Chapter 58: Killing Bagel
If Hodell remembered correctly, the first closed beta on Liuli Star would begin around one hundred and thirty days before the official open beta.
Converted into the Star Sea calendar, that meant sometime between February 15 and February 24 of Year 688.
He sat alone in the quiet of Bagel's workshop, one hand propping up his chin as he stared at the string of dates and numbers on the panel before him. The violent battle from earlier had already ended. Outside, the Magic Tide was still raging through Shadow Valley, turning the world beyond the steel walls into a storm of distorted light and unstable energy. Inside, the workshop was silent except for the low hum of backup systems and the occasional crackle of residual current from Bagel's ruined corpse.
Hodell shifted his gaze downward and invested three hundred and eighty thousand EXP in one breath.
Three skills.
Three upgrades.
[Special Combat Lv.10, Max]
[Melee critical hit rate increased by 30%. Unarmed attack power increased by 20%. Strength +6. Endurance +3.]
[Your Special Combat has reached the level cap. You have gained 1 Potential Point.]
[Energy Replication Lv.10, Max]
[Learning speed for energy type skills increased by 30%. Energy consumption: 10 per second.]
[Your Energy Replication has reached the level cap. You have gained 1 Potential Point.]
[Painful Shriek Lv.10, Max]
[Consumes 90 energy to unleash a mental shriek at close range enemies, dealing 220 + Mystery × 1.2 mental damage, with a chance to inflict Fear, Confusion, and Deafness. Damage and probability decrease with distance.]
[Your Painful Shriek has reached the level cap. You have gained 1 Potential Point.]
The final glow of the system notifications faded.
Hodell exhaled slowly.
"That Skill Upgrade Card finally got used."
It had been sitting in his inventory ever since the Snake Fang Gang incident, gathering dust. Now it was gone, converted into immediate combat value. Worth it.
He rose from Bagel's hydraulic throne and walked toward the reinforced observation slit built into the workshop wall. Outside, the sky above Shadow Valley had turned into a suffocating purple red dome. The Magic Tide was far from over. Every gust of wind carried sparks, heat, and the scent of scorched metal.
Staying in the General Administration had once been his path to advancement.
Now it was obvious that road was closed.
If he wanted to complete his class advancement mission, if he wanted Trial Points, resources, and breathing room, Shadow Valley was the better hunting ground.
This place was lawless, savage, and efficient.
In other words, perfect.
"Time to explore properly."
With that thought, Hodell phased through the workshop wall and stepped back into the storm.
The moment he emerged, the hot wind slapped against his face like a sheet of burning sand. Loose gravel skittered across the ground. Purple lightning flickered within the low hanging clouds overhead, outlining the jagged skyline of Shadow Valley in brief flashes.
The Magic Tide was intensifying.
He had not even walked a hundred meters before the originally chaotic airflow around him subtly changed. Not weaker. More orderly.
Someone was here.
Hodell stopped.
His right hand slipped casually into his robe pocket, but his fingertips were already resting against a Composite Energy Core. He did not turn around. His hazel eyes reflected the faint violet flames burning in the broken ruins nearby.
"You've been staring for a while," he said flatly. "Come out and talk."
A voice answered from ahead.
"As expected of the man who erased the Crow Cult. Your perception is worth every rumor."
Several figures emerged from the shadows.
The leader was a middle aged man in dark gray hunting gear. Everything about him looked out of place in Shadow Valley. His collar was pressed flat. His gloves were clean. Even his boots were polished beneath the dust. Behind him stood four mercenaries holding Imperial made magic guided muskets. Not top grade weapons, but well maintained and fully combat ready.
The muskets hummed faintly. Their low frequency self checking arrays had already been activated to stabilize the mechanisms against the violent ambient energy outside.
The leader bowed with impeccable etiquette.
"Homan. Polar Merchant Guild."
He raised his eyes and smiled, his gaze sharp despite his polished manners.
"We have been observing you for some time, sir. More precisely, since you disposed of a few local pests near the platform."
Hodell finally turned around and looked at him.
Coldly.
Silently.
Homan continued as if he had expected exactly that response.
"Our guild respects capable people. The crows you killed were filth, but they did serve a purpose. They secured a section of one of our routes. Now that they're gone, a vacancy has opened. And with the Magic Tide about to lock down the entire North District"
Hodell rubbed the sphere hidden in his pocket.
"So you want me to replace them."
"You could call it a hired cooperation arrangement."
Homan reached into his coat and produced a pure black metal invitation. With a flick of his fingers, it floated gently toward Hodell.
"The Polar Merchant Guild does not participate in political games. We care about cargo, routes, and the ability to move goods from one place to another without losing too much blood along the way. We need an outpost. Someone lethal enough to keep trouble away and smart enough to understand Shadow Valley's rules."
Hodell caught the invitation between two fingers without looking at it.
An invitation.
A resource.
A leash.
He understood all three at once.
"An outpost." A faintly amused smile touched his lips. "You're trying to buy my time."
"We are buying efficiency." Homan's smile did not change. "In return, we can provide goods unavailable on the ordinary black market, as well as the most authoritative logistics clearance in this wasteland."
That part interested Hodell.
Not because he trusted Homan, but because men like this did not come personally unless the offer was real.
He knew too little about Shadow Valley's internal structure. Someone like Homan was a moving information source.
Still, accepting too quickly would only invite pressure.
So Hodell tucked the black invitation away as if he were putting aside a scrap of paper.
"I'll think about it."
Then his voice turned colder.
"But until I answer, I don't want anyone coming to disturb me."
For the first time, Homan's smile tightened slightly.
Not because of the warning itself.
But because even after years in Shadow Valley, after seeing every brand of ruthless lunatic and swaggering killer the place had to offer, he could still not read the man standing in front of him. No obvious greed. No posturing. No emotional fluctuation worth exploiting. Only mystery and control.
The sort of person who made merchants nervous.
"Understood," Homan said with another small bow. "The Polar Merchant Guild respects the privacy of its future partners. I look forward to your reply."
Hodell gave no answer.
He simply turned and continued deeper into Shadow Valley.
The long street ahead grew older as he walked. Newer steel and patched structures gradually gave way to ancient stone, dark rock, and weathered ruins that looked as though they belonged to a different civilization entirely. At the center of the next plaza stood a broken obelisk half buried in the earth.
No words were carved into it.
Instead, dark golden light flowed across its surface in shifting lines, forming a real time list of one hundred names.
Hodell stopped and studied it.
A bounty structure.
A death ledger.
A ladder.
His gaze passed over the names and the numbers beside them. The ones ranked high were obviously beyond what he should challenge right now. The lower section, though, was another matter entirely.
"Something like a hit list."
The corner of his mouth curled.
"Good. That saves me time."
Killing targets. Taking resources. Completing class advancement requirements. Building renown later when the players arrived.
This was much cleaner than politics.
He walked toward the stone building beneath the obelisk, half underground and lit only by a dozen old ever burning lamps mounted on brass brackets. The air inside smelled of old parchment, wax, blood, and stale dust.
Behind the counter sat an old man as thin as a corpse.
A milky white film covered his eyes, but the fingers of his left hand moved rapidly over a relief carved disk on the counter. A perception type. Blind only on the surface.
"A new face," the old man croaked. "Here to buy a life, or sell your own?"
Hodell stopped before the counter.
"The rules," he said. "The honest version."
The old man's bony fingers paused.
"We do three things. Post missions. Notarize contracts. Settle bounties. Some people come for blood. Some come looking for cats and dogs. Shadow Valley doesn't discriminate."
Hodell tilted his chin toward the obelisk outside.
"And that?"
The old man's lips twisted.
"That is the Death List. Anyone can place a bounty on those names. Anyone can hunt them. The rule is simple. Post the mission. Accept the mission. Collect the payment."
He paused, then leaned slightly forward.
"But if you kill someone on that list, you trigger the only real privilege this place offers. Inheritance."
Hodell's gaze sharpened a fraction.
The old man continued, voice low and dry.
"Every person on the Death List has property tied to their name. Workshops, routes, caches, territory, contracts. If you kill them, take the bounty, and we verify it, their assets in Shadow Valley become legally yours. Provided you survive long enough to write your own name across them."
In Hodell's eyes, the list instantly transformed.
No longer names.
No longer local tyrants.
Only experience packs with attached resource bundles.
His gaze swept downward and stopped at Rank 92.
He reached out, plucked the heavy dark red mission token from the rack, and slapped it onto the counter.
"This one."
The old man ran a finger across the token's edge and smiled.
"Bagel."
He chuckled, the sound like dry bark splitting.
"You don't actually need to formally accept it. If the man dies, it counts either way. Let me guess. You heard he has a workshop shielded against the Magic Tide, and you want a proper shelter. Plenty of clever people have had the same thought. All of them ended up as slag in Bagel's furnace."
"Register it."
Hodell turned away before the old man finished smiling.
He walked back into the plaza just as the first real wall of hot wind hit the district. The purple red clouds overhead seemed to sink lower, pressing down on the entire valley like a collapsing ceiling.
He did not slow.
This was exactly why he was moving now.
The tide was coming in full. When it did, most people would lock themselves down. Which meant anyone worth killing would either bunker in or gamble. Either way, they would be easier to predict.
"Kill enemies. Grow stronger. Plunder resources."
A cold smile flashed across his face.
"Far simpler than watching bureaucrats stab each other with paper."
Carrying the silver case, Hodell pushed into the North District.
This section of Shadow Valley dipped sharply downward into a maze of rusted industrial pipework. At the center of the region stood Bagel's underground workshop, a steel fortress sunk into the ground like a metal tumor. Dozens of exhaust pipes belched black gray smoke high into the air.
That smoke did more than block sight.
It disrupted perception, distorted spell formation, and turned external casting into a gamble.
So Bagel had prepared for the tide.
Good.
It meant he had resources worth taking.
Hodell stopped before the three meter thick gate and closed his eyes.
[Energy Replication] activated.
In an instant, the turbulent ambient magic became a shifting structure in his mind. Smoke currents, pressure differences, thermal pockets, dead gaps between layers. He traced a path through the chaos and moved.
He phased through the wall and landed lightly on a steel bracket inside the workshop.
The interior was massive.
Hundreds of piston pumps hammered in rhythmic sequence, filling the air with a dull industrial roar. Heat shimmered everywhere. At the far end of the hall, sunk into a hydraulic throne surrounded by reinforced conduits, sat Bagel himself.
The man looked less like a human and more like a siege engine that had grown flesh in a few leftover places. His body was mountainous. A heavy mechanical eye spun within a metal socket as he searched for the intruder.
"Hm?" Bagel rumbled. "Some suicidal bastard really walked into my nest?"
He had sensed something wrong. Good instincts.
His warhammer came up in a vicious arc, the swing carrying enough force to tear through iron plating. The wind pressure alone was enough to crush bones.
Hodell moved.
He blurred across the workshop in a streak of afterimages, lightning fast and deliberately showy. He did not take out the Composite Energy Core immediately. Instead, he snapped his fingers and released a burst of blue violet current.
Electric arcs tore through the anti magic smoke, weakened by the environment yet still visually unmistakable.
Brilliant.
Violent.
Lightning flavored.
After investing those eighteen Potential Points, he could now manipulate the outward characteristics of his energy attacks far more precisely than before. So he gave Bagel exactly what he wanted to see.
Lightning.
The big man barked out a savage laugh.
"A lightning type? This little itch can't even scorch my armor!"
He let the current dance over his plated body and charged straight through it, convinced he had seen through the act. In a place like Shadow Valley, people stole every kind of cheap advantage they could. A man with high movement speed and elemental effects must be some half broken mage or circuit modified freak.
That was Bagel's judgment.
And it was wrong.
Hodell kept retreating, just enough to sell the illusion.
Then, at the exact instant Bagel's warhammer descended toward his chest, Hodell's eyes turned still and black as an abyss.
He vanished.
Not acceleration.
Not feinting footwork.
True displacement.
Bagel's hammer smashed into empty space and cratered the workshop floor in a shower of sparks.
"Where"
He never finished.
[Painful Shriek]
The mental blast detonated directly beside his consciousness.
For Bagel, it felt like red hot spikes had been driven through his skull. The shock was so violent that his physical body froze for a fatal fraction of a second. His mechanical eye spun wildly out of focus. The flow of power through his semi magic guided armor turned chaotic.
That was enough.
By the time he recovered, Hodell was already behind him, standing in the blind spot above his energy converter.
"Your body's decent," Hodell said softly. "Your mind is slow."
His fingers pressed against the thinnest armored vent on the machine giant's back.
Then he phased the billiard sized Composite Energy Core straight into the interior of Bagel's armor.
Boom!
There was no grand external explosion.
No dramatic shockwave.
All of the energy was released inside the shell.
A burst of white brilliance tore from every seam and joint. Bagel let out one final shriek, more machine than human, as his massive body caved inward from within. A second later, the hydraulic throne collapsed under the dead weight of a charred, smoking heap of distorted metal and flesh.
[You killed Bagel, Lv.41, gaining 30,000 EXP.]
[Killing a target 11 levels higher grants an extra 300% EXP bonus. Total EXP: 90,000. Personal output rate: 100%.]
[You gained an additional 90,000 EXP.]
[You gained 18 Trial Points.]
[[Limit Trial]: Current Progress 558/1500]
Hodell looked at the remains and nodded to himself.
"Bagel was barely D Grade. Not much weaker than me."
He turned the broken logic of the battlefield over in his mind.
"As expected. One good trick can carry an absurd amount of weight."
Until the moment he died, Bagel had believed he was fighting a lightning using mage. He had never realized that none of the killing moves used against him had been spells in the conventional sense.
Outside, the first real thunderclap of the Magic Tide exploded.
The sound shook the workshop walls.
Purple light flashed through the smoke choked windows, and the entire wasteland beyond the steel fortress was swallowed by a storm of unstable energy.
Hodell sat down on Bagel's throne, tapped the armrest, and activated the workshop's lockdown procedure.
Heavy barriers dropped. Vents shifted. Internal stabilization measures engaged.
"The air in here does smell better than outside."
His gaze drifted over the workshop's stores.
Special metals. Components. Protective gear. Smuggling caches. Tide resistant equipment.
With Bagel dead and the inheritance now effectively his, he had finally secured a true foothold in Shadow Valley. No more hiding in half collapsed towers every time the Magic Tide swept through.
Just as the tension in his nerves began to ease, his perception brushed across something that did not belong.
A heartbeat.
Weak.
Steady.
Human.
Not the mechanical rhythm of the workshop.
Not residual feedback.
An actual living pulse.
His head turned slowly toward the deepest part of the workshop, behind a giant cooling tank that should have been empty.
His eyes narrowed.
"Since you've hidden there this long," he said quietly, "are you planning to stay for dinner, or are you going to come out and introduce yourself?"
.....
[If you don't want to wait for the next update, read 50 chapters ahead on P@treon.]
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