ability Guild, also known as the ‘Low-Rank Ability User Mutual Aid Guild,’ had undergone a drastic change in nature since falling into the hands of nobles six years ago.

From ‘low-rank ability user mutual aid,’ it had become a blade in the nobles’ hands.

Most of the Ability Guild’s current members were bounty hunters, completing tasks assigned by the guild for money and wealth.

Many of these tasks were orchestrated by nobles, and in many people’s eyes, they were accomplices, executioners.

Even so, people joined every day.

That day, the receptionist handling procedures handed an identification card to a new bounty hunter, wearing a polite smile as she waited for the next person to step forward.

She saw a youth.

He had black hair, contrasting with his pale complexion.

His crimson pupils revealed no trace of vitality, like stagnant, lifeless water.

At his right ear, a blue pendant earring hung among his hair.

The black-haired youth brushed past the person leaving, his frame far less sturdy than the burly man’s, appearing strikingly frail in comparison.

His height barely reached the burly man’s arm.

He didn’t look like someone suited for this line of work.

The receptionist mentally categorized him.

She had seen many become bounty hunters and then vanish from this world.

She didn’t think this seemingly frail youth could handle the job, especially since bounty hunter targets were typically ability users.

Abilities had four types, with countless branches.

Some abilities even came with unexpected additional effects.

The Ability Guild distributed tasks but didn’t handle intelligence gathering.

Every year, more than half of bounty hunters died due to insufficient intelligence, with hunters and prey swapping roles, the hunter killed by the target.

This was a profession where one gambled their life at every moment.

But the receptionist didn’t say it aloud, knowing it wasn’t her concern.

Whether this person died on a mission had nothing to do with her.

She only briefly lamented the youth’s appearance, as he was truly very good-looking.

“Name.” The receptionist began her work with a smile.

"Li Baige," the youth said.

His voice, like his appearance, was cold and devoid of any fluctuation.

Yet it was pleasant to the ear, like a clear spring in the mountains.

The receptionist felt even more regretful, but her hands did not stop moving.

Soon, she handed over an identification card with both hands: "Please keep your identification card safe. You may now proceed to the bounty hall to select the task you wish to undertake."

...

The bounty hall was nearby, just a short walk to the right.

After stuffing the freshly issued identification card into her jacket pocket, Li Li headed there directly.

Compared to the natives of this manga world, she had a significant disadvantage: her physical condition was not strong enough.

In the real world, her exercise was limited to running 800 meters.

While not completely useless, she could not compare to the battle-hardened natives of the manga world.

Ever since she started transmigrating into manga, she had enrolled in a kickboxing class.

But in the peaceful real world, the instructors never went all out, so her progress was minimal.

Since she was here to investigate anyway, she figured she might as well train her combat awareness and the ability she had just acquired.

Lost in thought, she soon arrived at the bounty hall.

There was a massive display screen, divided into thousands of small sections and three main areas.

The leftmost was for low-rank tasks, the middle for mid-rank, and the rightmost for high-rank.

The Ability Guild’s tasks, like ability ranks, were divided into nine levels from F to SSS.

Generally, a C-rank ability user could take on B-rank tasks, and so on.

Low-rank tasks were limited to one person, while mid- and high-rank tasks could be taken by multiple people, with high-rank tasks even allowing teams.

Low-rank tasks were the most numerous, followed by mid-rank.

The high-rank task section was completely blank.

Li Li was currently C-rank.

After some thought, she went straight to the mid-rank area.

Soon, her gaze settled on a task.

C-rank task: a bounty for a D-rank ability user who had continuously killed twenty low-rank ability users.

This bounty was funded by thirteen people, the families of the twenty victims, who sought revenge through bounty hunters.

D-rank...

Li Li considered it.

She felt there was no need to risk her life unnecessarily, so it was better to play it safe for her first task and test the waters.

Moreover, the information provided by the bounty posters was comprehensive, including the areas where this D-rank ability user frequently appeared, saving her the trouble of searching aimlessly.

She accepted the task.

...

During a brief pause after handling another procedure, the receptionist noticed the youth from earlier leaving the hall.

His steps were decisive, without the slightest hesitation.

His cold profile passed by the window as he walked forward.

Had that person given up? the receptionist wondered before resuming her work.

...

Yi Xiangnan was a bounty hunter.

But he took tasks solely for money.

When funds were not tight, he would be selective about the tasks he accepted.

Today, he had taken a mid-rank task: a bounty for a D-rank ability user who had continuously killed twenty low-rank ability users.

This bounty was funded by the victims’ families, the kind of task Yi Xiangnan would take.

But now, he felt he had miscalculated.

His mimicry-type ability turned his hand into the sharp claws of a snow wolf.

He crouched in a desolate courtyard, stepping on weeds and leaning against a wall, breathing heavily.

That ability user wasn’t D-rank—he was C-rank!

He had been misled by the intelligence!

The C-rank ability user was prowling outside, occasionally muttering, “I’m going to find you…”

The sound of footsteps was growing louder.

Yi Xiangnan held his breath, quietly retreating a little further to hide behind the wall.

The opponent was also a mimicry-type, killing ability users to plunder those of the same type.

Yi Xiangnan was on his menu.

After one clash, Yi Xiangnan only knew that the opponent could freely control his hair.

Under the fur of his transformed arm was a nearly twenty-centimeter wound, caused by hair that had suddenly pierced through like steel needles.

The opponent’s range limit was definitely at least a hundred meters. He needed to put distance beyond that range.

The dilapidated tile houses in the suburbs were lined up, some without roofs.

Yi Xiangnan had chosen a courtyard with a half-collapsed wall, seemingly ruined but capable of hiding someone in a blind spot.

And indeed, Yi Xiangnan had entered the opponent’s blind spot.

His mimicry ability enhanced his hearing, and he heard the opponent pass by the courtyard, heading further away.

Had he left? Yi Xiangnan wondered.

The footsteps were gradually fading, as if the opponent had walked over a hundred meters in the wrong direction.

Yi Xiangnan took a deep breath, realizing his breathing was trembling.

Had he survived?

“You’re here.”

A voice suddenly rang out.

In an instant, steel-needle-like hair extended, piercing through the wall.

Yi Xiangnan rolled forward to dodge, but the hair extended again the next moment, as if alive, completely piercing and collapsing the entire wall.

“Boom!”

Debris fell among the hair, yet the long hair continued advancing toward Yi Xiangnan!

The hunter stood behind the collapsed wall, his eyes filled with hunger and desire.

Time seemed to slow.

In Yi Xiangnan’s pupils were the enlarging strands of hair and the sharp tips at their ends.

He would die, Yi Xiangnan thought.

The hierarchy of ability ranks could not be overturned.

As a D-rank, he could not escape a C-rank’s pursuit.

And now, he would die here, putting an end to his life.

He should accept his fate, but he was truly unwilling!

“Pfft!”

The sound of a blade piercing flesh rang out.

But Yi Xiangnan felt no pain.

Even the hair that had nearly pierced him retracted in an instant, as if everything had been an illusion.

Yi Xiangnan knew it wasn’t.

He had truly almost died, and now…

Had someone saved him?

Instinctively, he looked toward the source of the sound.

He saw a dagger piercing the ability user’s body.

The ability user’s eyes still carried the longing for an impending feast. He sluggishly lowered his head to look at his chest, then turned around.

They saw a black-haired youth.

He strolled through the ruins as if walking in a back garden.

A black coat wrapped his frame, making him appear even frailer.

He stretched out his hand, and beneath black gloves, slender fingers emerged.

As he slightly clenched his fist, a long blade appeared in his grip.

“C-rank?” the black-haired youth said, his crimson eyes like inorganic rubies, beautiful and cold.

As if the prey’s rank change was utterly beneath his notice.

Because he was the stronger hunter.

But to Yi Xiangnan, none of that mattered.

Who this person was, what his purpose was, whether he did this in passing—none of it mattered.

Only one sentence floated in Yi Xiangnan’s mind:

He saved me!

...

“C-rank?” When Li Li asked this, she had already confirmed the guess.

Her ability could turn illusions into reality and reality into illusions.

For instance, she could conjure a long blade out of thin air to block Yiming’s attack.

In truth, she went through the process of creating an illusion and then making it real.

Against D-rank, her ability had a 100% success rate, but against C-rank and above, the illusion-to-reality part only had a 5% success probability.

When she arrived, she saw her target, fully focused on that wall, fabricating the sound of her departing footsteps, searching for his prey.

So the target hadn’t noticed her using an illusionary bow to shoot a false arrow at him.

Then, the probability check failed, and the arrow vanished like a shadow.

In that instant, Li Li realized: the Ability Guild’s information was wrong. This target wasn’t D-rank.

The plan had gone awry, but Li Li felt she was already used to such things.

She drew the dagger she had prepared, threw it with a backhand, and created an illusion in front of the C-rank.

As if the dagger had been conjured the same way.

“…Spell-type?” As expected, the target was misled.

He looked at the long blade in Li Li’s hand and said disinterestedly, “Can’t be plundered, useless, get lost!”

Before his words faded, his long hair hardened and stabbed toward Li Li!

Mimicry-type could incorporate similar materials into one’s body, like Yiming did with the bronze wall.

But mimicry-type could only alter existing objects, not create from nothing.

Creating from nothing was a spell-type ability.

Li Li felt the solid weight in her hand, hiding her smile behind a cold expression.

The next instant, ten illusory long blades appeared around her.

When the target genuinely believed she was spell-type, her illusions became reality.

At that moment, the illusions reversed into reality!

Li Li stood among her conjured long blades, raising her hand with a cold expression.

C-rank, huh? Better for grinding experience, she thought.

At the same time, the long blades shot out from her side, clashing with the sharp hair.

“Buzz”