Night Ranger Volume 1 Chapter 4

That Thief startles. He did not think that down-and-out noble can actually keep his calm in this kind of situation and made the most accurate judgement.

Pine Nut River’s sandbank is very broad. If it is on the sandbank, Ma Wen definitely cannot avoid the hunting down from Akron Gang’s members.

There is only a slight possibility if it is that small sparse forest at the side.

“Pure luck?” Thief mumbles in his heart and is not anxious at all. He calls out to those gang members that followed and quickly follows up.

His Agility is very high and does not believe they cannot deal with a noble that does not even have a combat Class.

Furthermore, this forest does not actually have that complex of a terrain. He cannot escape.

Ma Wen takes the lead and charges into the forest. Under the cover of the dark night, he quickly closes in onto a large leafy tree.

“Not even using Stealth, seems to be really confident.”

Ma Wen, with his back at the pine tree, looks and sneers at that Thief casually chases over with a dagger in his hands.

He still has advantage.

After seeing those from Akron Gang, Ma Wen was surprised and has suspicions but he never lost his calm. What a joke, as someone who used to be a Ruler of Dark Night, he has plenty of combat experience. These hooligans are barely considered as Class-ers. Although their strength and numbers are higher than him, sometimes combat experience is very important too!

Especially in complex terrain!

When Ma Wen successfully Class changed into Ranger, he was very careful when wearing the Ranger crest and wore it in a very covert position so those gang members should not have realized that Ma Wen is already a Class-er like them!

This is a very huge advantage.

“Trying to kill me? Then don’t blame me.”

He silently draws the blank machete from his waist and shows a strand of ruthless intentions. Since these scums want to eat him up, then they should be prepared for being killed instead.

Yes, ever since those people from Akron Gang appeared, he had never even thought of running away. He wants to know the truth behind things.

He intends to leave all these people here!

Thinking till here, his blood starts to boil. It has been a long while since he had this feeling——the last time he was so excited was probably when he completed the God Ascension quest where he faced more than 10 demi-gods?

……

This forest is actually very small. The amount of space Ma Wen can work with is not much.

He must finish off this Thief before the rest get near. Ma Wen believes that there should not be any Thief in the rest of the gang and this fellow not using Stealth is their only Thief. He is also the biggest threat among them. Thief’s Sense and Agility are very high and can easily find where he is hiding.

As long as he is killed, Ma Wen has ways to slowly deal with the rest.

Thinking till here, he slightly curls his body and sticks closer to that pine tree.

[Skill Hide activates!]

Ranger’s signature Skill is indeed extraordinary. Ma Wen’s body, with the help of the night, faintly blends into one with that pine tree. That Thief still does not realizes and walks over with big steps. Ma Wen grabs his machete tightly and holds his breath.

41 points in Hide, together with the +9 from Sika Deer Crest, is just enough to trigger the hidden effect of 50 Hide [Night Blessing].

[Night Blessing]: When you are using Hide, if it is at night, effect raises by 5%.

Do not underestimate this 5%, many times, even a 1% increase is enough to turn the tides.

As a PK expert in his previous life, not only is Ma Wen very proficient in the Thief Class, he also knew other Classes inside out. That is why he pooled Hide to 50 from the start.

Just that he did not think it will come in handy so quickly.

This Thief’s Sense seems to be lower than Ma Wen’s anticipation. He can become a Thief is probably because of growing up in the streets and training and definitely not because of having outstanding gift.

He carelessly walks past Ma Wen. Right at this time, a shout suddenly comes from the forest entrance:

“Jack, where the fuck are you? Where is that noble?”

Jack impatiently turns around, and shouts towards the entrance: “Yours truly is here! That little noble is nearby, he can’t escape!”

Ma Wen silently waits for him to finish this sentence and then with a smooth coupé step, goes to the back of the Thief like a ghost.

His left hand suddenly holds down the Thief’s mouth and the machete on his right hand easily slits the Thief’s throat!

Instantly, blood spurts, the Thief’s body starts to struggle vigorously!

However, Ma Wen expressionlessly covers his mouth and his struggling before dying cannot even harm him.

[Normal attack successful!]

[Fatal vital point hit! Normal attack turns into lethal attack!]

[Target dies! Gained 18 Killing EXP!]

There is no need to look at the battle log flashing over. Ma Wen can feel from the other party’s gradually limp body that this fellow is already dead.

“Movements are too much slower.” Ma Wen shakes his head with displeasure.

Limited by body and Class, the strength he can unleash is not considered strong. This series of moves just now is Phantom Assassin’s iconic combo [Shadow Coupé] + [Cutthroat]. This combo will give very high damage bonus to Skill and it is the most suitable to insta-kill enemies.

Although Ma Wen is not a Thief now, he still can execute these 2 technical movements based on his memories and body instincts. Although he is not satisfied with the completeness of the actions and these 2 movements themselves also do not have super high attack bonus like the Skills, correspondingly, his opponent is also not some powerful character.

A Level 2 Thief with 42 HP, if not hit at fatal points, Ma Wen will still take some effort to deal with it. However, Tier 1 Class has no resistance to fatal points, once hit in the fatal points, one will die for sure.

This careless Thief apparently is a negative model for low rank Classers. He probably thought Ma Wen has no way of fighting back and never thought their target will suddenly change into a professional in assassination.

Ma Wen quickly searches through the Thief’s body and finds a bag of money and some materials to make traps.

“Poor ass……” There is only 5 silver coins in the bag, very shriveled.

Those materials do have some use though. Ma Wen pulls the Thief’s body to a covert spot at the side before the rest searches over. He then looks for a big tree and activates Hide.

He raises his head and sees a dark cloud looming over the moon. The field of view is very bad.

Tonight is destined to be a night of killing.

……

There is still 4 of the Thief’s companions remaining. They charge into the forest while holding torches. Under the light of the torches, the originially relatively sparse forest brightens up.

With the illumination from torch, Ma Wen’s Hide effect greatly reduces without a doubt. The worse thing is they will very quickly find the Thief’s body because due to time constraint, he did not have the time to deal with the corpse properly and only slightly covers it.

By that time, their alertness will rise, knowing that their prey is not powerless. Thus, the chance of Ma Wen of succeeding will greatly drop.

“Damn it, damned Jack actually let that little noble escape into the forest.” One of them scolds in a hoarse voice: “Still not responding to us, what is that kid trying to do?”

“Maybe that little noble ran quite fast and he chased him first.”

“But he did not left too much clues for us, searching like this will take too much time. We must assure Boss’ orders are executed. Tonight, that little noble called Ma Wen must die!”

Light from fire shines over, Ma Wen leans to his side and calmly listens to the enemies’ footsteps. Without professional listening Skill, his sensing becomes a bit passive but these people is as casual as those Thief and did not deliberately control the sounds of their footsteps when walking so he can still determine their directions from their footsteps.

A total of 4 people, 2 tall people, a fatty and a sissy.

Even if he does not use his eyes to see, he can still make this kind of judgement.

The 4 people are near him and dispute arises among themselves. What made Ma Wen happy is after these 4 fellows quarreled for a while, they made a decision that made Ma Wen overjoyed: Split up and search!

Seems like they are very confident in themselves and feel that dealing with a little noble with no combat Class can be easily done.

The 4 splits up, 3 of them leave in 3 separate directions while the fourth person searches in the vicinity.

Ma Wen cleverly uses the shadows to avoid the 3’s search area——He had too many of this kind of experiences, being hunted by well-trained team alone in complex caves or forest. These hooligans did not underwent professional training or else there will not be so much blind spots for him to hide.

The fourth person, on the other hand, remains searching in the original spot. Ma Wen waits for the chance and it comes not more than half a minute later.

Same actions as dealing with that Thief before, smooth coupé step and Cutthroat.

[Normal attack successful!]

[Fatal vital point hit! Normal attack turns into lethal attack!]

[Target dies! Gained 11 Killing EXP!]

This is a Level 1 Hoodlum——one of the most common Class among gangs in the city. Hoodlum Class has Specialty and Trait bonus in alley fights but in the wilderness, they have no advantage.

The threat he gives Ma Wen is not as much as that Thief. The only thing that made Ma Wen satisfied is this fellow is slightly wealthier than that Thief. He has 12 silver coins on him.

A faint stench of blood spreads out in the forest. Ma Wen presses on and killed another 2 with the same method.

These 2 people gave Ma Wen 26 silver coins and a total of 30 Killing EXP. However, unfortunately, when killing the last person, because the opposite side a bit tall, Ma Wen’s hand was not able to cover his mouth tightly. Although Cutthroat had the same effect like before, this unlucky fellow was still able to let out a shriek.

This instantly alerted the last Akron Gang member and he charged over a few seconds later with a torch in hand.

Ma Wen was not able to dodge in time.

“We have belittled you.” That tall fellow looks at the corpse below Ma Wen’s feet and is a bit surprised.

He raises a torch in one hand, grabbing a machete in another hand and looking ferociously: “But tonight, you’re dead for sure.”

Ma Wen calmly uses Perception.

[Perception (35) activating……]

[Going through related test……]

[Perception fails! You are unable to gain more information!]

Perception fails!

This means the opponent has at least 3 Adventure Class Levels!

The tall guy licks his lips and charges over with big steps. The machete in his hand is raised up high, seemingly wanting to chop Ma Wen into pieces!

Chapter end