Second Genesis

Operation: Murderous Psychopath

Quest Rank: Uncommon

Mission Type: Mystery

Objective: Find and kill the real murderer

Description: A murderous psychopath who likes to take advantage of and mutilate vulnerable women seems to be on the loose, and yet you are taking the fall for heinous acts you did not commit. Them’s the breaks. Or are they? Find the one truly responsible and deal with them. Be careful in how you choose to progress.

Rewards:

>Common Pass: Feature presentation

>Perfect Pass: City Edict

—

The notification flashed along Joaquin’s screen and suddenly all of his internal irritation was gone.

’A quest...’

He tuned everything out and scanned the crowd around him. Now, what was the best way to deal with this?

It didn’t take long for Joaquin to decide. He opened up his status screen and pressed on a pinging notification that he had long since read.

The reward for first place upon entering the zone was the City Edict. However, places second to tenth also received a reward. It just wasn’t nearly as good.

—

Item: Useful Hint

Description: A token to be used in the most ideal of circumstances. Not sure where to start or what to do? Trigger a hint to amplify your chances of success.

Note: Must be applied under a narrow scope.

Uses: 1

—

Joaquin hadn’t been sure what a "narrow scope" was before, but now he knew. It had to be something like a quest or a specific task that needed to be completed.

Soon, a new notification was flashing on his screen.

—

Hint: Your target is currently leaving the city.

—

’A Feature Presentation. That’s what they spoke about in the tutorial, right?’

In the Genesis Games, your biggest currency was your brand. The world was too dangerous, and without help from the Producers and sponsors, you would quickly find yourself getting killed off.

Not only did you have to be interesting enough for the Producers to want to keep you around, but you also had to be likable to the audience, and that was often a very hard balance to strike.

People loved heroes, but heroes who always did the right thing were also boring unless they had a villain to match their stories to.

It seemed the Producers wanted to give him his villain.

Just killing this murderer would give him such a great reward. But to have a perfect clearance...

Joaquin’s mind started racing, and then his eyes landed on Elayne.

**

Grey raced out of the city, feeling much lighter than usual. Other than the utility belt around his waist, and the Nexis Suit covering his legs and feet, he wasn’t wearing anything else unless he counted May’s suit, which he had half bundled up, and half pulled over a forearm.

It was quite freeing in a way. The temperature wasn’t bad—not too hot, and certainly not too cold. It felt like he was going on any other run he ever had along the countryside.

This time, there was no odd edict coming down to shut down the city gates, so he ran right by the guards with ease and out into a space that seemed half forest, half ruins.

Grey was somewhat familiar with the outside of the city. In fact, he was far more familiar with it than he had been with the inside of the city. It could be said that he had spent by far the most amount of time out here.

During the registration period, the outside of the city became incredibly active. This wasn’t just due to the collapse of the Fog of Chaos around them, but also because each ruin region became like a forced battle.

One had to hop from ruin to ruin, clearing monsters, before one could find a ruin that had a registration altar. Unfortunately, not only did those registration altars have cooldowns, but they could only be used by a single person at a time.

Unsurprisingly, because Grey had been public enemy number one, he had to travel especially far away from the city before he could find one he could use. But by then, the monsters had grown so powerful he had ended up dying.

As one might expect, moving through a forest of ruins like this, where every pit stop was another forced battle, would be a complete nightmare normally.

Luckily, Grey had a map.

He oriented himself and then moved forward.

Soon, he had snaked by enough trees that he could see a toppled pillar in the not-too-far-off distance. Cobbled stone and collapsed marble formed what looked like a staged scene for a fallen society.

There was a light mist in the air that seemed to be a warning of the Fog of Chaos that could settle in at any time.

Grey cautiously moved forward, pulling out Ray’s longsword. His connection to it felt more solid than ever before.

’This is the most efficient direction to go.’

Grey’s gaze flashed with seriousness, the Looping Necklace dancing on his neck as though it sensed the change to his state as well.

A prickling sensation ran through his body as Grey stepped onto the cobbled stone of the ruin.

He gripped the hilt of the longsword with two hands as he felt a pulse of light radiate outward.

—

[Instance Battle Triggered — Lair of the Skrill!]

—

A head popped out from behind a fallen pillar. Hair that looked like it was formed of brown and black wiggling worms oozed with a foul smell down the creature’s scalp. Its face, though, was hidden behind a black mask that came straight out of a horror movie as it roared out a battle cry.

It leapt up from behind the pillar, its arms revving like engines as a pair of chainsaws buzzed to life on each forearm.

Its mask cracked into a bloody grin that seemed as permanent as if it was chiseled into stone.

It bent its knees and leapt at Grey, swinging down both its revving chainsaws at once.

’Damn, what the hell is this thing?!’