NOVEL WEB Chapter 3 – Thieves
A loud voice echoed throughout the entire village.
Shocked, I jumped and peered in the direction of the voices.
There are two men outside the village, and they seem to be looking like they were rushing back, panicked.
They were shouting something that I couldn’t understand what they were saying, a short time later more villagers emerge from their houses carrying swords and hoes.
Could it be that I was discovered?
That’s what I was thinking at first, but they weren’t headed in my direction.
They are all gathering, hurrying towards the East. I followed them quietly through the forest and look in the direction we are going and see--a cloud of dust blowing in our direction.
Thief - Lv7
Thief - Lv11
Thief - Lv4
Although the Thieves are far enough away to look like grains of rice, the information appeared on the screen floating in front of my eyes. With the help of Appraisal, the situation becomes clear.
It seems that this is a ‘Thief Raid’ start-of-game event?
If I can stay hidden, maybe I will be able to help a little. Their levels are generally high--but it is likely that I will be able to the Thieves with single-digit levels, since my Bonus Equipment Excalibur seems very powerful.
The Villagers gather at the barn where I woke up, which is situated at the border of the village--this seems to be where they plan on fighting the incoming Thieves.
At the center of their formation is the level 25 middle-aged man, and the village chief was by his side--the two of them are confronting the man who seems to be the leader of the Thieves.
Thief - Lv41
The next strongest after him was level 19, the third is the level 11 from before--the rest are in the single digits. If I’m cautious, I should be able to handle most of them--unlikely I can handle the leader or second in command.
As soon as the Thieves arrived at the village, they start attacking the Villagers, who respond with a counter-attack; soon, both sides are clashing and without Appraisal--it would be difficult to tell who belonged to which side.
They were fighting almost directly in front of where I am hiding.
If I leave the forest, I can take them by surprise.
Because they are low-leveled, since this seems to be an early-game event, no one has ridiculous abilities.
The middle-aged level 25 man was fighting the level 41 Thief leader--but because of the level gap, the Thief Leader begins to dominate the fight. The leader throws the middle-aged man to the ground and stabs down at him--it seems that the leader managed to stab through a gap in the middle-aged man’s armour.
The middle-aged man lays prostrate on the ground, blood pooling around him; the leader is facing him.
Could this be my chance?
I have the feeling that I can kill the leader without being noticed--with my overly powerful sword, I should be able to deal a lot of damage.
My heart is pounding.
I summon Excalibur from the storage space in my ring, grasping the hilt tightly in both hands--it is about as heavy as the metal ‘replica swords’ that I had bought and practice with--so I should be able to wield it.
If this is the event that starts the game off properly, then they shouldn’t be enemies that I don’t have no chance of defeating, even at level 1.
I take a deep breath and concentrate on the sounds around me, but I can’t understand what they’re shouting; I rush from the forest and sprint at high speed towards the leader.
Along the way, a thief notices me, running up and trying to intercept me--without breaking my stride, I swing Excalibur and the thief falls over in a spray of blood; he was a level 2 thief.
The warm, wet, sticky liquid sprays on me--some even landing in my open mouth--it stinks…the taste is terrible; why would they make the game this realistic?
I don’t have time to consider that question, as I continue running, I run the blade again. As I arrived next to the leader, I jumped a little. Focusing completely on my target, I swung my blade at the leader’s neck--and his head is severed…flying off into the air.
Crimson blood sprayed from the stump, coming down and landing on the ground and on me.
A game shouldn’t be like this--so much blood, realistic screams…
Without the time to think, or to worry, I start killing all other nearby thieves--they are in the single-digit levels, so a single stroke kills them. Every time I swing Excalibur, blood sprays and bodies fall...and Excalibur begins to glow, a feeling of excitement is flooding me.
Soon, there are only a few surviving thieves.
I searched for the second-in-command, the level 19 thief.
He had separated from the group and was battling the Village Chief, there are villagers beginning to gather around them, since the pressure on them is relieved as I kill the enemies.
They begin strengthening their defenses.
The level 19 looked over towards me, and shouted something, at his words--the thieves stop fighting, beginning to flee; they are withdrawing because their boss was defeated.
Now that their backs are turned, I take the chance and start pursuing them, slaughtering them from behind. Directly in my path, was the level 11, the third man.
I blocked the sword that came at me, being pushed back a bit, managing to swing my own sword back at him. Because of his armour, I can’t easily kill him in one blow.
With a quick decision and a twitch of my sword, I hit his forearm--completely severing it.
Ignoring the spray of blood, I take advantage of him dropping his sword and his hand falling to the dirt, and slash his neck--his head goes flying into the air.
The thieves were in complete retreat.
The level 19 was the first to try and escape, and ignores the thieves dying behind him. I slaughtered more as they tried to escape, and finally it’s only the level 19, and me. He has his defenseless back towards me, and I easily kill him.
In the end, none of them could escape, and all of them became my Experience.
After defeating the last man, I collapsed to my knees on the spot, my breathing is rough. I work on recovering my composure, breathing in deep and measured breathes.
The corpses, and pooling blood, are all over the ground--was it so necessary to make the game so real?
My body starts trembling, nausea roils in my stomach.
It seems that it takes quite a while for the bodies to disappear.
Didn’t the Beta Testers complain?
I will make a complaint to the developers.
My vision is blurring strangely, there is a strange warmth running down my cheeks.
My breathing under control, I looked away from the bodies.
The Village Chief says something in a language that I can’t understand.
“I can’t understand you.” I say to him.
“Pardon me, sir. Do you speak Brahim?”
“That’s right.”
“Oh, I see. That’s an Adventurer for you.” He replies, looking at all the dead bodies around me--though he seems a little surprised when he meets my eyes, “You saved my village, thank you very much.”
“You’re welcome.”
I don’t really like it when people thank me--and for some reason his words make my stomach roil.
“Please, allow me to express my gratitude.”
He actually bowed to me when he said this.
“Uhh, is there somewhere I can lie down? I…feel a bit tired.”
Why is my voice shaking slightly?
Although this is a game, it feels like I really moved around a lot, I feel tired. As expected of Virtual Reality. Beside, I really don’t want to hang around with the corpses anymore…hurry up and disappear, dropping your loot.
“Then, please come, feel free and rest at my house. My name is Somara, and I am the Village Chief.”
“Thank you, my name is Alex, by the way.”
The village chief nodded, starting to walk away.
I struggle to my feet, using Excalibur as a crutch--hurrying after him, my legs are trembling.
The village chief begins speaking to someone else--but they are speaking in that language that I can’t understand.
Was I accidentally placed in a foreign server?
“How many people can speak Brahim?”
“In this village, only myself, the Merchant Bikka, and the mistress of the inn.” The chief says, an apologetic look on his face, “Despite being so young, Alex, you can handle Brahim well.”
“Hmm?”
I don’t understand this--I have to be in the wrong server…how do I contact the developers?
“Although there was one other that could talk Brahim, another Adventurer, in the battle just now, he…” The village chief lowered his voice.
It seems that he was likely talking about the middle-aged man, who was level 25, but he didn’t have the Adventurer Class.
I quickly check myself.
Ohh?
Both my Villager and Thief levels reached 5--but, after killing enemies of that level, shouldn’t I have gotten more experience?
Then again, it may be equivalent of 10 levels or so--which is more reasonable.
We seem to be heading towards the village chief’s house.
He spoke to someone, in the language that I couldn’t understand, and then he turned to me, “A bath is being prepared for you.”
“Thank you.”
I followed him inside.
The house was a two story building, it had wooden walls, and floor. He lead me to a small room off to the side, explaining that I should wait there until I the bath is ready and I can get clean.
Entering the room, I see that it looks fairly normal; a mostly empty room with a bed in the corner. It is a wooden frame, with slats, and bundled hay on top, along with rough cloth sheets on top--with sewed together fur pelts laid on top.
I lay down with a sigh.
Let’s log off now.
…
Eh?
How do I log out?