GAMMT - Chapter 5
Chapter 5: Bandits
In the room, the leader suddenly received a call from the hotel manager. It turned out their young master had a fever.
What the hell!
A fever?
He was in the prime of his youth, and he gets a fever just like that? How pathetic!
"No wonder his stats are so rotten," a few of the guards couldn't help but mutter. The leader quickly arrived at the room to see the hotel's resident doctor checking the temperature with a thermometer.
39.9°C.
"It's likely a fever from catching a chill during the long journey. Why weren't you paying more attention?" The doctor even chided the leader and his men, whose faces darkened.
A long journey? We've only been on the road for a few hours! The mechanical horses have a smooth ride, and he even ate two large bags of cucumber-flavored chips and a hamburger!
The leader suppressed his temper, forced a concerned smile, and asked if there was any special medicine that could speed up recovery.
"There is, but it's quite expensive."
"I'll take it."
With a wave of his hand, the leader didn't consider any other options and had the hotel cooperate directly.
Fu Chuan, who appeared to be delirious with fever, was inwardly even more terrified. It's over. This leader really is planning to make a move on me. Otherwise, he wouldn't be in such a hurry for me to recover and leave the hotel.
They couldn't act in the station area; the real location for their move was on the second half of the journey.
But it made no sense. If she died, wouldn't he be implicated? He would have to take responsibility.
Unless he had someone behind him who could protect him, or he had already found a perfect scapegoat for the murder.
Regardless of which possibility it was, or if both were true, Fu Chuan had no intention of sitting back and waiting for death. She feigned delirium, certain that the medicine and equipment the leader used to test her physical data were single-use. She had seen the energy meter on the device's panel go dark after the last use, which she knew meant it couldn't be activated again for a while.
So, by faking an illness now, with the natural camouflage of a changing body temperature, she could one hundred percent pass as a patient with a fever. And she could definitely get her hands on some special medicine.
The medicine arrived as expected.
After everyone left and closed the door, she opened her eyes, gagged up the capsule she had lodged in her throat, removed its dissolved shell, and poured out the powder inside. She then took the remaining capsules, collected all the powder, and during her subsequent "recuperation," she bought some fruit from the hotel. In reality, she was using the fruit juice to extract a reagent, which she then mixed with the medicinal powder.
Her time was tight. She had to complete her preparations before her temperature dropped, or the leader would surely rush her out to her death.
The fever-reducing medicine's active ingredients had strong anesthetic and anti-inflammatory properties… but they were harmful to the body, especially when overdosed and combined with other catalysts.
In Arcane Throne, alchemists had a discipline called "The Medicinal Application of Everyday Items." This allowed players, when they ran out of their specialized alchemical potions, to improvise and create relevant drugs (or poisons) from their surroundings.
This skill was difficult but highly practical. Fu Chuan had sold many guides and resources on it, so she was naturally an old hand. To ensure the poison's effectiveness, masking its taste was a crucial step—and the mixture of fruit elements was the key.
By the morning of the third day, Fu Chuan was ready, and her temperature had returned to normal. As expected, the leader arranged for their departure. With a pale face, she merely grumbled but raised no objections.
The group set out once more. They were now only two hours away from the Sky Port, but along the way, Fu Chuan observed that the route was sparsely populated. It was so strange that she didn't even see a few birds in the sky, which filled her with dread.
What kind of ambush was this? Had it scared off even the wildlife?
It seemed like a shortcut, but the risk was high. It wasn't a path a captain escorting his young master home would choose.
Were they in a hurry? No!
It wasn't like they were rushing home for a funeral.
Fu Chuan grew more certain that something was amiss. She constantly complained of being thirsty, and after finishing the water in her own canteen, she drank the water from the other guards' canteens as well.
It wasn't a big deal at first, but gradually, the group's water supply dwindled, and they had to borrow from others out of thirst.
At noon, under the scorching sun, everyone was famished. When they passed a stream, Fu Chuan cried out that she was hungry and wanted something hot, not dry rations. The leader was remarkably patient and suggested they start a fire and cook.
Drinking from a stream in the wild was a bad idea; that was common sense. Even boiling it was useless, as this was an Arcane world.
Their drinking water supply diminished further, until only the leader's large canteen remained… Fu Chuan once again asked for water. The leader, annoyed, tossed it to him.
Since she had borrowed everyone's canteens several times before, no one was suspicious, just irritated. Their dislike for this high-maintenance young master had reached its peak, and some even had a murderous glint in their eyes.
This time, however, Fu Chuan only took a single sip. With her sleeve hanging low, her finger brushed against the mouth of the bottle, and something naturally found its way inside. Then she turned away, pretending to cough, her face flushed.
"What kind of awful water is this! Here, you take it. I'll drink when I'm thirsty again."
Fu Chuan handed the canteen back. Hearing her words, the others couldn't hold back. Even the leader pretended to be thirsty and took several large gulps. Then, feeling the expectant gazes of his subordinates, he shared the remaining water in the canteen.
They wouldn't leave a single drop for this scum of a young master!
After drinking, the group began to eat a stew made from dried beef. During the meal, both sides put on a good act, presenting a "harmonious" picture of a spoiled master and his loyal servants. In reality, the leader and his men were calculating their plan, while Fu Chuan was contemplating two choices.
First, with her current mental power, she could only cast level-one Arcane spells like Arcane Missile and Meteor, and only a dozen or so times before she was spent. She had no mental power recovery potions on hand. Second, even if she wanted to use spells like Arcane Missile, she didn't seem to have the skill books.
In Arcane Throne, there were two types of Arcane arts: those learned from skill books and custom ones. The former was straightforward—you had to learn it to gain the right to use it. No matter how well you understood Arcane principles, you couldn't cast it otherwise. This was the most traditional form of Arcane, a feature of the game world. The other type was custom Arcane. These spells had no set lower or upper limits; the weak ones were incredibly weak, and the strong ones were incredibly strong. However, their cost-effectiveness was far inferior to skill book spells. They were a lot of effort for little reward, something late-game experts only dabbled in when they had no more room for improvement with skill book spells.
Currently, Fu Chuan was in a peculiar situation. She met the standards of a level-one Arcanist, as both her Gene Tree and mental power were up to par, and she even had a high starting point. But she had no skill books, which was very awkward.
Thus… she was left with only one option: custom Arcane.
It didn't require a skill book, only an understanding of Arcane principles. In short, she had to draw the Arcane formation herself.
How useless. Who would give you time to draw a diagram in a real fight?
But it was a different story if you had already poisoned your opponents.
As Fu Chuan pondered, she lifted her bowl of stew. She noticed they were all eating from the same pot, and there was no sign that these men had poisoned it. It was clear they didn't plan to kill her themselves.
An external force? What kind of external force?
It seemed that besides the employees of the mining companies and the affiliated refugees on the garbage star, there was only one other type of person.
Bandits.
Those captured by bandits usually met a gruesome end.
Fu Chuan lowered her head. As the stew went down her throat, her heart felt exceptionally cold.
After they had eaten and drunk their fill, a sense of lethargy and drowsiness set in. The leader rubbed his head, feeling that something was wrong. Just as he was about to speak, he saw their scum of a young master swaying unsteadily. "What's happening? Am I running a fever again? I feel so sick."
"Adar, Adar, why is my voice so hoarse?"
In reality, Fu Chuan was a very steady and honest person, with what you might call the aura of a veteran cadre. She had been mature since childhood and was always highly regarded by her elders. She had been an excellent student, and her few acts of rebellion had turned out well—at the very least, earning millions a year from gaming could be considered a success. So, a person like her had no need for affectation.
She had no experience. All the disguises she had put on since coming to this world were basically learned on the fly from TV dramas she had watched in the past.
Look at her now, the way she wailed. His tone and expression were so heartfelt and convincing that the leader and his men never suspected him for a moment. But they couldn't be bothered with him, because they were starting to feel unwell themselves.
"Something's wrong! The stew is tainted!"
The leader never suspected Fu Chuan, so his mind didn't go to the canteen. His first reaction was the stew, which too many people had handled.
Damn it, there's a traitor in the team!
The leader's heart went cold. He immediately gathered his Arcane power and struck. He chanted an incantation, and in three or four seconds, the swiftest of the low-level Arcane spells, Arcane Missile, formed.
Hiss, hiss, hiss. The wind elements in the air were summoned, swirling around the Arcane seal forming in his palm as he chanted. Soon, a spiral of blue light the size of an apple took shape in his palm within three short seconds and shot swiftly towards one person…
"It wasn't me!" The deputy captain realized what was happening and roared in horrified fury, simultaneously drawing his sword and summoning his mechanical horse's shield. But he was too slow.
The missile struck him directly in the head.
The leader was experienced. Weakened by the poison, he couldn't sustain multiple missile attacks. If he aimed for the torso, the armor and flesh would absorb most of the impact, not enough to fatally wound the heart.
The head was the best target.
With a bang, the missile's energy shattered, transforming into a sharp, piercing force that shot into the man's eye and temple.
In an instant, the deputy captain let out a muffled scream and collapsed.
Seeing this, Fu Chuan's heart skipped a beat. The leader was truly ruthless, using this opportunity to eliminate someone who posed a threat to him.
After finishing off the deputy captain, the leader, Adar, tried to get to his mechanical horse, hoping to ride back to the station for help. But the poison was too strong, and his vision was already blurring… Thud.
He fell. If he had fallen, it went without saying for the others.
The entire group collapsed, including Fu Chuan.
Only the mechanical horses stood by, motionless.
A moment later, the fallen Fu Chuan confirmed that their breathing was heavy and unsteady—they were truly poisoned. She opened her eyes, scrambled to her feet, and ran to the leader's side. She didn't rush to kill him; her first move was to grab his communicator.
Everything up to this point had been her observation and deduction. She had to be sure it wasn't a misunderstanding.
Fu Chuan still possessed some of the law-abiding decency from her previous life. After checking the communicator… she quickly found a number with coordinates located within the X5 star system. She converted the coordinates and found the location was nearby. The call had been made fifteen minutes ago.
Wasn't that when he told his subordinate to put less salt in the pot and then went outside to relieve himself?
The bastard. He went to make a call.
Who else could he be contacting in such a desolate place, if not bandits?
A great weight lifted from Fu Chuan's heart, but it was immediately replaced by a sense of crisis. If he had contacted them fifteen minutes ago, they should already be on their way, and they were very, very close.
For this reason, Fu Chuan specifically took the leader's watch. She remembered him frequently looking at it, and it certainly wasn't to check the time. The device had to be a sensor.
Fu Chuan took it off, made a couple of adjustments, and with a beep, a sensor map with a black background appeared on the watch face. On the map, she could see their current position, and about three thousand meters away, a dozen red dots were rapidly approaching.
They were definitely the bandits.
"Just as I thought. Time is so tight, I can't even escape. These bandits are experts at tracking. If I ride a mechanical horse, they'll just follow the hoofprints and catch me."
This was a grassy plain, where hoofprints were hard to conceal. So…
Fortunately, Fu Chuan had long been prepared, knowing she might be assassinated today. She had a plan in place even before she administered the poison.
At this moment, Fu Chuan cut her finger with a knife and used the blood to draw a hexagram on her right palm. Then, she formed a hand seal and chanted an incantation.
This custom skill was one she had created for her character back when she played the game, and it had been certified as viable by the game system. It was the lowest-level custom Arcane art, but back then she was level 30, and her mental power far exceeded what she had now. She didn't know if her current self could handle the drain, but she had already modified its intensity as much as possible. Luckily, the targets of the spell were also low-level.
As Fu Chuan finished the last word of the incantation, the hexagram on her palm burned hot. Her 188 points of mental power were almost completely drained, leaving her with only 18. And then… nine red threads shot out from her palm like a spider's silk, piercing directly into the bodies of Adar and the other men.
Custom Arcane Art: The Conspirator's Tether.
My god, that hurts.
With most of her mental power drained, Fu Chuan's head throbbed with a dull pain. But while there was still time, she took out the communicator and dialed the number of the person in charge at the Li Corporation. The moment the call connected, she pitched her voice high and screamed, "Help me! There are bandits!! Help me… Adar and the others are all…"
Before she could finish, she decisively ended the call. Then, with a blank expression, she checked the mechanical horses and gave them commands to obey her. She then quickly inventoried the items on the men. She didn't look closely at anything valuable, because she didn't take any of it, only confiscating the equipment on Adar. Afterward, she directed the mechanical horses to run around randomly, leaving a mess of hoofprints on the ground, before returning to their original spot. As for herself… she jumped into a pool in the nearby stream. The pool was quite deep, just enough to conceal a person.
This trick could only fool them temporarily, as long as they didn't realize she was in the water.
Once in the water, she could already hear the sound of hooves. She took a deep breath and submerged herself.
If she wanted to live, the leader and his men had to die. If the bandits could be avoided, she would escape. But she couldn't just run off into the sunset. The Xie Clan would investigate, and the truth would eventually come out. Although she wasn't at fault, she would be exposed. Xie An didn't want her to succeed and wanted to use her; stepping into the spotlight now was suicide.
So she needed a reason. She had to have official personnel come to her rescue, to have a third party witness that she was the victim, that she had escaped by a stroke of luck, and was then saved. That way, she could explain everything.
By the same token, if the bandits couldn't be avoided, she would have to face them. The plan would be the same—contact the people from the Li Corporation…
Having bandits around actually made it easier to kill them off—an internal matter, handled internally, with no connection to her.
She waited quietly, until…
Thump, thump, thump. The ground began to vibrate with the sound of galloping hooves.
They were here.
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