Something amiss

PS: While reading the comments on the image, a reader pointed out an oversight I'd made. I've corrected the extent of the Kingdom of Bagnia's territory on the map.

Chris knew nothing about anything that had happened that night. He was still leisurely going about his little life in the Black Clinic.

By the time all the contraband had been handed over to Isaac, it was past two in the morning. Chris closed the Black Clinic and wandered home alone.

Once home, he glanced into the living room. Yep, all eight players were there, sprawled around the fireplace under blankets on the floor and sofas.

Dark-red embers still glowed in the living room fireplace; clearly, the fire had only recently gone out. Chris added some coal to keep the room warm, then returned to the master bedroom.

Back in his room, Chris changed his clothes, gave his face a quick wash, and brushed his teeth. Finally, he dipped a towel in hot water from the kettle and wiped down his body before going to bed.

When he went to sleep around two thirty in the morning, Chris usually woke around eleven. After spending half an hour washing up, he came out into the living room and found two people still lying there.

Everyone else, including Lin Ruoyu and the other players, had disappeared, evidently having gone out to play. Only the two players who had talked back the night before hadn't logged in yet.

Chris checked his phone. Huh, there were two refund requests for game time, both from those players.

If they didn't want to play, so be it. Chris wasn't going to force them, so he readily approved their refund requests, deleted their accounts, and released the vacant slots.

Within a minute, both vacant slots had been snapped up. Three minutes later, two new players sprang up from the floor, chattering excitedly as they examined the layout of the house.

Chris ignored them and headed straight for the basement. He had already included a rule in the player code of conduct forbidding them from deliberately damaging his house, anyway.

Two more people were still lying in the basement, waiting for him to revive them.

As Chris bought frozen meat and clothes, he considered how troublesome it would be if he had to come running every time a player needed reviving.

Why not store some frozen meat here and set things up on my phone so anyone who dies revives automatically? Once the meat runs out, it can notify me to restock.

Yep, that's a good idea.

Once the two players sprang up from the floor and quickly dressed, they rushed outside in excitement.

As the two players muttered things like, "Hurry, there's a big event waiting for me," and, "Time to go all out," Chris was placing an order on the shopping platform.

He hadn't caught what they were saying, so he paid it no mind. When he recalled this later, Chris would bitterly regret his carelessness.

After he paid, ten cardboard boxes dropped in front of him one after another. Chris kicked the meat out of the boxes and headed out of the basement, leaving it alone.

It was freezing outside, and even more bitterly cold in the basement. The frozen meat certainly wouldn't spoil down here.

Right, five sets of clothes, too. Almost forgot. Without clothes, wouldn't the revived players have to run around naked?

Only after finishing all this did Chris leave the basement and return to the kitchen on the first floor to cook himself a meal.

By then, both the new players who had just entered the game and the two unlucky souls who had been revived had vanished.

Chris didn't care in the slightest.

Players were like huskies let off their leashes. It was perfectly normal for them to disappear and return whenever they pleased.

Just as Chris was stewing some vegetables and thinking about how to spend his leisurely afternoon, someone pounded hard on the apartment building's front door.

"Who is it?"

Puzzled, Chris poked his head out of the kitchen and called out, but received no reply.

The apartment building's door wasn't locked. Players generally wouldn't knock when they wanted to come in, so whoever was knocking almost certainly wasn't one of them.

So...

A hint of wariness rose in Chris. He took a dagger from behind the kitchen door and slipped it into his sleeve, then walked to a spot three meters behind the front door and called out again.

"Who is it? The door's unlocked..."

Crack!

The door was shoved open, and a burly man pitched sideways through the doorway.

Almost instinctively, Chris raised his hand to fling the dagger in his palm at the unexpected intruder and kill him.

Fortunately, just before the dagger left his hand, Chris caught sight of the man's familiar bushy beard. He twisted his wrist sharply, diverting the dagger's trajectory. It sank into the doorframe with a thud, half its blade buried in the wood.

"Isaac?!"

Chris hurried forward to support Isaac. There was an obvious tear in the clothes over his chest, and a strong, rusty smell wafted from it.

Chris didn't need to remove his clothes. The smell alone told him Isaac had lost a great deal of blood.

With no time to ask what had happened, Chris dragged Isaac inside and locked the front door, then supported him as he hurried into the Medical Room. He laid him on the operating table and removed his clothes.

At the sight of the wound stretching across half of Isaac's chest, Chris breathed a sigh of relief.

"It's fine. You won't die. The wound's deep, but it barely touched any internal organs. It's all in the muscle layer. At worst, the strenuous movement made you lose a bit too much blood."

As he spoke, Chris took out his professional medical instruments and treated Isaac's wound, stopping the bleeding, cleaning it, stitching it up, then disinfecting and bandaging it.

By the time he finished this practiced series of treatments, half an hour had passed.

"All right, tell me what happened. Did gangsters and the police corner you at your door? How much of the goods did you lose?"

"No... I didn't lose any of the goods. I was attacked this morning, when I was alone at my hideout."

By now, Isaac had recovered somewhat as he leaned against the operating table. His head was lowered, his face drawn and filled with shock and confusion.

"It's unbelievable. I was the only person who knew about that place, but three people were waiting for me inside. They fought too desperately. They didn't seem like hired assassins, but men ready to die for their mission.

"During the fight, I realized they were willing to trade injuries, but they weren't trying to kill me. They wanted to take me alive. That's what gave me the chance to escape.

"A worthless life like mine isn't worth sending three men like that after. I have a suspicion. This might be..."

"You're worried my dear older brother sent them?"

Chris laughed. How could that possibly be?

"No, Chris. I'm worried they're the Bohemian Empire's Peace Doves!"

Isaac spoke to Chris gravely.

"When I worked for the Assassins' Guild, I cooperated with the Doves before. I'm far too familiar with their scent.

"And now, I've caught a similar scent on those three men.

"Chris, I'm afraid the emperor's Peace Dove has set its sights on you. They wanted to get information about you out of me!"

PS: I had things to do today and spent the whole day running around. It feels like my cold has flared up again, and I'm feeling a bit rough tonight. There'll be two updates today. I need to get to bed early; tomorrow I'll see if I can find time to write a little more.