Lasz
A man with red hair and a man with no hair strolled down a wide cobblestone road, bordered on both sides by vibrant market stalls. The se buzzed with activity; an effervest orchestra of footsteps, chatter and ughter, while merts yelled passionately over the din to advertise their wares to the passing crowds.
The two men spoke loudly in order to hear each other over the tumult.
“I wasn’t ihough. I know since I was watg your stream; that ‘Parker’ girl only invited you to meet the prinot me. What if I try to enter and they behead me or something?”
“Do you think they’re barbarians? They’re not going to behead you f to enter a building. Anyways, I got a huge gold bonus from that mission you helped me with, which is why we’re at the market.”
“Bazaar.”
“What?”
“It’s a bazaar, not a market. It says right there.” Lemonade poio a nearby sign.
“...Never mind, I’ll just spend the gold on myself.”
“Wait, wait!” Lemonade hurriedly chased up to him. “What are we buying, anyways?”
“A lot of things actually.” Max ted with his hands. “Most importantly, we need nice clothes before meeting the prince. We also need supplies and new equipment; I’m still using the starter gear, so I need a better bow and some armour, or at the very least some bracers and gloves. Shooting without gloves is really unfortable.”
“I see...”
“We also just get a bunch of stuff that grabs your eye. I think gold s are of simir value to U.S. dolrs, so that would mean I have around 50,000 on me right now.”
Lemonade choked. ‘Th-that much?’
—This is where the sugar in Lemonade es from
—FULL PLATE LEMON! FULL PLATE LEMON!
—This makes no sense. Gold is supposed to be a rare and valuable metal. If you have this much of it cirg around, it’s just devalued pletely; why didn’t the devs use copper, nickel or silver for low value age? Not to mention, gold is way too heavy to carry around in bulk. Realistically, nobody would be able to walk while holding that much of it.
—The previous enter is a nerd
Max stopped at a booth with an e awning, drawing Lemonade’s attention away from his chat.
“Hm? Did you find something good?”
“Hehehe.” Max did not eborate and just showed him an item description.
Item: AP Arrrade: on
Weight: 50g (~770 grains)
Effects: +100% Peion, +15% range, -50% damage, -50% bleed ce,
Description: A standard-issue armour-pierg arrow, fitted with a bodkin point arrowhead.
“Ooooo.” Lemonade was intrigued. “Are you going to use these against orcs?”
“For sure. If I had these when fighting that quasi-boss, he would’ve bee Swiss cheese.”
“Nice. Are there more arrows for you to look through? Because if so, I might take a quick bathroom break.”
“Yeah, go for it.” Max replied nontly.
Lemonade was about to log out but hesitated for a moment. “Don’t waoo far while I’m gone, or it will be hard for me to find you... and don’t start any wars, either.” He eyed Max suspiciously.
Max looked at him bnkly. “How am I going to start wars in a market?”
“Bazaar.”
“...Just leave.”
Lemonade disappeared on the spot, causing a little boy atg to iently tilt his ice cream in shock. Tragically, the top vanil globule fell to the ground.
Feeling somehow responsible, Max approached to reimburse the damages, only for his attention to be jolted away by a pierg scream.
Armed, Max looked up to find the crowd quickly parting to either side of the bazaar. The street’s tre was quickly cleared out, giving him a clear view of the situation.
“HELP! PLEASE-SOMEBODY!!”
A small girl with pointy ears was running along the cobblestone while screaming hysterically. Two hooded figures chased her from behind with daggers, quickly closing the distance.
Attempting to stop them, one person with neon green hair, clearly a pyer, leapt in front of the pursuers while brandishing a sword. “Halt! Stht there!”
Ign his words, the robed figures raher side of the pyer with their daggers. Oly parried his sword, while the other sliced his neck open with a single strike. Defeated in an instant, the pyer exploded into particles.
‘!!!’
[ Proximity Mission: Save th-
Max quickly moved to act while ign his system interface, pulling out a vendor’s table and climbing atop to give himself a clear shot.
Squinting, he took aim at the assassins. Sihey were about to run past him, their fnk was exposed; he could try to disarm them.
Fwoosh!
An arrow accurately strue of the daggers, knog it out of the assassin’s grip and sending it flying off to one side. The bde span and sshed the adjat wrist as it flew.
“EUH!” The assassin dropped his ger as he let out a high-pitched noise and stopped chasing the child, clutg his injured wrist in pain. Witnessing this, the fleeing child noticed Max and quickly rao him for prote.
Max nocked another arrow and switched his attention to the sed assassin, who, upon seeing Max, immediately pulled a bystander into their embrad charged at him, using the civilian as a human shield. Despite the added weight, they moved with incredible agility, likely to reach him in only a matter of seds.
Gritting his teeth, Max also noticed the first assassin was now holding a strange fsk.
‘It might be an explosive...’
Quickly weighing his options, Max decisively shifted his aim and shot the fsk, making its tents spsh out onto the street.
Just as he reached for another arrow, the charging assassin grabbed their shield with both hands. Eyes widening, Max threw himself to the side, while the human projectile shot past him into a stall’s awning.
Sliding along the ground, Max loosed an arrow at the assassin’s head. They instantly raised a metal vambra their arm to block it, uerred as they tinued sprinting his dire.
‘F-fast!’ Max was shocked at the sheer speed of the oppo. Not just their physical ability, but also their rea speed rofound.
As the assassin closed the distance, Max prepared to block their daggers but was vastly outpaced a with a boot instead. Taking the full force of a heavy kick, he was unched into a wall on a diagonal, smming against it and leaving a dent ione, before tumbling down and nding ungracefully on his side.
‘Ugh, f*ck that hurt. High level...’
[ Human: ‘????’, Level: 56, Threat Level: Deadly ]
Max mao hold onto his bow during the impact. Drawing an arrow, he saw that the assassin was not ing to finish him off.
‘??’
Hearing a childlike scream, he quickly turned and aimed the other dire.
Fwoosh!
An arrow shot out to where the assassin was stabbing down at the child only a few metres away.
“AHH?!”
The arrow shredded into the assassin’s forearm, causio let out a pained female shriek, while the arrow’s momentum also threw off her aim, causing her dagger to sail past the child’s head harmlessly. The child took the opportunity to quickly run baax.
“F*CK!” The assassin turned and gred at Max murderously. Not giving him time to shoot again, she dashed over and brought her heel down at his head.
Barely blog with his bow, Max twisted his head away as the assassin’s boot she bow in half and smashed into the stone underh, f a small depression.
Wielding halves of a broken bow in each hand, Max dropped one and instead used the arm as a springboard. Pushing off the ground, he clobbered the assassin in the face, sending her reeling away to the side.
Pig himself up and taking a sword from his iory, Max pulled the kid behind him and took a guard stance, ign his injuries.
“...” The assassin saw the sword and her eyes flitted to Max with a livid expression.
“Oy, everyone make way! The guard is here!”
“!!” As though snapping back to focus, the assassin’s eyes cleared at the mention of guards and she hurriedly distanced herself from Max, searg for an escape route.
“Over here!” Max called out. Grabbing a spear from his iory, he threw it at the fleeing assassin’s back. Only pierg lightly, the spear did little to stop her as she ducked into an alley.
‘Armour? Damn...’
Max exhaled. That was a tough fight. The enemy had been several times faster and strohan him due to her level. She was also highly skilled.
Casting his head back to the road, Max found that the other assassin was still there, lying on the ground motionlessly.
‘...Dead?!’
Rone had told him that NPCs did not turn to particles after death, so he had no way of knowing if the assassin was alive.
‘Did another pyer kill him?’
Max had only disarmed the guy, which meant that another pyer likely stepped in to finish the fight. Though, they didn’t seem to be there anymore, as the street was basically empty.
Hearing the sound of ctterial, he turo find a group of guards approag, fully equipped with pte armour and polearms. First notig the body, then spotting Max, the guards quickly approached and poiheir bdes toward him.
“Drop the on!” The frontmost guard shouted.
“Oh.” Max realised he was still holding a sword and dropped it.
“Put your hands above your head!” The lead guard yelled. “Fighting in a civilian area is strictly prohibited. You will be taken in for questioning; do not resist.”
Max raised his hands while pointing. “Sir, the criminal is getting away! They ran down there.”
“We’ll deal with that ter. For now...” the guard leader looked around, “did you kill that man?” He poio the fallen assassin, where a teal-coloured liquid was flowing along the ground.
“No, sir. I only disarmed him.”
“Hmm.” The guard grunted with uainty. “Regardless, we’ll find out ter.” He sigo one of his subordinates. “Cuff him.”
Watg the guard take a ed item out of his pocket, Max spoke with dismay, “Sir, with all due respect, there is an assassin running loose ireets. Surely that’s a more pressing thaioning me?”
“Shut it!” He snapped hoarsely. “You accursed ‘heroes’ have caused me enough trouble today. You’re ing with me back to the station. Jerome, Quinn, you tw the body. The rest of you, stay here and cordon off the area. I’ll be back soon.”
Sighing, Max looked around but found no sign of the little girl; she’d apparently run away.
“...Well this is annoying.” Max pined as he was led off the se in shackles.
...
...
A mier...
“Du du-du doo~” Lemonade mumbled some random song tune from his childhood as he logged bato the game, resuming his livestream.
‘What should I wear to the meeting? A dress shirt? A tunic?’ He pondered. ‘No, that’s too bnd... I should wear a medieval jacket like a doublet or something. Ah, but I ’t take it too far or they might think I’m mog their fashion sense...’
He loaded in.
“Well, I’ll just decide once I’m... there...”
The bazaar was empty. The hundreds of people who’d filled the area had all disappeared, instead repced by a loumbleweed, which skittered slowly dowreet in the whistling breeze.
“Eh, what...?”
