Peace is an Illusion

Wade needed to wait an hour before he had to go protect Mr. King on his speech. Wade arrived home and sat down on a couch before throwing the gun case down beside him. He then took out a map and laid it out on the table across him.

Wade then grabbed a marker and started marking areas where he could see and kill all assassins within a large radius.

He marked out 3 spots then X'ed out two of them before circling the last one.

The spot he had selected was one with camouflage and range. It was on top of a rusted water tower. This water tower was quite large and bigger than most of the buildings in the city.

Wade had spent quite a lot of time thinking about which spot to pick and there was 15 minutes before Mr. King's speech on the stage.

Wade took out his binoculars and scouted out the top of the water tower a mile away and noticed a man with a duffel bag in his hand as he climbed up the water tower.

He removed the futuristic sniper rifle from its case before using the iron sight to fire a plasma bullet toward the man. Wade slowly walked toward the water tower with a bandana around his face and a sleek black and blue sniper rifle in his hands.

As the plasma bullet hit the man, he fell and hit the ground with a satisfying splat.

When he arrived at the water tower a few minutes later he saw a man with a hole in his head and his legs twisted unnaturally.

Wade stepped over the man and started climbing up the water tower with his sniper rifle slung over his back.

As he reached the top of the tower, a voice rang out in his pocket.

"Mr. Unknown Bodyguard, I'd like to advise you to get into position as Mr. King is now coming out onto the stage."

The voice warned Wade as Wade answered

"I already took out one assassin. Call me Shadow. I don't like being called an unknown bodyguard."

"Hmm, nice. We need you to confirm that there are no more assassins."

Wade checked around all the possible spots for there to be a sniper and he replied again in a boring tone

"There's no snipers so it's your job now, not mine."

"I appreciate the help but I'd like you to keep an eye out in the crowd for suspicious people. An extra eye on the rooftops can help us a lot."

"Very well."

Wade knew they would ask him to look into the crowd so he just left his sniper rifle on its stand and used his binoculars to check for any possible suspicious characters.

Eventually, he found one at the back of the crowd with his hand touching a bulge in his pocket.

"One in the back of the crowd, brown leather jacket, blue jeans, blonde hair, and a couple of people behind him. I can already tell it's a gun. Permission to fire?"

Wade asked to confirm as if he shot and got arrested it would be harmful for business in the future.

"You have permission to fire. Mr. King told us to kill anyone who you can tell has malicious intent."

"Firing."

Wade aimed for the head as always and fired off 7 quiet shots at the 7 suspicious people. They all hit the skull and pierced through their mouths.

"7 headshots, 7 kills."

He reported as he let his gun regenerate its energy. Wade's sniper rifle had the ability to switch between energy bullets and physical bullets. However, it was more convenient to use the energy bullets as they would disappear after being absorbed into the target's body.

Wade heard a clanking noise behind him and saw a man climbing up the water tower with a knife in his hand and a pistol in his pocket.

He waited for the man to climb up to the top before grabbing him, taking his knife, and throwing him down the other side of the water tower.

Another splat sound was heard and a drop of blood landed on Wade's face right below his eye. Wade wiped it off with his hand while aiming through his scope again.

This time it was quite dull as no assassins were trying to take Mr. King out as he was talking about world peace and democracy.

Wade decided to leave as he saw no more suspicious individuals and climbed down the ladder of the water tower.

When Wade reached the bottom, there were 5 men in suits waiting for him.

"Good job indeed. Taking out 8 of our best men and we were even trying our best."

One of the men in suits wore sunglasses and was clapping when he reached the bottom.

Wade grasped the knife he stole tightly as he stood in a combat stance getting ready to fight if need be.

The 5 men pulled out various weapons and started equipping them onto their bodies.

Wade didn't allow that to happen and threw his knife toward the head of the clapping man while grabbing his sniper from his back and firing off 3 shots toward 3 people equipping body armor and knives.

The 3 people didn't have time to respond and were killed while the man caught the knife in his hand and looked at it curiously.

"You thought a knife could kill me?"

The man laughed as he played with Wade's knife in his hands.

"Not the knife but the bomb I attached to it."

As soon as he said that the man tried to throw the knife away but the bomb exploded in his face killing him instantaneously.

The bomb that Wade employed was one that he had designed specifically to grab enemy weapons and attach onto to explode their owners.

There were now only 4 people who were done arming themselves up and stood in various martial art stances.

"You don't think martial arts can block a bullet. Especially a plasma one, right?"

Wade laughed as he fired 8 bullets within a few seconds toward the 4 men.

The two bullets that he had fired toward each man accurately hit their vitals and killed them.

"Whew. It's been a long time since I've had so much action. Assassination truly isn't as satisfying as watching people's confidence disappear entirely after realizing the bullet's right in front of them."

Wade shook his head as he grabbed the men's knives, swords, and guns.

He could sell these weapons for a decent price.

******************

A few minutes later...

After Wade had finished grabbing all the men's weapons and storing them in a familiar duffel bag, he left.

"I'm done protecting your boy. Pay me once he's done with his unsuccessful peace speech."

"Wait. Why do you say peace is unsuccessful? It's worked well in many situations", a female voice asked.

Wade chuckled before talking back to the transceiver

"Peace is an illusion. Control is an illusion. And happiness itself is part of that illusion. Have you seen countries throw away their military yet? Of course not. Which means that they are still preparing for war. Have you seen criminals that want peace? No, they just want the shortcut way to an easy life. That easy life is also an illusion. People in the black market never live for long and neither do bodyguards or assassins like me. If you haven't seen enough examples, go look back in history. History has many examples of people who wanted peace and did they succeed? So what's the difference between the today before and the today now? There is no difference. I'll meet you guys tomorrow at the same place we met before. Give me the money there."

Wade threw the transceiver to the ground and stomped it into pieces before leaving with a slight smile.

"Foolish girl. Peace is not something achieved by us but by some kind of higher power."

Wade walked toward his home with the sunset shining on his face as he talked to himself indistinctly.

************************

Samantha threw the transceiver down angrily.

"Who does he think he is. Peace is something gained and not something defined by those peacemakers in the past. If you conquer the whole world will there be national peace? Damn it. He did make a good point though. Now I'm confused about whether I should support my father on this world peace suggestion. I'll just ask father about it when he gets back from his speech."

Samantha then sat down in the chair exhausted from her chaotic thoughts and she decided to wait until her father came back to calm her thoughts.

**********************

When Wade arrived home, he decided to cook some food and put on some calming music. He planned to go into the game after finishing up a shower and eating some food. After he took his shower he felt refreshed and he decided that working out was the best way to keep his physique up as his night and day jobs wouldn't be valid anymore due to his bodyguard job. He planned to buy some exercise equipment tomorrow after he slept.

Wade jumped into his bed and relaxed as he began to sleep. The familiar dark red light surrounded his body and after a second it disappeared entirely.

*********************

When Wade woke up in the inn's bed, he noticed another system notification.

[The Leaderboard function has been unlocked]

[Congratulations to the first people to reach level 15]

[The first 10 people who have reached level 15 first are:

Unbreakable Defense, Fire Chaser, Poison's Embrace, Anonymous, Anonymous, Anonymous, Anonymous, Nature's Binding, Healer's Fight, Unseen]

Wade didn't care about these people who showed their name to the leaderboard because his stats were probably at least 3x higher than theirs even if they were level 20. He checked the Leaderboard and it was in the exact same order that the first people who reached level 15 were in.

Wade decided to go to his casual grinding spot on the outskirts of the Beast Forest.

However, when he arrived, he was in for a surprise. An entire team of females was surrounding the wolves that Wade usually massacred and mowing them down with various spells with the biggest spell and most damaging spell being a fire spell that a female mage wearing red attire in the middle of the group had fired.

Wade walked past a wolf that was fleeing towards him and when it passed him he didn't even look and sent a dagger down straight onto its throat.

"Hey, why'd you steal our kill."

The female mage wearing the red clothes protested as Wade sent another dagger down the throat of another fleeing wolf.

"Hey, you! Stop stealing our kills or you'll regret it."

Wade looked up and in a calm voice replied

"Your fire damage could've killed them but I prefer the faster way of killing compared to your inefficient way of grinding these wolves."

"Well, does it matter? Killing is killing and that doesn't change the fact that you kill stole our wolves."

"Yeah, that was our experience and not yours."

"Give us a good reason why we shouldn't kill you here and now."

It seemed that the woman was persistent and her friends started to join in now.

"When did you find this spot to grind?"

"Just yesterday. Right, girls?"

"Yeah."

The red female mage asked her comrades and when they confirmed it she asked Wade another question.

"Why are you asking this question though."

"Because this was my spot to grind a few days ago. And whoever steals my spot dies."

"Wha-", the red-haired woman in red mage clothes didn't even get a chance to ask her next question before she was killed.

A few seconds later, all her friends appeared around her at the respawn point. They had even lost quite a few gear like her staff and quite a few of the women's rare clothes.

"Damn that man. We gotta get our stuff back."

"But Rose, he probably already took it."

"Just because he took it doesn't mean we can't get it back."

Rose then led her group back to the area and looked around only to see their blood and a ground empty of items.

"He took everything. Even the loot the wolves dropped."

A brown-haired woman spoke as she was quite attached to the gold that they dropped as they would feed her family because of the exchange rate of the game to the real world.

"It's fine, Emma. I'm sure we'll get our stuff back and meet that man again. The outcome will be different that time."

"Are you sure about that."

A deep monotone voice suddenly was heard behind her and Rose turned around just to see her teammates dead once more and a dagger pointed at her neck.

"Tell me why I shouldn't kill you right now for intruding on my territory."

The masked man that killed her and her party last time appeared before her once more.

"Your territory? As far as I remember the game company owned this game and you didn't even have a share."

"Wrong answer."

The dagger went into her throat and she gagged before disintegrating and dropping a robe.

"Hmm, all their loot can be stored in my inventory or sold for quite an amount. I'll keep it for now as leverage if they want to come back anytime soon."

And with that, Wade walked away from the scene with 1000 Experience from the girls and 400 Experience from the wolves he killed as well as loot galore.

[Experience = 1547/1100]

[Level Up]

[You are now Level 12]

[Experience = 447/1200]

[30 stat points gained]

[3 stat points have been assigned to Agility and 2 stat points to Strength]

Wade assigned another 6 points to every stat making his menu look like

[Menu]

[In-game name = War (Wade Raze)]

[Level = 12]

[Experience = 447/1200]

[Class = Assassin]

[Sub-Class = Master Alchemist

Intermediate Blacksmith]

[Alchemist Experience = 1000/10000

Blacksmith Experience = 400/1000]

[God = None (changeable at the Temple)]

[Elements = None]

[Universal Weapon Mastery = No Mastery]

[Abilities:

Instant Learning (Passive)

Plagiarize (Passive)

Sub-par Wind Aura (Passive): (Boot Ability)]

[Skills:

Inspect: Level 2: 4/200 = Active Skill: Cost = None/Cooldown = None

Stealth: Level 1: 57/100 = Active Skill: Cost = 10 Mana/Cooldown = None

Backstab: Level 2 56/200

Bleed: Level 1 92/100 = Active Skill: Cost = 20 Mana/Cooldown = 15 seconds.]

Tear: Active Skill: Cost: 20 Mana/Cooldown = 10 seconds (Dagger Skill)

Weak Wind Blast: Active Skill: Cost: 30 Mana/Cooldown = 7.5 seconds (Dagger Skill)]

Fuse: Active Skill: Cost/None/Cooldown = 24 hours

Hidden from View (Weakened)(Passive): (Cloak Skill)

Reaper's Breath = Active Skill: Cost = 100 Mana/Cooldown = 10 seconds (Katana Skill)

Edge of the Blade = Active Skill: Cost = 300 Mana/Cooldown = 30 seconds (Katana Skill)

Master Swordsmanship (Passive): Enemies killed 1531/10,000

Shield Bash Level 1 32/100 Active Skill: (Requires Shield) Cost = 40 Mana/Cooldown = 15 seconds

Block: Level 1 15/100 Active Skill: Cost = 10 Mana/Cooldown = 10 seconds.]

[Health = 86]

[Strength = 100]

[Agility = 112]

[Magic Power = 96]

[Endurance = 86]

[Stat Points = 0]

[Hp = 860/860]

[Damage = 100]

[Movement speed = 560+5+5+20/Total movement speed = 590+5%= 619]

[Magic capacity = 960 (Recharges 48 mana every minute)]

[Damage Reduction = 86+2+5+5/Total damage reduction = 98]

Wade had looted a couple herbs from the girls and he could use these to make namely [Speed Potions]. These could increase his speed to a max of 10% if they were tier 1.

Brewing was a different process here than in other games. It was also more convenient. You only needed to meld the herbs together into the bottle to make a potion. This method would result in many new potions being invented as well as being able to create potions on the spot like Wade was doing.

*********************

A few minutes later...

Wade had combined all of the herbs together but he got a different result than he expected.

[Berserk Potion brewed]

[New type of Potion in region discovered]