There’s no penalty for mission failure.
Well, there is one, but it’s not something to worry about.

‘They say up to three times is fine, so this time, I can afford to try something a little more challenging.’

Of course, I wouldn’t try something I couldn’t afford to fail at.
I wasn’t looking to lose on purpose.

Who would want to fail, even if I had the chance?

I only have three chances too.
I wasn’t about to throw away the little chance I had.

‘I’ll make it count.’

What I’ve done so far is just the groundwork to make it count.
I’d call it my own strategy to gather as much information as possible.

Of course, the others might see it differently.
But I wasn’t going to show any loyalty to strangers I didn’t even know.

Whooo—.

My phone kept vibrating.
I could feel it was being sent with quite a bit of anger.
I didn’t need to check to know what was coming.

I ignored the messages and didn’t look at them.

‘...Killing a police player brings extra penalties, huh?’

Increased notoriety, heightened suspicion.

What effects would that have?
It was easy enough to check.

“He looks scary.”
“Tsk, don’t point your finger like that.”

The notoriety makes ordinary NPC citizens keep their distance from me.
People who could be considered NPCs, ordinary citizens, started to move away from me.

‘The higher the notoriety, the more extreme the reactions around me, huh?’

Even if I took off my mask, the effects didn’t change.
Standing there without it, people still looked at me with distrust.

‘But it’s not that bad.’

At this level, it was hard to notice.
Killing a single police player didn’t amount to much.

So, what about the increased suspicion?

Nothing obvious immediately, but I had an idea.

‘This must be an advantage for the police players.’

Notoriety and suspicion are penalties for the thief who commits murder.
Looking at it from that perspective, the answer was more or less clear.

‘If I’m a thief, then I should act like one. Don’t try to overpower them, just steal quietly.’

It was absurd.

Whooo—. Whooo—.

The vibrations continued.
If they kept ignoring me, I would’ve stopped, but King of Thieves’ pride was relentless.

‘King of Thieves. Is he orthodox or unorthodox?’

I could get a rough idea of his nature from the name alone.
Having learned a bit about martial artists, I could make a shallow guess.

‘Poison is unorthodox, but "King" sounds orthodox.’

I had heard some basics of martial arts knowledge from Kim Min-seong.
That was around four months ago.

Honestly, I couldn’t remember much.
I had forgotten all of it.

So, I couldn’t be sure what sect he belonged to.
The only sect I knew was Eun Seoryeong’s Jeomchang sect.

At least, I had the Sail Sword technique to mimic.

[King of Thieves] ─ Enough. I’ll forgive your rudeness, but don’t create any more variables.
[Elise] ─ We need to work together. Charging forward recklessly isn’t the way to go. If suspicion gets too high, we won’t even be able to enter the museum.
[King of Thieves] ─ This damn bastard is ignoring our letters. What the hell is he doing? Does he think he can handle the aftermath?

It was noisy.

[EarthlingJJMan] ─ Haha.
[EarthlingJJMan] ─ Killing one cop, nothing happened.

I had only assassinated one police player.
The Blinding Poison Needle was the most reliable assassination method.

[King of Thieves] ─ Crazy bastard. It’s a miracle you only killed one cop. The more people you kill, the more suspicion rises. Don’t you understand what that means?
[EarthlingJJMan] ─ I didn’t know, or I wouldn’t have done it. You idiot. Haha.

Would I have done it if I knew the consequences?

“What an absurd guy.”

I waited for King of Thieves’ response.
But no reply came.

It seemed like he was cooling off.

In his place, Elise explained the consequences of heightened suspicion.

[Elise] ─ Suspicion makes it easier for police players to find thieves.
[Elise] ─ As you saw when you killed the police, even the police have artifacts. Their uniforms. When a player wears a police uniform, they’re standardized, just like thieves in masks. Do you understand what that means?
[EarthlingJJMan] ─ Got it.

It was easy to distinguish police players.
They openly flaunted their police status.

They stood out.

‘Same uniforms, same faces.’

After reading Elise’s message, it clicked.
It seemed like police uniforms had similar options to the thief’s mask.

‘So, when a thief fails a mission, that’s why clues are scattered at the police station.’

The structure was starting to make sense in my mind.

[Elise] ─ When suspicion increases, even if we’re not wearing the mask, they’ll still be able to identify us.

When a thief hides among civilians, the police wouldn’t be able to find them.
But when suspicion rises, things change.

‘I expected it, but it’s more powerful than I thought.’

I was lucky to have only killed one.

I had caused some trouble, but since I didn’t actually want to fail, I sighed in relief inwardly.

[King of Thieves] ─ You need to steal secretly. But you messed things up. Do you realize how big a mistake you’ve made?
[EarthlingJJMan] ─ Keep talking like that, and I’ll blow up the museum.

This guy.
From the way he’s reacting, he probably has at least 1 or 2 stacks.

[EarthlingJJMan] ─ Can you handle it?

No response from King of Thieves.

[EarthlingJJMan] ─ Anyway, what’s the plan for stealing the relic?
[Elise] ─ How about meeting up first?
[EarthlingJJMan] ─ Nah.

Meeting would be a loss.
Once we face each other, we’d start fighting with knives, and we all knew it.

‘A martial artist like King of Thieves would never let that slide.’

Those who are confident in their strength never hold back.
That’s why I wasn’t planning to join them.

‘It’s better when I’m anonymous.’

Elise’s plan was simple.

[Elise] ─ We know the location of the matchlock gun. While the others distract them, one person can infiltrate and bring it out.
[Elise] ─ The difficulty is high because there are many police and they have buffs. Stealing it isn’t too difficult, though.

The more I thought about it, the more the police faction seemed to have the advantage.
A half-hearted player would definitely be better off choosing the police faction.

[EarthlingJJMan] ─ Can you really distract them? After all, the police only need to guard the relic.
[Elise] ─ The police don’t know what we need to steal. Their task is to guard a large area.

The museum was bigger than I thought.
50 players wouldn’t be enough to guard it.

[EarthlingJJMan] ─ Okay. I’ll distract them.

This seemed like a better option than going in to steal it.

[King of Thieves] ─ You want us to trust you to infiltrate?
[EarthlingJJMan] ─ You don’t have a choice.

He had no right to refuse.
If I said I was going, he had to follow.

[Elise] ─ How do you plan to distract them?
[EarthlingJJMan] ─ I’ll do it with style.
[Elise] ─ Don’t kill civilians.

Elise gave a warning.

‘Yeah. If we wiped out civilians, the thief faction would have the advantage.’

The floor’s master had a job related to law enforcement in their past life.
They wouldn’t give any advantages to the thief faction.

The reward was raised to make it more reasonable.

[EarthlingJJMan] ─ Do you know how much the stat boost is?
[Elise] ─ If the civilian casualties exceed 10, the police player’s stats increase by 20.
[EarthlingJJMan] ─ Considering the number of people, it’s going to be tough to handle.

50 players with each stat boosted by 20.
Even Mana Experts would have a hard time breaking through.

‘Still, these guys are choosing the highest difficulty mission in the thief faction…’

Anyway, I had to admit that King of Thieves was powerful.

[EarthlingJJMan] ─ I’ll distract them carefully. Got it.

Elise put on the mask.
Once the mask was on, she looked like a third-rate thief.

King of Thieves wore the same mask.
It was hard to tell them apart.

The opposite of the police faction.
From the outside, they seemed so weak.

But they were stronger than anyone.
Only those confident in their abilities would dare to take on the highest difficulty missions in the thief faction.

Weak players couldn’t even think about attempting it.
Unless they were an anomaly like me.

“…Two uncontrollable ones.”

King of Thieves clicked his tongue.
Left alone with Elise, he seemed to let out his true feelings.

“Elise. Do you know what this EarthlingJJMan guy is doing?”

His slanted eyes, thin cheeks, and protruding cheekbones gave him a vicious look.
His face immediately felt off-putting.

Even Elise was cautious at first, his sharp looks were enough to make anyone wary.

“He’s a new player who just arrived today. I don’t know him, why would I?”
“Is that so?”

King of Thieves didn’t really expect Elise to know him.
He was asking because he was that angry.

“…Don’t kill him if you can. I know that killing a thief player doesn’t affect the mission, but still.”
“Hmph. Don’t tell me what to do. Do you think I need a reason to listen to you? You’re the one who said we should just focus on the mission equally.”

Elise nodded as if acknowledging.

“Yeah, I did. But the thing is…”

Her expression darkened.
It seemed like she was thinking about all the things King of Thieves had done.

“You’ve killed thief players. No one wants to apply for the mission now.”

King of Thieves’ reputation had spread among the thieves.

For missions with difficult difficulty, it was better to avoid applying at all.
Because if you’re not careful, you could end up being killed by another thief, not the police.

And so, they were struggling to recruit team members.
No one was applying.

Without enough members, the mission couldn’t proceed.
Elise was getting frustrated.

King of Thieves clicked his tongue in annoyance.

“The guys who heard my reputation are no use. Those guys, if we team up with them, I’ll die of a stroke before the mission’s even done.”

Reputation was something I was familiar with.
In the martial world, a name is strength, and rumors that make you seem strong are always welcomed.

King of Thieves had the ability to turn those rumors into reality.
There was no reason to refuse.

But in the Tower of Struggle, he had met too many stronger players than himself.

“…Heh, heh. It doesn’t matter who applies. We’ve got four people, that’s enough.”

For instance, the man squatting in the corner from the middle realm.
Even King of Thieves, who never thought of himself as handsome, couldn’t help but think he might be handsome compared to that guy.

King of Thieves frowned and turned his head toward the sound.

“Hehe. See? Four of us is enough.”

King of Thieves didn’t like him.
Even though he had a reputation for being a troublemaker, he still had his limits.

And in his opinion, the man he was with was crazy.
How could he look favorably on someone carrying around a zombie-like corpse?

‘Even the Mad Dogs aren’t like that.’

What was even more chilling was that the corpse was treated as a player.

‘Turning another player into a zombie like that.’

I didn’t want to get any closer.
If it weren’t for the mission, I’d have nothing to do with them.

Even the poison-master couldn’t handle the madness that was in the man.

“…Let’s call him, then.”
“If you promise not to fight.”
“Do you think I’m that foolish? I won’t do anything to mess it up. I’ve got a plan.”
“……”

With King of Thieves’ resolute words, Elise didn’t voice what she wanted to say.

“He’s probably not far. If you tell me the location, I’ll find him soon.”

But no matter how long we waited, EarthlingJJMan didn’t show up.
Instead, an incident occurred.

Whooo—.

[The ‘Police’ has been killed.]
[Notoriety increased.]
[Suspicion increased.]
[Police player’s stats increased by 1.]

“EarthlingJJMan? This damn bastard…”

King of Thieves gritted his teeth.