Evolution of a Girl

After putting on this black dress, Kiriko's attack power is even much higher than that of players who have added all their strength points.

"Would you like to try some other costumes?" Asuna smiled.

"No, no need! This is fine." Tongzi refused with a red face. While he was talking here, he didn't notice that Kladil next to him was looking at his shy appearance with envy.

"Okay, let's not talk about this anymore." After all, there was still some important business to attend to. Asuna took Kiriko to open a room, arranged for Kradir to guard the door, and then told her about the Smiling Coffin in the room.

"...In other words, the Knights of the Blood Alliance are investigating the Laughing Coffin and are planning to start by kidnapping NPCs?" Kiriko fell into deep thought after hearing Asuna's statement.

"Yes," Asuna said, "but there might be a spy among us, so the people inside are currently unreliable. I can only ask you for help."

"Come to think of it, I actually encountered something like this - a slave trader." Tongzi suddenly spoke.

"Slave trader?!"

Slave traders are nothing.

But at this juncture, when Asuna heard about the slave trader, she naturally connected it with the Laughing Coffin.

"Although the opponent is an NPC, he acts just like a player."

Kiriko's reconnaissance skills are very high. She can see many of the enemy's panels, so she knows the enemy's identity.

"NPCs have this kind of intelligence?" Asuna pondered.

"NPCs are also classified. Computing resources are allocated based on the time of contact with the player and the importance of the role, but even so, they cannot have the thinking ability of the player." Tongzi has a good understanding of computers.

"Is there a tool that can be used to dress up as an NPC?" Asuna thought of a possibility.

"It's possible, but I haven't found anything like that in my intelligence. However, he might be connected to the Laughing Coffin, and those NPC slaves might have been sold to the Laughing Coffin by him. In my previous series of quests, one of the NPCs was taken away by him, so I followed his lead and investigated."

The two people's investigations actually overlapped.

"Then there's no problem—regardless of whether he's human or an NPC, as long as he's connected to the Laughing Coffin, there's no problem capturing him."

"Uh……"

Asuna is quite decisive.

I don’t know what influence made her decision so decisive.

After finding out that the slave trader was capturing NPCs on the 28th floor, Asuna immediately contacted Heathcliff, who came to the 28th floor in a low-key manner.

The four people left the city quietly and headed towards the village where people were said to be missing.

The capture process was simpler than Tongzi had imagined, because players basically ignored NPCs in front of them. As long as there were no other players present, they would dare to do all kinds of outrageous things.

Soon, this player, who was basically confirmed to be disguised as an NPC, was caught.

"What are you going to do?!" The arrested man was a young man who looked a bit like a gigolo in a nightclub. When several people arrived at the village, this gigolo was openly seducing the female villagers.

"This is the prison of the Knights of the Blood Alliance." It was Heathcliff who came out. He was not very interested in this investigation at first, but after hearing that someone was disguised as an NPC, he became curious and even came here alone.

"How did you disguise yourself as an NPC? As far as I know, there's no function in the game that allows players to become NPCs." This is what Heathcliff cares about most...

Chapter 518 Asuna Infiltrates

Kayaba Akihiko was very sure that he had not added a function in the game that would allow players to become NPCs.

In reality, Sword Art Online's NPCs aren't just any ordinary programs. There are two mechanisms driving NPC activity: scripts and virtual fluct lights, or virtual souls. The former is used for more important NPCs, while the latter is used for randomly generated passersby.

Well, yes, precisely because they are important NPCs, simple logic is more suitable for them, otherwise problems are likely to occur. However, many of the disposable random passers-by, such as city residents, will not be resurrected, so new technology testing can be applied.

If players were able to mix with NPCs, it would be a mess.

So he decided to conduct the interrogation himself.

Of course, it was actually the authority dog who directly investigated the situation through the background. As for Asuna and others, he dropped them outside to guard them.

However, this slave trader was more timid than imagined.

When he saw Kayaba Akihiko asking the others to leave, he was so scared that he almost wet his pants. He thought that the leader of the Blood Knights was going to do something terrible and unspeakable to him - in fact, Kirito and Asuna both thought so - so he told them everything.

"...I see. Is this a mission?"

According to the other party's explanation, it was actually nothing special, just a task.

The mission is a real-difficulty dungeon mission in the desert area of the 31st floor. There is a pass here. If you want to pass it, you need to find a local snakehead and pretend to be a slave. When passing the pass, it is a linear process. In this state, the player is in the state of an NPC.

The process is quick and only a short distance away.

But if at this time, other teammates have already completed the dungeon, then when the dungeon is sent away from the player, the player's status will be temporarily maintained, but as long as the teammates hand in the task, or re-enter the dungeon once, the status will be reset.

In fact, the other party didn't need to explain, Kayaba Akihiko already knew it.

Because he has already checked the other party's log, that is, the activity log, in the background.

This is a small bug and is harmless, but Kayaba Akihiko never thought that someone would do such a thing.

"By the way, who designed this copy?"

Kayaba Akihiko muttered to himself.

There are many designs in the game, but apart from the overall architecture, the ones who are mainly responsible for the dungeons, numbers and other series of work are actually the programmers under Akihiko Kayaba.

Unfortunately, he can no longer be held accountable.

"I, I used this method to disguise myself as an NPC and communicate with the Murder Guild... Please don't kill me, I surrender! I can be an undercover agent!"

This guy is single.

"Undercover...?"

Kayaba Akihiko stroked his chin.

The log can only check the other party's actions, but it does not know why the other party did so.

According to what Kayaba Akihiko knew, it seemed that the military of the Lighthouse Country was indeed researching Yaoguang, and they had extended an olive branch to him before.

It is impossible to say that there are no spies or something in this test involving millions of people.

What concerned Kayaba Akihiko the most was that there seemed to be someone who could communicate with the outside world to some extent.

"Undercover...Yaoguang...could it be..."

Kayaba Akihiko thought of a possibility.

The murder guild is making such a big fuss, perhaps there is indeed something behind it.

"It seems that we really need an undercover agent..."

After finishing the interrogation, Kayaba Akihiko called Asuna and Kiriko over.

After recounting their methods, he said, "The Laughing Coffin incident may be more serious than we imagined. According to the intelligence from the slave trader, these people may be trying to train NPCs to become their assassins."

Hearing Heathcliff's words, Tongzi's face suddenly changed drastically: "It is indeed possible for NPCs to kill people. And ordinary NPCs do have growth potential and can be brainwashed and transformed. If they do this, it is very likely to be true... Oops, there is no red name for NPCs killing people!"

Generally speaking, the game will not display the player's name and status, but there are exceptions, that is, red-named players.

The names of red-named players are completely open, and all players know that this is a PK player who has killed people and is a malicious PK player.

But there are exceptions, and that is NPC.

NPC killing is part of the "plot" in the system mechanism, so this kind of thing is possible.

"So we need undercover agents." Kayaba Akihiko, who has transformed into the leader of the Blood Knights, continues to play the role of Heathcliff at this moment.

"Take advantage of the slave trader's request?" Tongzi immediately understood. "But, they will definitely be brainwashed. What if they really agree with their ideas? Wouldn't that be terrible?"

Heathcliff shook his head. "NPCs' intelligence makes their judgments weak, making them very easy to shape into whatever they want. But humans can't do that—otherwise, they would have used this technology on players long ago."

"Let me do it." Asuna thought about what had happened before. Her mind had also encountered similar situations before. Therefore, Asuna was actually somewhat immune to this kind of mental adjustment.

"No, I'll do it!" Kiriko rarely showed manliness to refuse Asuna.

"I actually agree with Asuna going undercover. Regarding this... let him explain."

Heathcliff asked the slave trader to come over, and the other party came over, nodding and bowing to Kiriko and Asuna all the way.

Tongzi pulled the corner of his mouth.

However, this slave trader is not a red-named one. He is just deceiving NPCs and aiding and abetting the evil. Although he is disgusting, he does not have to be killed.

"It's actually like this." The other party seemed to see a glimmer of hope for release, so he quickly spoke, "The Laughing Coffin Guild actually has a lot of complaints about the Knights of the Blood Alliance. Boss Heathcliff, your name is on their must-kill list..."

"Then the undercover agent is even more dangerous." Tongzi frowned.

"That's not the case—I'm confident I can let you in," the slave trader said. "If it's just NPCs with similar looks, it should be safer..."

"Let me do it!" Asuna stepped forward again. "We can't let the Laughing Coffin do whatever it wants."

"...But what will the Laughing Coffin do to Asuna? Turn her into a murderer or something..."

"Don't worry about that. The NPC state is just a temporary state, originally caused by a bug, so as long as you change back to your original appearance, all the changes in the NPC state will be reset. And if you kill people in the NPC state, you will not be discovered." The slave trader hurriedly explained.

"Hey, you're not going to tell Laughing Coffin about this, are you?!" Asuna realized that if Laughing Coffin turned herself into an NPC and took the opportunity to assassinate someone, that would be a big problem.

Seeing Asuna's face, the slave trader hurriedly shook his head. "I can't tell anyone! This is my livelihood! If I told them, how would I still be alive today?!"

Asuna breathed a sigh of relief at the other party's words.

“…but letting the deputy captain go undercover or something—” Kiriko was still a little worried.

"It is precisely because I am the vice-captain that I need to be responsible for the guild." Asuna said firmly.

Kiriko looked at Asuna, but the resolute gaze she gave him told him that Asuna had absolutely no intention of backing down. He could only sigh softly.

Heathcliff nodded, then lowered his voice, "But this matter must not be disclosed to anyone."

"Yes!"

……

The whole thing was settled very quickly.

Asuna first went to complete the mission, but encountered a bug at the last moment, which caused her identity to be stuck in the "NPC" status.

There is no perceptual difference between the NPC and player status. However, the NPC cannot open the system menu and can only view the inventory and character panel. In addition, even the status bar is not visible.

What's even more inconvenient is that NPCs cannot equip items with one click like players. If Asuna wants to change her clothes, she needs to manually change them one by one, just like in the real world.

At this moment, her hands were tied behind her back, a sack was on her head, and she was sitting in a carriage that was creaking forward.

Next to Asuna, there was someone who was captured just like her.

However, these girls are NPCs, and Asuna is a player disguised as an NPC.

The carriage soon stopped, and Asuna heard bursts of conversation coming from outside.

"...Why is it so much more expensive?"

"Hehehe, this time the stuff is top quality! There's a village girl in the middle, she really looks like the vice-leader of the Blood Alliance Knights!"

"You didn't lie to me?"

"How dare I lie to you! We still have business to do, don't we?"

Someone seemed to open the carriage door, walk up to Asuna, and pull off her hood.

Asuna immediately spotted a man in a black cloak. On the chest of this man's cloak was a badge.

“…It’s the Smiling Coffin!”

The man's emblem is undoubtedly the logo of the Smiling Coffin.

Asuna had fought against the Laughing Coffin people before, so she was familiar with the situation.

"Ah! Don't come over here!" Asuna's face showed a frightened expression, just like a real NPC villager.

In fact, this is the identity that Asuna plays now - Lala, a village girl captured by slave traders, an ordinary villager.

The other person walked over and grabbed Asuna's face. "Yeah, it really looks like... What's your name?"

"Lala... Lala... please don't hurt me..." Asuna, who used the pseudonym of Villager Lala, trembled and looked at the other person with fear.

"Hehehe, as long as you listen, everything will be fine."

The other party seemed very satisfied.

"There will be better goods next time!" The slave trader introduced to the other party with pink eyebrows dancing.

"Very good. I am very satisfied." The contact person of Smiling Coffin seemed very satisfied, and the other party directly threw a big purse to the other party.

The slave trader left with many thanks.

The members of Laughing Coffin came to Asuna.