War Online

Reading the message, instead of fury, a grin appeared on Wil's face as he mumbled, "good, that guy still has guts. I thought he just ran away to increase his strength to take revenge later. It will be very fun to make guys like them kneel. For a while, my body is itching to use the new skills. But, then again, I shouldn't also underestimate the greediness of people and be careful. Especially, when I'm out alone." 

After sending a thank you message to Supreme Master, Wil took out the five original contract copies of the Guardians he hired and sent a party request to all of them. As soon as they accepted, he sent a voice message.

"Meet me at the Temple." 

As he continued to walk towards the City Temple, where the resurrection and teleportation points are located, in the meantime, he suddenly started receiving the same warning messages from few more guilds, which made him really believe they chose to be on Scarlet's side.

Meanwhile, three assassins, who were following Wil for a while were discussing among themselves.

Assassin 1: What are we still waiting for? Let's kill him quickly and claim 500K credits.

Assassin 2: Are you an idiot? The other side is a level-99 player. He isn't some tofu that you cut it cleanly whenever you want. We need a plan.

Assassin 1: c'mon. It's just 8 levels of difference. No big deal. If three of us attack at the same time, he will die in one hit. It's not like we are the residents of this city. We don't need to care whether we get blacklisted or not.

Assassin 3: The worst is not getting blacklisted. If he resisted our attacks and we got caught by the guards, then, we'll be jailed for at least 3 days.

Assassin 1: I know. That's why, after killing him quickly, we have to run and quickly escape out of the city.

Assassin 3: Exactly. That's why we shouldn't attack him whenever we want to. We should wait for the right time.

30 minutes later; 

Assassin 3: Heaven's luck. He's going to the temple, probably teleporting to another city. It's the perfect time to kill him and escape through the teleportation point.

Right then, a huge force suddenly pressed them down. Not just on three of them. Everyone in the surroundings, whether they are NPC or players, all passersby present in the 2500 sq. meter area was down on their knees all of a sudden while struggling to move.

"Hmpf, how couldn't I know the area before the temple is the most popular place for assassinations?"

His gaze turned cold as he mumbled, "I will never... ever... get ambushed and lose my life whether it's real-life or the game. One time is enough for me."

Wil neither waited for enemies to nor did he spoke an intimidating dialogue. 

He just put his hands behind his back and walked into the no-combat zone silently without wasting any time while ignoring everything else around him. 

***

Scarlet HQ, Ares City;

The selection process began,

Elyssa Strike and Mo Soyun, who were in the 3rd batch, were waiting for their turn after changing into training clothes.

On the television screen, 100 names appeared and an electronic voice in the background said, "Batch number 3, get ready."

As Elyssa was showing nervousness, a mischievous smile appeared on Soyun as she spoke, "am I just seeing things, or is that really Shintaro?"

"What!" Elyssa suddenly stood up.

"Sorry." Realizing that her reaction is a bit too loud, Elyssa apologized to others.

Taking her seat, she asked with a glow on her face, "Did you just say Shin-senpai? Where did you see him?"

As she started to look around to see her beloved crush, a grin appeared on Soyun, "I was just kidding."

"You…"

"See. You are now good to go."

Realizing that she was no longer nervous as before, Elyssa's anger disappeared quickly. In the meantime, the door was opened and a burly man in a suit entered the hall, "Batch number 3. Follow me."

Everyone in the 3rd batch stood up and started following him from behind.

Soon, they reached the 35th floor. After all of them arrived at the floor, they proceeded to a large room filled with treadmills. Then, a man and a woman entered the room.

As the man stepped back, the woman spoke, "Hello, my name is Emily Richards. I'll be in charge from now onwards. Without wasting any time, let's get right into it. As you can guess, the first thing we'll test is your stamina.

You can set and control the speed by yourself but you can only increase the speed. You cannot change it after 5 minutes.

You lessen the speed, you receive 0. You fall from it, you receive 0. All you have to hold on until 10 minutes are over to receive a score. So, don't be too greedy and try to outdo your limit."

10 minutes later, Elyssa collapsed on the ground like others who tried their best to receive a high score.

Meanwhile, Soyun, who was completely fine without any sweat, handed her a towel, "you worked a bit too hard, I guess. What's the speed?"

Elyssa replied, "12. What about you? Looks like you didn't try much."

"I just walked with 2 mph with ease. I already told you, right? I was going to try a non-combat profession. Why should I waste my energy on this segment?" Sujin replied with a grin.

Meanwhile, on the 30th floor, a few elites who used to be in Vulture Mafia were discussing. 

"Sigh… So far, none reached our standards." "Yeah, what's with these youngsters? Forget about 20, can't one even reach 18?" "So far, only two candidates successfully maintained 16 miles/hour" "It's just 5 minutes. It's not like we asked them to run for an hour or something."

While the room is filled with complaints, Katherine, a retired female assassin who is currently serving as one of the directors spoke, "c'mon. Stop judging them with our standards, will ya. We didn't call them for recruiting for our company."

***

Back to War Online;

Imperial city, Llyne Kingdom;

In the streets of the capital city, Wil and his five NPC bodyguards were walking together casually while looking around but still, no one really paid attention to them apart from a few players.

Looking at them, a passerby sighed, "another one. I guess people are really in a hurry to claim the compensation."

The reason for the strange reaction is because first, Barons aren't that rare in the city. Because there are a lot of officials present in the palace, fame isn't that hard to earn as compared to other cities, although there wasn't a Viscount yet.

Second, there are a lot of players who followed the lending strategy of Guardians to level-up before. 

Because the Imperial palace and the city center are pretty much in the same direction, no one really cared about this party of 6.

It wasn't until he bypassed the area and changed his ways towards the palace did he get attention from a few passersby, although most of them ignored it as they knew getting into the palace is impossible without an invitation. Even if Wil has one, it has nothing to do with them, either way.

On the other hand, A few scouts of big guilds started following him as a part of their job. After all, in a city full of million players, surely there must be one or two who were able to get the invitation, right? That's why they always had to follow anyone who goes toward the palace. 

Although their job is just to follow him and report it to higher authorities in the guild if he successfully entered the palace, they also decided that even if the other party can't enter the palace, they need to make him join their guild by whatever means as it's a shame to lose a level-99 player. Not to mention, they never heard of the Scarlet guild. So, they didn't think he would say no.

"Lord Time Traveler, I sense malicious intentions from them." Remia suddenly warned him.

Another 7-foot guard named Mauger spoke, "Lord, order us whenever you want to finish these pests. I'm sure his majesty wouldn't punish a noble Viscount of the Kingdom for making a move against a mere commoner."

Wil replied, "forget it. There are always these kinds of people everywhere. Once we kill them before they do anything, they'll just think we have some secret and drag their entire guild over it. There are some foolish guild leaders who won't stop until they were destroyed for good. It's just a waste of time."

"I had quite an experience in that type of matter in my past life." 

Soon, they reached the Imperial palace where there are several soldiers walking back and forth, guarding the entrance.

Just when Wil was 10 meters away from them, all of them suddenly pointed weapons towards his group while their captain gave a stern warning, "Halt."

The five guardians immediately stood before Wil, raising their shields to protect him. 

"Step aside," ordered Wil as he took another step forward.

Meanwhile, the captain continued with a stern voice, "unauthorized people are forbidden to enter. Return or else, don't blame me for..." 

Just then, Wil interrupted him by taking out his silver nobility badge from inventory and showed it to him, "Am I still not allowed in?"

Looking at the nobility badge, the Captain raised his hand and the guards put their weapons back.

Knowing that the outsider is a Viscount, a rank above him, the demeanor of the Captain changed and ordered his subordinates to stand down.

"I apologize, Lord Viscount. But, we have orders to not let anyone in without any proper invitation from a high ranked official of the palace." He respectfully denied their entry again.