Lumi turned away from the spot where Lucy had died, keeping expression neutral. Whatever questions he had about Micheal would have to wait.

"Everyone!" His voice cut through the celebrating crowd. "We’re moving out! The march to the raid location begins now!"

The crowd’s energy shifted immediately from celebration to anticipation.

"Stay together! Follow the airship! Anyone who falls behind gets left behind!" Lumi climbed back onto the airship, gesturing for Eden and Lena to join him.

The formation organized itself quickly. The four lieutenants positioned themselves at the front of the crowd, leading the line, keeping the mass of players moving in the right direction.

Lumi piloted the airship forward slowly, keeping pace with the walking players below. The journey would take time. What was twenty minutes by airship became much longer on foot.

While the ship drifted forward, Lumi opened his friends list, and in ’Send Friend Request’, and typed in her name.

While the ship drifted forward above the marching crowd, Lumi opened his friends list.

His eyes scanned through names before stopping on one in particular.

[Lucy Lee]

He sent a friend request.

For several seconds, nothing happened.

Lumi leaned back slightly in his seat, one hand lazily maintaining the airship’s speed and direction while the other rested against the side of the console.

Below, hundreds upon hundreds of players walked through the forest paths beneath the canopy, talking excitedly amongst themselves about the upcoming raid.

Then the notification appeared.

[Lucy Lee has accepted your friend request.]

Lumi opened a private message window.

[Lumi: Hey.]

She didn’t instantly type, though after a moment, she finally did.

[Lucy Lee: Haha. Now this is rather awkward, isn’t it?]

[Lumi: A little.]

[Lucy Lee: Usually people don’t friend request me after I try to murder them. Though I suppose I didn’t succeed.]

[Lumi: Usually, people don’t try to murder me. As you may have noticed, we have an extremely large level difference. I’m surprised you even tried.]

[Lucy Lee: Fair.]

Lumi rested his chin against his hand, and began to analyze the girl. She was surprisingly normal outside of combat. Because of what she said at the end about Micheal, he had assumed she was some sort of Micheal fanatic. He still remembered the church from earlier.

Not to mention, it was stupid to believe she could win a dual with such a large level difference. Though her skill did warrant at least some arrogance.

He noticed that she wasn’t defensive, nor was hostile, either. If anything, she sounded casual. Like the assassination attempt had simply been business.

[Lumi: So I did have a question. You mentioned a Micheal?]

This time the pause a minute or two.

[Lucy Lee: Ah, right. I did say that. That’s probably why you added me.]

[Lumi: Mostly.]

[Lucy Lee: Mostly?]

[Lumi: You were also pretty good.]

[Lucy Lee: Lmao hahaah what? You killed me in a few seconds. I freaking exploded, what are we talking about?]

[Lumi: I mean it. Your strategy was good, and more importantly, your mechanical skill was godlike. Even with our bodies, such skill is not something you can casually pull off.]

[Lucy Lee: Does it even matter? I lost]

[Lumi: Doesn’t mean the attempt was bad. Though I’d like to mention, Dark Sight should typically be reserved as a life preservation tool. You used it to move next to me undetected, yet it left you without a defensive option.]

[Lucy Lee: Huh. You’re right. Thanks, man.]

Lumi could practically feel the confusion through the screen. Most people probably either cursed her out or immediately blocked her after she killed them and ruined their afternoon. Instead he was critiquing her execution.

[Lumi: Anyway. Micheal.]

[Lucy Lee: Oh right, that guy. What do you want to know?]

[Lumi: Everything.] 𝐟𝕣𝕖𝐞𝐰𝕖𝚋𝐧𝗼𝚟𝐞𝕝.𝗰𝐨𝐦

[Lucy Lee: That’s very broad. Let me think for a while, and I’ll get back to ya, alright?]

A few moments passed before another message appeared.

[Lucy Lee: Honestly there isn’t that much to tell. If you didn’t notice, I really like PvP. There’s something about proving your skill and competence against another real breathing person. Masteria is basically heaven for that.]

[Lumi: Because of the realism?]

[Lucy Lee: Exactly. Every other game feels fake after this. The adrenaline is insane. Realistically, nobody can experience life or death combat IRL unless they join the military or become a criminal. Here, you can fight as hard as you want with zero consequences. It’s honestly the perfect PvP environment. I can feel pain and exhaustion. I move as if this was entirely real. And then there’s fear, you can feel when someone panics in this game. I love it.]

Lumi frowned slightly at that. From her perspective, her logic was completely sound.

And that was exactly the issue.

She didn’t have a single reason to believe that she was ruining lives. Why would she? As far as she was concerned, she was participating in high intensity competitive gameplay.

How exactly was he supposed to argue against that without revealing the truth?

He couldn’t explain that NPCs were real. He couldn’t just go and explain that widespread player killing slowed humanity’s overall growth. He couldn’t explain that wasting progression on hunting players instead of preparing for the future would eventually lead to real deaths.

As far as Lucy knew, she was simply using game mechanics efficiently. And honestly, from the perspective of a normal player, she wasn’t even wrong.

[Lucy Lee: Yeah, so the point I’m getting at, I’m good at PvP. I think somebody clipped me wiping a group by myself and posted it somewhere. A few days later I got a Nitro DM from some guy named Micheal inviting me to a private server.]

[Lumi: A private server?]

[Lucy Lee: Yep. Imagine my shock when I found out that it was an assassination server. There was this huge list of contracts. There were tons of names on it, though most payouts sucked. We didn’t really get a reason for killing. And the info on most of the guys sucked.]

[Lumi: And you actually took those contracts?]

[Lucy Lee: At first? Only the low level ones. Random dudes worth like fifty bucks, maybe a hundred. I figured the money was fake anyway, but I wanted to test it. And guess what? When I did it, the money actually showed up. After that I started taking it seriously.]

[Lumi: So then you went after me.]

[Lucy Lee: Yeah. Your contract was different though.]

Lumi raised an eyebrow slightly.

[Lumi: Different how?]

[Lucy Lee: The payout was absurd. Fifty grand. Also there was way more information attached to your contract than usual. Pictures, clips, reports on your abilities, known locations, your girl, Lena, theories about your class, all sorts of stuff.]

That made Lumi’s expression slowly harden. That was concerning.

An organized information gathering network this early into the game was not normal. Even large guilds in his previous life hadn’t become that coordinated until much later.

Which meant Micheal either had absurd resources or absurd competence. Potentially even both.

Not to mention... Fifty thousand? For killing him in a game?

That was insane. There was no way that anyone, no matter how dedicated or rich, would offer 50k to kill the top player unless they specifically had some sort of insider knowledge. Now the question was, what did this Micheal know about him?

[Lumi: What is Micheal like? Any other name he goes by?]

[Lucy Lee: Not really. Mostly just server announcements and payout confirmations. Dude talks like a corporate manager trying to sound mysterious.]

[Lumi: I see. Let me think.]

[Lucy Lee: You want in? Sorry man, given the 50k, I think the big man himself might have it out for ya.]

Lumi leaned back slightly in his seat, watching the forest canopy pass beneath the airship. No matter how he thought about it, he could not remember Micheal from his previous life. That alone bothered him. Someone with this much organization should have become noteworthy eventually.

Sure, perhaps they died early. Perhaps they stayed hidden due to unspecified reasons, or maybe they changed names.

Still...

Lucy herself vaguely rang a bell.

Not strongly, but enough that he felt certain he’d heard her name before. Which likely meant she eventually became important. And honestly, after speaking with her for only a few minutes, he could understand why.

Her mechanical skill was absurdly high for this stage of the game. More importantly, she had the exact sort of mentality combatants tended to require. She was calm under pressure, detached from emotion during fights, and capable of rapidly adapting after mistakes.

At this stage, she’d probably beat anyone under him in a straight duel besides Lena and himself.

Maybe Ryan or Gabriel if they got lucky.

[Lumi: How much have you made from the contracts so far?]

[Lucy Lee: Hmm. Couple thousand USD total? Hard to say exactly. Why? Wait, wait, I’m a genius. Stop right there, hear me out.]

[Lumi: Huh?]

[Lucy Lee: Listen to me. How about you do your raid thing. After that, meet up with me. I can kill you, then we split the money. 25k each, what do you think? It’s free cash, man.]