Chapter 85: Most wanted

Runiau village was evacuated by guards, some people still stayed to watch the eruption while Safo and his team teleported to the first available village.

"What do you have... wait, are these galoshes? What are you, a farmer?" Miloud mocked Safo for his non-fashionable look.

"Shut up, and yes, these are galoshes. But, in my defense, these are called God's galoshes. So show your respect. If only you knew the stats of these "farmer" galoshes you would want them as crazy." Safo tried to retaliate.

Safo was about to reveal the stats of his new boots to the curious Luna and Miloud when a flood of notification kicked in.

[ Attention Adventurers! Secret Quest of the Creator is updated. Seven items left. ]

[ Attention Adventurers! A new update to a game: Now the intellect points of monsters and creatures of all The Cube dimensions will be tripled. ]

[ Attention Adventurers! The message, left by the Creator: Brace yourself, Adventurer. From now on there won't be stupid and dull monsters. You wanted a game to be spicy, you have it.

Thrice as much intellect level promises that the monster won't be just monsters, they will be smarter and more cunning. They will learn and adapt.

Some of them will be able to use weapons and armor as well as skills and profession. They will ascend and descend through special portals.

Would you be able to share the Cube with monsters, Adventurer? ]

"My God, what have I done?!"

No one from the trio could apprehend the consequences of the new update to the game. it will turn foundations upside down, that was for sure.

Players all around the Cube, in all Cubes, were shocked.

"What do you mean tripled?"

"At Cube 1 monsters will have an intellect as in Cube 3. In Cube 3 they will have 9 points of intellect. They will be smarter than a Cube 8 had before the update. While at Cube 8 they will be smarter than NPC."

"Are we doomed?"

"We sure are! Lower Cubes will have to face more cunning creatures, while we will have to be fine with the fact that monsters will take the quest for equipment."

"I won't let that happen. I will personally kill any monster I see before they get weapons."

"Yes, let's kill all of them now while we can."

"Are you stupid, this game is different now, we have to live with it. All thanks to the people who keep searching for hidden items."

"I suggest we kill those bastards instead. They are messing up the game. Today they made monsters smarter, tomorrow they will do the same with NPC. I don't want to stop fuc*ing beautiful NPCs."

"Yeah, you are right. We must find them and make them quit the game."

"I think I know one of them. At least he was very suspicious."

The whole game was turmoil, monsters began to counterattack with much more success than before. Starting from Cube 4, after intellect points reached 10, monsters and creatures were allowed to enter the city if they obeyed the local law.

Players and monsters still could kill each other freely but not inside the villages.

After Intellect: 10, monsters were allowed to take the quest and gear themselves. Some even could use the weapon that usually dropped from them.

Most of the monsters chose to live together and formed their own settlements. Competition for the territory heated upbringing wars between species.

Hunting became harder. At higher Cubes, players were the prey while monsters hunted them. In the same way, as players received drops, money, and resources from killed creatures, the creatures and monsters began to gain EXP, money, weapons, gear, and resources.

Guards of the castles decided to occupy those castles, and by sheltering other monsters and NPC they gathered armies against players. Monsters at Cube 7 and Cube 8 were allowed to create and join guilds which created a competition for Adventurers.

Safo, Miloud, and Luna decided to exit the game and not to play for a time being. After receiving the announcement about the update, Safo had been woken up by Kutch who saw video footage about him.

"I was just searching for info about a new update to see what people were talking about and saw this." Kutch played a video where Safo and Luna in the cafe killed a group of players.

"One guy uploaded the video to the network of the game. He said that he and his friend were having a birthday party, that is why he turned on the recording feature."

It started fine with a group of people having fun, at a beautiful place with delicious-looking food. An action started when a group of six and two started arguing and then fought each other. The strange part of the video was that the weapon of one of the players just broke apart by hitting Safo's forearm.

"That is not that bad, right? It could be a weapon skill." Safo tried to justify himself.

"No, it is bad. Those who know the game know that there is no such weapon skill. But wait what happens next." Kutch fast-forwarded the video to show Safo how the guards came to arrest him for killing 5 adventurers but soon left the building just warning the murderer. The status of the criminal disappeared from the nickname of the player.

"This is a big deal. It made the network explode in comments. And the worst part is that they saw your name.

It is a bad time for you to show up in the game. Players are stressed about the update, everybody hates the player who found the hidden item. The first suspect is you." Kutch knew that player will start searching for him and maybe even will put a bounty on his head.

Which was soon made, Miloud sent a text message saying that he checked the list of orders for assassinations and saw a familiar name.

Disheartened, Kutch explained why it was bad news. "Usually there are three types of contract. The first one is easy, two people argue and one wants a message to be delivered. It is called a 'one-time job'. One assassin will accept the order and will do it one time.

The second one is 'open contract'. An assassin can take an order and kill the target. Customers will pay for each kill. A contract will stop existing when the amount of money that the customer wants to spend will exhaust itself.

And the third one, the one that your name has. A 'lifetime mark'. Several players gather to fund the bounty, and the contract will be active until the target's name won't be deleted from the game system." Kutch told him "WorldDestroyer" had a lifetime mark, with a rising number of supporters of the contract.

Meanwhile, Miloud sent another text message saying that several one-time jobs popped up from the players who just wanted to get the hidden items dropped from him.

And several open contracts from those who hated the upstart newbie that dared to mess up with the game.

Miloud also suggested not showing up in the game for a couple of weeks at least. He sent another two videos of the new techniques.

"Sorry Luna, I guess we have to take a break from the game. We can try something else if you want.

"No, it is fine, don't worry. We will resume when people settle down." Luna's soft voice calmed down Safo a great deal. He decided to get rest, in the next 10-15 hours they were about to reach the White-Black's location.

Safo went to the canteen and had a good full meal. Kutch was all excited and a little bit angry. When Safo asked, Kutch said that the new guild had been registered and it replaced the InCubation guild and became number one straight away.

The thing that displeased Kutch was that it was a monster guild, with four million members where the top hundred being at the same level as the top hundred of adventurers.

"Sorry man, I know how much you love this particular VD game and I ruined it." Safo understood what he did, he also played video games on Earth. If someone turned out to make him a mob while monsters killed him for the loot he would've been upset too.

"Are you kidding me? It is awesome, finally, we have a wild world where nothing is certain. It is like survival games, now we have to prove that Adventurers in Cube are worth being respected. Only now Cube is for those who are dedicated to winning it over. I love it, man." Kutch thanked Safo who sat surprised and left for the virtual dimension.

'I'm glad that someone is happy about my deeds.' Safo felt a bit easy, the last person he wanted to upset was Kutch, his friend.

Safo went to sleep without any games, he still had his light flashes in his dream making him unable to enjoy sleeping. Kutch's drugs helped him but not much, he made a mental note to do a check-up with a proper doctor.

Safo woke up hearing a knock on his door. "Safo wake. We are here, go look at the White-Blacks, they are amazingly terrifying."