Author’s note:

Sorry for the mini hiatus with the cliff hanger

I encountered some problem in real life. It’s nothing that a bit of money can’t resolve

Unfortunately, I don’t have money.

I have taken up a second job. As such, I won’t have time to work on this.

I will try to give an update every two weeks, but I can’t promise anything.

Chapter 55- Escape

***Mechanna***

***Aewyn Loraleth***

“No problem, abracada…”

I typed command “summon NPC” on Ajax. At this point, the unthinkable happened. A status screened appeared.

Unable to summon target.

Strange. Did I mistype the command and used summon PC? I tried to do it again. This time, I typed slowly to make sure I input the correct command everything correctly.

Unable to summon target.

The same thing happened again. I know that it would only occur in one case. Ajax is a player. The problem is, we didn’t set an option for players to be able to choose a children avatar due to legal reasons. Even if they have their body scanned and digitalized into an avatar, they can’t be children. This is a game rated for 200 years or older. There are strict scans to ensure everyone is of age. That leaves me with only one explanation.

Ajax is a hacker, and he has somehow hacked the system to allow him to choose a children avatar.

“What’s wrong? A problem with your GM power?”

Since I was the one that brought Ajax here and discovered him, I should be the one to put him out of his misery. It is my responsibility. Not to mention, if Fin’Vaiel finds out that Ajax is a hacker, I would get an earful from her for accidentally bringing a hacker to an unfinished dungeon. For me to do that, I made a reasonable excuse to Fin’Vaiel to buy myself some time.

“No, it’s nothing. I just thought of an interesting idea. How about we have a little competition?”

“A competition?”

“We both go into the dungeon with no GM powers. The first to find Ajax owes the other a dinner. That way we can test the dungeon out with from the perspective of a player. We will have more to talk about with the rest of the team that way.”

I hope she doesn’t find this sudden proposal find this too suspicious. Luckily she accepted the challenge. I had a hunch that she wouldn’t turn it down. She has always been hyper-competitive in all aspects.

“I am starving already. Make it an hour limit. If neither of us finds him within an hour, we are calling the bet off and going for dinner.”

“Deal.”

“Are you ready?”

“Ready when you are.”

“GO!”

She rushed to the hatch on the right while I opened the hatch to the left. As soon as the hatch slammed shut, I turn on my GM powers once again. I tried once again to summon Ajax to where I was. This time, I used a “summon player” command instead.

Unable to summon target.

I still unable to do anything to Ajax. I tried different commands as well such as track player, delete NPC, suspend player’s account. Nothing worked. Could it be that he hacked the system so that he couldn’t be affected by any command? That shouldn’t be the case. If it were, he wouldn’t be affected by the teleport command that I used to bring everyone here. It must be something else.

Since none of my commands works on him, I guess I will have to be a bit more creative. Maybe I can kill him manually and change his respawn timer to infinity plus one. I don’t know if that will work, but I have to try it. First thing first, I have to find him. Assuming that he is moving within the dungeon, he will eventually trigger some traps. All I have to do is look up the history of the latest triggered traps and opened hatches in the dungeon. I should be able to find him that way.

After a bit of searching, I finally found him. I turned on my in-game recording app and my truth detection magic. After all, I don’t want to be troubled when the hacker tries to accuse us of any wrongdoings. After that, I teleported the room where Ajax was in. When I found him, he was laying on the floor with a bit of steam coming out of his body. It looks like he took a bit of damage already from the previous room. I aimed my bow at him at letting the arrow fly.

“Wyn! I am so glad to see you! I….”

*THWIP*

Tch. It was a miss. I used the unavoidable PVP skill “Tracked shot” and it still didn’t work on him? Hold on a second, Is that his cheat? He couldn’t be targeted? I tried to analysis which targets him to confirm my suspicion. Nope, I can read his stats perfectly. I don’t get it, why does some target skill works but others don’t. Just what did he change?

His stat is pretty high. I am pretty sure he hacked that as well. There is one thing I don’t understand, though. If you are going to hack anyway, why not just max out all your stats? I decided to not worry about these questions and focused on the task at hand. I notched another arrow. This time, I was planning to use an AOE skill since targeting skills and commands don't work against him.

***July 5th, 965 A.F. (Night)***

***Mechanna***

***Ajax McGuire***

“Wyn! What are you doing? It’s me Ajax!”

Why is she attacking me? Is this a part of the dungeon’s trap? Something that controls that turns your allies against you? Is that why Fin is nowhere in sight? There were so many questions in my mind, but I don’t have enough time to ponder on the answers. Wyn didn’t react to my question and kept her arrow notched at me. She was about to fire at me, and I don’t think she would stop attacking me anytime soon. I need to get away from her as soon as possible.

*THWIP**THWIP**THWIP**THWIP**THWIP**THWIP**THWIP**THWIP*

*CLANG**CLANG**CLANG**CLANG**CLANG**CLANG**CLANG**CLANG*

Just before she released the arrows, I opened the hatch just below my feet, barely blocking the all the shots. I saw her notched only one arrow. Where the hell did the arrows came from? Was it another skill? Unfortunately, there is no time to speculate or ponder anything at the moment. I need to escape from her since I stood no chance against a seasoned player in combat. I could only run away. I jumped down the opened hatch and closed it behind me with one swift motion. The hatch slammed shut with a resounding bang, following a loud thud from me hitting the floor.

“FUUUUUUUUUUCKKKKKK MEEEEEEEEEE.”

My right arm hung loosely from the shoulder. I couldn’t gather any power from my arm at all. Looks like I dislocated my shoulder. I gritted my teeth to bear the burning pain. There was no time for me to waste. I went to the other side of the room. With one arm, I clumsily opened the hatch, went through it, and shutting them behind me. It should buy me a bit more time by leaving no trace of which way I went. I didn’t stop moving in between rooms. It looks like I got a bit lucky as I didn’t encounter any trapped rooms.

I hurriedly opened another hatch. Just when I was about to cross to the next room, to my surprise, there was an empty void. I poked my head out and look down, and all I saw was nothingness. It was the end of the maze.