Reincarnation of the Gun Swap Goddess [Volume 1]

Shock Collar vs NPC

Luden was furious that none of his subordinates had taken care of the obvious threat. But he couldn't hear their silent prayers for peace!

Axis Jack was also getting a bit frustrated with Luden's antics. Jack knew that Luden wasn't good at games but only skilled at managing finances in the real world. And with those finances, he was also good at allocating tasks to those who specialized in a skill. And in this case, Axis Jack and the rest of Shock Collar were the "specialists". They knew this NPC wasn't something they should be provoking, but Luden's quick temper prevented them from speaking up.

*>Axis Jack: We don't know what level it is. Appraisal yields no results. It's highly likely this NPC is too strong for us to deal with. Between this mysterious NPC and the anonymous Slingshotter, we're pretty screwed...*

*>Lujen: Are you saying we should just give it the dagger we spent a thousand Copper on?*

*>Axis Jack: That's...*

*>Lujen: Either we die, or they die. We're not handing anyone our valuables.*

*>Axis Jack: ... Run and we'll distract them. None of our items are worth what that dagger is. Everyone, get ready.*

When they received this order, Shock Collar wanted to cry, but at least they were getting paid in real life!

---

Jisha watched as Lujen booked it deeper into the forest.

*Huh. Guess he has a lot of money but no game sense.*

She chastised his decision to run away from the Safe Zone and turned her attention to Shock Collar's attempt to fight the NPC. But...

"...?"

Jisha would have raised an eyebrow if she could have. A couple of pellets headed her way, but she easily avoided them.

*Aaaand I'm surrounded.*

She held up her hands to offer an armistice.

"Can you really afford to fight me right now? I won't kill you guys if you all focus on that NPC," she said.

The Shock Collar members looked at each other in confusion.

"You promise?" one of them asked.

"Of course," Jisha replied.

She knew Luden was running towards Inkling Village and could catch up to him easily. She would rather observe how this NPC behaved.

"You three keep an eye on her. The rest of you, basic formation!" said the player named Axis Jack, who was presumably the secondary leader.

Jisha relaxedly leaned against the nearest tree as if the three players guarding her didn't exist.

"You think they can take him out?" she nonchalantly asked.

The three players, who seemed oddly tense, looked at each other awkwardly but didn't say a word.

"Tch, you're no fun."

Jisha turned her attention to the NPC who was about to blow a casket.

"Fools... You think you can hold me back??? Tell me. Who has it?" it said.

*... It couldn't figure it out?*

If any rational player were in the NPC's shoes, they would easily be able to tell that the single player that broke off from the group was most likely the owner of the valuable item. However, this NPC wasn't very smart. Though this surprised Jisha at first, after thinking about it, it seemed reasonable.

When Jisha had first played the game many years ago, all of the NPCs seemed extremely realistic to her. And this sentiment wasn't entirely false. After all, you could hold conversations with them almost as if they were real people. But NPCs, like everything else in the early game, had very poor combat skills. She hadn't noticed back then since *everyone* possessed poor combat skills right after the game's launch. But as someone who'd spent more time in the game than outside of it, it appeared laughable.

Jisha observed Shock Collar's attempts at fighting this NPC. Without responding to its interrogation, they attempted to fight it.

Similarly to level 0, level 1 and 2 players didn't have any offensive options besides basic attacks. And so, this "fight" couldn't even be called an attempt.

*-2*

*-0*

*-1*

...

"Fools. Is that all you can muster? You have one more chance to give me the dagger before I eliminate all of you!"

Pellets and sticks flew at the NPC, but the results were trivial.

"What? How are we doing no damage?"

"I don't know, but just keep it occupied for just a bit longer!"

*Yup. Tier 1 confirmed.*

It was unlikely that even beta players knew about Synergy's Tier system which explained Shock Collar's surprise. After all, one needed to reach level 100 or fight a level 100 NPC to even have a clue about it. The beta phase only lasted a couple of weeks; level 100 was not achievable for normal players in this amount of time.

The 90% damage suppression made it absolutely impossible for Shock Collar to have a chance of victory.

*And it makes my chances of victory nonexistent as well. Unless I spam Night Walk... but it's not worth it.*

Using Night Walk would allow Jisha to attack the NPC endlessly for up to 10 minutes. But since she didn't know how much HP it had, it was possible that attacking it for 10 minutes wouldn't even kill it.

Even if it was a guaranteed kill, she didn't know whether it was carrying any valuable items with it. Killing an NPC didn't guarantee gaining XP and it was possible it'd shift her Karma value massively.

At the end of the day, wasting Night Walk on something so risky wasn't worth it.

"I'm gonna watch from over there. Have fun!"

"Wait-"

Before her guards could react, Jisha had already escaped the encirclement. She quickly dashed to a tree that was a bit farther away and peeked out from behind it.

The three guards reluctantly decided they should join up with the rest of their group and attempt to take down the NPC, but...

"Alright, you fools... I've had enough of this charade! Disappear!"

The NPC began to charge a large-scale spell. A red circle expanded on the ground with the NPC standing in the center. And before Shock Collar could properly react...

*-10*

*-10*

*-10*

*-10*

*-10*

...

A field of electric shocks sprouted from the ground! Though each instance of damage wasn't very high, every time a player was hit by the sparks, they received 10 damage and were briefly stunned, causing another spark to connect. And these sparks were happening quite quickly. It was impossible for a new player to avoid them.

*Getting chain CC'd like that on day 1? I'd quit.*

And just like that, within a few seconds, the 13 remaining Shock Collar players were... shocked to death!