Assassinate Wonderwind Chapter 4 - Underleveled

I woke up inside a small, shabby wooden cottage with a straw-bed. The window was open. Or rather, the window was just a hole in the wall. Mist from outside flowed in, filling the cottage with humidity.

In real life, the mist probably wasn’t healthy for the building itself. The wooden walls would have taken in the moisture and started rotting. In Wonderwind, however, the mist gave me a refreshing wakeup in a perfectly cool room. I wore pyjamas while sitting in bed.

A system pop-up followed.

[The average monster level of your spawning location is over 80 levels above your character level. Would you like to change your location to the nearest level appropriate town?]

I physically grabbed the notification floating in my face, and I tossed it out of the window.

The system took that as a negative answer, and the pop-up disintegrated. I saw this particular system pop-up just about every time I woke up. Tossing it aside had become a habit every time I logged in.

I definitely did not want to teleport to the nearest town. Top level players were found in the high level areas. And where the top players went, I did as well.

That said, being 80 levels below the average monster level of the area wasn’t a joke. Most monsters could easily one-shot me. The only reason I could survive up here was thanks to my carefully crafted build.

I opened my character sheet, and another system pop-up showed my stats and items.

Character Name: Assassin

Guild: No guild

Character Level: 184

Progress To Levelup: 16789/200213 Experience

Class: Assassin

Stats:

• Health: 3495/3495

• Mana: 1000/1000

• Attack Force: 1754

• Critical Strike Chance: 0%

• Spell Power: 100

• Defence: 20

• Armor Penetration: 20%, and 120 flat defence penetration

• Total Resistances Combined: 1390%

• Monster Avoidance: 78%

• Perception: 83%

Class Skills (Active):

Thrust, Swing, Throw, Dodge, Stealth (Level 10), Conceal Footsteps, Shadow Dash, Afterimage, Eavesdrop

Class Skills (Passive):

Lightweight Weapon Proficiency (Level 24), Dagger Proficiency (Level 37), Vital Strike (Level 27)

Nothing about what was there was impressive. In fact, most players would see my stats as laughable trash. My character barely qualified for mid-game content. Even my Attack Force was mediocre, despite it being my highest stat. Any top player would have over five thousand minimum. A tank player like Oblivara was expected to have over seven thousand at minimum.

I didn’t have many skills either, though that was normal. Wonderwind wasn’t one of those games that just dropped skills to everyone. Even mage characters could have, at most, twenty active skills at once, and nine of those would have to come from equipment.

My most important class skill was definitely [Vital Strike]. I had placed all of my levels into it, even if I could have unlocked new skills. The skill was just that good.

Vital Strike (Level 27): All Critical Strikes deal 1350% increased damage.

The critical strike chance stat I had read a whopping zero, but that stat only applied to assisted [Swings] and [Thrusts]. When free-wielding weapons, critical strikes were determined entirely differently.

As one could guess, slicing an opponent’s throat counted as a critical strike. [Vital Strike] made that over a thousand percent more effective. That, combined with the effects of my cloak and gear pieces, ensured that even my low level character could do serious damage if I landed a good hit.

Speaking of my cloak… I scrolled down and examined my equipment.

Everything I wore was trash, of course—but everything was carefully calculated trash to perfectly suit my playstyle. I was honestly proud of the set I’d put together.

Footwear: Nightstalkers (Uncommon)

• 20 Defence

• 20% Critical Strike Damage

• 10% Monster Avoidance

Ring Slot One: Ring Of Silent Blades (Rare)

• 40% Critical Strike Damage

Silent Blades (Passive): A light mist surrounds your dagger type weapons, clouding their trajectory from opponents. Monsters are less likely to hear the deaths of their allies.

Ring Slot Two: Obsidian Ring (Common)

• 15% Critical Strike Damage

Dark Precision (Passive): Critical Strikes apply 100 curse damage over 1 minute.

Accessory: Charm Of Shadowfang (Quest Item)

• 10% Monster Avoidance

Hunter Of Shadowfang (Passive): Killing Shadowfang offers 40% more cursed gems.

Don’t ask me why I had a quest item on my accessory slot. I just hadn’t found anything with a better monster avoidance stat, okay.

Gloves: Assassin’s Grip (Uncommon)

• 50% Critical Strike Damage

• +7 to Dagger Proficiency

• 100 Attack Force

Weapon Slot One: Dark Mithril Dagger (Rare)

• 479 Attack Force

Toughness (Passive): 60% increased durability.

Dark Assassin (Passive): Critical Strikes Are 10% more effective at night.

Weapon Slot Two: Empty

Headwear: Occupied by Armor Piece

Armor: Cloak Of Oblique Transcendence (Epic, Unique)

• 500 Attack Force (+200 from hood)

• 30% Monster Avoidance (+20%)

• 70 Spell Power (+30)

Blood Desperation (Active, Conditional): Straight attacks are 100% more effective. Active Condition: Fall Below 40% health. Status: Inactive.

Hood (Passive, Conditional): All stats increased if the hood is up. This occupies the headpiece slot. Status: Active.

Thank fuck. I pressed my hands together and prayed. My cloak hadn’t dropped. If it had, my build would have essentially been useless. The cloak essentially doubled the power of my character.

The [Blood Desperation] skill made straight attacks double as powerful. Straight attacks referred to attacks performed without using system assistance, meaning all of my attacks were double as powerful. Critical strike damage was also doubled, and that stacked on top of the multiplier I already received. When my build was at its best, my critical strikes did over 3000% damage.

The second most important stat I had was monster avoidance. Essentially, natural monsters were 78% less interested in hunting me. Some monsters were intimidated by me. Others didn’t see me at all, and some monsters just didn’t think I was worth killing. And if a monster did decide to chase me, the chance of them dropping the chase was 78% higher.

Even with that, sneaking in high-level zones was incredibly difficult, but my monster avoidance stat made it possible. And I had a lot of experience. Very rarely did I ever fight against monsters in this game.

As for my second dagger slot—the weapon I’d lost… Well, it had been a rare. A decent item, probably worth around fifty dollars. It, too, surprise surprise, gave me more critical strike damage, but it also had a low chance of applying a paralysis effect. I’d lost it.

Annoying. To replace it, I’d either need to get lucky with a drop, or I’d need to spend fifty dollars for a new one, which I really didn’t want to do. For now, I replaced it with a simple shitty Common Dagger, which had literally nothing special going for it, except another fifty Attack Power.

I stood, and my sleepwear swapped in an instant back to my regular outfit. Players couldn’t actually take off clothes like they could in real life, probably so that flashing private parts was impossible.

I exited the hut and stepped onto [Highray Rogue Encampment]. I was in the middle of a cute misty village on a swampy mountain. Not a muddy swamp like one could expect in real life. The water puddles that surrounded the wooden pathways were perfectly clear, and each cottage was decorated with lamps, and pretty architecture of course.

“Finally, you’re awake!” a voice grumbled at me.

I turned my head to see a middle-aged dragonborn swordsman approaching me with a wide frown on his face. He was definitely human, but instead of skin, he had dragonborn scales, and his tongue had a sharp end. He wore leather armor shaped for his muscles, and he fought with what looked like a simple steel longsword, though it would probably do a lot more damage than any common longsword ever could.

His nametag read, Olaf (NPC, Dragonborn, Level 250).

“I was sure you abandoned us, traveler,” he said. “The egg is close to hatching. If you abandon your duty now, I will have no choice but to hunt you down.”

Right, there was a quest here, I thought. I pulled up my quest log and sorted by proximity. The one in this village showed up immediately.

Quest: Protect the Ray Drake’s hatching egg (S Ranked Event Quest) (Recommended Level: 240+)

Quest Details: Ray Dragon Embridge has left one of her eggs in the holy spring near the Highray Rogue Encampment. Olaf and his dragonborn warriors suspect it will be attacked. Protect the egg by any means necessary.

Completion Conditions: Protect the Ray Drake egg until it hatches.

Quest Reward: Maximum affinity with Olaf and the Highray Rogue Encampment. Affinity increase with Ray Dragon Embridge. +5000 Gold, +10 million experience. High probability of a follow-up quest.

Quest Failure: Olaf will kill you on sight. Follow-up quests will be destroyed.

An S-tier level 240 quest, huh. It sure would have been nice to complete it. A thousand gold was worth roughly 4000 dollars. I only had 135 gold right now. The experience would have probably gotten me over level 200 in an instant. This was the type of quest top players sent scouts to find. The follow-up quest would probably lead to 

If I somehow managed to defend the egg until it hatched, that would literally save my life.

Additionally, everyone that was currently inside the event grounds had another quest active, one with absolutely insane rewards.

Global Quest: Slay Ray Dragon Embridge (S++ Ranked Global Event Quest)

Quest Details: Ray Dragon Embridge haunts the mountains. Her presence commands the landscape itself. It is said that the warrior who defeats the dragon will gain the title of legends and access to the dragon’s hoard of treasures.

Completion Conditions: Slay Ray Dragon Embridge.

Quest Reward: Unknown

That quest was active for anyone that had made it to the Ray Dragon event grounds. Embridge was the final boss of this event. But knowing Wonderwind, there was probably some sort of twist. Just killing her wouldn’t end the event. Either way, I was here just to kill whoever had dreams of chasing the dragon, because I sure knew my daggers wouldn’t do any damage to bosses up here.

While I studied the quest, Olaf patiently waited for me to continue the dialogue. I tossed the system’s suggested dialogue options aside and spoke to Olaf directly. The AIs in Wonderwind were more than smart enough for conversations. “I’ll defend the egg,” I said confidently. “What have I missed?”

“You have missed fifteen hours of invaluable time, young man!” Olaf yelled. “The egg could have already been destroyed!”

“But it hasn’t been,” I said. “And if you want to keep it alive, I will need every bit of assistance you can muster. Have you scouted the area? Where are our enemies? What are the most likely sources of attack?”

“Of course we have scouted the area,” Olaf said. “We are not so incompetent. But I am not certain I can trust you with this information.”

Stubborn, huh? I thought.

“Always speak with the NPCs,” was advice that my uncle used to give. And while he wasn’t very good at the game, I found that his advice worked wonders. NPCs in Wonderwind were more than happy to help players if one were to talk to them. Most players didn’t talk to NPCs at all, thinking they were useless, but if one spoke to them like I would now, gaining information was almost inevitable.

“I require your scouts’ reports,” I said. “Defending the egg is my utmost priority. I promise to defend it with my life, and I require your help.”

Olaf kept frowning at me. His thinking looked realistic, and he regarded me with the mannerism that a real human in his situation would have.

“Two carriages are approaching the holy spring from down the mountain,” Olaf said. “One from the west, one from the south, both pulled by the worst war horses I have ever seen, with convoys that the village can’t dream of stopping. The carriages are both transporting adamantite drills, powerful enough to destroy the egg.”

“Who is protecting the convoys?” I asked.

“It is… travelers like you,” Olaf said.

Players, I thought, nodding.

I was fairly certain I understood the quest now. It was a war between players. Another player or guild had been given a quest by another NPC to destroy the egg, while I was given the task to defend it. Only one would be completing the quest.

I was defending solo. That probably meant I wouldn’t be defending any eggs or completing any S-ranked quests today. I wasn’t surprised. The best quest I’d ever completed was a B-rank.

But since I had sneaked into a level 270 area, the egg would be hunted by top players. There was a chance the very best guilds in the world were about to attack it.

My eyes saw gold. There were so many ways I could turn this situation into profit. The easiest one would be to walk up to the top players right now to walk them through the quest and to offer my help for clearing it. If I was nice, they’d probably take my offer as long as my price wasn’t outrageous.

Or more realistically, I could do what I always did best.

Drive a dagger through the brains of whoever was coming for their gear pieces.