Chapter 1677 1677. A Covert Payback for a Covert Transgression

From one of the palace's windows, Speedrun saw Mistress and her subordinates leave the palace. He didn't care what those people were doing, but the palace had become even emptier with them gone. He could freely move around.

He continued walking around the halls looking for valuable items. Normal people might think that if there were any treasures inside a palace ruled by a player, those treasures would have been taken already. A player had an inventory system, they could store valuables in their inventory rather than letting these valuables lay in the open. Players' inventory system might have limited space but there were some ways to solve this, such as the bank or guild vaults. Hence, most would think what Speedrun was doing to be pointless.

Yet, Speedrun knew from experience that players were mostly insensible. Whether in real life or games, people tend to overlook the mundane. In games, valuable items used to be marked with glows or glitters. In real life, valuable items were usually associated with things that appeared ornate or were made of expensive materials. Most wouldn't spare a glance at things that seemed like everyday stuff, much less bother to use Inspect.

However, Speedrun had found several valuable items among this so-called mundane-looking stuff. As proven, since he started searching around the palace, he had found five such valuables. They were all only rare grades and below, though. He hadn't found any real valuables so he continued to search.

He entered a deserted warehouse which from a first glance, seemed like the place where people stored unwanted items. A normal thief would have turned away at a glance, but not Speedrun. He walked inside and gave the room a quick sweep. He then started rummaging the place.

There were many closed crates in this room. He opened them up and browsed their contents. It would take too long if he constantly used Inspect on every item he saw, but he always had a good eye and nose for covert valuables.

As he was still rummaging, he thought he heard something from behind. He quickly swiveled to his back. No one.

He needed to make sure. He looked around the room to see if any people were hiding. There was no one. Now that he thought about it, why would people hide from him? He should be the one who hid. If palace occupants saw him, they would have shouted at him. Realizing this, he turned back to check the stuff. But first, he closed the door to the room. Couldn't hurt to be cautious. If someone did come, he should hear the door getting opened and have a brief time to hide.

He continued opening one crate after another and checking their contents. After opening almost ten crates, he held in his hand the first thing that drew his attention. It was a blank picture frame. Anyone would see this thing as junk but his instinct told him that what he held was more than a normal picture frame. So, he used his Inspect and found that the picture frame was a unique-grade item.

"Bingo!" He exclaimed.

As he declared the triumphant statement, he sensed a tingling from inside him. Or more correctly, a tingling from the link between him and his inventory. His mind instinctively went into his inventory just in time to see a hand inside there before disappearing soon. He briefly saw something in that hand's clutch.

"What…?" His mind returned outside. He again acted on instinct and turned back. This time, he found someone there. A native who was dressed up in some sort of a black ninja suit. He recognized the native's hand. It was the same hand that was inside his inventory earlier. He then noticed this native's other hand was holding a dagger.

Before Speedrun could react, that dagger pierced into his heart. A damage number appeared above him and he found himself unable to move. That stab just now produced a Stun effect. The ninja in front of him then turned into a blur as multiple lights flashed around him.

Before he knew it, he was down on the floor with a grey vision. As he lay there, still confused, he realized he hadn't stored that picture frame in his hand in his inventory. It's too late to do that now.

The ninja who had killed Speedrun was Hatori, Jack's newest royal agent. The scent from his Track Missing Object brought him to Aurebor palace. With how the palace was deserted, he searched for Speedrun without obstacles, but he still used Hide to keep himself unseen.

When he sensed the scent was getting stronger, he knew Speedrun was close. He cast the Invisibility spell then. Hide skill maintained its invisibility by staying away from people. If someone got close, the hide skill was deactivated. So, he used the spell to get close to Speedrun.

The reason he needed to get close and not directly attack Speedrun once he found the thief was so he could get the stolen item back. Track Missing Object didn't just let one track the object, it also gave the skill user the ability to retrieve the missing object, even from an outworlder's inventory. He needed to get close, though, just like how Speedrun needed to be close to Kabaka when he used the Master Steal skill.

Unlike the Master Steal, Track Missing Object only let Hatori get the missing item, he couldn't get any other item from Speedrun's inventory. There was still a chance of failure to get the item out unless the skill was fully leveled, which was so in Hatori's case. But even with a 100% success chance, Hatori could still fail if he was found out by Speedrun before his hand grabbed the stolen item. If the missing object failed to be taken out and the thief fled, the Track Missing Object was ended and its cooldown began. Hatori wouldn't be able to track the missing object again until the cooldown was done. He would then have to restart the skill by touching Kabaka again.

Luckily, he was successful in his mission. Once Kabaka's chief badge was safe in his hand, he no longer needed to be covert. He used Critical Stab, a non-standard Assassin skill that guaranteed a critical. Additionally, he had an ambush bonus because Speedrun was caught by surprise.

The ambush and critical effect of that one stab almost took out Speedrun's HP. When Hatori saw that Speedrun had not died, he followed up his attack using Deadly Flash Strikes.

Speedrun carried a sacrificial dummy that was given by Master. Unfortunately, deadly flash strikes delivered multiple slashes. The sacrificial dummy was used in the middle of the slashes and the next slash after that took out Speedrun's life.

Speedrun died in disbelief that an expert covert agent like him fell into the hands of another covert agent.

Hatori was just about to leave but he noticed the blank picture frame Speedrun had been clutching at the moment of his death. Out of curiosity, he used Inspect. He was surprised after reading the description. He picked up that picture frame and ran out of the room.