Ethan woke up realising that he never went to bed. His head was lying on the desk while his computer automatically shut off.
Ethan dragged himself out of the chair and into the bathroom. His face was a mess, with several black rings under his eyes. But he definitely looked better than the day prior. His face had colour and he was ready to act.
Ethan's mother wasn't awake yet, so he made toast for breakfast. While eating, Ethan turned on the news. On the TV, the murder was being discussed, with several police officers on the scene.
The biggest debate at this point was whether the death of the man had been a murder or a suicide. From the security footage, he was shown to be pushed onto tracks, yet none of the passengers nearby had done it.
Ethan was in the clear. His tracks had been erased and no suspicion was placed on him. He sighed in relief and closed the TV.
Suddenly a question popped into Ethan's mind.
'Hey Sia, are there any other ways to gain system coins?'
[There are only two ways to gain coins. The first is to kill other players. Secondly, you can also gain notoriety. The more notorious you are, the more coins you passively earn.]
"Interesting..." Ethan smiled as he thought of the possibilities.
'Okay Sia, if I commit crimes under an alias and that alias gains notoriety, then will I still gain coins? Or do I have to reveal it is me, Ethan Archer committing the crimes?'
[You can still gain coins under an alias. However, if two players share an alias, then the coins will be split between both of them, depending on who made the alias more notorious. However, revealing that you are the one behind it means that you will gain several times the amount of coins.]
'So it's a high risk, high reward type of situation. The more danger I'm in, the more coins I'll get?'
[Correct.]
'Hmm...' Ethan was racking his brain about other ways that it could benefit him. 'What is the minimum amount of notoriety I need to have before I gain coins?'
[It is difficult to quantify notoriety as a number, so here is an example. If a group of 5 to 10 people knows your alias has committed murder, you will gain 1 coin per day. The best way to increase your notoriety is for as many people to know of your name as possible.]
Ethan immediately understood the implications of that. At the current moment, Ethan did not want to be well known. If he didn't have the skills to live on the run.
So the notoriety system would serve as an early warning mechanism. If he randomly started getting coins out of nowhere, Ethan would know he was going to get arrested soon.
Ethan suspected this way of earning money would be mostly applicable towards the later stages of the game.
After finishing breakfast, he changed into casual clothes and left a note for his mother that he was going out.
He got on his bike and followed the arrow. The day prior, he checked the arrow against the map, and it went in the direction of the residential district.
As Ethan was biking, he noticed the sky was grey and it might rain soon. Though he was following the arrow, he was also enjoying the scenery. The events from yesterday still bothered him, but the wind against his face distracted him from those events.
After a couple of hours, he arrived at the house where he presumed his target was. Ethan had to circle around the neighbourhood several times to confirm it. He hadn't ridden a bike in a while, so his legs were hurting.
The house his target lived in wasn't very big, but it was better than what Ethan and his mother lived in. It was a perfect abode for a small family.
The neighbourhood seemed friendly as well. His target was living the American dream. Ethan felt a twinge of jealousy when looking at the suburb, but he quickly suppressed it.
To not seem suspicious, he biked around the street, keeping a constant watch on the house.
After half an hour, two small kids who looked identical ran out of the house, with a happy man and woman following them. The arrow was pointing at the woman. Ethan took out his phone and snapped a picture of the woman.
The family all got into their SUV and left their house. The arrow followed the SUV as the family drove off into the distance.
Ethan stood still for 15 minutes as he contemplated his course of action. His target was only the woman, but the family was going to be an issue.
Deciding to do something, Ethan left his place of hiding and walked up to the door. He inspected the doorway.
From his inspection, there were no cameras recording him. Ethan had expected that as the house looked pretty old.
He then pressed the doorbell. Hearing nobody come to the door, he confirmed the house was empty. There were only four people in that family.
At the current moment, Ethan didn't have to tools necessary to inspect the house, so he marked the location on his phone and left the residence.
While biking back towards his home, Ethan had two options. To just kill the mother as she was his target. Or kill the entire family.
With just the mother, it would be harder to frame it as an accident it would deemed as murder. But to get rid of the entire family would be much harder to do so.
On his way home, he went to a hardware store. He bought some lockpicking tools, a box of gloves and a first aid kit.
He formed an idea on how to kill his second target. Though would have to return back to the house to spy on them more.
By the time he returned home, it was getting dark. His mother was once again passed out drunk and Ethan helped her get to bed.