On the northern outskirts of Evernight Port, exposed to the harsh, windblown grit at the windward gap, lay an alley known as Blackwater Lane.
This was Evernight Port's slum, populated mostly by marginalized ethnic groups other than the Wilante.
Among them were natives from the Great Desert, exiles from the Legion's homeland, indigenous peoples from the New World, and even Brahma people.
The intricate demographic mix and sharp friction made it a chaotic melting pot.
Although local gang members dared not openly engage in firefights right under the noses of the Wilante, vendettas and gang brawls were commonplace, much like West Sail Port after the Southern Legion took over.
The Wilante did not care whether these scraps of humanity lived or died. They were merely cheap, convenient labor. Though they struggled year in and year out on the borderline between poverty and starvation, they never seemed to die out entirely.
Like weeds, they always arrived here for one reason or another, sprouting batch after batch of fresh shoots whenever the spring breeze blew.
Small wonder the Southern Legion was dissatisfied with Triumph City's civil bureaucracy.
Triumph City's brand of exploitation was far too inefficient—weak, even.
If those good-for-nothings in Triumph City could build a dog-eat-dog society at the bottom like they did—where flies and rats battered each other bloody over a mouthful of shit and spat venom at one another over who reeked worse—the initial riots in West Sail Port never would have happened.
Take Evernight Port, for instance.
Not a single laborer ever worked himself to death on the Wilante docks.
Before collapsing from sheer exhaustion, they would be quietly buried out of sight amid everyone's jeering laughter, carrying sudden, useless regrets.
Such as Blackwater Lane.
After all, they weren't Wilante; they couldn't possibly be buried in the same ground as Wilante failures.
Walking through this "garbage processing plant," several players whispered among themselves, exchanging remarks that would get them beaten up if any local understood them.
Medical Miracle: "...Actually, the Wilante aren't hardcore enough. They actually let this crushed cane rot right on their doorstep instead of burying them out in the Great Desert."
Angry Fatty Liver: "That wouldn't work, right? If you drive them into the Great Desert, wouldn't they just become marauders?"
Pickled Cabbage Fish: "Or broodmothers for goblins."
Medical Miracle: "Tsk, focus on the key word: I said *bury*. You think this is taking them out to dinner, politely escorting them to the door?"
Angry Fatty Liver: "Are you insane?! Then who'd work for you?"
Pickled Cabbage Fish: "+1, you're a bit too extreme."
Listening to the conversation of the three morons behind him, black lines ran down Talan Raider's forehead.
Why did he feel like he'd recruited another bunch of oddballs?
Come to think of it, it seemed like it had always been this way; his Desert Corps had never recruited a single normal person.
No wonder he could never reach Tier 0!
No matter how he looked at it, it was all these corps members' fault!
"Shut up, all of you. You think your foreign babble isn't standing out enough here?"
Hearing their boss speak, the three players finally quieted down for a moment.
Not because they actually respected him.
Mainly, they worried this scrub would botch the quest later and pin the blame on them.
Talan breathed a sigh of relief and refocused on the streets flanking the alley.
To avoid making his group look like they were on a sightseeing tour, he had intentionally brought only three newly recruited confidants. As for the other thirty new recruits, he had sent them to book rooms at an inn.
Once they entered the Great Desert, there would be plenty of use for them.
Right now, having too many people would only get in the way and might draw the attention of the Wilante.
Finding clues was no easy feat.
The houses on Blackwater Street were haphazardly thrown together. Far from having house numbers, some buildings required a search just to locate the door.
The address on the slip of paper was written so vaguely that hardly anyone understood it when asked for directions.
Still, this couldn't stump him.
Talan's eyes swept along the street, and soon lit up.
"Horseshoe Tavern... three storefronts to the right, into the alley and turn right... Found it! Right here, follow me!"
Seeing his excitement, Medical Miracle beside him couldn't help chiming in.
"Boss... we've already walked past that horseshoe sign three times."
Pickled Cabbage Fish nodded alongside him with absolute certainty.
"+1, I remember it too."
Talan flushed and glared at him.
"Why didn't you tell me earlier?!"
Medical Miracle immediately put on an innocent face.
"I asked you over and over what we were looking for, and you just told me to shut up and follow. I thought you knew where you were going... If you were lost, you should've just said so."
Talan's face burned red, speechless.
Beside them, Pickled Cabbage Fish shot a suspicious look at their unreliable corps leader and said skeptically,
"...Bro, do you actually know what you're doing?"
Shame turned into anger as Talan snapped,
"...Shut up!"
The three players exchanged glances, their doubts deepening.
Maybe...
Maybe this quest really wasn't that important after all.
Otherwise, it was hard to explain why it had been entrusted to this clown...
At that exact moment, the four had no idea that just as they turned into the alleyway, several Wilante soldiers appeared right where they had passed moments earlier.
Though the Southern Legion and the Alliance had not declared war on each other, the two sides had already battered each other senseless in Brahma Province. With Alliance people suddenly popping up on Southern Legion turf, how could they not be watched?
Even a visa from Triumph City was useless here!
The garrison stationed near the docks had eyed these "blue groundhogs" the moment they stepped ashore, and had caught a bunch of them red-handed right at the inn entrance.
The garrison planned to interrogate these suspected blue-coat spies separately, but when counting heads, they discovered the number arrested didn't match the number that had disembarked.
Realizing fish had slipped through the net, the garrison officer immediately ordered a pursuit.
And so, led by a decurion, this squad of guards pursued them from the harbor all the way to Blackwater Street in the north.
Just when they thought they were closing in, after a few turns, the quarry vanished.
"Damn it, we lost them!"
The leading decurion cursed with a dark scowl facing the foul-smelling street.
The Wilante guards beside him looked tense as if facing a mortal threat, scanning the pitch-black alley mouths around them and the tightly shut doors and windows.
Although Blackwater Lane was technically part of Evernight Port, ordinary Wilante never set foot here.
Beside the decurion, a guard swallowed hard and asked nervously,
"Sir... what do we do now?"
The decurion squinted, his gaze sweeping both sides of the street for a moment.
Those blue groundhogs definitely had something to hide.
If they were clean, why run?
Without further hesitation, he barked out an order.
"Those bastards couldn't have gone far. They're definitely still somewhere around Blackwater Street... Contact the local gangs and put out a bounty!"
The guard straightened up and immediately took the order.
"Yes, sir!"
...
Getting lost was merely a minor detour and didn't deter the Desert Corps from carrying out their mission.
Following the slip of paper provided by the "Key NPC," Talan followed the clues and "quickly" located the next key NPC in the quest chain—the mercenary named Nok.
Everything went as smoothly as a Bethesda game's ancestral toilet.
Looking at the stubble-chinned man leaning against the doorway of the small shack, Talan Raider vividly laid bare everything—why he was here, who he was looking for—pouring it all out in a showcase of pure sincerity.
After listening to his tale, the "Nok" NPC at the door rubbed his scruffy chin and said thoughtfully,
"Martin... that name sounds familiar, but I can't quite place it right now. How about you come back in a few days?"
Talan was overjoyed, but kept his expression neutral as he casually produced two twenty-denomination dinar coins.
"Perhaps this will help jog your memory."
Gazing at the gold coins in his palm, the scruffy man's face flashed with surprise before breaking into a beaming smile as he pocketed them.
"Martin! Now I remember, I know the guy! I was just drinking with him yesterday, right at the corner... what was that tavern called again?"
"The Horseshoe Tavern, right?"
Admiring the man's jaw-dropped expression, Talan gave a faint smile, tossed the two heavy gold coins into his hand, and patted his greasy shoulder.
"...That's just a deposit. If you can bring him to me, the remainder will be a hundred times this amount."
Hearing their corps leader promise such a massive payout, the three lackeys behind him inhaled sharply.
Four thousand dinars!
Even converted to silver coins at the best exchange rate, that was eight hundred silver coins!
To the big shots, that was pocket change, but to newbies like them, it was quite a fortune.
Clearly, their corps leader was really breaking the bank for this quest!
A look of greed duly appeared on the face of the man calling himself Nok as he tucked the gold coins into his chest.
"No problem! But... once I find him, how do I contact you?"
Talan smiled calmly and said in an unhurried voice,
"These days I'm staying at the Oak Barrel Inn in the harbor district—the giant beer barrel is the sign. Just find a server at the inn and give them my name, Talan. They'll bring you straight to me."
His men had booked out the entire inn; it was all his people there.
Though there were plenty of greenhorns in his corps, he was no novice himself—just someone with a rather low profile on the server.
Having participated in so many expansions and fleeced so many rewards from Ah Guang, an investment of a mere four thousand dinars was child's play for him.
As long as he could complete the quest, it was all worth it.
After giving his instructions, Talan turned and strode away with his three flunkies in style.
Seeing their leader's "all wrapped up" swagger, Pickled Cabbage Fish asked with some concern,
"Boss, that's it? Done?"
Talan gave a faint smile, oozing complete confidence.
"Too early to say done, but pretty much."
Since that Martin guy was right here in the port, everything would be much simpler.
When it came to tracking down people, local gangs were probably better at it than the police.
All that was left now was to wait patiently for the flower to bloom.
Fatty Liver, who had remained quiet, frowned and muttered thoughtfully,
"Still, I feel like it's a bit too easy... Is Martin really right here in Evernight Port by sheer coincidence?"
"True..." Medical Miracle rubbed his chin. "If this quest were really that simple, wouldn't anyone be able to pull it off?"
Seeing these deadweights looking down on him, Talan rolled his eyes.
"That's called the power of money. What the hell do you know?"
Angry Fatty Liver: "..."
Pickled Cabbage Fish: "Boss is awesome!"
Watching their figures disappear around the corner of the alley, the man calling himself Nok finally turned back inside and gently shut the rusted iron door.
The moment the door closed, the radiant smile vanished from his face, replaced by a sinister glint in his beady eyes.
A burly, bald man in a tank top stepped out of the adjacent room carrying a rusted saw. Looking at the returning "Nok," he asked,
"Boss, who was outside?"
A centipede-like scar ran down from his collar, looking thoroughly gruesome.
Had any local been here, that scar alone would have scared the piss out of them.
His name was York, nicknamed "Doctor," though his daily line of work wasn't treating patients; he led a pack of Hyena Gang goons collecting debts along Blackwater Street.
As for the man he respectfully addressed as boss, he naturally wasn't named "Nok" either—he was Morse, the leader of the Hyena Gang.
Gang members on Blackwater Street called him "Severed Finger."
The name came from the fact that nearly half the gamblers on Blackwater Street had left fingers behind in his care.
"No idea. A bunch of outsiders, and seemingly from very far away... Their dinars carry the scent of the ocean tide."
Bringing the two gold coins to his nose, Morse took a deep breath. His eyes narrowed slightly, and the corners of his mouth curled into an amused smirk.
"They called me Nok, yet didn't recognize my face... My guess is, they don't actually know the owner of this shack."
A vicious light flashed in the scarred York's eyes, and he grinned savagely.
"But maybe they can pay that dead dog's debts for him."
"Pay his debts?" Morse smiled faintly, speaking in a measured drawl. "York, broaden your horizons a bit. Does merely getting paid back satisfy you?"
Four thousand dinars?
Offering so much right off the bat—if he didn't fleece them for forty thousand, he'd be doing a disservice to his name as "Severed Finger"!
His eyes gleaming with avarice, Morse paused for a moment and smiled.
"My gut tells me we can squeeze far more out of those suckers... way, way more."
The wealthiest people in this port were the merchants sailing the seas.
After all, the most lucrative piers in their eyes were the ones serving those very merchants.
The key figure was someone named Martin, and they seemed to mention an organization called the Enlightenment Society as well.
Morse didn't care what that organization was; he only cared about how much cash he could rake in.
As he spoke, he brushed past York and stepped into the adjoining room.
There, a scrawny man sat slumped in the corner.
His face was bruised and sallow, eye sockets deeply sunken, brow bones protruding—gasping for air like a dying stray dog.
This fellow was the real Nok.
This unlucky bastard was said to have once been quite the big shot on the streets, serving as a sailor under a wealthy tycoon from Triumph City. The settlements he had visited could fill a thick book.
Unfortunately, his luck had run out. Turning to mercenary work, he never kicked the gambling addiction he picked up as a sailor, and even got hooked on "snake grass" smuggled into Evernight Port from Snake State, running up nearly twenty thousand dinars in debt.
For ordinary people, that was an astronomical sum.
The Hyena Gang had bought this bad debt for one thousand dinars, so naturally they wouldn't settle for reclaiming just forty.
They never ran a losing business.
Squatting down beside Nok, Morse took a dagger from a henchman nearby and tapped the flat of the blade against Nok's trembling cheek.
"Do you know a guy named Martin?"
His terror-stricken gaze looked as if he were staring at a demon, and Nok shook his head while shivering violently.
"No, no... don't kno—AAAAAAAHHHH!"
A bone-chilling shriek filled the room as a dagger plunged into his thigh.
The blade sank all the way in.
Watching the wrenching scream subside into breathless sobs, Morse smiled at the dead dog and gently clamped a hand over his mouth.
"Shh... don't scream so loud. I missed your artery."
Here, his tone took a sudden turn.
"Next time, though, I can't make any promises... You'd best think carefully before answering my question."
As he spoke, his calloused palm rested on the dagger's hilt, his narrowed eyes leaning in slightly closer.
"Enlightenment Society. Martin. Hearing those two names, does anything come to mind?"
Nok gaped, recoiling in terror until the back of his head pressed hard against the wall, staring fixedly at the dagger buried in his leg like a pig dragged into a slaughterhouse.
His consciousness hovered on the edge of fainting, lacking even the strength to beg for mercy.
In the past, he never would have been backed into a corner by a few thugs like this.
Yet he was no longer the man he once was; gambling and drugs had hollowed out his body.
Morse grew impatient and applied slight pressure to the dagger, preparing to teach this dead dog a lesson.
Just then, a henchman stepped in from outside and whispered,
"Boss, the Wilante put out a bounty. Said some spies from the Alliance slipped into Blackwater Street... One thousand dinars dead, two thousand alive."
Morse's eyes narrowed into slits.
"A bounty... issued from where?"
The henchman replied at once,
"The harbor garrison!"
York turned toward Morse, visibly tempted.
"...Are we taking this job?"
Work for the Wilante was usually reliable; they paid what they promised and never welshed.
Furthermore, the garrison soldiers were worth buttering up; doing a favor for an acquaintance among the guards was always a good move.
Morse didn't answer right away. He calculated in silence for a moment, then frowned at the henchman.
"Besides the bounty notice? Any other news? Like... descriptions of the spies, or where they were last spotted?"
The henchman paused, wracked his brain for a second, and answered,
"...The garrison didn't specify. They just told us to look out for unfamiliar faces."
At that point, a thought struck him, and he called out as if remembering something:
"Oh, right! I heard the guard mention they lost their quarry at an intersection not far from here. He told us to search thoroughly around this area."
Standing aside, York muttered under his breath,
"An intersection nearby... The main street intersection? By the Horseshoe Tavern."
The Horseshoe Tavern!
Hearing that name, Morse's face registered surprise before his eyes snapped into a squint.
Right then, the henchman nodded vigorously and added,
"Yes, yes, yes, right by that tavern... And another thing, they apparently already nabbed a batch of them right outside an inn called the Oak Barrel in the harbor district."
"Can't you say everything all at once instead of squeezing it out like toothpaste?!" York cuffed the back of the lackey's head, cursing.
The henchman shrank back timidly, looking frightened.
"Th-that's all of it..."
"It's actually them..."
Hearing Morse mutter to himself, surprise broke across York's face.
"Boss... you know who they are?"
"Rather than knowing them, I'd say they were standing right outside our door moments ago." An odd expression crossed Morse's face.
Could this be any more of a coincidence?
York was stunned for a beat, then discarded the saw in his hand with wild excitement.
"I'll go after them right now!"
Watching York prepare to dash out, Morse yanked the dagger from Nok's thigh and gestured for a nearby henchman to bandage him up.
"You don't even know what they look like. I'll go with you."
Enlightenment Society, Martin... and now Alliance spies in the mix.
That one thousand dinars had been spent extraordinarily well.
Morse's shoulders shook slightly as a delighted smile spread across his face.
Where ordinary men saw danger, he saw gleaming golden dinars.
Things were getting more and more interesting...
Slumped half-dead in the corner, Nok looked at the madman before him in utter despair.
He couldn't shake the feeling that he had been dragged into something terrifyingly immense...
...
At the very moment gang members across Blackwater Lane were stirring into motion, atop the roof of an abandoned factory not far from Nok's shack, two men were scanning the direction of Blackwater Lane through binoculars.
Like that guy Talan Raider, both were veteran players who had obtained closed beta access during early testing. With over two years of playtime, their levels were both above thirty.
As the cream of the crop among casual slackers, they might not stir up the wasteland like the top Tier 1 and Tier 2 heavyweights, but they had seen their fair share of exploitation and player-trapping schemes.
Whether player schemes or NPC tricks, they had witnessed them all.
Precisely for that reason, they hadn't bought into that guy's nonsense at all, breaking away from the group the moment they stepped ashore.
Sure enough, shortly after their departure, the rookies had run into trouble.
While the big-noses and Old Brother Fang Chang's group were bashing each other's brains out in Brahma Province, these rookies had the nerve to swagger through customs waving visas issued by Triumph City, and even checked into an inn.
They simply weren't taking this game's "realism" seriously!
Then again, looking at the big picture, this wasn't necessarily a bad thing.
Those newbies had at least come ashore with digital passports issued by the Mutual Aid Community—in other words, their legal status was recognized by Triumph City.
The Southern Legion couldn't possibly find any evidence of espionage on them. As for forged evidence, it would fool only their own people at best.
For the Alliance, however, this incident could serve as leverage in diplomatic maneuvers.
Besides, the ones detained were merely "clones," so it wasn't as though real citizens' lives were on the line.
Even if they accidentally "died heroically," it would just mean waiting three days for respawn.
Moreover, Talan didn't know that he wasn't the only one who had triggered the quest.
The two veteran players standing on the roof had confirmed by now that anyone above level thirty could trigger the quest to investigate the Enlightenment Society.
And across the entire ship, there were only three players above level thirty.
"That idiot caused quite a stir. The whole of Blackwater Lane is buzzing."
Desert Eagle chuckled and lowered his binoculars.
His teammate beside him looked over and asked,
"Are we really just leaving him to his own devices?"
Desert Eagle shrugged, nonchalant.
"No need to interfere. What happens if he gets caught, anyway? Besides, stirring up a little chaos isn't bad. Searching for the Enlightenment Society in the Great Desert is like looking for a needle in a haystack. Why not beat the grass to scare the snake? Once they realize someone is looking for them, they might turn around and come looking for us instead.
"When that happens, we might be able to follow the vine to the melon and dig up some clues."
In fact, the quest briefing stated clearly that the Alliance's Guards Corps was not certain whether the Enlightenment Society was involved in the war in Brahma Province; they had only heard rumors of a researcher with Vault Dweller status surfacing on the Southern Legion's side.
That person had used Era of Prosperity technology to develop a virus known as the "Death Agent."
That sounded very much like something the Enlightenment Society would do.
Considering that most Southern Legion colonies bordered the Great Desert, the Alliance reasonably deduced that the Southern Legion had likely reached some agreement with the Enlightenment Society.
The quest had immense freedom.
Any verified valuable intel could be traded for contribution points and silver coins, and as the investigation deepened, it might trigger hidden quests.
Yet precisely because of that exceptional freedom, the difficulty behind the quest was bound to be steep.
Just like the broodmother quest in Baiyue Province, issued last year and still uncompleted by anyone to this day.
Having listened to Desert Eagle's scheme, Junichiro Xiaochuan couldn't help giving a thumbs-up.
"Awesome... Throwing your teammate under the bus like this is truly top tier."
He wasn't being sarcastic.
He genuinely thought it was brilliant.
Desert Eagle wasn't pleased with the phrasing, however, and clicked his tongue in retort:
"What do you mean 'throwing a teammate under the bus'? This is called beating the grass to startle the snake, casting a stone to test the waters. Take notes!"
Strictly speaking, all of them solo players were stones tossed out by the Administrator.
And willing bait, at that.
As for that fool Talan, he was the stone Desert Eagle had cast.
If that guy got caught, so much the better—maybe the Enlightenment Society would reach out to him of their own accord.
Xiaochuan sighed in admiration.
"Whatever you say."
Chapter 883