She told me there were stronger player killers downtown. She said they were not dumb street thieves. They had skills, traps, and bait of their own.
Then she said a name that made even nearby A-ranks pretend they were not listening.
Owen.
He was not the highest ranked player in the city. He was the most feared. His rank may have been higher by then, but he hid his exact strength using items and rumors. He did not rob people in alleys. He built little disasters and waited for good players to make mistakes. He would send weak players crying for help, then ambush the rescuers. He would drop supplies near monster nests and kill whoever came to collect them. He did not attack first unless he knew he could twist the situation.
Grace said my trick would not work on someone like him.
I lowered my rank to F in front of her and asked if she wanted to bet snacks.
She did not laugh.
Riley did, when I told him later. He laughed so hard he spilled monster powder into his noodles, which made them glow purple. Then he said Owen was exactly the kind of person who would see an obvious trap and attack it just to prove he was smarter than the trap.
That was useful.
Arrogance is not confidence. Confidence helps you win. Arrogance makes you audition for the role of example.
Before chasing Owen, I needed upgrades. Not because I was scared. Because I was starting to enjoy winning with style, and style required tools.
Riley took me to a market under an overpass where players traded monster cores, skill shards, and stolen goods they swore were definitely not stolen. A safe zone crystal hummed above the center, but the alleys around it were dark enough for trouble.
Perfect place for shopping.
I set my rank to F and walked through the market with a pouch of cores tied openly to my belt. Riley stared at me like I had brought a steak into a wolf shelter. I told him it was advertising.
Within five minutes, three different groups tried to follow me. Within seven, a fake merchant offered me a cursed dagger for all my cores. Within ten, someone slipped a hand toward my pouch.
I caught the wrist gently. The thief smiled and said it was an accident.
I smiled back and said, "Accidents should not involve poison needles."
His other hand came up with a blade. Red sparks. The market turned to look. I revealed S-rank pressure. The thief tried to swallow his own scream.
I did not knock him out immediately. I let him call his friends.
That was the beauty of looking weak. Bad people hated being embarrassed by weak people. If one got caught, the others had to prove it was a fluke.
Five came from the left alley. Two dropped from the overpass. One burst out of a stall covered in fake blankets.
I flickered my rank back to F right before each of them attacked, because the system only needed them to choose violence. Then the S-rank returned like a golden hammer.
I used the cursed dagger without buying it. The fake merchant had left it on the table, so I kicked the table up, caught the dagger by the handle, and threw it through the shadow of a dangling tarp. Shadow step pulled me with it. I appeared above the overpass, grabbed one falling player by the ankle, and used him like a pendulum to kick another off the railing.
Riley shouted that I was going to damage the merchandise. I shouted back that the merchandise started it.
The safe zone crystal collected the red marked attackers in bright chains. Their stolen goods dropped in piles. The market cheered only after it was safe, which was normal. People loved justice after someone else paid for it.
Riley used my share of the loot to forge my first real weapon. He called it a chain blade. I called it extremely unreasonable.
It looked like a black bracelet around my wrist until I pushed mana into it. Then it unfolded into a chain of segmented blades, each link shaped like a crescent moon. I could use it like a whip, a sword, a hook, or a very rude jump rope. Because it was made from dungeon boss film, it also held afterimages. When I swung it, fake blades trailed behind the real one.
For a man pretending to be weak, I was becoming hard to ignore.