MMORPG: Rise of the Peerless Pumpkinmancer

Next to Timber City, a meeting was currently in progress, a little wolf excitingly proposing plenty of ideas.

"Woo!" (Start a fire!)

"Woo!" (Macabre Legion!)

"Woo! Woo!" (Make one big barbecue! One that smells nice!)

The last one was definitely the best! There was no way that anyone would be able to resist the attraction of scrumptious meat cooked to perfection.

"It might indeed attract plenty of civilians, but it won't be sufficient. After all, there is one thing that we require, and that's chaos. We need the soldiers to be overwhelmed."

One had to know that the greatest chaos came from a disaster, whether it was monsters, enemies, or a natural catastrophe.

Jack gave a wry smile as he grabbed the Fairy, who had been warmly napping in his pocket. As she rubbed her expressive sleepy eyes, he whispered her a few words.

"?!?"

"Can you do it?"

"Pfft— Yes!" She giggled as she flew away, leaving a puzzled wolf behind. Jack grabbed his companion, and they too departed in another direction….

━━━━━━ POV ━━━━━━━

Plenty of listless rough-looking men crowded around a few campfires gloomily as they devoured roasted Big Scaled Lizards.

"Boss, we found something!" In the gloomy silence, the exclamation caught everyone's attention as one of the bandits came running.

"?"

"Boss, we found this in the empty treasury. It was wedged between two rocks. Whoever left it there obviously wanted us to find it!" He respectfully presented a piece of paper.

The Boss started reading, only for his face to turn purple.

"Thanks for the treasure! Don't worry. I'll make great use of it. ;)"

* PS: You guys mad? Too bad you can't do anything to me in the City, haha.

— One Incredibly Handsome Young Master

This whole letter's sole purpose was to humiliate them! What was even the point of it?! This fucker was adding taunting to injury!

Many bandits couldn't help but gulp as they saw their leader's rage induced-expression….but then he suddenly started chuckling.

"Good. Good, very good!" He repeated a few times. Had he lost his mind?!

"C-chief?"

"Smell it!" He pushed the letter straight in front of his subordinate's nose. At first, there was a moment of confusion, but then the man too started laughing.

"?!?"

"Men, this dumbass made an incredible mistake! We'll be able to find whoever did this easily thanks to this letter!" He clamored.

"B-boss, I've already tried a basic tracking spell and—"

"Hehe, of course, he hid that. No, we'll follow our nose. That will lead us straight to the culprit!" He sneered, already preparing for a campaign.

There were actually many misconceptions about bandits.

1. Bandits couldn't enter the City —> They would steal and occasionally murder, but the dirty work was mostly left to underlings. The karma system wouldn't detect the higher-ups' crimes.

2. Bandits were dumb —> That was straight-up false. While they pretty much all lacked any kind of formal education, they were amazing at surviving in the wild.

It really seemed like the thief hadn't known much about them, for he had utterly screwed up. Removed all traces? As if!

The letter reeked of Aldar Berries! It only grew in the mountains, was hard to access, even harder to gather, and was mainly only used as a spice (not too valuable).

Thus, barely anyone bothered to ever gather it, much less sell it.

For the letter to reek so much, the man obviously had too much for his personal consumption.

Find the Aldar Berries —> Find the thief!

They left hurriedly, hungry for revenge. They were already clamoring about all the ways they'd torture the bastard who had tricked them.

In the sky, a tiny Fairy watched them march to war flabbergasted. The human world sure was a complicated place….

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Jack and wolf were in a stakeout when they suddenly saw a group of muscular laborers pass through. They seemed as poor as healthy, walking in groups for protection.

"Woo?"

"Yes, that's the bandits."

Jack had to admit that their disguise was extremely convincing. Had it not been for the timing, even he would have been fooled.

There were a few villages in the mountain, and they looked just like any residents there. Heck, they had even changed their way of speaking. Boss, Leader, Chief —> Elder

Jack hurriedly grabbed some paper and charcoal as he started drawing. His brows were furrowed in concentration, finding this task even harder than fighting a Boss.

[Drew a bandits' portrait!]

[Congrats! It's horrible!]

"…."

"Woo!" (Draw me, draw me!)

"Pfft— We have a job to do, remember. Here, take it!"

The two departed, the wolf resolving itself for its next tasks. Agent Zero Zero Moon would be the one to spearhead this operation.

Everything would depend on its abilities. It would be the difference between a slight commotion and an incredibly effective diversion.

It was time to escalate things even more….

━━━━━━ POV ━━━━━━━

"Bo— Elder, that was close!" The bandits heaved sighs of relief after being allowed inside the City.

They had been worried when they had seen the increased guard at the gate. Luckily, they had passed through without any issue, all thirty of them.

"I wonder how evil the bastard they're hunting for is…."

"Evil? You mean stupid, right? Sneaking in was so easy!"

They chuckled as they kept searching. It barely took them a few minutes to locate an herb shop, the "Old Sage".

The woman in charge was perfect at her job. When asked if she had any Aldar Berries, she recommended about a dozen other herbs that had similar properties…

"%$!!"

"Listen, lady. We just want Aldar Berries and nothing else!!"

"I'm telling you, just trust me for…." She kept rambling akin to a chatterbox, unaware of the danger she was in.

The bandits were tempted to drive a knife into her throat with each of her words. Sadly, things just didn't work like that here. #Lawful City Problems.

They were soon forced to tour the entire city in search of valid information. Everywhere it was similar, with merchants being awfully annoying.

When they finally got a lead, they cried in happiness.

"Aldar Berries? You're in luck! An hour ago, some youngster came by, bringing a bunch. He said something about a surprising windfall."

"Shopkeeper, where's that guy now?! What did he look like? Where did he go?! Please tell us!!" The burly men all shouted in unison. They were desperate.

"What? I can't just—"

"Here's a token of our appreciation, shopkeeper!" The bandit leader handed the man the very last of the gold he had.

"….Lad, that's not even enough to buy the Aldar Berries I have here, you know."

Fight? —> Too risky

Abandon? —> Settle for Poverty

Negotiate? —> What could he even offer?

"How about this?" The bandit leader wept as he handed his favorite magical ring over. The shopkeeper accepted it gleefully, instantly becoming talkative.

Their party soon left the shop carrying Aldar Berries, sorrowful but having obtained the youngster's description. Their hunt could finally start!…

—

A young man had been having a wonderful day.

As soon as he had woken up, he had finally confessed to the maid his family had hired for him. She had accepted his feelings!

Then he discovered he had a godly talent for something called "cultivation" from a wandering master. He had even managed to convince the man to sell him a training scroll.

Just as he thought the world couldn't be better, he had suddenly met a kind stranger who wanted to donate Aldar Berries because he simply had too many.

Today had really been a blessed day! From love to power and even luck, everything had been going his way…HAD! He had been kidnapped!

The first thing he saw when he came back to his senses was a bunch of scary-looking men. They were all staring at him as if they wanted to devour him whole.

"Hehe, we finally found you! Now, where's our treasure?"

"W-what?!?"

"No need to play dumb. We know what you did. You thought yourself clever, eh? Or perhaps did you think us dumb, punk!"

"W-what?!?"

"Say what one more time, I dare you!" The bandits' tone couldn't be more aggressive. They had to endure so much just to find this asshole!

"Let's play a game, shall we? I'll keep chopping finger after finger until you finally tell me what I want to know. How does that sound?"

"Horrible!!! That sounds horrible!!!! If it's money that you want, I'll—"

"Money, money?! We want what you stole from us, you dirty rat! Don't even try to deny it. You're the only one that sold Aldar Berries in the City recently!"

"Berries?! It was a gift! Some stranger gave them to me!" The youngster kept screaming.

But, who were the bandits? Hardened men that weren't afraid of thieving, lying, and murdering to get their hands on wealth. To them, his resistance was normal.

"As expected, he won't simply admit to it. Still, no matter everyone talks…." They grinned as they got started.

What followed was one horrible mess. The poor man wanted nothing but to be truthful, and yet no matter what he said, they just wouldn't stop.

As more and more fingers fell, the bandits even started to feel relief. All the anger they had been bottling all this while was getting released. It felt so damn good!

"AARRGGG!!!!"

"Pllleasseee! Let me go!!!"

There simply was no end to the suffering. Only when their prey had no finger left did the bandits come to their senses.

"He still hasn't given up?!"

"Apparently not…."

"Wait, guys!!"

The youngster looked up with hope. Would it finally end? He just wanted to crawl back home in the arms of his maid. He just wanted to…

"No need to worry! He still has toes!" Sadly, the suffering was far from over.

But just as they approached the knife once more, a commotion was heard outside, one of theirs quickly checking what it was.

"Boss, bad news. I think we kidnapped a noble…."

Fuck! They all knew what this meant. Their simple interrogation operation had suddenly turned quite dangerous...