Ruslow The Assassin
The next day.
A Scouter was lying prone on the sand dunes near an enemy outpost and slithered closer without getting noticed by the two shiftily attired men guarding the only entrance without palisades obstructing the entry.
Her party had finally found their Quest objective.
The Scouter turned on her back and fired an arrow while still laying flat. Accuracy wasn't important as the guards weren't the real targets.
Her older brother used to be a top ranker in Infinity Online. In its glory days, it used to be the most popular VR game in Ferventia before the hyped Soulbound Online finally surpassed its popularity.
During those years of watching her brother's live streams, and learning all of his tricks and skillful gameplay firsthand, she'd come to love the VR genre. Now, taking up her brother's mantle, would she be able to continue his legacy? The legacy of a beloved brother ranked number one despite suffering from a despicable and incurable disease.
This was her way of remembering her best friend — her way of seeing him every day although he had moved on from this world.
On the far left and right flanks of the entrance, a robed Healer and a lightly armored whatever-he-was hunkered down and sneakily approached from the dark.
The arrow whooshed a small distance past the dimly lit entrance and hit a piece of gravel in the opposite direction of where the guards were facing.
Thud!
Pieces of slab trickled down from the loose gravel, alerting one of the guards.
—
[Name: Scandalous Scoundrel
Level: 17
HP: 225
Description: Steals from the poor, gives to himself.]
[Name: Crooked Crook
Level: 17
HP: 265
Description: Don't look at his nose.]
—
"Huh? What was that?" One out of the outpostmen closest to the sound became wary.
"What was what? You hearing things again?" The other said.
"Tch. I'll take a look. Boss will get mad if he finds out we slacked off again."
Once the Crooked Crook split from the entrance, the Scouter fired off a set of arrows, this time directly aiming for the Scandalous Scoundrel.
The two other flanking members followed up with their own attacks.
Slump.
Before the Scandalous Scoundrel fell over with an audible thud, the Scouter rushed over and mitigated his fall with her body as he slowly vanished into a streak of dark light into the night sky.
[+38 EXP]
Luckily, the developers of Soulbound Online had thought out several stealth scenarios. If the streak of light had been brilliantly bright, the whole outpost would have been alerted.
'Credit where credit is due.' The whatever-he-was player thought and tip-toed on to their next target. The Healer and Scouter followed suit.
Now that the entrance to the outpost had been cleared, a Shieldbreaker with a greataxe on his back started to climb up the nearest tower that was tentatively set up. A few ladder steps away, he popped his head out to get a better read of the situation.
—
[Name: Captious Captain (Elite)
Level: 17
HP: 800
Description: Will attack your weak points, physically and verbally.]
—
The Shieldbreaker weighed his options. Climb down or attack?
'Who am I kidding.' He finally concluded.
With three fast motions, the Shieldbreaker was already standing inside the guard tower. He hurriedly grabbed his greataxe while the alerted Elite thug was turning around and swung as hard and fast as he could.
[Critical! -112 HP]
The Captious Captain crashed onto the poorly constructed stockade of the tower and fell over.
While falling, the Shieldbreaker's partners lined up their ranged physical or magical attacks from below.
[-25 HP]
[-18 HP]
[-20 HP]
The attacks had pushed the falling thug closer to the lethal palisades!
[Fatal! -800 HP]
[+120 EXP]
The stakes protruding from the fence had pierced the Captious Captain, thus the sneak attack on the outpost had gone without a hitch so far!
"Three down, probably quite a few left." The Healer whispered in the party chat.
Soulbound Online had a voice chat function that was mentally triggered. Outside of combat, the distance one could communicate was set to 50 kilometers (31 miles). After that, the only other option was to use the system and manually type in messages on the system window.
However, once locked in combat, inside enemy territory, or in Dungeons, the voice chat function was limited to 5 kilometers (3.1 miles) or less depending on area type.
The party of four continued their stealthy approach and took out half of the outpost before an alarm was triggered!
It wasn't the fault of anyone in the party. The alarm just went off by itself!
"Detection magic." The Scouter cursed.
They had been too naive! Of course an Assassin would potentially have that skill!
A strange, continuous sound of bells rang out in every nook and cranny of the outpost, alerting every thug or lowlife.
There was no point continuing to hide now that the enemy was aware of their presence, thus the party decided to change tactics.
"Bolstera Physicalis! Lux Ferventes!" The Healer buffed herself and the party.
"Augment Physique! Stunt!" The Shieldbreaker buffed himself.
A volley of arrows flew in the party's direction.
The party member holding a boomerang and a shortsword activated a skill and tossed himself in front of the others with his arms crossed to avoid lethal damage.
[-3 HP]
[-2 HP]
[-3 HP]
[-3 HP]
[-2 HP]
…
"Pft! Hahaha! What a cute hedgehog!" The Healer laughed, unable to keep her stupid thoughts to herself once the volley had ended.
The boomerang wielder broke off the arrows festering his whole body and let the Shieldbreaker tank the next incoming attacks.
The Shieldbreaker activated Provoke and yelled some nasty words at the thugs dashing closer to him and engaged them in melee combat.
While the Shieldbreaker held the attention of several Crooks and Scoundrels, the boomerang wielder unleashed his barrage of explosive grenades on the onslaught of enemies whereas the Healer kept the front line healthy.
The Scouter paused her actions for a moment and looked at her surroundings and party members. Before she met up with her new friends, she'd asserted that she wanted to be a solo player just like her brother.
Now, she wasn't sure anymore. She wasn't as good as her brother, or so she thought. She lacked the experience to single-handedly reach her goal, whereas her brother broke every barrier and overcame every obstacle by himself.
She started to doubt herself. She was only ranked number 3 in this region and ranked even further down globally.
"Hey, Sightseer! Snap out of it! We need you!" The Healer shouted.
Sightseer finally snapped out of her daze. The Healer was right. Why did she let her inconsequential inferiority complex get to her?
She might have taken up the name of Sightseer, but she wasn't her brother.
'I'll clear out my own path. That's my role as the Scouter of this team.'
Her resolve shifted and grew stronger.
—
[System warning! Boss detected!]
—