“Huh, swear I heard something…”

The level 80 guard took a glance around the bathroom. He was visibly nervous about being inside the duke's private chambers, but he knew how much trouble he would be in if he let an intruder go unnoticed.

There was in fact an intruder in the bathroom, hiding within the fabric of space itself. But that was impossible to know for the guard. He did a second quick scan of the bathroom, before doubling back around.

"I'll have to ask Frank if he saw anything..."

The guard grumbled and closed the bathroom door.

Meat Shield looked on from the top of the chandelier. Once the coast was clear, she entered the dimension room and gave me the signal to come back.

I grabbed the cat and pressed my knuckles into her head. If she didn't meow so loudly, we wouldn't have alerted the guards.

“That was close. Next time be more quiet, you stupid cat.”

Meat Shield scowled at me.

We continued to dimension room crawl out of the palace. Several hours passed, and it was getting dark outside. We were making progress at a snail's pace because of the sheer amount of patrols.

As I was making my way through the dining area, I heard the sound of chain mail and heavy boots from the hall behind me. Oh shit.

“Someone broke into the duke’s bedroom! There’s an intruder!”

“Sound the alarms!”

The duke must have come back and noticed that I rummaged through his collection.

The clanging of a tower bell sent shivers down my arms, as I felt my goosebumps raise. Those bells meant that the palace was now in high alert.

This was do or die time. I ran for the second tower exit, running right past several guards who were patrolling the hallway adjacent to me.

"Hey, you there! Stop!"

"Intruder! Apprehend him!"

[Your theft was discovered]

[The duke has issued a city wide quest for capture of a thief]

No wonder this was an S tier quest. It was slowly turning into a nightmare. The fact that the duke issued a city wide quest meant that hundreds of players were now out for my head, and this was a race between myself and an entire city of hostile players and NPCs.

The S in S tier quest must stand for suicide.

At least I got this quest relatively early into the game's launch. I don’t think it would be possible to complete later on, when the playerbase was more experienced and I had to deal with more than just a city full of noobs.

Anyway, I was already in deep shit, so it was in my best interest to escape as efficiently as possible. My plan was to quietly sneak out of the city.

“You there, stop!”

So much for quietly sneaking out of the city. I didn't even make it past the garden. A player named [Melvin III] stood in my way, a level 11 warrior. Why was a player on the duke's private grounds? I have no idea.

“Wanted, huh? Your name is red.”

“??”

He saw my name as [Wanted] instead of [Spoon]. That was strange.

You have unlocked the database entry for the Wanted status. You may access this through the main menu.

“Red means that there’s no PK penalties for killing you. You must be the thief then.”

Melvin III drew his sword.

“I’m bringing you in for the reward. No hard feelings.”

I needed to be extra cautious in pvp, because according to Meat Shield, every player besides me was granted a unique ability for completing the first few steps in character creation. I just had to hope that his unique ability was useless like Books’ [Charm].

“So be it.”

Melvin III closed the distance quickly. My right hand cackled with energy as mana poured through my body.

“Thunderbolt!”

A violent burst of lightning exited my palm, exploding as it left.

[-10 health]

[47 damage]

My magic and electric resistance equipment was paying off. Ten damage per shot means I can spam Thunderbolt nearly three times more often with my current health bar.

Melvin III expected the thief to be a mage because of the robes he was wearing, but he was surprised at how much damage he just received. Wasn’t this mage only level 6? How high is his intelligence?

Four seconds until Thunderbolt was off cooldown. I needed to stall. Melvin III shook off the shock and ran towards me. I retreated as fast as I could, trying to maintain my distance. With my physical resistances, I couldn’t take too many hits from a level 11 warrior.

“Thunderbolt.”

Thzzzt.

[-9 health]

[44 damage]

I smirked as I watched his health bar drop another large chunk. He had the level advantage, but the playerbase was still low level and under equipped.

Whoosh.

I dodged to the side nimbly as Melvin III swung down at me. High dexterity was no joke in one on one combat. But Melvin III comboed the sword swing with a punch from his free hand.

Thud.

[-30 health]

HP: 93/142

Did I just take 30 damage from a bare handed punch? I underestimated how weak I was with 6 physical defense and 6 vitality.

Staggered but not out of the fight, I grabbed his face with my right hand.

“Thunderbolt!”

[-2 health]

[253 damage]

BOOM.

A massive explosion erupted from my right palm, and Melvin dropped lifelessly to the ground.

Wow.

Although thunderbolt had a B tier intelligence scaling, the recoil explosion damage had an S tier scaling. By shoving my palm directly into his face, he took the vast majority of both the recoil and the thunderbolt.

253 damage. That just showed how high my personal magic resistance was, to be able to only take a fraction of that as recoil.

You have killed [Melvin III].

You have leveled up.

You have leveled up.

You have leveled up.

You have earned 70 silver.

Your PK status has risen. You are more likely to drop items upon death.

Your notoriety in the surrounding area has increased.

Tch, he didn’t drop any items.

I ran out of the garden and into the city, opening the game database on the Wanted status as I ran.

Wanted is a hostile status. Wanted is generated when a city mayor or equivalent authority orders the capture of a player. This order is given to NPCs as a command, and to players as a quest with high rewards.

A Wanted player’s ID is shown as [Wanted] to all hostile parties, and all death penalties are doubled.

Attacking a Wanted player does not generate PK status.

We encourage players to try to stop the Wanted. If a player without a PK status is killed by the Wanted in the jurisdiction of the authority, the player loses half the experience normally lost. The non-PK status player will not drop gold or items.

Normal death penalties apply for all other situations.

Additional stipulations may be added as Eclipse evolves. We thank you for playing Eclipse.

————

Moments like this made me appreciate Eclipse.

They also made me hate Eclipse.

“Double death penalties for the Wanted? Reduced penalties and no PK status for players who fight the Wanted?”

...

This was the penalty for leading a life of crime. High risk, high reward. My mind was telling me that this was a bad idea, but my body was shaking with excitement from the getaway.

I darted between houses, staying quick and stealthy to make sure nobody saw the red text above my head. By my side was a small black cat.

“Where were you earlier, you useless furball?”

“I was tired~”

“When are you not tired?”

“I’m always tired~”

During the months before Eclipse’s launch, I imagined myself getting a noble griffon or an intimidating dragon for a pet. Here I was, several days after launch, with a moronic heap of pudding in the shape of a cat.

“Do something useful for once and keep a lookout for people, okay?”

“I’m useful~ I’m the best~”

Meat Shield went into lookout mode, and we made our way through the city. The fact that it was night time made things much easier, although I didn’t plan on having to stealth through an entire city when I was planning my heist.

“Hey, did you get that [Break-in at the Duke’s Palace] quest too?”

“Yeah. Look at the rewards. They’re crazy!”

“I know right? 300 gold and an epic weapon from the duke’s armory? Let’s find this thief before anyone else does.”

The chatty players didn’t realize that their prize was just a few feet away from them, eavesdropping from the shadows.

They also didn't realize that the reason the duke issued such a high reward for my capture was because his private stash contained many incriminating items, including evidence for conspiracy against the Empire. If that letter fell into the hands of the Emperor's court, the duke's head could roll.

But I didn't have the time to think through the implications any further. I had my own safety to be concerned with right now. Getting through the city was a slow grind. I hopped in and out of the dimension room at least a dozen times, as the duke's guards and soldiers began to flood the city in search of the intruder. Fortunately, the stealthy approach paid off, and I was not spotted.

I kept far away from town guards in particular. The average town guard was around level 85, and I stood no chance against them. The further I got from the duke’s palace, the less alert the guards were.

Players were a different issue. Every player in the city received the quest. And with those kinds of rewards, everyone was highly motivated.

I spent the last three hours sneaking through the city, and was getting closer to the city gate. I made my way through a small alley with a dumpster.

A sound from behind alerted me. I turned around. A four player party was drawing their weapons. They consisted of [Dean] a level 12 male archer, [Euphemia] a level 11 female healer, [Troy] a level 15 male swordsman, and [Haerim] a level 13 female katana user.

This was the end of the road. They were significantly higher level and better equipped than [Melvin III] who I just killed, and there were four of them. Also it looked like [Haerim] had a special assassin type class.

“Looks like we’re in trouble, nya~”

There was no way I could get out of this situation.

Unless…

I picked up Meat Shield and threw her at the attackers.

“Nyaaaang!”

The party was momentarily distracted.

If this was being streamed, the audience would surely complain about animal abuse. I took the opportunity to climb over the dumpster and flee.

“Oh my god, he threw the kitty!”

Euphemia loved cute animals, and she ran forward to check on the cat that was just carelessly tossed towards them. Meat Shield hissed at her as she got close. Euphemia’s jiggling feminine charm was ineffective against Meat Shield, a female cat.

“Snap out of it, eyes on the prize!” Haerim said, throwing a throwing dagger at me. I leaped off the dumpster to dodge the dagger and landed badly, nearly twisting my ankle.

[-7 health]

I peeked around the corner at the street illuminated by a few street lamps. There were guards and players everywhere. They posed a threat even though they weren’t alerted yet.

Evelyn’s shop was right across. I took a leap of faith and ran across the street into her shop.