Pride Online

Chapter 88: Split Part II

“Hunters?” The man repeated, not quite understanding what his friend was trying to show him. But before he could ask, the gunner just sent a long text for him to read instead.

‘A warning to everyone. Right now, the hunters have gone out of control. Yesterday, I just encountered them myself. So, I beg the GMs to please do something to catch them. We all got attacked, and now we wouldn’t like to travel anywhere.’

After that, Maysa stopped scrolling at a long comment from someone.

‘I just met them, too. A couple of days ago, my friends and I were farming around Ziggard. It was just normal at first, but suddenly a group of 7 men came surrounding us out of nowhere. And they didn’t even say anything, just kept attacking us.

We could fight them back at first because their levels were lower than ours. So, we were quite confident. But after we fought for a while, somehow my body and my friends’ got heavy for no reason. We thought we might get cursed by some mages, so we tried to use items and skills to dispel the debuff, but nothing was working. We even tried to use the dispelling marble, but it was still no use. And eventually, we got killed by them.

And the most important thing was that after I died, they just went straight and robbed my item, even though there is a game system that prevents the players from taking the items without permission unless the items are transferred directly. To be honest, I was very shocked then, and they took only the golden ring Bastart, my only S ranked item. I couldn’t find them until now, and the GMs couldn’t find them either. So, you guys need to take care of yourselves. Don’t rely on the GMs too much. They won’t show up and help you every time like they always say.”

After Wisana finished reading, he scrolled down to see many more comments from the victims sharing their familiar stories about getting killed and robbed shamelessly by the hunters, too.

“Now, you know who the hunters are, right?” Maysa asked eventually.

“Yup.” The man nodded. “These bastards seem kind of dangerous.”

“Very.” She added. “Last night, I did some research about this, and I found a website that was Pride’s dark market. So, I sense that these hunters have something connected to the dark market for sure.”

“Dark market?”

“It’s that place where people trade rare items from the game with real money.”

“Huh?! There’s a place like this, too?” The pair of golden eyes widened with shock.

“Yes, there is, and it’s totally illegal.” After she Finished, Maysa opened a homepage of a website called Black Pride. The page did not have any decorations, except for a black background and boxes to fill user passwords and IDs.

“I don’t have an ID, so I can’t get into the website to see more of it. And I guess it needs quite many strings to pull to get one.” She complained, before letting out a hard sigh. “That’s why I think the hunters have something involved with the dark market, definitely.”

“You’re saying that these players steal stuff to sell it on the dark market?”

“Yup.” Maysa nodded in reply. “A huge amount of money flows in this kind of business. I heard an S ranked, a rare item that’s worth about 100 million, can be estimated in real money to be about fifty thousand baht.”

“Fifty thousand?!” Wisana repeated, eyes bulging.

Because fifty thousand could even buy a motorcycle!!

“And is there someone who’d actually pay for it? I mean... it’s fifty thousand.”

“What are you saying, Wisana? There even was someone who paid a million.”

“Huh?! A million?!”

“Yes,” Maysa affirmed with a serious voice that got the other one gasping up and down.

A million?! Someone actually paid that much for an item in a game?!

“Well, you know this country has many crazy rich people.” The woman said with a shrug. “And they’re the type that will do anything to get what they want. So, this is not different from some high-class people buying jewelry just to show off with each other. Let me ask you what’s so good about those shining rocks? They’re useless, except for weighing around the neck. And people still pay millions for them. So, it’s just the same as buying these game items.”

Listening to the explanation, the amber eyes looked down as a bad feeling flooded in his heart.

“And their insatiable greed makes a profit for these thieves.” Maysa carped. “The most important thing is that the thieves are pro programmers as well. For all that I know, they’re the ones who write various cheating programs.”

“Cheating programs?” Wisana raised his eyebrows.

“Yeah. It’s like when you put in some codes that will make you immortal in a game. It can be a program that refills your HP after getting attacked. If there’re HP potions with them, the user just can’t die.”

“That’s not fair.” He muttered.

“There’s also a program that gives you an ability to teleport to anywhere, too. Or a program that marks monster’s locations for you with the monster’s information and the time it respawns completely.”

The more he listened, the tighter his eyebrows knitted, questioning that people really needed a cheating program just for playing a game? Just people who wrote these programs were bad enough, but the players who used them were even worse.

They could not even stand some basic inconvenience in a game. Then how would these players deal with the daily basics in their real lives?

Since real life did not have a cheating code to make it easier for them!!

An irritation came to his mind uncontrollably. That was when Wisana glanced at Waree who was still sleeping not very far from him. A slight smile and blushing cheeks were on her pretty face. Her long eyelashes were curving as they closed.

She always smiled delightedly. He remembered how her expression looked when she was talking about the Pride proudly, as well as the sadness that unconsciously blended in her voice. So, he did not want to imagine how bad Waree would feel when she found out that the game she loved so much, was taken advantage of by these people.

Just thinking that he had to breathe the same air as them, it was just too frustrating!

“What’s wrong, Wisana?” Maysa asked carefully when she saw the other got quiet for too long. And that was when he got himself together and unclenched his fists. The boy turned to smile at his buddy to cover up, even though the smile was too dry.

“You feel bad to know that there’re people like this in the game?” The girl asked, so straightforward that Wisana had to avoid her eyes.

“A little bit.”

“Come on!” She said as she was patting him on the shoulder. “There’re some bad guys in every place, aren’t there? Don’t mind these people too much. It’s like we and they are in different worlds anyway.”

Wisana nodded in reply to her words and could not help but look at Waree who was sleeping soundly for another time. He just hoped that she would think like Maysa because he would not stand his sister being upset about this.

“And why are you suddenly interested in these guys?” Wisana asked.

“Well, I just want to learn something from them.” The chief of staff replied quickly, her finger clicking for more information casually. And the other just glanced at her curiously.

“What’s something?”

“Their cheating tactics and how they attack.”

“Why would you want to know that?” Hearing this question, Maysa stopped reading the screen to look at the other in the eyes instead. Then there was an evil smile appearing on her pretty face. The cunning smile that Wisana had not seen for a while got him a shiver. He remembered well about the last time Maysa smiled like this. It was when they fought with that Lord Inferno!

"Of course," she retorted in a high tone, "I’ll learn it to figure out how to fight them!"

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