Oni Princess's red-name PK Value was 9, having already passed the first threshold for increased Bloody Treasure Chest drop rates. After opening it, two items would be randomly drawn from among the belongings and equipment she had possessed in life.
Since the situation had been rather unusual at the time, Eileen, who had looted the chest, hadn't had time to see what she had drawn. Only now did she finally have a chance to take a look.
The purple full-body bodysuit Oni Princess had worn in life was somewhat similar to Knight Armor. It occupied three Equipment Slots at once: chest armor, leg armor, and boots. Its greatest purpose was actually to improve synchronization with her younger sister and better bring out the effects of their Fusion Skill. Even so, Oni Princess's Bloody Treasure Chest loot pool had reached the theoretical maximum of thirteen possible items.
Although frequently hunting newcomers hadn't helped her clear the main quest, she had indeed acquired quite a lot of miscellaneous equipment.
Eileen was quite lucky. She drew an accessory ring considered relatively valuable within the equipment system, as well as what was presumably Oni Princess's primary weapon from when she was alive.
The ring was a Green Excellent magic ring from Diablo, called the "Charged Bullet Ring." As the name suggested, it had the spell "Charged Bullet" inscribed and sealed within it. Upon activation, it could release three Charged Bullets at once. Their damage range fluctuated wildly, they flew slowly, and their trajectories were unpredictable. It had five charges and needed to be recharged in the Space for money once they were depleted.
The other primary weapon was a "Catachan Mk. III Combat Blade" from the world of Warhammer 40K: Darktide. It was Blue Excellent-grade and carried two effects: "Damage to Unarmored Units +15%" and "When your teammate lands a critical hit, your Critical Chance increases by 10% for 6 seconds."
It was obvious that this equipment had been made specifically to target newcomers with little protective gear, while also working alongside her twin teammate in Co-op.
No one knew how much blood from unfortunate newcomers stained it already, but now, it belonged to Eileen.
"Finders, sharers. You can have this one. I'm keeping the dagger—I was just short on something for self-defense."
After closing the Charged Bullet Ring's description, Eileen tossed it directly to Cheng Tian.
Catching the ring, Cheng Tian displayed extraordinary hand speed and shoved it into an Equipment Slot as quickly as possible, proactively disabling the ring's physical collision with his body.
Cheng Tian hated wearing accessories like rings, because they interfered with the feel of gripping a wok handle, sword hilt, or gun grip.
"...You rich lady, I don't have any money right now. If you need me to pay with my body, I can—"
"Get lost!"
"Right away~~"
Cheng Tian performed a graceful cartwheel and temporarily fled the danger zone.
Yaksha had run away. This might indeed affect Eileen's next objective, but not by much.
Although Eileen didn't know who Oni Princess was, her high PK Value and low combat power, along with her obvious money-blinded charge straight at Cheng Tian, told Eileen that she was a red-name player who specialized in hunting newcomers.
In the Player Community Eileen frequented, this kind of behavior was considered extremely shameful, disgraceful, and cowardly. So, even though they weren't part of the player community that called itself the Punishers and took pride in hunting red names, they didn't object to killing red names either.
Those who kill will eventually be killed. That's common sense, my friend~
Combined with the twins' exposed damage-loss safety skill, the defensive shield produced by either a skill or a scroll, and Yaksha's decisive retreat after seeing her arrows intercept Ground Wave, their dungeon strategy was likely centered on survival. At this stage, he was probably scared out of his wits; even if they went looking for him, he would not be easy to find.
So Eileen decisively put the fleeing Yaksha out of her mind and began handling the other matters at hand.
The first thing to do was make sure of Cheng Tian's Bounty Mission progress.
Eileen was the type of player who only sought challenges after making sure they wouldn't interfere with proper business. So she had to help Cheng Tian gather every Quest Item required for his Bounty Mission before considering high-difficulty challenges, ensuring that no matter what happened, they would still have the best escape route: "Turn in the Quest Items and run."
It had to be said that this girl's way of doing things made Cheng Tian feel remarkably comfortable and highly compatible with her. Cheng Tian had indeed planned to prioritize his own quest.
It was just that, judging from the situation, she intended to help him complete it.
The Gray Contract was the only contract that could be signed anytime with nothing but a little money. It allowed Contracted Teammates to sense each other within a straight-line distance of ten meters, share kills for certain types of quest targets, and prevented any Drop Items from appearing if a teammate was killed.
The reason it was called a Gray Contract, however, was that one party could forcibly terminate it by paying a fine.
For example, Eileen had paid Cheng Tian's 2,500 team-up fee, and either of them could terminate the contract immediately by paying double the amount as a fine. Still, after a forced termination, there was at least a one-minute cooling-off period.
As for higher-level contracts, they required completing quests or consuming special items to establish. For example, the two-person-only Double Dragon Contract, the three-person Knights of the Round Table, the four-person Baseball League, and so on. These types of teams could even receive additional Attribute Bonuses.
Now that they were teamed up, even if Eileen killed a quest target whose chest dropped items Cheng Tian needed, there was a chance it would drop Cheng Tian's Quest Items.
And just as Batman had worried, it was truly the Moth Gang's turn to suffer now.
Because the dungeon Cheng Tian had entered lacked the "authentic" Dungeon Modifiers, Gotham City, which should have been a linear stage, had directly become a large map open to free movement. The later stages that should have appeared along a fixed route had also transformed into areas controlled by gangs built around different Supervillains, each with its own terrain characteristics.
In theory, players could even cross all four areas and take down every BOSS involved in the main quest during this insignificant Bounty Mission.
But as mentioned before, even killing them would have no effect on the Bounty Mission. On the contrary, it would cut off the possibility of accepting related quests later.
Eileen naturally wasn't arrogant enough to think that she could break through layer upon layer of obstacles, kill four Supervillains commanding the resources of entire gangs, all within a mere seventy-two hours and under Batman's inevitable interference... But if she only killed one, that would be just the right flavor of extra challenge.
Out of all the potential targets, she had merely chosen Assassin Moth. And since he happened to be connected to Cheng Tian's Quest Item objective, why not?
As it happened, Cheng Tian had a fairly detailed map of the various factions. That bartender had indeed dealt honestly, not taking Cheng Tian's ten gold coins for some worthless piece of junk. But even without it, she knew Gotham City's East District old factory zone, where the Moth Gang was based, like the back of her hand.
If she wasn't mistaken, security over there would definitely have been raised another level. That also meant they could encounter denser groups of more varied Moth Gang enemies in less time, which would help Cheng Tian's quest.
Cheng Tian wasn't tired, and Eileen was even more energetic. After discussing it, the two headed toward the old factory zone under cover of night.
What neither of them knew was that their freshly formed two-person team had already made it onto the Must-Eat List of every single Moth Gang member...
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