Scourge Messenger

Chapter 1: House of Thieves
"Welcome to the house of thieves."

Yan Qing seemed to have taken a nap and slept until night. Even after opening his eyes, he still didn't come back to his senses, and his retinas reflected a confused feeling as if he were in another world.

The stone floor, marble walls, and ceiling inlaid with luminous pearls, although there are no windows, there is a breeze blowing, and it doesn't feel dull at all - there is no doubt that this is a transformed cave.

Why am I here?
Yan Qing subconsciously wanted to stand up, but his butt seemed to be glued to the chair with super glue, and no matter how he moved, he couldn't leave his seat!
There were noises all around, and Yan Qing realized that there were three other people in the hall besides him. They each occupied a seat around the marble square table in the middle of the hall.

Like Yan Qing, they were all trying to stand up, but were pinned to their seats by a strange force.

Although their outfits are different, the style is consistent - everyone is dressed like an animal.

Looking from Yan Qing's direction, from left to right are:
A 'wolf' wearing a black wolfskin hood,

'Fox' wearing a white fox mask,

A 'snake' wearing a scarlet snake slough scarf.

But even the 'wolf' and 'snake' without masks had masks on their faces, making their true appearance unrecognizable.

so……

Yan Qing realized something. The hall seemed to know their first reaction after waking up. They had specially hung a bronze mirror on the walls in all directions, so Yan Qing could see his own appearance by just turning his head slightly:
A furry wolf with fur the color of yellow firewood?

"I didn't expect that the rumor about the secret place of the Thieves' House was actually true."

Fox chuckled softly, his voice full of magnetism, evoking the image of a noble young man in a corrupt society. "Only the most formidable thieves can be recruited here to participate in the grand bargain. Does that mean you're all in the same business?"

"I don't know where you're from, but where I live, only government lackeys would snoop around." Snake lazily leaned against the chair, but his words were sharp: "I'm here to see if there's any food or drinks, not to make friends."

"See nothing improper, speak nothing improper, listen nothing improper." 'Wolf's' voice was steady, sounding like an adult who had been in the underworld for many years. "Since the Thieves' House has provided us with disguises, we will address each other by code names."

"I am Black Wolf."

"You are a white fox."

"He is the Red Snake."

"And this Thief King sitting in the main seat... is Yellow Dog."

Yan Qing's eyes widened, subconsciously forgetting his own situation, and argued, "My mask is clearly a wolf!"

"What wolf? It's clearly just a country dog! And it's good for nothing but guarding the house, the kind you wouldn't even take hunting." The white fox produced a folding fan from somewhere, gently unfolded it to cover the mask, and scoffed unceremoniously, "How bizarre! According to the standards of the Thieves' House, the four of us should be the most powerful thieves below rank four, and the one sitting in the main seat is the Thief King, below foundation building. Yet, this year's Thief King didn't get a wolf, a fox, or a snake, and could only get a dog mask?"

"Perhaps the mask has no direct relationship with strength." Chishe seemed to be speaking for Yan Qing, but then changed the subject: "Rather, it's the Thieves' House that arranged it based on our personalities, right? Can't the Thief King be an honest and loyal dog? Right?"

Faced with the boycott of the two, Yan Qing said nothing. It was not because he was too angry to speak, but because the words of the white fox and the red snake revealed a very important message.

"Stop arguing." Black Wolf suddenly said.

At this moment, the stone table suddenly shrank to reveal a large hole, and a giant sand table slowly rose from the hole. During this period of silence, Yan Qing finally sorted out his thoughts and realized where he was!
After graduation, he joined a game company as a level planner. The company mainly operates a fantasy-style MMORPG called "The Messenger", but Yan Qing is a pure single-player Brahmin and hates to get off work in the game after work, so he almost never plays the games of his own company.

After helping his colleagues complete a few dungeons, the company felt Yan Qing wasn't fully occupied with his work, so they gave him a new responsibility: designing a new dungeon. However, as a new employee, Yan Qing wasn't qualified to design a full-fledged eight-player dungeon. Instead, he designed a low-level four-player dungeon to practice.

While designing, Yan Qing had a sudden idea: would it be more appealing to connect the dungeon to the main world? He tinkered with it for a week and finally submitted a proposal titled "The Thieves' House." According to his design, the dungeon's location would naturally be the Thieves' House, a secret safe house set up by the legendary Thief Lord. No one knew where the Thieves' House was, and only the most skilled thieves were invited inside.

"House of Thieves" is a four-player dungeon. After being invited in, players will appear in the cave hall, and their appearance will be automatically disguised as thieves by the system to add to the atmosphere - after all, many players have very strange appearances, and when going through the plot it is like an alien party.

Yan Qing still remembered that he was working overtime at home to complete this plan. After sending the email, he fell asleep in bed. When he opened his eyes again, he was already here.

The cave in front of him and the four thieves with disguised appearance, doesn’t this completely fit the “House of Thieves” he designed!

So not only did I travel to the world of The Messenger, but I also started out in a dungeon of my own design! ?
The sand table gradually became complete, even showing moving figures, lifelike, as if the entire city had been moved onto this round table. Several lines of text appeared above the sand table, and the four of them could clearly see them from any direction:
"Targets of this theft: Chang'an, Anguo Temple, Bingzi Jiaolin"

"Location: East Archway of Suzaku Street"

"Descend time: 5 days later at 3:30 PM"

"Evacuation location: Stay within Suzaku Street for half a minute to return to the Thieves' House."

"Evacuation Deadline: 5:05 PM" "Theft Successful: Token Obtained: Bingzi Pepper Forest"

"Theft failed: Deduct 9,000 Spirit Jades and permanently lose the right to enter the Thief's House."

At the same time, golden light emerged from the golden hall of a temple on the sand table, and the hall became transparent. Everyone looked over and could see a silver-white straight-blade knife hidden in the giant golden cabinet at the innermost part of the hall!

Just like Yan Qing’s design, the special thing about the Thieves’ House dungeon is that it is only a place for preparation and planning, while the real battle takes place in the main world.

However, the focus of this copy is still the planning aspect. If the plan is well prepared, you may even succeed in stealing without fighting. But once the battle is triggered, you may be surrounded and beaten, resulting in mission failure.

This might be fun in a game, but it would be a different story in the real world - stealing a national treasure in the middle of a city is literally risking your life!
"Bingzi Jiaolin? Isn't this the sword worn by Emperor Taizu of Zhou? Why is it not in the imperial palace but in Anguo Temple?" The white fox became excited: "It is indeed a treasure worth stealing."

"This reward is interesting..." Red Snake tapped the table lightly: "It's actually turning the Bingzi pepper forest into a token..."

"How will we divide it then?" Black Wolf asked, "There's only one handful of Bingzi pepper forest."

"Let's not even mention the safe containing the Bingzi pepper forest and the other treasures. We can just sell the Bingzi pepper forest to Daqi or Daliang when the time comes." White Fox said with a smile, "Even if the Bingzi pepper forest is useless as a token of trust, there will definitely be plenty of people willing to pay a high price for this sword to humiliate Dazhou."

Suddenly, a voice rang in everyone's ears: "The movement ban is lifted, the personal room is open, and the teleportation is open. Please return to the thief's house before landing, otherwise the theft will be considered a failure."

Black Wolf tried and found that he could stand up, so he immediately said, "I have something to do, so I'll leave first. Let's meet at this time tomorrow to discuss the theft plan."

After saying that, he ignored other people's reactions and turned to walk into the back door. There was a crisp sound of lock teeth on the door, and it was obvious that other people could not enter the personal room.

"So aloof," the white fox fanned himself and said leisurely, "Then forget about him, let's talk about—"

With a snap, Yan Qing slammed the door shut, as fast as if he were escaping. The white fox glanced at the red snake, who glared back at him coldly. The two stared at each other for a moment before turning and returning to their own rooms.

In his personal room, Yan Qing finally calmed down.

Logically speaking, they should be teammates and cannot attack each other in the House of Thieves, but this is not a game, and Yan Qing dare not take the risk.

He checked his pockets, moved his body slightly, and quickly confirmed a fact:
Although he traveled to the game world, he is just an ordinary person.

To be precise, he is a mortal who has not changed his job and is probably only level 1!

The entry threshold for the dungeon he designed, "The Thieves' House," should be between level one and level four, that is, level 10 to level 39, but he didn't even reach the minimum level.

Likewise, he didn't have the currency of this world: spirit jade.

He remembered that many missions in The Messenger had penalties such as deducting Spirit Jades. If one did not have enough Spirit Jades (generally speaking, players would not be so poor), they would die immediately and a certain amount of experience would be deducted. The more Spirit Jades one lacked, the more experience would be deducted.

Deducting experience points is fine, but if Yan Qing doesn't prepare nine thousand spirit jades within these five days, if the theft fails...

Can I abandon the mission?
Of course you can. If you don't steal, it means you have given up. You will just lose your spiritual jade or die - for players, this punishment is insignificant.

But Yan Qing is a real person!

Yan Qing forced himself to calm down and found that things were not that bad - although he didn't know why he traveled into this dungeon and became a thief, the other three looked like very powerful thieves. Maybe the three of them could complete this theft mission, and then Yan Qing would just have to get through the dungeon.

but……

There was a peephole in the door. Yan Qing peeked out through the peephole and found that there was no one in the hall, which meant that the three teammates had all returned to their rooms.

These teammates are not time travelers like him, nor are they players. They are probably the natives of this world.

Yan Qing was certain of this because the words he had just spoken during the argument were the language of this world, the language used by his three teammates. But he didn't know why he could understand them, so at first Yan Qing didn't react, only realizing something was wrong when he spoke himself.

But they are very familiar with the "House of Thieves" dungeon, and even know what kind of people the House of Thieves will recruit. They are not afraid of stealing treasures, which shows that they are a group of criminals who have a good understanding of the world view.

Once they find out that I am surprisingly weak, it is hard to say whether they will attack me or not - in normal online games there are small-account killers like Sanjidao, let alone the real world where the strong prey on the weak?

Moreover, this is a world of extraordinary powers. As long as you change your job at level 10, you will be far beyond the reach of ordinary people!
Therefore, Yan Qing not only had to get away with this theft, but he also had to prevent his teammates from discovering that he was a weakling!

This is my first time writing a book, please support me!
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(End of this chapter)