novellk Chapter 22 Your Eyes? My Eyes!
Chapter 22 Your Eyes? My Eyes!
Under the cover of night, thick acid fumes completely shrouded the entire shipwreck area.
The agent pressed himself against the rusty iron pillar of an abandoned crane, holding his breath.
Raindrops slid down his leather armor and hit the mud below without making a sound.
This is a high point on the outskirts of the shipwreck area.
From here, the entire player camp can be seen, but due to the night fog, the visibility is not very good.
The agent looked down at his hands and clenched his fists tightly.
This feeling is amazing.
In reality, he's just a 9-to-5 office worker, but in this game, the three points of luck and two points of agility per level make his body feel incredibly light.
He could even clearly sense the pressure points on the rusty iron sheets beneath his feet, and every effort he made to climb was as precise as instinct.
In the shadows three meters below his feet, a gray grey heron lay silently on the steel frame.
George's four white paws gripped the wire mesh firmly, while his tail, which usually wagged, was now tucked tightly between his hind legs.
This dog seems to know by nature when to be quiet and when to be aggressive.
After being fully revived by drinking bone broth, its eyes quietly gleamed with a fierce light in the darkness.
The agent took a deep breath and silently climbed up the iron pillar, quickly reaching the bottom of the operating platform at the top of the crane.
There is a makeshift shed on the platform made of scrap metal and waterproof tarpaulin.
A faint light peeked through the crack, accompanied by the complaints of two men.
"Damn it, this awful weather makes me feel sick to my very bones."
"Alright, Fatty, stop complaining. You know how bad Lord Bolton is. If he finds us slacking off during his inspection, we'll be in big trouble tomorrow."
The rather obese man threw a piece of wood into the fire and then asked:
"How are those country bumpkins down there? They've been without water and food for the past two days, they're probably dying by now. Let's go down and strip them of their clothes first thing tomorrow morning. I saw one guy wearing a pretty sturdy jacket."
"Whether they live or die is none of our business. We just need to keep an eye on them and make sure they don't run around. Once it's light, we'll ring the bell to report, and then we can go back and get some food." The skinny man spat on the ground, his tone completely numb.
Below the shed, the agent gripped the iron railing with one hand, while the other hand had already pulled out the rusty dagger.
Two grunts, just go in and get a double kill, this round should be in the bag.
The agent silently calculated the attack route in his mind.
First, slit the skinny guy's neck, then pounce on the fat guy and finish him off. If you're quick, the fight can be over in three seconds. Plus, with George covering the rear, things shouldn't go wrong.
Just as he was about to climb onto the platform, his movements suddenly froze.
Wait... no, that's not right.
A flash of insight struck the agent, and the player logic honed through years of immersion in hardcore games began to operate at breakneck speed.
The one-eyed old man said this was a hidden sentry post, and the two men above had just mentioned ringing a bell to report.
This indicates that they have a regular communication mechanism with Bolton's headquarters.
The agent gasped, a bead of cold sweat forming on his forehead.
If he had impulsively killed them both just now, and Bolton hadn't received a safety signal from the sentries after dawn, that woman would definitely have realized something was wrong!
In the game mechanics, this is equivalent to the patrolling monsters not respawning on time, directly triggering the Boss's alert, and may even cause a riot of high-level monsters across the entire map.
The agent felt a chill run down his spine.
If he really does kill them quickly, Bolton's law enforcement team will arrive early tomorrow morning, and those players in the camp who are still holding broken iron pipes will definitely be slaughtered without leaving a trace.
Not only will the little snail's newly planned infrastructure project go bankrupt instantly, but after the entire project is wiped out, it will be a problem where to start over.
The agent thought to himself, "I almost ruined everything."
He wiped the dagger on his clothes, his eyes sharpening in the darkness. "It's better to keep him alive than to kill him. As long as we can arouse his hatred, he'll be our radar planted right under Bolton's nose."
With a change of perspective, the murderous intent turned into a calculated tactic.
The agent pulled a rusty iron nut from his waist, flicked his wrist, and threw it toward the pile of scrap metal on the other side of the platform.
A sharp clang startled the two of them!
"What's that noise?" The complaints from inside the shed stopped abruptly.
The fat man immediately stood up, picked up a rough hand crossbow, and cautiously walked towards the edge of the platform.
The skinny man also drew a dagger, staring nervously in the direction from which the sound came from.
Just as the fat man slowly peeked out, trying to see the darkness below...
The agent, like a ghost, vaulted onto the platform from the fat man's blind spot. Without any unnecessary movements, he suddenly exerted force with his legs and shot towards the skinny man like a cannonball.
The skinny man only felt a blur before his eyes, and before he could even raise his dagger, a hand tightly covered his mouth, forcing the scream back down his throat.
Immediately afterwards, the blade, reeking of rust, was pressed firmly against his carotid artery.
"Don't move." The agent whispered in the skinny man's ear, his voice as cold as ice. "Move even once, and I'll bleed you out."
The commotion behind him was so loud that the fat man standing at the edge of the platform immediately turned around to look.
When he saw his companion being taken hostage, he paused for half a second before immediately raising his crossbow and aiming it at the agent.
"Let him go! You maggot from the shipwreck area..."
Before the fat man could finish speaking, the agent quickly shouted, "George, bite his throat!"
A gray afterimage darted up from the blind spot at the edge of the platform!
The fat man's attention was entirely focused on the agent, and he didn't pay any attention to where he was stepping.
George leaped into the air, baring his teeth, and bit down precisely on his throat.
The fat man was in so much pain he wanted to scream, but he couldn't make a sound.
The chilling sound of flesh tearing apart echoed across the platform.
George shook his head frantically, revealing the hunting dog's tearing instincts.
The fat man coughed, his crossbow had fallen to the ground and misfired, the bolt flying off somewhere unknown.
He flailed his hands, instinctively reaching for George's body, but his life was rapidly slipping away with the gushing blood from his neck.
In less than ten seconds, the fat man's massive body collapsed with a thud, twitched twice, and then fell completely still.
A strong smell of blood instantly filled the air.
The skinny man, held tightly in the arms of the agent, witnessed his companion being instantly bitten in the throat by a wild dog that appeared out of nowhere. His legs then began to tremble uncontrollably.
In this shipwreck area where human life is cheap and dead bodies are common, but this close-range, helpless biting shattered his psychological defenses.
Seeing that the time was right, the agent kicked the skinny man in the back of the knee, knocking him to the ground, and then kicked away the machete that had fallen to the ground.
George released his grip, his face covered in blood, and walked to the agent's feet, a low growl still emanating from his throat.
The skinny man lay sprawled on the cold ground, gasping for breath, his eyes filled with despair and fear, yet he still gritted his teeth: "You...you bunch of country bumpkins, you're all dead! Lady Bolton won't let you get away with this! You dared to kill members of the enforcement team, she'll chop you up and feed you to the sharks! Go ahead and kill me if you dare!"
The agents all laughed.
"Wow, I didn't realize you had such backbone. No wonder you're an elite monster from the Watchtower." The agent crouched down, toying with the dagger in his hand.
He leaned closer to the skinny man and sniffed. "Kill you? Killing you would be a waste. I'm asking you, what does Bolton usually feed you? I see nothing but shriveled black bread in this shed, not even a decent drink of water."
The skinny guy was taken aback, wondering why this damn guy would ask such a question.
"Smell carefully." The agent pointed his dagger at the thick fog below. "Can you smell the scent carried on the wind?"
Upon hearing this, the skinny man subconsciously twitched his nose.
He hadn't noticed it earlier because of his high tension, but now that the smell of blood had dissipated a bit, an extremely rich aroma, with animal fat and a strong salty and savory flavor, was slowly seeping into his nostrils.
That's the smell of pork lard, kelp, and meat bone soup that the players are simmering in the camp.
The skinny man's stomach rumbled loudly, and he swallowed uncontrollably, his eyes glazing over.
"That's broth my brother makes," the agent said, sounding like a pyramid scheme leader. "In our camp, we have meat broth with lots of oil, purified white salt, and absolutely clean fresh water. You've been following that woman Bolton around, eating nothing but black bread every day? As long as you work for me, you'll have hot soup every day, guaranteed to be plenty of oil and fat."
A slap followed by a treat—that's the agent's strategy.
In the resource-scarce shipwreck area, a bowl of meat soup is enough to save a life.
The skinny man's Adam's apple bobbed violently, but he abruptly closed his eyes and shook his head desperately: "No...no! You have no idea what Lady Bolton is capable of! Those who betray her will be skinned naked and hung on the masts at the dock! I'd rather be stabbed to death by you right now than betray her!"
The underlying logic of NPCs in games is always surprisingly stubborn.
The agent's smile slowly faded.
He stood up, looked down at the skinny man, and sighed: "I knew it. You NPCs only skip the dialogue when you force me to trigger the villain option."
"What...what are you saying? What do you want to do?" The skinny man looked at the agent's strange eyes and felt an even stronger fear rising in his heart.
"Hehe, since you won't take a toast, then let's have something more exciting."