Second World

Kabaka was stunned when he saw the second Four Winds. This second one was pointing at him while yelling, "He is taking something from you!"

Kabaka looked down and realized the first Four Winds had his hand almost touching his body. That hand was now retracted dexterously. He barely saw something in that hand.

"Hehe," This first Four Winds chuckled before transforming into an ethereal player.

Four Winds had been charging at the imposter when he yelled his warning at Kabaka. He had his axes ready to swing. But when he used his Jump Assault to get into the melee range, the ethereal player waved at him provocatively before vanishing.

"What…?" Four Winds looked around. The ethereal player was nowhere in sight. He focused his mana sense to detect an invisible person, but he sensed no such person.

"What did he steal?" Four Winds asked Kabaka. He also saw something in that person's hand when that player moved away from Kabaka, but he couldn't tell what it was.

Kabaka had been checking his belongings. He went pale when he realized what the thief had stolen.

"He… He took my chief badge…," Kabaka uttered.

At that time, they heard commotions from the troops. They looked over and saw the troops were pointing in the direction of Lorethion. They then noticed that some sort of darkness was spreading above Lorethion. A huge ball of flesh was seen coming with this darkness. A ball with a huge eye and a huge mouth. Tentacles with eyeballs were wriggling all over this ball. It was the eldritch beholder.

She was not alone this time. Accompanying her were many balls similar to her appearance, only much smaller. They numbered in the thousands. These small beholders were opening and closing their mouths in what looked like a ravenous appetite.

Seeing those beholders, Kabaka said with a trembling voice, "I… I can't call Quetzalcoatl without my chief badge…"

*

The one who had stolen Kabaka's chief badge was none other than Speedrun, the Master Thief from World Maker. Speedrun used all three skills from his special class to pull off the heist just now. These skills were Master Steal, Master Disguise, and Exit Strategy.

The skill Speedrun received after becoming Master Thief was Master Steal. This skill allowed him to intrude on a target's inventory and steal an item. This included the player's inventory. However, only items with grades up to super rare could be stolen from a player's inventory, and it had to be unequipped. Equipped items couldn't be stolen. The longer the time he spent searching inside the inventory, the more likely he would be to get caught.

Master Disguise gave Speedrun the ability to disguise himself as a different person, which was normally only achievable using an item. By putting a mark on a target, he could transform into that target. Speedrun first targeted a random player within the Verremor's army, before using that disguise to roam among the Verremor players.

He was looking for a high-profile player or native to place a mark, one who could get him close to Kabaka. When he saw Four Winds come to meet with the guild leaders, he immediately seized the chance. He changed his mark before going to a secluded place and transformed into Four Winds. With this disguise, he made his way to Verremor's field command base.

After getting close to Kabaka, he used the Master Steal and started searching for the chief badge. Faction badges were special items that didn't have grades. They were stealable by Thief or Master Thief's skill, except these badges were not normally a favorite target to steal.

These badges served no use other than to the one they were registered to, so stealing them gave no benefit to the thief. They only served as an inconvenience to the badge holder. The badge could be remade from the faction. In some cases, a penalty would be applied for remaking a missing badge. In Kabaka's case, he could remake a new badge but he had to return to Verremor. If he did so, he wouldn't be able to return to the battlefield for some time.

In their current situation, losing this chief badge was not just an inconvenience. It put them in a precarious situation where they had to go against the enemy's country guardian without one of their own.

The third skill, Exit Strategy was the one Speedrun used to escape after acquiring Kabaka's chief badge. This skill required him to first mark a spot at one place. Later when he used the skill, he would be teleported to this marked place. The skill was similar to Arlcard's dark portal, except Exit Strategy only teleported the user alone.

All three skills were useless in combat, but Speedrun was never a combatant. He was a professional thief in real life. He went into the same profession after coming into this world. He even got a second-class special class from a quest he received out of his continuous thieving activity. The special class was Thief class.

He got caught when he tried sneaking into Liguritudum palace to look for things to steal. Master saw his potential and offered him the chance to serve him in return for his freedom.

Between choosing a life in servitude and a life in jail, it didn't take long for him to decide. Plus, he could just run away if he didn't like how things were going. He just needed to get out of jail first.

After being released, Master even had people help him get a special class that was even better than the one he had at the time. An upgrade to the Thief class, Master Thief. With this class, he was like a tiger with wings.

He even received a talent in the process, Deft Hand. This talent increased his success rate when stealing. The higher an item's grade, the lower the success chance of stealing. His previous class' steal skill had a low success chance. The Master Steal had a better success chance. Adding the Deft Hand talent, his chance of stealing the chief badge was 100%.

Out of gratitude for all these gains, he decided to continue serving Master and his guild. He was mostly tasked to steal items that had something to do with guild quests. This was the first time he was involved in something big like the war.

After coming out to the place where he had marked before, he looked at the armies that were about to clash. He was not fond of this violent activity. He had been avoiding such conflict as best he could. Now that his task was done, he didn't want anything to do with this war.

When he was about to walk away, he caught sight of Lorethion's palace. It looked very grand. He wondered what treasure was inside. He glanced at the armies again. Now that everyone was out there fighting, perhaps no one was guarding the palace.

Since he had helped Mistress obtain a winning chance, she shouldn't mind if he took one or two things from the palace, should she?

With that thought, Speedrun walked toward the palace.