*Knock knock...knocknocknock*

 

With a unique knocking pattern, Elle knocked on a door along the slum alleys. The door has a small triangle carved on it. The carvings wouldn't have been visible in the dark if Elle didn't magically enhance her eyes.

 

The door unlocked, and Elle entered, but nobody was inside. It was just an old dim room with debris lying around. Elle closed the door, then she knocked on it again with a different pattern.

 

*Click* the door opened on its own. On the other side was a brightly lit clean room similar to the back room of Firsten Rogue's Guild but with a desk in the middle that had a truth orb on it. On one side of the desk were two chairs, one occupied by a black fur cat girl that looked like an assassin type. On the other side was one chair occupied by a dark elf lady in a casual shirt and tight fit pants.

 

They've been waiting for another invitee to come in. Invitees from various entry points get teleported to rooms like the one Elle is in, so the dark elf didn't have to wait too long for two invitees to come in.

 

[Hi! Please take a seat.] Dark elf

[The white devil herself..] Black cat

 

Elle came in and took a seat beside the player.

 

[Let's introduce ourselves first. I'm Nina, a Hitman's Guild recruiter.] Dark elf - Nina

[I'm Bastet, a rank 11 Assassin's Guild member.] Black cat - Bastet

[I'm Elle, a rank 12 Rogue's Guild member.] Elle

 

Nina looked through a list on a paper and marked two names. The paper was magically synced with other invitee rooms and automatically marked the same names with each other.

 

[Alright, Ms Bastet, Ms Elle, the two of you have been invited to join Hitman's Guild, as stated in the letter. But before that, we'll ask a few questions and explain some details about the guild. This is an underground guild, after all.] Nina

[Okay.] Bastet

[Sure.] Elle

 

[Hitman's Guild commissioners are those out for revenge or those with selfish goals and couldn't get approval from Assassin's Guild. They're not always good people. If you two accept the invitation, will you be okay with targeting people, including innocent ones, instead of monsters or villains?] Nina

[Yes.] both

[For Ms Elle, your records don't show stealth capabilities. Mostly powerful frontal attacks. A lot of Hitman's Guild quests need stealth, subtlety, or careful details. Our commissioners are quite the schemers, after all, and you wouldn’t wanna be found attacking targets, especially non-criminal residents. Will you be fine with that? You've only shown a fraction of your capabilities, right?] Nina

[Sounds like your commissioners will get along with me well. Sure, I can do stealth and delicate details, and maybe even give suggestions that the commissioner would like. I just didn't make use of stealth yet since it wasn't necessary.] Elle

 

Nina continued to talk about the guild and ask questions.

 

[Any questions before we proceed with your memberships?] Nina

[Hitman's Guild is quite proper for an underground guild. I've seen how they do things in Bandit's Guild, and ugh..] Bastet

[Yes. We treat the Hitman's Guild as a serious business, unlike those ruffians. We won't receive backing from those in power, otherwise.] Nina

 

There are politically and financially powerful NPCs that also avail Hitman's Guild services, though Nina avoided disclosing their names.

 

[If we can't use Hitman's Guild rank to gain entry in Fourthen and beyond, do you have ways other than our regular guild rank?] Elle

[There are ways. Once you join our guild, go to our Thirden branch to know more about Fourthen and Fifthen entry, and go to our Fourthen or Fifthen branch to know more about Sixthen entry.] Nina

 

[Since this is an underground guild, what are the demerits if we accept the invitation, and what makes it worth joining despite that?] Bastet

[We don’t register members with a membership orb that regular guilds do, so as long as you don’t get caught, there’s no demerit. If you do get caught, however, you might get banned from lawful guilds like Soldiers’ Guild and businesses associated with them. Considering those risks, our quest rewards are worth it. Our quest rewards are usually higher than with regular guilds, sometimes with unique items as well. Here, you’ll get more opportunities to meet with important people than in regular guilds, though not the good kind of people. We also offer special services, like the latter fiefdom entry Ms Elle asked about.] Nina

[What would confirm our membership then, if not the membership orb?] Elle

[You’ll be given an identification rune, like this.] Nina

 

Nina took something out of her pocket. A flat octagonal shaped piece of wood the size of a smartphone. It had burn marks on it.

 

[This rune serves as a “membership card” of sorts. Each one is unique and cannot be duplicated. It will also serve as evidence of being a Hitman’s Guild member, so we need to be careful with it. We offer encrypted ones with a price, like with the other services we offer.] Nina

 

(Looks like I might have to pay for an entry to latter fiefdoms.)

 

[Okay, that’s all the questions I have for now. I accept the invitation.] Bastet

[Same here.] Elle

[That’s great! Now remember, as an underground guild, our entry points except those for invitees and commissioners are strictly for members only. We have ways to catch those who share entry points and other guild confidential information. To finalize your membership, please take these identification runes.] Nina

 

Nina took out two more runes. The runes had no marks, but when Elle took one, burn marks appeared. Bastet also took one.

 

[The unique marks in the front are what will identify you. At the back shows the nearest member entry point when held by the owner. It changes every hour. Well then, welcome to Hitman’s Guild! If you wish to enter the guild area now, follow me.] Nina

 

Nina stood and went towards a wall at the opposite side of the door where Elle entered. She held her ID rune up and placed it on the wall. From there, a plain door subtly faded into existence.

 

[This is also a function you can avail. Who’ll come with me?] Nina

[I still have some free time, so I guess I can come along.] Elle

[Umm, I still have other things to do. I’ll pass for now.] Bastet

[Sure. The door you came from should lead you back to the slum alley room.] Nina

[Thanks!] Bastet

 

Nina and Elle entered the door that appeared. Bastet curiously looked at what’s on the other side of the door until it closed and faded away.

 

Inside the guild lobby, Nina turned and spoke to Elle.

 

[Once again, welcome to Hitman’s Guild. You may speak to the receptionist like you would in a regular guild.Good luck!] Nina

 

Nina left and went into the backroom.

 

Elle looked around the lobby. There were a lot of people since it was the beginning of peak hours, but it was significantly less than in regular guilds. Two receptionists were there to deal with the more than usual number of members. Elle looked at the in-game time from her menu.

 

~~~

03:11AM

~~~

 

There was still a lot of time for her to look at Hitman’s Guild quests and services before she had to receive the magic tool from Alchemist’s Guild and meet with the caravan at 6:00AM. Elle approached the free receptionist.

 

[Welcome to Hitman’s Guild. How can I help you?]

[Do you have quests I can take while moving to Thirden? Maybe something related to these Rogue’s Guild quests.]

 

Elle publicly loaded her quest menu and showed the receptionist the Rogue’s Guild quests she had.

 

During Nina’s explanations, she mentioned that there are regular guilds that are secretly in collaboration with Hitman’s Guild, though she didn’t mention which guilds. Elle guessed Rogue’s Guild was among those and that Hitman’s Guild would know about quests from its allied guilds.

 

[Hmm.. ah, there are two hits.]

 

~~~

Quest: Eliminate My Business Rival

Required rank: hitman rank 1

Main Objective: Kill the merchant who sells preserved foods

Secondary objectives:

Natural Death - Make the death look like of natural causes

Commissioner: Confidential

~~~

 

~~~

Quest: Kill Michael Oxlong Player ID 10001*****

Required rank: hitman rank 1

Main Objective: Kill Michael Oxlong, nicknamed Mike, halfway through his caravan escort quest

Secondary objectives:

Torture - Prolong his death

Gore - Make his death a bloody mess

Commissioner: dion23 Player ID 10001*****

Tip: If the commissioner cannot witness the quest directly, it is recommended to record player commissioned quests and the recordings be forwarded to the commissioner.

Warning: Player commissioned quests have a higher chance of rank requirement discrepancies.

~~~

 

(This player seems to be holding quite a grudge.)

 

Elle showed her membership rune and accepted both quests.

 

[I’d like to see the services the guild offers to its members.]

[I’m sorry, but the services are only available to certain ranks. There are no service tiers available for rank 1. If you complete the quests you took just now with high ratings, your rank should rise a bit.]

[I see. Thank you.]

[But there is something you can avail.]

[Oh?]

 

Before Elle could turn around to leave, the receptionist stopped her.

 

[There are quite a lot of hits on your head. Although you can’t avail the service that gives yourself immunity from receiving hits for a duration, you can at least pay to cancel some of the existing hits.]

[Hmm..no thanks. Rather, please encourage people to take those hits.]

[..Yes?]

 

Elle left the dumbfounded receptionist and the guild.

 

When Elle went through the front door of the guild, it brought her back to the rundown room, and when she entered the rundown room and used the door again, it returned to the slum alleyway. On her way out of the slum street, Bub was no longer around. When Elle looked at the world map, she found the dot that corresponds to Bub moving around the area between Firsten and Seconden.

 

(He didn’t seem strong enough in his state to fight Seconden monsters. If he’s not hungry enough, at least.)

 

Elle swiped away the menu. Bub’s status would’ve shown he’s already on a hunger frenzy, but Elle didn’t bother to check it in her status menu.

 

Elle took the magic device from Alchemist’s Guild, then waited in a cafe before the caravan meetup. With her Mind’s Eye, she studied the magic device while waiting.

 

(Well, no wonder it became sensitive. There are too many unnecessary parts.)

 

After studying it for a while, Elle understood what function the device did, and its flaws. She created a magic bubble around it to protect it further from magic contamination, then carelessly threw it into her dimensional storage.

 

(*Hah*, if it weren’t for the rank requirements, I would’ve flown directly to Sixthen already, but I guess joining the skirmish with CleFai and Betty might be fun too.)

 

Elle sighed inwardly. Her guild rank couldn’t catch up to her level, unlike with regular players who would either have a balanced amount of level and rank, or with their levels falling behind. This kept Elle stuck in earlier fiefdoms, as Fourthen and beyond would have rank restrictions.

 

Elle continued to wait in the cafe with nothing to do.

 

---

 

In the conference room inside the royal castle of Firsten, the executives of the company that handles DWO gathered despite it being long past office hours already. They had serious or anxious faces.

 

[Good evening, everyone. Thank you all for accepting Mr Terry’s invitation. In consideration of your time outside VR, we’ve set the time flow in the conference room to 1/100. Since the key members are here, let’s start the emergency meeting.] 

 

A young woman in formal attire started the meeting. She’s the direct secretary of the CEO. Since the key members were there, the meeting began even though not all the MANCOM members were there.

 

[Everyone here should’ve seen the title of the meeting invite already. Our topic for tonight is exactly as the title says; Unauthorized login to DWO by an “alien” entity.] CEO Terry

[So it wasn’t a silly joke..]

 

The attendees murmured amongst themselves.

 

[Dan here will explain the details just as he reported to me prior to this meeting. Ann, please take notes.] CEO Terry

 

The secretary took out a tablet and a stylus pen for her to write with.

 

[Okay. The alien first logged in this morning at the end of the previous peak hours. However, the AI stopped at “A” on its CHAT protocol.] CTO Dan

[CHAT should only run for a few seconds. Why did it stop at A?]

 

Someone among the attendees asked. What they were referring to was Counter-Hack, Analyze, and Terminate, or CHAT protocol, which the AI automatically does against unauthorized logins.

 

[The AI detected a possibility of “access by a non-human or non-earth native sentient being” during analysis, and decided further actions will need human intervention. Unfortunately, the alien has already logged off before our guys could analyze further.] CTO Dan

[And we are only discussing something as important as this now even though it happened this morning, why?]

 

Most of the attending executives thought so as well and looked at the CTO with a questioning look.

 

[Dan discussed it with me immediately, but since we weren’t able to 100% confirm that it was an alien yet until it logged in again, we postponed discussing it further with everyone.] CEO Terry

[Now that we’re here, does that mean the alien logged in again and it’s now 100% confirmed?]

[Yes. It’s online right now as we speak.] CTO Dan

[Wha!]

 

The attendees became noisy. They exclaimed at what the CTO said. They had mixed reactions. Some were excited, while others were anxious. When the noise died down, one of them spoke.

 

[So, what’s it doing right now?]

 

The CTO tapped on the table thrice, then a holographic interface appeared in front of him. After a few seconds of him navigating through it, a large holographic screen appeared at the end of the table big enough for everyone to see. What appeared was the room that was destroyed when Elle applied entropy attribute to herself. At one part of the room was a blonde middle aged human male in dull blue armor and red cape, trying to open a floating door to no avail. At his side was a young human male wearing white robes and glasses, and his gray hair was unkempt. From a short distance was a pink haired voluptuous demon race woman in a skimpy dress, curiously observing and touching the chaotically placed objects around the room. They were moving at an extremely slow pace due to the difference in time flow.

 

[That’s the room destroyed by that Elle player, right? What are those people doing there?]

[They’re aliens. According to the analysis, that’s exactly how they look like outside VR, including that..pink haired woman. They seem to gain access through things heavily affected by the new entropy element, and through the player Elle. We’re keeping the room closed for now while we haven’t decided on what to do with them yet. We also already came up with ways to disconnect them as countermeasures in case something happens. Though, it seems even just by observing them like this, our AI is learning and evolving by leaps and bounds. We’re also analyzing the player Elle, but it seems she’s 100% a human of Earth despite her abnormally high specs.] CTO Dan

[Maybe it’s because she’s the one that made entropy. So, what do we do with the aliens?]

 

The CTO wasn’t sure what to do with the aliens as well, so he turned towards the CEO.

 

[For now, we must keep their existence strictly confidential. We don’t want government officials snooping around, stealing alien related achievements and our tech with the aliens as an excuse. Let’s call them..”visitors” instead of aliens. Dan, have your team counter-hack them further and analyze the other side without the visitors noticing. Perhaps we can secretly gain access to their console or whatever it is they’re using to login to DWO. As for what to do with them directly, we can’t just keep them locked in that room forever. If they log out, we’ll lose our connection with them. Hmm..] CEO Terry

 

The CEO pondered, then he turned to the CTO.

 

[Dan, is the language analysis complete?] CEO Terry

[Only around 30%, last time I checked. We need them to communicate more to progress, preferably with someone from our side, but it seems possible to make simple conversations with them already.] CTO Dan

[Alright. If they wanna play DWO, let them. Let’s have that door open towards somewhere in Firsten. Then let’s have an NPC guide them while we’re looking for someone to actually make contact with them. Apart from the NPC guide, let’s treat them like any other player.] CEO Terry

[But what if some player finds out they’re aliens?]

[The DWO playerbase has enough weird people and dedicated roleplayers as it is, I doubt having actual aliens in it will raise suspicion. Considering that, let’s lock their access to DWO only and make sure they won’t be able to access our other VR services. That would be our general actions for this incident for now. Any objections? None? Then, let’s discuss the rest of the details that need immediate action regarding the visitors.] CEO Terry

 

The CEO together with the other attendees of the emergency meeting polished their plans for the aliens.

 

---

 

After the meeting concluded, everyone logged off. Back in her home IRL, Ann, the CEO’s direct secretary, sent an encrypted high importance message with the details of the meeting to someone.

 

[Aliens?]

[The spy we planted in that AI company caught something interesting.]

 

In an office in a military base in a western country, two high rank military men talked about the message their base received from Ann, who’s actually a western spy.

 

[Tell Anrietta to just continue gathering information and not to make unnecessary actions. Hmm.. Elle, Elle.. Where have I heard that name..]

[Isn’t that the girl the boss is personally trying to recruit?]

*Snap* [That’s right!]

 

The man snapped his finger at the realization.

 

[Let’s call the boss right away.]

 

One of them picked up a specialized phone that only used certain encrypted channels to communicate.

 

*Ring ring* *Click*

 

[Boss!]

{HQ? Call me by my codename.}

[Ah, I got a little excited there. Ms Voyevoda, we got something important to tell you. It’s got to do with the girl you’re trying to recruit.]

{Alright. I’m in a secure place, so go on.}

 

The military man explained the message he received from the spy to Voyevoda.

 

{DWO, huh? Send me the details later.}

[Okay, ma’am. Some coincidence, don’t you think?]

{You mean with Elle? I don’t think it’s just a coincidence. I’ll find out soon. Anything else to report?}

[Nothing as important as this, ma’am. We’ll keep you updated with whatever our spy will find. Take care out there, ma’am.]

 

*Click*

 

[I knew there’s something different about the lady, but this is something else.]

 

In an apartment room near the Demobraun residence, Voyevoda spoke to herself.

 

[Ah, I forgot to have the guys in HQ get me a VR set.]

 

---

 

In front of Seconden’s gate that faced the mountainous path towards Thirden, a bunch of horse drawn carriages and carts were gathering. The sun wasn’t up yet, but the sky was already becoming bright.

 

On a space near the gathering merchants were players involved with the caravan, including Elle who sat cross legged on an earth protrusion she made using earth magic. An old man who looked mild mannered approached them, then an armored swordsman who was the party leader of one of the parties involved spoke to the old man.

 

[Hello there. I’m the Merchant’s Guild representative who will lead the merchants in the caravan. Will you be representing the resurrectors?] Old Merchant

[Hi, I’m Mike. I took the Knight’s Guild quest to lead the play-resurrectors, so I’ll represent them.] Mike

 

(It sure is convenient for the quests themselves to assign our roles for us, though someone doesn’t seem to agree. He must be the hit commissioner.)

 

There was another knight-like guy near Mike who wielded a spear instead of a sword. Elle found him looking at Mike resentfully.

 

(For someone from a lawful guild to commission a quest to Hitman’s Guild, how ironic. I guess he’ll take over the leading role once I take care of the target.)

 

After the merchant representative finished speaking with Mike, he returned to the merchants. Mike turned and spoke to the surrounding players.

 

[Alright everyone, I’m Michael Oxlong, or Mike. I’ll be leading the players for this caravan quest,  just as stated in the Knight’s Guild quest I took. We’ll be leaving soon. Please accept my invite for now.] Mike

[Pfft, Mike Oxlong.]

[Yeah, my friend suggested that name to me. I didn’t know what it meant at first.] Mike

 

[[You received a raid party invitation.]]

 

After the raid party invitation, Mike and the other knight approached the players he didn’t know one by one. When it was Elle’s turn,

 

[Wow, the white devil herself. Which role will you have for the caravan quest?] Mike

 

Mike is actually taking each player’s role in consideration so that he’ll be able to lead the quest better.

 

[I’m from Rogue’s Guild, and I’ll be scouting ahead for dangers.] Elle

[I see. To be honest, a leading role like mine wouldn’t be necessary as long as everyone follows exactly what’s indicated in their quest and there are no emergencies like special encounters. I’ll only give orders in those cases or if cooperation with a certain level of synergy is needed. Is that fine with you?] Mike

[Sure.] Elle

[You wouldn’t drop dragons on us now, would you?] Spear Knight

 

The spear wielding knight that came together with Mike spoke jokingly, with a tinge of anxiety.

 

[This is Dion who’s also from the Knight’s Guild. We’ll be in your care.] Mike

 

(So he really was the commissioner.)

 

After Mike spoke to the rest of the players, he spoke to the merchant representative, then he sent a message to everyone via the raid party chat.

 

{Alright, everyone, on your positions. The caravan will be moving now.} Mike

 

The players took their places, then the caravan entered the forest path towards the mountains.