You're in Another World, You Have to Get Used to Plans Not Keeping Up with Changes

# Chapter 8: Once in Another World, You Must Get Used to Plans Changing on the Fly

Though dawn was approaching and the environment was about to enter a period of severe weakening for vampires during daylight, this was still the darkest hour of the night, and the darkness empowered Murphy's senses far beyond normal.

Upon hearing the gunshot, he immediately rushed toward the scene with Maxim. As they drew closer, his supernatural keenness allowed him to detect faint movement beneath a cellar door weighed down by a corpse ahead.

Someone was hiding there!

A woman!

In the blood-soaked village, Murphy caught a faint scent of perfume—not strong, but enough to make him narrow his eyes as his left hand moved to the hilt of the crimson rapier at his waist.

This weapon, once used by Mother Triss, was covered in the blood clan's irrepressible artistic flair, with delicate vulture patterns carved into the cage-like guard.

It was a symbol of the Blood Eagle Clan, one of the seven great vampire lineages.

Its name was "Blade of the Desire Lineage," and "Desire" was the Blood Eagle Clan's original sin.

This was a rather peculiar concept in traditional vampire culture. Each of the seven great lineages had a corresponding original sin, marking their identity as the "Eternal Sin-Born."

"Bang"

Murphy arrived to hear another gunshot.

The shot was muffled, fired from within the cellar, sending splinters flying from the wooden cover. The three newbie players had already scrambled aside, shouting loudly.

"Hey, isn't this supposed to be a fantasy setting game? How the hell does something as ridiculous as a gun show up?"

Leading Pigeon clutched his head, blood streaming from his forehead—he'd nearly taken a bullet to the skull. That guy was incredibly lucky to have dodged a bullet at all.

"You're asking me? Who am I supposed to ask? This is my first time playing such an intense game too! It's like jumping straight from The Witcher into Red Dead Redemption! One moment I'm trading sword blows with a Witch Hunter, the next I'm in an American standoff."

A-Cha, hiding on the other side of the cellar, let out a bitter complaint. Coo-Coo Chicken had just recovered his vision and was gripping his hand-and-a-half sword, ready to charge in, but A-Cha held him firmly back.

The enemy had a gun. A head-on fight wouldn't work!

They needed to outsmart him.

"My ignorant warriors, do you take our world for some place ruled by primitive savages?"

Murphy walked over, signaling his rookie player-warriors not to panic. He pushed the corpse off the cellar door while explaining to the three newbies:

"The Brass Dwarves had records of using firearms as early as Era 400, when they laid the first brick of the Brass Fortress. And the Seland Kingdom, to which these Witch Hunters belong, fully introduced Dwarven weapons during their military reforms starting in 1040. Forty years of reform gave that nation steel fangs, and in just one year, they swallowed another kingdom to form the present-day Plantagenet Kingdom.

What I'm trying to say is, this world is far more complex than what you've seen so far.

You should be more humble."

"So what year is it now?"

A-Cha, the most studious and best-performing among the Dormitory Six Bros, couldn't help asking. Murphy glanced at him and said:

"It's the tenth year of the Ten Years' War, August of Era 1111. But save the history lessons for later—shh."

He made a silencing gesture, then stood to the side, reaching down to press the cellar door as he drawled:

"Miss, are you coming out on your own? Or should I drag you out?"

His voice, weakened and hoarse from drinking poisoned blood, now carried a peculiar wickedness, like a cruel cat about to catch a poor mouse and inflict miserable torment upon it.

But the next second, Murphy keenly heard the sound of a bullet being chambered from below the cellar. The unlucky vampire flinched and leaped back two steps.

"Bang"

A muffled blast sent splinters flying from the cellar door again, accompanied by a panicked, furious scream from a woman in the darkness.

Clearly, she absolutely loathed vampires.

Murphy didn't advance immediately. He waited for her to spend several seconds reloading, and only after confirming the reload time did he continue knocking on the cellar door, baiting out another shot before charging in.

Leaping through the broken cellar door into the darkness, the woman retreating before him appeared in Murphy's vision like a heat signature on infrared.

This woman's blood was definitely clean.

That realization stirred a pang of hunger in the vampire.

He licked his lips and closed in. Without even needing to draw his sword, he knocked aside the heavy hunting rifle in her hands, grabbed her by the throat, and pinned her against the cellar wall.

Dust flew as the supernatural creature's strength revealed itself fully.

Though it wasn't so effective against Witch Hunters, against ordinary people it was as effortless as chopping vegetables. Even the trajectory of Murphy's rapid movement in the darkness was beyond this girl's ability to track.

Against such speed, guns and bullets in an ordinary person's hands were utterly useless for self-defense.

"Ah!"

The young girl screamed as Murphy gripped her throat.

Her face was smeared with black ash, her tattered dress hanging in shreds. Murphy glanced around the cellar and spotted another Witch Hunter's corpse.

The latter's pants were pulled down to his knees, a dagger buried in his chest, and half his head had been blown apart.

Hmm, it seemed some unspeakable things had happened here before their arrival. No wonder only five of the six Witch Hunters had shown up earlier.

So the last one had been looking for some fun and ended up dead instead.

The smell of blood in the cellar made Murphy's eyes glow faintly red. Feeling the girl's struggle in his grip, he could almost see the hot blood flowing through the veins beneath her pale skin, making his fangs itch with anticipation.

His weakened body craved blood.

But when he noticed the three little players still watching from above, Murphy snapped back to reality. He waved his hand and flung her out. The woman scrambled out of the cellar in terror, only to be caught by the three "brave warriors" waiting outside.

Slap.

Amid the piercing screams from outside the cellar, a light slap landed on his own face, quelling the bloodlust. Murphy crouched in the darkness, picked up the hunting rifle, and searched the dead Witch Hunter's body for usable ammunition pouches.

"You're not a monster, Murphy!"

Murphy admonished himself in the darkness of his own mind:

"Drink the blood of an innocent like that, and there's no turning back. I doubt you want to see a 25-man raid team smashing down your door in the future, huh?"

As he reasoned with himself, his hand reached out and brushed against something in the dead Witch Hunter's waist pouch.

The bloodstained little scroll unrolled before his eyes. A handsome portrait of him was printed on it, with specific details written below. Those glaring words made Murphy's brow furrow tightly.

Key target, kill on sight?

"Fuck!"

This portrait made Murphy realize the severity of the problem.

Though he knew the clan chief had sent him out as bait and cannon fodder, the chief's malicious intent was one thing—but having his precise portrait land in the hands of the Witch Hunters just one day after leaving the city was another.

Setting aside unpredictable psychic means, if you went by timing alone, it basically meant that before Murphy even set out, these Witch Hunters already knew his identity, specific details, and exact route!

Otherwise, there was no explaining how they arrived at Morland Village ahead of time to set an ambush.

Tonight's events weren't just Murphy's bad luck—this was a goddamn trap specifically laid for him! If not for the little players' heroic rescue, he'd have lost his life here!

There was a traitor in the Blood Eagle Clan!

And one who could directly access the content of the clan chief's orders.

"No wonder Triss told me to run. The Blood Eagle Clan looks like it has a big advantage on its own turf, but it's practically been sieved through. How the hell are we supposed to fight this?"

Rage surged in Murphy's heart.

Suppressing his anger, he kept a cold face as he walked out of the cellar. He first instructed the three players to keep searching the village for anything valuable, then gestured to Maxim, who had tied up the strange girl with rope.

The two of them, plus a "spare blood bag," entered a house that hadn't collapsed yet.

The flames at the other end of the village had died down. In a few dozen minutes, they'd probably go out, but no one cared about that fire anymore—not even the little players.

Murphy handed the Witch Hunter's scroll with his portrait to Maxim. The latter took it, glanced at it, and widened his eyes, exclaiming:

"There really is a traitor in the clan? Unbelievable."

Maxim's words made Murphy roll his eyes.

Hey, man, you haven't even gone through the Blood Rite yet—you're still human. How are you throwing around "the clan" left and right, more loyal than me, a real Blood Eagle?

"The situation's taken a subtle turn, Maxim."

Murphy sat on a chair with a broken leg, rubbing his forehead as he painstakingly analyzed the current situation, trying to use his decade-plus of hard-knocks social experience to come up with a countermeasure.

He said to the tense Maxim:

"Those bastards from the Old Church, the Witch Hunters, are known across the continent for their ruthless and precise hunting. They've caught my scent, and they won't stop until they've bitten through my throat. If I run now, I'll fall right into their trap. There might even be more Witch Hunters closing in from all around."

His pale fingers tapped lightly on the ash-covered table. The jumbled information in his mind smoothed out as he thought, like a database pulling up key data, extracting and combining it.

This kind of thing wasn't hard for Murphy, a former professional software test engineer. In his past life, he'd gotten used to peeling back layers of structure to find those hidden, magical bugs. After his inexplicable transmigration, he was grateful that this good habit had come with him to the other world.

After a moment of thought, Murphy made up his mind and said to the vampire blood servant staring at him:

"Dawn's coming soon, and I'm too weak to travel during the day. But the Witch Hunters are bearing down on us. Right now, the only way is for you to take this secret letter from the clan chief to the rendezvous point, hand it to the Midnight Hunters in my place, and have them send someone to back me up.

My portrait is in the Witch Hunters' hands. I'm their primary target, so I can't leave.

Take the back roads toward East Prussia first, then loop around from the northwest through the Andmar Hills. It's a longer route, but safe enough—you shouldn't run into any trouble.

But you have to be fast.

There are horses the Witch Hunters left in the village. Get on the road now."

"This..."

Maxim's face was full of hesitation.

He wasn't stupid.

Seeing Murphy's portrait carried by the Witch Hunters, he realized staying here was almost certainly a death sentence. He'd already braced himself to be abandoned as bait, but he never expected Murphy to pull off such a complete reversal.

Maxim was stunned.

The thought running through his mind was: Lord Murphy, are you some legendary vampire saint? Using yourself as bait to cover a lowly blood servant?

"No, my lord!"

The albino blood servant immediately shook his head. He said:

"You should leave first. I'll stay here to hold them—"

"Don't be stupid!"

Murphy barked.

"You've seen firsthand how vicious the Witch Hunters are—these bastards are no joke! Staying here won't buy us any time. If you're truly loyal to the Blood Eagle, you should know that following my orders is the only way we both survive!"

He tossed the hunting rifle he'd retrieved from the cellar, along with a pouch of ammunition, to Maxim.

The weapon looked like a classic old Winchester, but carried a heavy, exotic flair. The intricate engravings on the barrel and the short axe blade attached beneath the muzzle marked it as a Dwarf Rifle—a high-powered firearm crafted in the armories of the Brass Dwarves on the Genoa Peninsula.

In present-day Transia, this thing was synonymous with deterrence.

Even a vampire stronger than Murphy would be nursing the pain for half a day after taking a shot, and a special round to the heart could temporarily knock them unconscious.

"Take it! Leave immediately—my life is in your hands."

Murphy shoved the chieftain's secret order, stamped with a psychic mark, into Maxim's hand. He stood up, patted the blood servant—who belonged to someone else—on the shoulder, and said:

"Maxim, you've already proven your loyalty. Now I need you to use your wits and courage. I know you're Lord Jade's blood servant, but I swear to you by the Lasombra Night Surname of the Blood Eagle Clan: if we both make it out alive, I'll perform the Embrace for you.

If you're willing, I'll handle the relationship with Lord Jade on my end."

Hearing this, a light immediately ignited in Maxim's eyes.

He was a true vampire worshipper. Ever since Lord Jade had picked him up as a child, he'd served the Blood Eagle Clan, making his dream of becoming a real vampire the ultimate goal of his career. But he knew his own situation—if Lord Jade truly valued him, he wouldn't have been sent on this suicide mission.

So, the offer Murphy was making right now was something he simply couldn't refuse. Even if Murphy's sire was the infamous "King of Cripples," Lady Triss, so what?

A weak vampire was still a vampire!

For people like him—"refined blood"—just having that identity was a victory. Status within the clan was something to worry about and strive for later.

"I'll leave immediately, my lord."

Maxim slung the rifle over his back, tucked the chieftain's secret order into a secure spot against his body, saluted Murphy with the Blood Eagle gesture, and strode out.

Murphy watched the loyal man leave, then settled the tasks for the three little players from the village and "kicked them offline," declaring the round of testing over.

With only him and one human prisoner left in the village, he began to reassess.

The Witch Hunters might come back soon. He could regroup in the ruins of Morland Village. Under his command, he had three little players fresh from their first battle and four who had "lost contact." Thanks to the Witch Hunters' "gifts," he wasn't short on weapons or armor. If he arranged things well, he might just have a fighting chance.

He could also take the opportunity to complete the fourth newbie tutorial quest.

He sat down on a rickety chair, reopened the forum, and planned to chat with his players. On one hand, he could use their feedback to better fabricate lies.

Uh, no—to better refine the testing plan.

On the other hand, he had many questions that needed answers from the players. The most important one: how exactly were his little players entering the game?

Was it really through keyboard and mouse?

Given their agile movements in the "game," he suspected there was more to it than that.