"Who should I save first?" the thought flashed through Manco's head.

Both Rust and Trix seemed to be "roamer" type of non-player characters, who did not have a place to call home. These type of NPC would travel the massive world and interact with it even when there were no player around.

Most roaming NPCs were created with a long term goal: revenge, getting rich, or simply traveling the world. If there was no player input, based on their personality and skills as well as a degree of randomness, the game would periodically give them a short term goal: what to do, where to go, etc. If they come into contact with players, the NPCs would generate one or more quests, typically enlisting the players' help with whatever they were trying to do. Otherwise, the game's simulation would run by itself and decide whether they would succeed in the task or, if they fail, whether they would survive. Afterward, the process would repeat and the NPC would find something else to do.

On one end, there could be roaming NPCs who "live" their own life without ever running into any players. On the opposite extreme, some roaming NPCs could be recruited by players and accompany them on adventure for as long as their interests and ideals were compatible and players could keep their companions alive. Or they could be recruited by the "bad guys" and become henchmen or even mini-bosses.

Mahn Li had run into thousands of roaming NPC and helped shape the "lives" of hundreds. Some followed him for years, others broke up over conflicts, and others died from various causes: diseases, powerful monsters, or human enemies. A few survived long enough to retire and settle down somewhere, ending the roaming lifestyle and becoming a "settler" type of NPC.

Over the years, he had developed his own scoring system when it came down to choosing one NPC over the other. His broad criteria were: Survivability, Network of contacts and Personal bias.

Rust, who was a Rogue, had good potential. He was a reasonably capable fighter, had some leadership abilities, was relatively resourceful, and had with plenty of contacts from the look of it. If he lived, he stood a better chance to survive future ordeals, as long as he did not bite more than he could chew. Trix, on the other hand, was an incompetent Faith Healer who would probably not survive a single day in the wild. Even if he helped her survive, she would probably end up joining some random gang for protection instead of relying on her own strength. Making her a follower was the last thing he wanted to do.

His decision made, Manco made his way to the broken section where Rust was hanging on to a length of rope. His paralyzed hands were holding to the rope in a death grip. After making sure he had a firm foothold, Manco secured himself to the walkway using his own rope, then pulled Rust up and laid him on his back. Using his dagger, he removed the lice latching on the poor man. It would take several minutes for the paralysis effect to wear off.

On the other side of the broken gap, Trix was watching Manco without saying anything, either because she was paralyzed or chose not to. Suddenly, the rope she was holding on snapped and she fell down to the ground, mouth opened wide in a soundless scream. He watched as her face, twisted by a painful grimace, was drowned in a sea of hungry flesh-eating insects.

With a sigh, he turned back to Rust, who has regained some control of his body. He was craning his neck to look at the spot Trix occupied just a moment ago. He said nothing, and Manco could see tears falling from his eyes.

Leaving Rust lying there, Manco moved to another spot. Part of it was to give the man some space, but mostly so that he could begin farming kills.

He equipped Collector and scrutinized the interface on his head-up display. There was a small silhouette of the gun at the lower-right corner, along with two circles representing the two barrels. At the moment, the circles were filled by the only two offensive spells he knew: Mana Blast and Mana Bolt. With a thought, he could select which barrel, and by extension which spell, he wanted to fire.

He activated Arcane Surge and began charging Mana Blast. From the relative safety of the walkway, he opened fire at the sea of crypt lice squirming below.

「Mana Blast」!

29! 26! 28! 27! ...

「Mana Bolt」! 「Mana Bolt」!「Mana Bolt」!

19! 17! 18!

Several minutes later...

〔 Spell level improved: Mana Bolt. Level 18 ► 19〕

Mana Bolt had leveled up a few times during the fight with the puppet master. His Crossbow mastery, which benefited from damage dealt by both the crossbow and the gun, had also increased to 22.

As he continued grinding his skills, he opened the character sheet to check his stats.

〕 ===〘 Character Info 〙=== 〔

〕 ===〘 General 〙

> Name: Manco the Face Wrecker

> Class: Crimson Mage

> Level: 23 (47.13%)

〕 ===〘 Pri. attributes 〙

>>> Free attribute points: 36

> Strength: 16

> Awareness: 18

> Coordination: 18

> Intelligence: 69

> Willpower: 38

> Constitution: 9

> Charisma: 12

〕 ===〘 Sec. attributes 〙

> HP: 170/170

>> HP regen: + 1.275/s (0.85/s + 50% Well-fed)

> SP: 180/180

>> SP regen: + 1.35/s (0.9/s + 50% Well-fed)

> MP: 504/504 (880, -176 locked for Collector, -200 locked for Arcane Surge)

>> MP regen: + 13.2/s (8.8/s + 50% Well-rested)

『 Mana Bolt (lv19) 』

- Type: Active. Damage. Cast time: Instant

- Mana cost: 12 (10 + 50% Arcane Surge - 30% fired through Collector)

- Damage: 9 (9 + 20% Arcane Surge - 20% fired through Collector)

- Cooldown: 0.4s

—.—

『 Mana Blast』

- Charge time: 1s (2.5x Mana Bolt cooldown)

- Mana cost: 18 (1.5x Mana Bolt mana cost)

- Damage: 18 (2x Mana Bolt damage)

—.—

The gun behaved in some strange and convoluted manner. First, it locked down 20% of his Mana pool. Spells cast through the gun has their mana cost reduced by 30% and their damage reduced by 20%. However, the gun also dealt piercing damage, which was added to the final number. Mana Bolt was listed as doing 9 damage, but the actual number was 9 + 10 (of course this was before damage resistances were factored in). The same thing applied to Mana Blast, which did 18 magic +10 piercing damage. Because the it is an AoE type spell, the added bonus damage is even more pronounced.

Using the gun, he still had all access to the learned Crossbow skills like Focused Shot and Crippling Shot. Finally, the projectile range and speed were significantly higher compared to casting the spells normally.

"Not bad!" Manco thought after going over the weapon's pros and cons. Its most glaring faults are its low durability and the 100% chance to drop, which he would prioritize fixing.

As he pored over his stats, he never stopped shooting. One after another the crypt lice fell, letting out pathetic shrieks and releasing a pungent odor. At the corner of his vision, notification messages kept flashing, telling him that his masteries were being improved.

〔 Spell level improved: Mana Bolt. Level 19 ► 20〕

〔 Skill unlocked: Mana Vision〕

〔 Mana Vision has been replaced with Astral Vision〕

Manco activated Astral Vision, but saw nothing interesting. With a dejected sigh, he deactivated it. He would try it later elsewhere.

Rust had recovered from the paralysis and was looking down at the ground. As the swarm of crypt lice began to thin out, Trix's body was revealed, as were Van and Dan's. They had been devoured down to the bones, only strips of flesh and tattered pieces of clothing remained.

Manco's best efforts to stay stone-faced was almost ruined by the next message

〔 Milestone unlocking requirement #2: 5% complete〕

Suppressing a happy shout, he inspected the gun and noticed the changes. Specifically, the weapon's capacity had been changed to 20. On the Effects section, he saw that one effect had been unlocked after he killed the puppet master. The remaining one stayed hidden, but the requirements was revealed.

Effects:

(1) More Dakka! (Requirement to unlock: Deliver the killing blow on 1 controller type boss. Completed)

(2) ??? (Requirement to unlock: Kill 5000 corpse-eating creatures. Progress 251/5000)

Focusing on 'More Dakka!' revealed that this effect increased the gun's capacity five-fold. Right now the effect was still useless as capacity only applied to magic crystals.

Closing the status screen, Manco turned back to the swarm.

During the next hour, he continued killing the crypt lice, only taking occasional short breaks for his mana to recover or to find a better spot from which to shoot. It was perfectly safe, but shooting at thousands of insects quickly got tedious. Regardless, it was good exp, and the monotony was broken by notification messages.

〔Milestone unlocking requirement #2: 25% complete〕

〔 Spell level improved: Mana Bolt. Level 20 ► 21〕

〔 Spell level improved: Mana Bolt. Level 21 ► 22〕

〔Milestone unlocking requirement #2: 50% complete〕

〔 Mastery improved: Crossbow. Level 22 ► 23〕

〔 Spell level improved: Mana Bolt. Level 22 ► 23〕

〔Milestone unlocking requirement #2: 75% complete〕

Eventually, the number of crypt lice was reduced down to less than a hundred.

"We can get down now," Manco said to Rust.

The man wordlessly got down to the ground and began hacking at the crypt lice with a passion. Manco wanted to stop him from kill-stealing, but he decided to just let the man vent. Several minutes later, the farm was completely devoid of movements, save for a heavily panting Rust and an idle Manco.

They took in their surroundings and saw that most of the farm had been destroyed as the lice had eaten most of the fungi on the corn leaves.

"Looks like I'm shit outta luck!" Rust chuckled bitterly.

He walked to Trix's corpse and knelt down. Manco politely kept the distance while the man said his goodbyes. After a few moment, he stood up.

"Let's get outta here!" He said.

Back upstairs, they saw Lug and Bolt sitting near two dead bodies which Manco recognized as the two people manning the horses.

"Hey boss!" Bolt said guiltily: "Sorry we bailed on you!"

"Why are they here?" Rust asked, gesturing at the dead bodies.

"We saw them skulking outside the temple. Lug tried to knock them out, but he was a little too enthusiastic. Y'know, who wouldn't be, after running into those creepy crawlies down there?"

"They had crossbow!" Lug chimed in.

"Yeah, that too. Poisoned tips. Looked like they were ready to kill someone."

"Or several someones." Manco added.

'Interesting,' he mused. Two of them, plus Van and Dan. That ambush would be child's play to him, but if there had been only Rust' group, they might have succeeded. However, what was their purpose for killing the group? To save some money? Or was there some sort of secret they were keen to keep?

"DAMMIT! Those bastards! They never intended to pay us!" Rust cursed and kicked the dead bodies. "This is just great!" He sat down on one corner, his head in his hands.

"Where's Trix?" Lug asked.

As Rust stayed silent, Manco briefly summarized what happened after Lug and Bolt escaped the farm.

"It's a shame. I like her," Lug shrugged.

"Well, I don't. She's just mooching off…" Bolt started complaining but was stopped by Rust's murderous glare.

"Say it! I dare you!" Rust shot up on his feet and approached Bolt, his hand on his sword hilt.

"Don't!" Manco stood between them and put a hand on Rust's shoulder. The man looked like he might lose it. "They're all you've got for now! Don't do anything stupid!"

"What do you mean 'they're all I've got'?' Rust spat.

"Think about it: whoever wants you dead will soon know you aren't. You've got a better shot at surviving if you stick together instead of infighting," he stopped for a moment to let them digest: "I suggest the three of you find some place to lay low and wait for things to blow over. Go south. Maybe get to another country. I don't think they'll be that persistent."

"You think? You don't know these people! They're nothing if not persistent!" Rust replied.

"Who are 'these people' then?"

As Rust hesitated, Manco prodded: "Are you seriously thinking they might hurt you less if you don't tell me?"

With a heavy sigh, Rust conceded: "Fine. I don't know exactly who they are either. They only contacted us through fixers. We've done this harvesting job twice before, but this was the first time we saw anything like this."

Rust gave Manco a crumpled up piece of paper. He briefly glanced at it, but it revealed nothing, only brief instructions along the line of 'do whatever it is you did before.'

"Did you do any other jobs with them?" He probed, hoping Rust would spill the beans about the attempt on the Sacred Deer.

"No," Rust said reflexively, then corrected himself: "Well, yes. We had another job a few days ago, but it went to shit as well. Someone messed with us…" his voice trailed off as he looked at Manco.

"It was you!" He shouted: "It was you that shot that bolt!"