Trapped in a Game That Flopped

Chapter 53

Episode 53

"Hah, hah! Dammit, you rat bastard! We finally got you!"

Thwack, thwack!

Green Mask had managed to take down several men on his own, but it seemed to have been too much, as he was being kicked by a few who were still in relatively good shape.

[Black Syndicate Member 1]

[Black Syndicate Member 2]

[Black Syndicate Member 3]

White text floated above their heads as well, identifying them.

It seemed they couldn't even be bothered to name mere extras, a rather half-hearted naming job.

"Ugh..."

"To move this much even after being hit by a tranquilizer gun, he's really something."

"Well then, shall we take a look at the face of the 'great phantom thief' who's been giving us so much trouble?"

Gang Member 1 reached out and pulled back the hood Green Mask was wearing.

Green hair, reminiscent of lush foliage, was revealed under the warm sunlight.

"What, is it a girl?"

"Wearing a green mask just because he has green hair. What a tacky bastard."

Just as the gang members cackled and mercilessly tried to remove the mask.

Green Mask, who was on the ground, squeezed out his last bit of strength and resisted fiercely.

"...Let go!"

"This bastard, still...!"

"This isn't working. Shoot him with a few more tranq darts!"

While several men piled on to subdue the struggling Green Mask.

Suddenly, one of the men pulled a familiar pistol-shaped magic tool from his clothes and aimed it.

Psh, psh!

Hit with two more monster tranquilizer darts, Green Mask finally went limp.

"Monster-like bastard. It's damn hard to get one look at your face!"

The men, who had finally ripped off the green mask, whistled at the smooth face revealed underneath.

"Oho. Quite a..."

"Wait. This bastard, he's a half-elf, isn't he?"

Just then, someone pointed at the unmasked person's ears and shouted.

The pointed, curved-tipped ears were distinctly different from a normal person's.

"The boss was right, he said he might be a different race."

"This is great. He looks young from his build. We'll make good money if we take him and sell him."

"I have the restraint headband I got from the boss!"

One of them cackled and took something out.

A golden headband that looked like Sun Wukong's circlet.

It was a magic tool used to tame slaves; when an activation word was chanted, it sent an electric current into the wearer's head, causing extreme pain.

It was one of the vile items belonging to the leader of the Black Syndicate.

Of course, only the leader could inflict the pain, but once it was on, it couldn't be removed, making escape or resistance meaningless.

The man holding the restraint tapped Elaine's head with it, as if playing.

"Before we take him, maybe I should teach him the qualities he'll need as a sex slave?"

"Knock it off, man. Can't you see this one's a male bastard?"

"You don't know what you're talking about! Don't you know male half-elves are even more popular with the nobles?"

At that, the rest of the men cackled and agreed.

I looked with pity at the second main character being harassed.

Very unfortunately, in the original story, Elaine would have suffered an unspeakable, horrible incident here and been dragged off as a slave.

However...

'I can't let that happen.'

After all, I had hurried to the capital before the quest even started, just to prevent this.

I checked on Elaine's state, completely limp after being hit with the tranquilizer darts.

The reason I didn't save him immediately while he was being beaten was so I could appear to him as just a mere apothecary NPC.

Just then, Gang Member 3 grabbed Elaine by the hair and yanked his head up.

The golden slave restraint was just about to be placed on his green hair like a crown.

I stepped around the corner and muttered softly.

"Stun."

⚜ ⚜ ⚜

Elaine moved quickly into the Baron's room.

After infiltrating Baron Stallin's estate as a servant and observing for a week, he found that the Baron left the house immediately after a simple breakfast in the early morning.

He wouldn't return until after noon.

Elaine had seen him repeatedly instruct the butler to forbid entry to the room in his absence.

Perhaps because of that, no servants came near the second-floor hallway, where the Baron's room was, for the three hours until noon.

'This is going easier than I thought.'

Thanks to that, Elaine had identified the probable location of 'it' just one week after infiltrating the Baron's estate.

He searched the Baron's room quickly, silencing his footsteps.

Fortunately, it didn't take long to find what he was looking for.

The bottom drawer of the bedside table.

Unlike the other drawers, it had a small lock on it.

Elaine immediately picked up the lock to inspect it.

'It's a magic tool.'

He'd thought it was a simple lock for hiding something valuable, but it had no keyhole.

But no matter how powerful the magic on it, it was nothing to him, who had the ability to unlock all kinds of locks.

Things were going quite smoothly.

Smirking, he rubbed the lock and murmured softly.

"Unlock."

Click. As always, the lock opened anticlimactically.

He swiftly removed the lock and opened the drawer.

"...As I thought."

Inside was the very thing he had been looking for.

A pearl necklace with a large, green gemstone, similar in color to his hair.

'Belisser's Eye...!'

An ancient artifact, said to have been made by an Ancient Elf King, now lost to legend, who had plucked out his own eye to hide his daughter from humans.

'It's more ordinary than I expected.'

It was spoken of like a legend among the elves, so he thought it would be something incredible.

It was ornate, but it was just an ordinary accessory that a noblewoman might wear.

The nation had fallen before he was born, so Elaine had never seen 'Belisser's Eye'.

He knew nothing about it, other than its appearance as a necklace with a round, green gem.

However, the information came from his noona, who had attended to a high-ranking member of the organization at night, so it was certain.

'I don't know why they're suddenly bringing it out, after keeping it hidden and not even putting it up in the black market auctions.'

It seemed a noble had finally appeared, one who would pay the price they wanted.

Perhaps even royalty.

Baron Stallin was the middleman for the deal.

Those disgusting criminal organization bastards couldn't exactly deal directly with the high-and-mighty, after all.

'It's a stroke of luck that I can steal it before then.'

With this, he could free not only the elves but all the non-human races trapped in the black market and being sold as slaves.

Elaine, filled with hope, reached for the necklace.

The moment he gripped it.

Tick!

He felt something snap, and a loud alarm blared through the room.

Weeeee-ooong, weeeee-ooong...

"Dammit."

He had a chilling premonition that something had gone wrong.

Tatadadak.

Not even a few seconds after the alarm sounded, he heard fast footsteps outside the door.

'It's a trap.'

The moment Elaine shot up and ran for the window, the door burst open.

"There he is!"

"He's escaping through the window! Lock down the estate!"

The group of large men were clearly Black Syndicate members.

Despite the considerable height, Elaine leaped from the window without hesitation.

He rolled several times on the grass to land, then shot up before he could even feel the pain, running for the escape route he had secured earlier.

It was the path behind the estate, the one the servants used, heading for the side door.

But everyone he passed stared wide-eyed at him as he dashed by.

Even while fleeing frantically, Elaine felt puzzled by the unfamiliar stares fixed on him, and then he realized his disguise had come off.

"Fuck."

He hurriedly pulled the low-grade disguise artifact from his pocket and found it was broken in half.

It must have broken from the impact when he fell from the window.

He irritably threw the shoddy, not-even-low-grade artifact away.

It would have been better to use a more expensive one, but he had been especially short on money this month.

"There he is!"

"Get him!"

The gang members found him quickly.

It was because of his pointed ears, which marked him as a different race, and his hair color, which stood out even from a distance.

Elaine had no choice but to pull the robe and mask he usually wore for jobs from the small bag at his waist.

He carefully placed the stolen necklace inside it.

Tatadadak!

He ducked into an alley and quickly put on the robe and mask.

He would still be chased since they knew his identity, but he was confident he could lose them in the capital's alleys, which were as narrow and complex as an ant farm.

But he had overlooked one thing.

That the trap might not have been just on the drawer hiding the treasure, but on the treasure itself.

'Dammit! How do they keep following me?'

No matter how deep he hid in the alleys, he couldn't seem to shake them.

Just when he thought he'd lost them, they would appear again and resume the chase.

Elaine, who had been wandering the alleys without knowing why, was eventually cornered in a dead end.

"Hah, hah! Dammit, you rat bastard! We finally got you!"

He clenched his fists and fought to the end, but there were too many of them.

He tried to use the artifact in his bag as a last resort, but they were one step faster.

Psh.

Already exhausted from the earlier melee, he collapsed limply from the tranquilizer dart.

He struggled to hold onto his fading consciousness, but it was impossible.

'...Dammit, not the restraint. Please...'

The mask was finally torn off, and the slave restraint was just about to be placed on his exposed head.

"Stun."

Someone appeared in his dimming vision.

Pzzt, pz-zz-zt!

"Nnngh!"

"Aargh!"

"Urk!"

And unbelievably, the gang members all screamed and collapsed at the same time.

Was he already unconscious and having an absurd dream?

A figure, backlit, walked toward him.

"What, you're still conscious?"

"Who... are you..."

"Sorry. Stun."

With that voice, Elaine's memory cut off.