Starting from Zero

Book 3, Chapter 2

I'm Red!

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Will enclose player names in "< >" where necessary. Some of the names look better if left open, some of them don't.

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I swallowed two Wraith Pills, pulled the arrow from my leg and tried to stand up. The surrounding players must have seen my intentions. Someone shouted: "Kill the red name and get his stuff!" Then they all rushed at me. I quickly [blink]'d for some distance, activated my Phantom Cape's invisibility skill and ran away from the city. Several players noticed the abnormality in the air but no one knew it was me.

When I'm far enough I kept still. Now no one can see me.

Those players searched for a while without finding anything, then they believed I must have used a portal scroll to get away. (In [Zero], a red name can still use teleport or town portal scrolls, but they will appear at a random place within 500 meters around the city, not inside the city). After that, they just scattered away.

As I'm trying to think what I should do, I saw a group of people marching outside the city gate. Their leader is just Big Blade. Aha! I'm waiting for you!

I began to slowly move towards them. When I move I will cause a slight shift in the light, and it becomes more obvious when I move faster. If I make it slow it will be hard to notice though. I stopped when I'm about 500 meters from the gate, for fear that the archer would shoot me again. God knows if the skill is effective against NPC guards or not.

Big Blade came towards me while chatting with his wife. I can already hear what they're speaking.

"Darling! You must bring more people, and kill him! Revenge! I lost three levels you know!"

Ha! Serves you right.

"I will! He just got lucky last time! Don't worry, we know his name now. I'll hunt him down until he has to delete character and create a new one with a different name!"

came up too. "Hey boss, you must help me kill him too. He got my staff! That weapon's important to us!"

"Easy. Aren't we looking for him now?"

When they're talking I already sneaked near them. I slowly drew my sword and prepared to strike.

Big Blade suddenly glanced at my direction, I instantly froze in place. But soon he shifted his view back again. Sigh, thank god I'm not spotted.

Then he walked towards my location. I tightened my grasp on the sword, ready to kill him in one shot.

But the second I'm about to cut loose, Big Blade slashed at me first. I tried to evade yet he still hit me. My HP dropped madly. Gulp, another two pills went down my throat. Damn it how did he see me??

But I have no time to think over that question as Big Blade is already charging again, leaving me no choice but to dodge around, which caused my invisibility to break, allowing his followers to attack me together. Seriously, apart from 's spells, the other people can hardly hit me. But those non-stop attacks from them still kept me busy.

I finally gained some distance from the crowd but my HP is at brink again! I stood still, and they lost target. But Big Blade came straight at me and began to attack, he mostly used big moves, obviously trying to force me to show myself in order to allow other people to attack. Looks like keeping still is not an option now so I just had to dodge again, which caused the whole group to lock up on me.

This time I'm in real trouble. Big Blade brought a full team of 8 Warriors, of course I can't hold myself against all of them. My HP is empty again soon, further damage all got transported to Lucky and Phantom. I feel sorry for my companions but I don't know what else to do!

That Angel Warrior noticed something's wrong. "Boss, this guy must have something to hold his HP. We should have chopped down several thousands of HP now, even the best tank in the game would be dead!"

Then Big Blade said something which really angered me. "Oh that's even better. Kill him and let's get it!"

"YOU CAN KILL UR MOTHER'S FU---"

Beeep! I didn't get to finish my insult before the system muted me.

With several embarrassing dog-rolls, I made it out of the circle. It's a good thing that no one can see my figure clearly at the moment. If that move goes onto the web I'd be a laughing stock.

I jumped and ran towards . Big Blade shouted at her: "Run away dear! The guy's coming at your way! Go to the city, the guards will take care of him!"

As expected. Big Blade must have something that can detect me. began to run. Again, I threw my sword like a throwing knife at her. I think I'm getting used to this move.

Bulls eye! I'm a genius. The sword insta killed her again. Well she's a caster type anyway. They should always remember not to stand too close to a warrior type.

Big Blade rushed at me, enraged. I rolled sideways to get away from him, and swallowed another three pills. My HP is near empty, Phantom is too. Lucky still got like 1k HP left, and that's thanks to his dragon's natural regenerate speed.

Desperate, I ordered Phantom to come out of merging status and jumped into 's body. He abruptly threw a super wide fire effect around him. Big Blade and his team yelled: "What the fuc Solo?! Why you quit the team and what's about this fire? Cut it out! My HP is dropping!"

"I-- I don't know! I can't control myself!" answered, while dancing.

Without Phantom my Attack and Defense went down for good. Now I need to be more careful! Big Blade just ignored the fire and came straight at me. I turned and began to flee without a thought, kiting him around the fire. He is higher leveled than me, but our Attack & Defense is about the same, plus his speed is definitely slower! The other Warriors recovered from their shock and closed up on me.

With useless, Phantom controlled him into using a portal scroll (yes he can do that). The guy has no idea what's happening, and got teleported back to the city while still cursing the system.

Haha! Take that!

Big Blade has been unaffected by my invisibility from the start. There must be something wrong on him. I ordered Phantom to go into Big Blade silently but didn't do anything to him yet. I planned to strike him when he's least expecting it.

I stopped my escape and turned to face him. Big Blade thought I was going to make a last stand, and charged at me faster. As we contacted, he suddenly felt something restraining his movement. His well-prepared attack swayed sideways, while my sword pierced his shoulder easily.

But he's still an experienced PvPer. He quickly halted his action and tried to back-slash me. Yet his move went wrong again. He tripped over his left feet and crashed flat on the ground. Then his left hand began to strangle his own neck, while he used his right hand to pull it away, panicked.

I already got ready to attack though. I stabbed at the still-lying-on-the-ground Big Blade. The poor guy went into ghost mode in a white flash.

I saw a robe on the ground. This must be Wayne's. There's another loot which is glowing red and I put in into my bracelet inventory. The other players arrived at where Big Blade died, but can't find anything as I'm standing still. Ha, looks like Big Blade is the only one who can see though my cape.

walked around while swaying his sword randomly, hoping to force me out. Sadly his direction is totally off the course. When close enough, I chopped his head off with a swift cut.

Ahhh vital strikes feel so good!

He dropped something again, I took it and ran. When they saw my figure they started to chase. I intentionally waited for them to get close, then used [blink] and disappeared in front of them. I didn't go far (and I can't go far anyway), I just appeared behind their backs.

The idiots then backed against each other and formed a circle, all of them looks terrified, which looks quite a funny sight. I don't have all day though. I ran towards the nearest one and slashed at his neck. He is fast. He crouched and dodged my attack. But I'm faster. My knee went into his face with a THUMP. If this is in real life I believe his face would sink in.

Well that failed, I activated my ring of teleportation without another thought. Destination is Flowing Cloud city. With a flash, I appeared somewhere outside the city, and those guys are just standing around 300 meters from me.

Shoot, I forgot. Red names can't go into cities. It seems my ring can't help with it either.

Those guys didn't notice my teleportation, and are still looking around. I don't have time for these minions either, so I decided to go back to Wayne first. I activated my chat.

"Wayne!"

"Boss! Are you alright? Don't do anything stupid!"

"Ha-har! Since when would your boss do stupid things? I got your robe! And a staff too, it's quite good. Go to the bridge outside Lost City, I'm red now and I can't go inside!"

"Oh, Roger that! Boss you're so good!" Wayne sounds over excited!

"Don't forget to bring me some pills!"

"Got it!"

I activated my ring, target is Lost City. With a black flash I appear in the city.

Wait, this is...the teleport station? But I'm red now. How did I get here?

Never mind. I ran towards Clark's shop while chatting to Wayne. "Wayne, don't go outside now. Come back to the weapon shop, I'm inside the city!"

"What? But aren't you red named?"

"No idea. But I'm in here anyway. Come now!"

We both arrived at the shop. We went upstairs. Clark already prepared some drink for us. I sipped some tea and took out the robe and staff I got.

Wayne put on his robe excitedly, then looked at the staff. "Nice one! You got his weapon? You're so awesome!"

"Ha ha! Don't know if I'm too lucky or that guy was just out of luck."

I dragged Clark over, "Speaking of which, why am I teleported into the city while red named?"

"Duh. This is the Lost City, where the exiled gather. It is meant for red named ones."

"Huh?!" Me and Wayne both yelled. "So the Lost City is just like, the criminal village?" (*)

"No, not quite." Clark explained slowly, "There are three ways to get to the Lost City:

One, like what you did, walk here by force. But there are numerous high leveled monsters along the way. And the Dark Forest is like a natural maze, most people would simply get lost in there forever. You were just lucky to get out.

Two, is like what your friend just did: use the city's portal scroll, or use that ring of yours.

Three is to kill people. Your Evilness increases by 100 for each innocent one you kill; It decreases by 100 each time you die. If your Evilness exceeds 25100, it will return to 25000 when you die. If anyone's post-death Evilness is at 25000 AND they happens to be near Lost City, their soul will be teleported here when they die."

"Can't you just teleport here using teleport stations?" Wayne questioned.

"No. The Lost City uses its own teleport system. There are no nodes in other cites. By the way, the Lost City is not exclusive. There are three in this nation."

"You mean there are three criminal villages?"

"Ugh, you still don't get it?" Clark lost patience. "Ordinary red players will get teleported to their nearest criminal village upon death. Only the most serious red players will come here!"

"Ah, I get it now!" Wayne yelled. "So it's like, a place for REAL criminals!"

I quickly checked my status window, my "Evilness" reads 400. I killed several people back there, some of them attacked me first so those didn't count as crimes.

"Hey Clark. How do I get rid of my red name?"

"Normally you just wait. It goes down by 2 for every online hour you spend, until it hits 0. Another method is doing quests. When red, NPCs outside the cities will give you red name quests, complete them to erase your Evilness by a portion. How much depends on the difficulty of the quest. The last way is to kill monsters. Each kill reduces Evilness by [Monster Level/500]. I'll tell you a secret too: When your Evilness is 0, it will turn into Righteousness if you stay online for 20 hours without committing crime. It raises by 1 for every 20 hours. But when you kill an innocent player, it will immediately become Evilness 100 no matter how much Righteousness you got."

"Any rewards for having Righteousness?"

"Should be, but I don't know exactly what it is!"

"Well that's not my concern now. I need to erase my red name first!" I stood up and grasped Wayne. "Come, let's level up while I wash my name!"

"Ok!"

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(*) Games with red name system tend to have spots meant for red named players to stay. They're usually relatively safe compared with staying outside, people can just afk there and wait out their penalty.

But different games got different rules. For example these spots in some games will still allow players to kill each other, but without losing item.