Night Ranger

Chapter 18: Headless Girl

Translator: Translation Nation Editor: Translation Nation

Lucky!

There was a chest in the first room.

Although this chest seemed old, the things inside rarely lost their functions because of the passage of time.

Marvin leaned forward and gently shook the wooden chest.

He had no points in the two relevant skills, [Trap Disabling] and [Lockpicking]. Therefore, he had to do everything based on his experience.

Trap disabling was a Ranger skill. It was extremely important in team fights and especially in dungeons. But Marvin didn’t plan to take this path, because this field would waste valuable skill points and wasn’t worthwhile. As Rangers and Thieves were related classes, the Thief skill lockpicking could be cross-classed at the price of twice the skill points it cost for the Thief class. Marvin felt it wasn’t worth it.

He could use a low level unlock scroll to deal with treasure chests. If he could use money to solve the issue, why should he spend skill points?

There was a light sound inside the wooden chest. Marvin put his ear close to listen.

‘There shouldn’t be any trap. Only a simple lock.’

He tore up a common unlock scroll to open the copper lock.

As a precaution, he used the twig he was carrying to open the wooden chest.

Woosh!

A dart came flying from the wooden chest before crashing on the mud wall.

Marvin frowned.

His own judgement had surprisingly been wrong. Without [Listen] he could only rely on his natural sense of hearing, which made it quite difficult to find these small crafty traps.

Fortunately, he had been cautious enough.

He moved to take a closer look at the dart.

The dart tip was dark green, obviously dipped in poison. He recognized that kind of dart. The special Ninja class from an island in the east had this type of dart as one of their signature weapons.

‘Seems like this treasure chest came from a Ninja.’

Marvin took the only thing present inside the treasure chest, a thin book. There were a few words written in common language on top of the book.

– Introduction to Hidden Weapons –

‘It was a skill book! And a Ninja skill book on top of that!’

Marvin blinked. A skill book… Finding one relied on luck, so looking for one specifically was pointless. He had fought a few Ninjas in his previous life as a Ruler of the Night.

Although those players ended up defeated by him, Marvin still had a deep impression of the countless waves of hidden weapons they used.

After using the book – Introduction to Hidden Weapons –, the user could learn the way to use 1 to 3 beginner concealed weapons.

Using a skill book was only affected by the user’s stats, having no class requirement.

For example, if a Berserker picked up a – Burning Hands – skill book and had enough intelligence and some casting basics, he could learn that spell. But of course everyone knows that there’s no way a Berserker could use magic or know casting basics.

As for learning hidden weapons, there was a high dexterity requirement. It required one to be able to control the strength of every part of the body. An ordinary person would find it quite difficult to master it in a short amount of time.

But this wasn’t a problem for Marvin.

His control over his body was more than precise enough to learn how to use concealed weapons without spending much time.

There was nothing else inside the chest so he just carefully put away the valuable skill book.

He once again used Stealth and left the room.

But suddenly, he caught a glimpse of a faint white shadow flying past.

What the hell!

Marvin was startled. He looked at that place but it was actually empty, nothing at all.

‘Just my imagination?’

Marvin’s face grew solemn.

He looked at the battle logs and his stats window once again but there was nothing.

The sky was already dark and the moonlight didn’t feel that bright through the dense fog.

He didn’t have dark vision, so his ability to see things was quite limited. But it was the same for those scarlet slaves. Their rooms were lit by candle which made it a lot easier for Marvin to assassinate them.

That white shadow… What was it?

Marvin was somewhat nervous. He had never gone through that kind of event.

This place was strange. It seemed he needed to quickly finish his business.

Marvin reminded himself to stay alert at all times and arrived at the second room’s door.

The inside was pitch black, so there shouldn’t be any scarlet slave.

He opened the door and went inside.

...

There were a total of 18 rooms, and 10 scarlet slaves.

Marvin took around 2 hours to clear those 18 rooms.

He harvested 90 battle exp and 6 treasure chests. Out of those 6 chests, only one of them had a magic lock while the rest were all ordinary locks.

Apart from that concealed skill book, the remaining 4 chests gave him a pouch of gold bars, a necklace, a bottle of unknown medicine and a handwritten ancient book of the Scarlet Monastery’s history.

Marvin had already found the book before. This book looked as if it was an average and boring old book, but it actually held a huge secret of the Scarlet Monastery.

But this secret and the sleeping lich both needed a certain strength in order to be explored. Marvin carefully put the book away.

The gold bar’s purity was quite high, and could be converted for a considerable amount of wealth in any city. When it came to money, it was always the more the better.

The bottle of medicine was the same as that blue gem, both needing appraisal. Marvin was no apothecary, so he obviously couldn’t appraise it.

The only thing that could be put to good use right away was in fact that necklace:

[Mark of the Moon (Necklace)]

Quality: Uncommon

Effect: Field of view in moonlight +50

May Faniya’s sight guide your path.

Requirement: 14 Intelligence.

...

Faniya was the moon deity’s name.

Marvin just happened to meet the 14 intelligence requirement, so he didn’t hesitate and equipped the necklace right away.

[You equipped Mark of the Moon…]

[Moonlight vision +50…]

Two specks of bright light flashed in Marvin’s eyes. Marvin could clearly see everything around him through the dusky moonlight.

This was the additional 50 moonlight vision he just gained. 　　

There were a lot of different kinds of visions. The most common was sunlight vision, the normal kind. Marvin had a quite average 100 points of sunlight vision with his human race.

This meant that on a flat area with enough sunlight, Marvin could see a living being within 1000 meters and could more or less differentiate between a person and an animal.

Rangers had a more powerful skill called [Long Range Vision], which let rangers see past the human limit, further in the distance.

But this skill was limited to sunlight vision.

Sunlight vision’s counterparts were dark vision and moonlight vision, which the average humanoid race didn’t have any bonus in. Mankind’s moonlight vision was at 10 while dark vision was around a pitiful 1. Some with inferior vision would be near 0.

Moonlight vision’s uses were quite limited but it would display its effect as long as there was moonlight.

In short, Marvin was quite pleased with this uncommon necklace effect.

At least, walking in the moonlight later on would be much easier.

...

In front of Marvin was the last chest with a magic lock.

That chest was a bit problematic. He had already used 2 magic unlock scrolls but they both had failed.

Using an unlock scroll to open a lock had a certain chance of failure. This kind of situation showed the strength of the enchantment on the lock.

He still had 2 more magic unlock scrolls but the problem was that a magic lock could only take 3 scrolls.

If the third time was still a failure, the lock would become immune to scrolls.

Marvin had a headache.

Should he bet on luck? Or go back with the chest to buy an advanced magic unlock scroll?

‘Forget it, better be safe than sorry. Let’s take the chest back.’

This chest wasn’t too big, barely fitting inside the Void Conch.

But as he tried to put it in the Void Conch, he surprisingly found that he couldn’t.

‘Storage rejection!?’

‘What kind of thing is inside? To reject a storage item?’

‘Or is it the chest itself that has a storage rejection?’

This changed things, Marvin couldn’t take the chest back so he could only gamble one last time.

Ripping the last magic unlock scroll, he calmly waited for the result.

The light blue magic key entered the keyhole abruptly followed by a ”Kacha!”

‘Did it work?’

Marvin felt slightly happy.

But the key suddenly shattered!

The magic lock trembled before returning to normal.

Still unable to open it?

Marvin was a little gloomy. This chest obviously had something good, but being unable to get it really was annoying.

A cold wind blew past.

Marvin’s heart suddenly grew cold.

‘It’s that white shadow again!’

‘It kept following me!’

Marvin suddenly turned around, his curved dagger silently appearing in his hand.

But this time the area wasn’t empty. It had a powerful blinding light!

[Strong Light]!

”Despicable trick!”

Marvin closed his eyes just as the light ray appeared, his fighting instinct helping him make the best decision!

He didn’t retreat but instead dashed forward with his twin daggers.

The daggers had already been smeared with holy water. Regardless which demon or ghost, it would be unable to withstand it.

”Wait wait…”

”I didn’t mean to harm you.”

A timid voice spoke, ”Can you keep your eyes closed? I don’t want you to look at my current appearance. I don’t want anyone to see what I look like right now.”

Marvin slowed his movements.

This was clearly a girl’s voice.

”Don’t open your eyes!”

As Marvin opened both eyes, the white shadow immediately went past him.

”You can’t look at me or you’ll be cursed!”

The girl’s voice turned anxious.

Marvin asked while clenching his curved dagger, ”Who are you?”

His had sweat on his palms.

It was the first time he had ever met such a strange thing. There wasn’t any event like that when he came to the Scarlet Monastery in his previous life.

Could it be an event triggered by the first person entering the monastery?

”I am Vanessa.”

The voice behind Marvin said, ”They call me Headless Girl.”

Headless Girl… Vanessa?!

Marvin seemed to remember something.