Chapter 62: The Beginning

The days that followed were quite peaceful for Ryuji. Over the past few days, he had asked around about the city's supernatural organizations, only to be met with a reality that left him both amused and exasperated.

The so-called underground supernatural organizations—pardon the expression—were entirely fake. They were all established by players to serve their own interests, and their highest-ranking organizers were merely level 5 players, with not a single one above level 5.

On the contrary, there were some public player organizations in the city. For example, the Ghost Spider Temple, found in every district, was a public player organization where any player below level 5 could freely join or leave.

In addition, there were public player organizations originating from the Arctic Glacier Plane and the Eastern Desert Plane, though they did not actively publicize themselves.

Aside from these, the head of each district in the city also had the authority to establish a player organization belonging to their jurisdiction, and those organizations were treated as official ones.

As for those gatherings formed under the banner of a family, such as the Yide family behind Ryuji, they were not considered organizations at all, but rather forms of lineage and heritage.

It could be said that if Ryuji wanted to, he could pull out a few transferable skills and quickly establish a supernatural organization of his own.

Faced with such a situation, Ryuji was naturally speechless. He had thought he could infiltrate those underground supernatural organizations to find more ways to enhance his strength, but he never expected things to be this way. While the world seemed relatively lax in its management of supernatural beings, its control was actually extremely strict.

Yet, upon second thought, it made sense. The world was facing the threat of the Gloom Underworld and harbored a large number of Blood Servants. Without such strict control, this world would have long been swallowed by the Gloom Underworld.

With this realization, Ryuji simply abandoned the idea of participating in any further supernatural gatherings. Right now, he hadn't even finished digesting and clearing out his own gains, leaving him no time to bother with those supernatural beings.

Instead, the matter of setting up a supernatural organization of his own needed to be placed on the agenda. He was now managing a large district and also had to deal with matters concerning the Underworld; he could no longer afford to run errands for every minor issue.

Just like this time, Ryuji was in the middle of his daily lamp-lighting ritual. Although he had already dealt with the location where the twenty workers had died, the streetlamps along Golden Scissors Street still needed to be lit.

Just then, a police officer came running over.

"Sir, something big has happened!"

Ryuji looked up and realized that this officer was not from Precinct 11, but rather from Precinct 12 in Fanny’s jurisdiction.

Ryuji blinked as it suddenly came back to him: Fanny had started her game vacation yesterday, and her district was currently being managed with the help of a few players.

"Alright, trouble arises the moment someone leaves. I knew things wouldn't be this simple."

As Ryuji spoke, he reached out and grabbed the Staff of Death.

"Alright, let's go."

The officer probably hadn't expected Ryuji to be of this temperament. Whenever any major incident had occurred in their jurisdiction before, it took repeated pleas and entreaties to get Fanny to finally take action, so he had already prepared himself to be given a hard time by Ryuji.

He never imagined Ryuji would be so straightforward, leaving many of the things he had prepared to say stuck in his throat.

Still, while leading the way, the officer filled him in on what had happened.

After all, it had only been yesterday when they agreed that during Fanny's absence, they would only send someone to report any recorded deaths in the district for Ryuji to handle, and that they wouldn't come to bother him otherwise.

Who would have thought they would be eating their words today? It had barely been dawn for long before they were forced to run over and ask Ryuji for help.

It was because a major incident had just occurred in the sector temporarily assigned to Ryuji: nearly three hundred people in a single neighborhood had suddenly died.

It had been discovered purely by accident. If someone hadn't stumbled upon the situation, it might have taken a day or two for them to notice, and by then it would have been too late.

Hearing of such a situation, Ryuji’s expression also turned solemn.

As a player, he knew the methods the Gloom Underworld used to invade the Southern Swamp Plane. Generally speaking, spirits that died unnatural deaths held a much greater attraction to the Gloom Underworld than those who died of natural causes.

Just look at Golden Scissors Street on Ryuji's side—the death of a mere twenty workers had already brought about such massive trouble.

For three hundred people to suddenly die unnatural deaths all at once was an extraordinary disaster.

No wonder this officer had rushed over early in the morning to seek Ryuji’s help.

Realizing the severity of the situation, Ryuji hurriedly told the officer to lead the way and picked up his pace.

When Ryuji arrived at the scene, he found that Victor Adolf, the captain of the Bone Guards whom he had encountered during the incident with Black-armored Sean last time, was already there.

Catching sight of the Bone Guard, Ryuji couldn't help feeling a bit curious. "Captain Victor, why are you here? Dealing with deaths should be my job."

Victor glanced at Ryuji. "Oh, it's Sandaru. You might be disappointed, but the matter here is being taken over by us, the Bone Guards."

"Was it done by Blood Servants?" Ryuji asked with some curiosity.

"Don't ask about things you shouldn't." Victor gave Ryuji a blank stare, but then paused and added a sentence.

"You'd better prepare for battle. This incident has happened four times in a row recently. Every time large-scale casualties occur, the node you guard will face an attack from the Gloom Underworld. If you have the leisure to investigate what this is all about, you'd be better off heading back to your ghost city to strengthen your defenses."

With that, Victor turned as if to leave.

At this moment, Ryuji said awkwardly, "Um..."

Before Ryuji could finish, Victor turned his head back and stared straight at him.

"What else do you want?"

"Well, I probably need to mention this: the mortician of this district went to participate in a game yesterday, and I am only temporarily helping to handle the problems here. I can deal with issues in the real world, but I really have no way of finding that mortician's ghost city."

Hearing this, Victor’s expression shifted. "Damn it, how could something like this happen? When did she leave? Did she say when she would be back?"

"I don't know. But she has a high clearance level, V4, so it shouldn't exceed five days."

"There's no time," Victor judged immediately. "It looks like this matter really has to fall on your shoulders. That mortician should have granted you clearance when she left, right?"

"Only for the real world."

"That's fine, that's more than enough!"