Kirou was currently meditating under a tree. He had just finished fighting a dozen swamp crocodiles and needed to rest to recover his health. At least, that's how it looked from the perspective of the party trying to surround him.
Kirou had noticed that party following his trail long before they did, a by-product of his constant use of shadow teleportation. In fact, he had even overheard their conversation due to the 'Keen Senses' trait that he has that is always active when he's outside of the village.
At the moment he was pretending to rest to see just how they planned to achieve their goal. He was acutely aware of the lycan thief trying to get behind him.
In his eyes, the stealth skill that the thief was too good for him. While the skill itself was good, the user was doing a piss poor job of utilizing it. Even without his keen senses active or the intuition he's honed from years of fighting other assassins, he could still pinpoint the lycan thief quite easily.
The lycan thief made no effort to avoid walking in obvious areas, he wasn't silent in his approach nor was he observant enough to notice that he was leaving a very obvious trail of footprints in the swampland. Overall, Kirou's assessment of that thief was very low. He could only inwardly shake his head in disappointment at that thief's actions.
As for the rest of the party approaching him, besides the one elf at the back trying to sneak away, the rest aren't even trying to mask their greed and killing intent. It was so bad that Kirou was able to point out all of this with his eyes closed.
Kirou wondered what this party hoped to accomplish from attacking him. It couldn't be the corpses, right? It should be common knowledge at this point that outsiders cant loot corpses killed by someone else. If not the corpses, could it be his gear? Besides the knife given to him by Bladesmith which he currently had equipped and the gunblade tonfas in his inventory, all the gear on his body was still beginner gear with no stats. Even as the player himself saying it, his gear was way too poor for a typical level 8 player. The knife might just be the only thing worth stealing but he highly doubts they were after it. If it was neither of these, what else could that party be interested in? After thinking up to there Kirou inwardly shook his head.
Instead of focusing on these amateurs that won't be leaving this area alive, Kirou instead started contemplating if these crocodile skin can make him the type of leather armor he'll like. While these thoughts ran through his mind, he completely ignored the actions of the party trying to ambush him as he just wanted the system to recognize it was the opponents that started the conflict before he makes a move.
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At the back of the party, the elf archer Hidden Bow, or Brother Bow as the party called him, could feel a very strong chill going down his back and alarm bells blazing in his mind. He didn't know what was giving him this feeling but he was sure that the moment the party he was in attacked that man under the tree, everyone will die. That was the feeling his gut told him and so far his gut hasn't been wrong.
Not even caring about the other party members, Hidden Bow immediately withdrew from the party and started running along the path he followed to get here. Most of the party failed to notice this action as they were blinded by greed. Even if they did notice, they wouldn't have cared as in their eyes, Hidden Bow leaving meant more loot for them.
The only person in the party to notice Hidden Bow leaving was Brother Blade or Blade Fiend, the lycan fighter. Hidden Bow's desertion caused a sneer to form on his face.
'It won't be too late to deal with you after we finish off this injured werewolf.' That was Blade Fiend's thought while still approaching Kirou, not realizing that he should have followed Hidden Bow's lead.
After getting a signal from Brother Slash, Slash Fiend the lycan thief, Blade Fiend nodded slightly then opened his mouth, "Young brother over there, do you need any help with these corpses? My party members and I are quite lucky when it comes to item drops from monster corpses. What do you think?"
'So it was the corpses.' Kirou released a sigh as he opened his eyes and looked at Blade Fiend. Since he was confident enough to say this, either he was good at lying or there really was a way for an outsider to loot someone else's kills.
"How would you be able to do that? I thought someone else couldn't loot a corpse if another person killed the monster." Kirou said this while putting on a naive and innocent face. Since he was planning to kill them regardless, he might as well get some info out of them first.
Hearing his question and seeing his reaction, Blade Fiend and the rest of the party couldn't stop the smiles from forming on their faces. They thought they truly lucked out, meeting this ignorant fat sheep so deep in the swampland.
Blade Fiend cleared his throat for speaking, "Under normal circumstances, that's true. So far there are two methods to accomplish this. My brothers and I found out that if an outsider joins the party of the person who killed the monsters, they will be able to loot the corpses as well. Apparently, the system set it up so that the outsiders joining the player's party is the same as giving them permission."
Kirou could understand the logic in Blade Fiend's words. That would be a good way for one to share the loot with others. Kirou didn't say anything as he waited for Blade Fiend to reveal the other method, all while paying attention to lycan creeping up behind him.
"As for the other method..." Blade Fiend started before giving his party members a signal. They immediately raised their weapons and started approaching Kirou from all sides. Blade Fiend then revealed a disgusting smile that didn't fit well with his lycan body before he rushed at Kirou and continued, "Is to kill the original player and the loot rights will be transferred to his killers."
Following Blade Fiend's action, the other party members got into position and prepared to attack Kirou from all sides. While this was happening, a blade suddenly appeared behind Kirou, aiming for his back. Seeing this action, Blade Fiend was thrilled and was about shout 'SUCCESS' when he noticed something abnormal.
The attacking Slash Fiend did hit Kirou with his attack. Unfortunately, the attack only grazed Kirou's left arm. Following this, Blade Fiend and his party received a system message.
[System Message: You and your party have attacked Player Kirou. For the next ten minutes Player Kirou will receive the buff
Kirou received a similar message and this caused him to revealed a smile. Since Slash Fiend was behind Kirou he couldn't see the smile, but the rest of the party saw it and it caused chills to travel down their spines.
Before Blade Fiend could even open his mouth, Kirou disappeared from his spot. This move bewildered the members of the party as they had no idea where he went. Before the thought to look around even registered in their minds, everyone heard a scream.
When the other party members looked at the source of the scream, they saw one of the three dwarfs fading in a mass of light. To say they were shocked was an understatement. After the mass of light finally disappeared, they briefly saw Kirou's figure. He flashed them a smile before disappearing again. This time reacted quickly and grouped up in pairs with their backs to each other, lycans and dwarfs respectively.
Blade Fiend and Slash Fiend were both terrified. Especially so for Blade Fiend. After grouping up with Slash Fiend to his back, he immediately checked the party logs to see just what happened. What he saw scared him stiff. There was only one damage modifier for that dead dwarf and it too much.
[-410]
[Player...]
Seeing that damage and the smile Kirou gave them before disappearing caused Blade Fiend to think about the elf archer abandoning them. It was only now that he became fully aware of why such a strong archer decided to flee at the first chance. Unfortunately for Blade Fiend and his party, there was no medicine for regret.
Not a second sooner than this thought passed through his mind, he heard two sounds ring out.
BANG!
BANG!
Both sounds went off at the same time and it caused both Blade Fiend and Slash Fiend to turn their heads in unison. In the direction they turned, they found the other two dwarfs fading in the mass of light.
Not far from where the two dwarfs died, underneath the shade of a tree stood Kirou. In his hand appeared to be two weapons that looked like guns and from the damage they just dealt, the two remaining lycan knew those 'guns' packed some serious damage.
This caused the two lycans' hair to stand on end in major fright. Fiend Blade gave Slash blade a look before they both took off running, each in different directions.
Kirou didn't immediately give chase to the two fleeing lycans. He still had over seven minutes left on the
'You're the only one smart enough to escape before anything started. I wonder why? Hmm. I'll make sure to have a proper chat with you later.' After these thoughts flashed in his mind, Kirou immediately disappeared. If someone was nearby and was able to watch that scene in slow motion, they would have been able to see that Kirou didn't really teleport, but directly sank into the shadow of the swampland tree.
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Halfway down the path that Kirou originally cleared finds an elf archer fleeing at top speed. It was the Hidden Bow that abandoned his party earlier when they wanted to attack Kirou. At the moment, he had no idea what took place after he left but he was positive that the ones to suffer were his former teammates. He had no proof to back up his claims but his gut instinct told him that that werewolf was not someone he should mess with.
After running for another five minutes Hidden Bow finally ran into some monsters that have finally decided to respawn. He made no attempt to fight them but instead climbed up a tree. He wasn't sure he would be able to kill all the monsters in the group and that's when he's not counting the fact that that werewolf is still behind him.
After climbing the tree, Hidden Bow found a branch that could support him and sat down on it. He then did his best to calm his breathing and entered a meditative state. He kept this up for a few minutes, during which time the recently respawned monsters had already moved on.
Looking around and noticing the path was clear, Hidden Bow climbed down the tree and restarted his journey out of the forest. Hidden Bow only traveled a few meters until he stopped in place. He didn't immediately turn around but he could tell that that werewolf from earlier was currently standing behind him.
A few feet away from Hidden Bow, under the shadow of the tree Hidden Bow was in stood Kirou with a smile on his face. This smile looked innocent enough but if Hidden Bow saw it he might have been scared out of his mind.
"Now this is interesting. I made no sound nor revealed myself in any way, shape, or form yet you still managed to notice that I was here." When Hidden Bow heard this, sweat started to trickle down his head. He had no idea how to respond to Kirou's comment. Seeing his silence, the smile on Kirou's face got even bigger before he said, "Now that we have some time, why don't we have a chat Elf Archer."