The Great Thief

The enemies had arrived right at Lu Li and Water Fairy’s doorstep; it would be a sin not to take them down. Two shots to the head and the pair was dead in a second.

“You make this game seem so much easier than it actually is,” Water Fairy commented. She had never experienced such thrill playing this game, mainly because she could finally land some kills after pairing up with Lu Li. The pair looted more healing items, even if it was at the expense of some ammo. Medicine was crucial.

“My shooting skills still require improvement,” Lu Li responded as he shook his head. He looked at the map and saw that the next safe zone was located in an empty grass field. “These must be the so-called crop circles.”

“We don’t know that yet. The safe zone only covers half of the crop circle. Plus, we have the Ghillie suit, and there are only sixteen people left. Who knows, we might finally get our chicken dinner.”

Water Fairy’s eyes lit up with anticipation.

It was possible to win the game without ever having to kill anyone. The enemy might die outside of the safe zone, or the players last standing all die from a frag grenade. Either way, as long as a player was the longest surviving person in-game, they could win without having to pull the trigger. However, this type of player was considered to be the most cowardly of gamers. The other essential aspect of winning with zero kills was obviously luck. The safe zone must never be too far from the player, and if the odds were in their favour, the safe zone would always shrink around where the lucky player stood. With that level of luck, as long as the person played it safe, they could still get a decent rank even if they didn’t win.

“We’re in the red zone now. Let’s go.”

Lu Li’s expression immediately twisted into a grimace when he saw a red circle appear exactly where he stood on the map.

“We should hurry – even though the chances of getting knocked out by the red zone are quite small –”

Water Fairy had only just finished her sentence when she saw Lu Li crawling on the ground. Water Fairy’s face turned pale; She thought of how fortunate she was for standing a little further from Lu Li. Otherwise, it would have been the end for both of them. Thankfully, as long as one teammate was alive and standing, they could revive their knocked-out teammate. Water Fairy wasn’t going to risk getting knocked out, so she waited until the red zone was over before reviving Lu Li.

“Must be karma.”

“He got knocked out by the red zone twice in a row.”

“Lucky my Goddess stayed away from Lu Li.”

“My Goddess should just dump him already. He’s a hacker in Dawn, and has zero luck in this game. This kind of guy doesn’t deserve you. Let me introduce you to this one guy – his luck is pretty impressive in Dawn, and has never been knocked out by the red zone in Survival and Escape. That guy is me…”

“You think you deserve my Goddess? Screw you!”

Both of them could tell the chat was mostly filled with petty satisfaction as they saw Lu Li fail. What was she supposed to do? The whole thing was out of her control. Water Fairy wasn’t exactly sociable; she rarely played Survival and Escape, and even more rarely did she do a live stream. Besides, her having a boyfriend made her die-hard fanbase go insane. Therefore, whenever she livestreamed with Lu Li, her fans would watch them like vultures.

“Let’s go. We’ll follow the edge of the safe zone. You watch out for runners outside of the zone, and I’ll keep an eye out for proners inside. Report the bearings of whomever you see,” Lu Li said as he reloaded his gun and zoomed straight ahead, with Water Fairy following hastily.

“One guy at NE60,” Water Fairy reported.

“Keep an eye out for the sides. Does he have a teammate?” Lu Li instructed her as he aimed his sniper rifle at the newly-discovered enemy. The guy was dead in one shot. Since the enemy was immediately killed rather than knocked out, it meant he didn’t have a partner.

“I’m getting hit, I can’t see them!” Water Fairy cried out.

“Run sporadically, then hide. I see him.” Lu Li could see the top of a head barely visible in a building far away; they were aiming for Water Fairy. One shot, and he missed. It was, after all, Lu Li’s second time playing Survival and Escape, and even though he displayed a great talent for shooting, he was far from being skilled as a sniper. However, that one missed shot was enough to scare the attacker and it stopped his attacks.

The 98k had a unique, explosive sound that was infamous amongst familiar Survival and Escape players. One shot was enough to make their hairs stand on end, fearful they would fall victim to the sniper rifle.

With half of her health gone, Water Fairy hid behind some haystacks to heal up. Lu Li put away his gun and joined her shortly after. When the attacker decided to pursue the near-knocked out Water Fairy, the two were already long gone.

“Go prone and crawl to that rock in the safe zone. Take my gun and shoot that guy at the window as soon as you see him,” Lu Li instructed.

Being able to cover for each other was basic but essential teamwork. Having the two of them run at the attacker at the same time would just be idiotic.

Suddenly, the live stream chat was bombarded with messages like, “F is on chat room patrol!”

Lu Li thought for a moment and realised that ‘chat room patrol’ meant that other live streamers had gone to a random stream, followed by their fans. This sort of flex showed off how influential the guest streamer was. The so-called F was Fancy; he was visibly popular and probably quite good at Survival and Escape.

“Little Fairy, why didn’t you tell me you had the time to do a live stream? Why don’t you two do squads with me? I’ll carry you guys and get our chicken dinner,” she boasted with confidence. Water Fairy’s fan base wasn’t particularly into Survival and Escape — some hadn’t even played it before. They were only watching the stream for her sake, so they were easily aggravated by how conceited this F was. Who was he, and who did he think he was that he could do squads with their Goddess? Fancy’s fans were equally aggravated and immediately fired away their retorts. Fancy was ranked in the top one hundred in Asia for Survival and Escape. He was obviously much better than Water Fairy, who had basically never won a chicken dinner despite being a popular live streamer.

“No thanks, we’re just playing casually anyway. We just want to have fun,” Water Fairy replied with indifference. She was her usual tycoon self again, never one to feign interest or have a desire to impress. She might’ve started a live stream, but she never thought much of it, and she definitely had no desire of faking it with the other streamers, not to mention with someone as narcissistic as F.

“Bang!”

The attacker staggered away from the window after receiving damage from Water Fairy. Lu Li was quick to get into the rhythm, and with a pull of the bolt, pulled the trigger on the attacker. One new name appeared on the killboard; he didn’t have a partner either.

The chat blew up with messages praising the pair’s play, and even the fans that followed F into the stream bombarded the chat with cheers. Lu Li always had inhuman movement speed and reflexes. Just as he gunned down the enemy at the window, another prone enemy in the grass tried to take him down. The enemy didn’t even have time to pull out his gun and was sniped by Lu Li.

“Not bad. This kid’s shooting skills are not bad at all. I’m not familiar with the name ‘Lu Li’; is he one of your fans?” Fancy was a live streamer, so naturally, all his messages within the chat would be bright red and ready for everyone to see. Although Water Fairy was the only one that could reply to Fancy within the chat, with the two being the only live streamers, she pretended not to see her message, and didn’t even bother to react to Fancy’s comment. Water Fairy decided that F was not worth her time to explain such matters to, and with her fans quickly catching on, they were unable to stand the situation either.

Her fans might be there to rant or whine, or even act pettily when Lu Li made a mistake, but Fancy was a nobody. And now, he was in their Goddess’ live stream, acting all high and mighty and disrespecting her boyfriend? Who did he honestly think she was?

“F, this guy is pretty good considering that it is his second game,”

“This guy’s shooting skills are great +1.”

“This guy’s shooting skills are great +2.”

“This guy’s shooting skills are great +10086.”

“This guy’s shooting skills are great +(telephone number).”

“This guy’s shooting skills are great +(ID Card number).”

This sort of comment seemed harmless at first. In another situation, it might be backing up Fancy’s compliments of Lu Li. However, considering that it was only his second game and that he was already so skilful at killing other players, the massive chain of replies all commenting on the same thing had a tone of sarcasm that was difficult to overlook.

Bang! It was a one hit knock out once again.

The fans bombarded the chat with praise again. However, they also sympathised with the player at the window. The downed player had a partner, and if he wasn’t double tapped by Lu Li, he could’ve easily been revived and continued the game. However, knowing that he was gunned down immediately after peaking his head out of the window, he decided to take himself out of the game instead. The player might have been stressed or embarrassed by the situation.

Another player appeared, and Lu Li pulled the trigger without hesitation.

Another down!

This one wasn’t in a house, nor did he have any natural obstacles that he could hide behind. With a simple stretch of her arms, Water Fairy crouched and shot the knocked out player, securing Lu Li’s kill count.

Suddenly, another bright red text appeared in the chat.

“Hmph, guess they’ll let anyone into this game these days.”

“Maple sis!”

“Maple sis!”

Another live streamer had joined the chat, and this time it was Unforgettable Maple.

Unforgettable Maple was nicknamed the Mage God and played as a Mage in most games. Though he was currently only playing Dawn and Survival and Escape, Dawn had recently capped the max level, and thus he spent most of his free time doing Survival and Escape live streams. He had quickly risen in ranks as the third best player in Asia. He even had a nickname in Survival and Escape called King of the Canines.

A term that was commonly used in Survival and Escape was ‘dog it out,’ or ‘live like a dog.’ It meant to hide and not reveal yourself under any circumstances. If Maple could earn such a title, one could imagine just how cowardly he acted when he played the game.

Fancy was nothing compared to Unforgettable Maple. He would have a maximum of one or two hundred thousand viewers when she really peaked, but Maple easily brought in a million viewers into the stream. His eccentricity and dry humour proved to be popular amongst other players. Besides, Fancy was only a mere Survival and Escape player, but Unforgettable Maple had played in gaming leagues and was a star competitor. Fancy didn’t follow Dawn, so he had no idea how infamous Lu Li was, otherwise, he wouldn’t have had suggested carrying the pair.

Amongst Dawn and competitive players, quite a few engaged in Survival and Escape as well. Competitive players made a living out of gaming after all; they couldn’t just be good at one single game forever. They had to constantly expand their gaming repertoire, and practice different gaming skills.

Innocent Child was also a renowned player in Survival and Escape, currently ranking first on the scoreboards. It was said he was a police officer in real life and a gun enthusiast. He seemed to have had dominated every single shooting game and thus was titled the King of Guns.

There were even players within Ruling Sword that had a knack for Survival and Escape, and one of them was Moonlight. His displacement and shooting skills were impressive, his driving skills admirable, and he was titled the King of Cars. Though his ranking wasn’t as high as Unforgettable Maple’s or Innocent Child’s, it was only because he refused to ‘dog it out’ when he played. If he was ever attacked, even if it was a single missed shot, Moonlight would chase the perpetrator to the ends of the Earth just to take him down. That was how begrudging the King of Cars was.

The competitive players of Survival and Escape would often live stream their games. Not only was it an effective way of gaining popularity, but fans might also reward the streamers with gifts or money. For instance, Water Fairy had only been live streaming for ten minutes, and had already received more than ten thousand dollars from her fans. If a live streamer landed an impressive kill or performed exciting plays, some tycoon-type fans would immediately reward tens of thousands of dollars to the streamer.

Maple’s arrival immediately blew up Water Fairy’s live stream. Though many of them were legitimate Survival and Escape players, the most enthusiastic watchers were those who usually camped in-game.