71: Combat Mode

"Buy today's latest gazette! Today's latest gazette! The Bloody Swan strikes again! Reports of the Bloody Swan attacking a patrol of guards at Roseville and Monroe! Read it in today's gazette!"

It has been three days since Isabella joined the Bloody Swan hideout as an information gatherer and analyst. Vivian carefully revealed to her that she was the Bloody Swan, which royally freaked Isabella out as she demanded Vivian halt these reckless activities at once.

However, the fact that Vivian was already a 1-star Bronze Knight changed things and Isabella wasn't sure what to do with all that information she was gathering. It seemed like a good idea to cause some accidents but it goes without saying that Isabella was worried sick about Vivian's actions.

As for this morning's news, Isabella sat on the balcony as her servant brought her the gazette and she read it over a cup of tea.

"… the rapid sound of gunfire echoed through the conjunction of Roseville and Monroe late at night as five members of the Blackguards were shot on the spot and fire was set to the wagon they were driving. Witnesses claim that a strong scent could be smelled with the smoke as it indicated that the wagon was transporting some sort of herb, which begs the question, why are the Blackguards interfering with the herb trade?"

Putting down the newspaper, Isabella realized that Vivian had just killed 5 individuals and burnt a wagon to the ground. This was one of the recent intel Isabella has provided to Vivian about the Blackguards transporting ingredients for their drug production. What Vivian did last night was an attempt to beat around the bush of the Blackguards' operations and see whatever jumps out.

Isabella couldn't help but feel like she was dazed with worry and decided to head to see Vivian immediately. Knowing her nowadays activities, she's probably down in the hideout.

As Isabella descended from her end of the tunnel down into the secret hideout, she discovered that the place was expanded and now she could walk straight into the tunnel without lowering her head. On top of that, it seemed that Voros had fixed some torches and lanterns for illumination after managing to make some ventilation holes through secret chimneys.

As she entered the hideout, Isabella found that Vivian was organizing the place from inside and had added some personal touches to it. A few old seats, a table, some barrels and blanks, a few old rugs, and a cupboard filled with all sorts of clutter.

"Feels homey, eh?" In the middle of all that, Vivian greeted Isabella who just walked in.

"The news is all over." Isabella said as she put the newspaper on the makeshift table for Vivian to see.

"Well, isn't that what this is all about? Smoke makes the rats come running from their hidey-hole." Vivian replied as she kept playing with some of her tools.

"I understand what you are doing but please, don't make me regret it if something bad happens to you."

"That's why I need to be ready. Good equipment, good information, and a whole lotta bullets."

"The gazette says it was a gunfight. You were shot at, right?"

"Shot at? More like I've been shooting them without resistance."

"And you… killed them?"

"If you're worried, I have killed before."

"I know, you're the Bloody Swan for crying out loud. I meant that you made sure that nobody lived and saw you."

"A cowl on my face, a gun in my hand. Surviving me would be surviving a storm holding to a straw."

"Well, at least your night raid was a success. The gazette keeps calling it a shipment of medicinal herbs, though."

"Opium is medicinal, can't say they lied."

"But you and I know there is more to it, right?"

"Indeed. Opium is one of nature's most powerful sedatives. If the Blackguards are moving it, it is most likely related to that drug you call Bliss, maybe one of its ingredients." Vivian concluded as he took out a small handkerchief and handed it to Isabella.

Isabella unfolded the handkerchief and inspected what was inside.

"That's what you found?" She asked.

What was in her hand was a poppy flower bulb that seemed thick with sap.

"Well, it may look like a natural poppy bulb but I don't know if this thing was ever farmed in Elgard, and from the looks of it, it was rinsed in some sort of liquid which left the plant a bit sticky. I think it was still being processed by some method."

"Then why move it? Why not make it all in one place rather than separating two parts of a single process and transporting it?"

"It doesn't make sense indeed but I assume that some resources they have are stationary at one place and the rest are at another. This thing was being moved between points A and B." Vivian said and walked to a new board with a large map of the city, "That's point B, which is the Black Market. As for point A, I couldn't get it out of the Blackguards I attacked last night."

"You tried to interrogate them?"

"I did but a few watchmen arrived and I had to run for it after finishing the last Blackguard."

"This is ruthless."

"Either way, we need more information. As long as we understand the structure of the Crime Syndicate led by Ian Grayson, we can slowly dismantle it and destroy the Prince's funding."

"Still sounds like revenge to me."

"Justice."

"Keep telling yourself that." Isabella said and let out a sigh, "If I can't stop you, I'll at least make sure you don't run into a trap or something. Be careful, alright?"

"Careful is my middle name, sister."

"It is Keone, you moron."

Isabella left the hideout back to her building, leaving Vivian alone for her vigilante operation.

Her hideout has evolved, and she now has more furniture and investigation boards, which she moved via her storage purse from outside. Vivian also added a small laboratory for herself in order to study the items of interest that she acquired during her field action.

But Vivian didn't go out that night just to hunt down some Blackguards. Her goal was to test herself and her gear against living targets, she also wanted to test the full potential of the System's Combat Mode.

In the beginning, the Combat Mode presented itself to Vivian as a combat interface mode that views the opponent's type, level, and hit points but these were just the passive effects. As for the other toggleable functions, there were a lot of them and they made Vivian feel like a real cheat.

The Combat Mode had three functions in total, the first is the Combat Info, the second is the Combat History, and the third is the Combat Assistant.

The Combat History was a mode Vivian found most useful for many reasons and she couldn't help using it as soon as she discovered it. It had two sub-functions and they were nothing short of magic. The first of which allows her to revisit the combat encounters she had and even review them from a third-person view and the second was to redo that combat encounter in mental simulation.

As for the Combat Assistant, it had a wide range of mini-tools that worked for many situations but for the most part, Vivian experienced two of them. The first is the Critical Point targeting which highlights the least defended area on an opponent's body once their defense is broken and they become unbalanced, as for the second, is called SP Reloader and the one which made Vivian most excited.

« SP Reloader: You can spend 10 SP while the weapon is in storage to reload a certain weapon based on your best reload record time for it. »

It was safe to say that with this function alone, Vivian felt so overpowered to the point where she ran over the entire convoy of Blackguards the other night guns blazing only.

And what is the best way to relive that glorious moment if not the Combat History? Vivian sat back on the old armchair and in her hideout and closed her eyes after choosing last night's fight from the system screen.

« Playing Entry 003! »

It was a dark empty street illuminated by the reflection of moonlight and hazy gas lamps on the soaked cobblestone street. Midnight as it is, no living soul was roaming the dark streets of Archester's quietest parish for the night.

It would have been the perfect night to lay down and relax even in the middle of the road if not for a certain wagon driving about with its horse making God-awful noises as its horseshoes hit against the cobblestone, pulling the squeaky screaky wagon behind.

The Blackguards who drove the wagon had their eyes peeled since it would be a huge trouble if they were to get caught by the parish constables who were not bribed by the boss. Things would get chaotic and problems would occur.

But just as the five men were making sure they weren't surprised from any unforeseeable direction, the surprise came to them from the front without trying to sneak up on them… but it was a tad tricky to anticipate.

In the middle of the street, which could fit two wagons side by side, the body of a woman was lying perfectly in the middle with what seemed to be a short thin figure standing over it. As soon as that figure noticed the wagon approaching, it ran away immediately and disappeared into the darkness.

Seeing that, the Blackguards were spooked and aimed their flintlocks at the dark corners.

"Paul, what's happening?"

"I don't know. Hey, go check on that person!"

"No! Run them over, Steve! It looks like an ambush."

"Shit! That's a lot of blood!"

"Halt! It can be a trap."

Finally, the wagon came to a halt and the Blackguards took to their corners with alertness. A hand on the pistol and another on the blade. One of them descended from the back of the Wagon and walked to the front to inspect the woman's corpse while aiming his pistol at her.

As she seemed lying in a puddle of her blood and no obvious traps were attached to her, the Blackguard aimed his pistol down.

"Steve, what's going on?"

"It's alright, Paul. It seemed like some random killing. We need to move quickly."

Steve turned around to face Paul and began walking towards him but just at that second.

"AARGH!"

Steve cried from pain as he felt a sharp terrible pain in his right wrist which was now missing a hand.

"FUCK! IT'S A TRAP!" Paul, who was driving the carriage, shouted and aimed his weapon at the woman who moved like a ghost with a blade in her hand and as soon as she was in sight of their aim, the four Blackguards fired their pistols.

Speed was key to this encounter, Vivian knew that even though she was supposed to be fast, dodging bullets wasn't something within her realm of possibility just yet so she rushed toward the man she just "behanded" and pulled him to be at her front.

The classic meat-shield technique was as perfect as ever as the man took one bullet to the abdomen while the three remaining shots either missed or just grazed him. But now, it's her turn.

She tossed the man to the side and with Romeo in her right, she shot the Wagon Driver right in the forehead with a thunderous BANG, making the man's body yank backward in the wagon with the remaining three.

NIIIIIIIIIGH!

The two wagon horses were already terrified from the first round of shooting and as there was no one to control them anymore, they took matters to their own legs and bolted with the wagon behind them.

Whistle!

All Vivian needed to do was to give the signal as she jumped off the horses' way. Just like that, a steel bar was thrown from where Voros just hid and it got between the spooks of the rear wheel, causing the spooks to shatter against the sudden burst of speed from the horses and…

Screech!

The wheel broke off the wagon and the whole thing toppled from one corner, breaking the axle that held the whole thing together and the horses bolted free while the wagon itself took a sharp turn and hit a nearby building.

"Damn!"

Excited, Vivian sent her right gun to the storage and spent 10 SP to reload it.

« Romeo Pistol: 3.48 Seconds! »

The countdown started and Vivian had the other pistol out already. As soon as she spotted the next Blackguard, who was staggering up to his feet and trying to offer a hand to one of his comrades on the ground, she fired a bullet to the side of his head and sent him off his feet.

"SHIT! IT'S THE BLOODY SWAN!"

The Blackguard who was trying to hold the hand of the latest killed one threw himself on the ground behind a fallen crate and tried to take his blade but as soon as he did and charged toward Vivian…

BANG!

A single bullet to the head once again and the man took a few steps before his body realized he was dead and he crumbled at Vivian's feet.

"That one is not a smarty." Vivian said while pointing her pistol at the man she just shot before looking ahead and aiming her other pistol, "However, that one is."

From the wreckage of the wagon, Vivian could see one man trying to keep his presence thin as he was reloading his pistol. However, the moment he noticed Vivian aiming her gun at him, he tried to hide but she was already over him.

"Shit! Fuck! Shit fuck!"

"Come on, make your last words memorable."

Vivian could see that the man had broken his leg badly as the wagon crashed and with no hint of mercy, she stepped on the broken leg with all her weight.

"No no no no! NOOO! ARGH! STOP! HELP!"

"Speak, you wretch. Where did you get that shipment from?" Vivian stepped even harder on the Blackguard's leg.

"STOP! STOP!"

"SPEAK!"

"I don't know. The wagon… it was parked for us… at the Waterlow."

"A dead drop, eh?" Vivian figured out that this was a dead end, "What else is in that shipment? What do you transfer other than Opium."

"I don't know… We don't get paid to know."

"But you aren't stupid enough to drive wagons in the dead of the night without knowing what is its content. You won't risk your life for something you don't know about."

"It is the truth, I swear to God!"

"SWEAR TO ME!"

Vivian hit the Blackguard with the butt of her pistol and the man cowered on the ground.

"I SWEAR! We only transport these sticky dead flowers. If there are other things, then there are different routes. I know nothing about them."

WHISTLEEEEEEEEEEE!

At that moment, many figures started running toward the place while whistling and holding batons and clubs. Vivian knew that her time was up since the constable and his men arrived.

"Then you are useless to me!"

BANG! BANG!

Vivian killed the Blackguard she interrogated and the other one at a distance who was shot by his comrades at the beginning of the fight. She then ran towards the darkness where Voros appeared with the modified chariot and sped through the darkness away from pursuers.

« End of Entry 003! »