Chapter 77: Make Your Move!

Ding-dong.

The bell on the back door of the general store rang.

A puzzled look crossed Matti's face — he didn't recall inviting anyone else.

He walked to the back-door entryway and found a stranger in a black robe standing there.

He was certain he didn't know the person, and had never even seen them around town.

Today was an important day; he didn't want to be disturbed by some inexplicable stranger.

"Who are you?"

The black-robed figure casually picked up a fish-shaped wooden carving from the entryway and toyed with it before their eyes. "Here to buy something."

"I don't sell my goods to outsiders."

Matti felt something strange about himself — he only identified with the townsfolk, and in the past, whenever he saw outsiders, he had always been extremely hostile.

If it had been any other outsider daring to touch his merchandise with dirty hands, he would have long since chopped that hand off.

Today, for some reason, looking at the black-robed figure before him, he wasn't angry at all — instead, on some instinctive level, he genuinely admired them.

The black-robed figure: "Can't you make an exception?"

Matti had wanted to refuse, but somewhere in his heart he inexplicably believed the other person was a good person and that he should help them, so his tone softened.

"What do you want to buy?"

"The key to the dock where your executioner postman works."

"You're asking to die!"

The black-robed figure's words had struck the deepest secret Matti kept, and even though he greatly admired the other, a fierce killing intent welled up inside him.

He let out a great roar, attempting to use the same technique he'd used to kill the former postman — summoning a divine envoy to possess him and weaken the black-robed figure.

Yet once the ability activated, his body only swelled up slightly, the effect roughly like the muscle pump after a workout; beyond that, nothing changed.

The black-robed figure before him showed no change whatsoever, clearly unaffected.

Why would the divine envoy shelter an outsider?

Matti couldn't understand it.

The black-robed figure, in a tone as if seeing through everything, said unhurriedly:

"Looks like as long as the karma value and affinity are high enough, the divine envoy's power can't be activated."

Matti's expression grew even uglier. Though he didn't understand what the black-robed figure meant by karma value and affinity, he could tell from the other's tone that this person not only knew about the divine envoy, but also knew how to resist the envoy's power.

Who on earth was this person?

How could an outsider know so much?!

Matti was both shocked and furious, but what astonished him even more was that even after the black-robed figure had revealed so many secrets, he still felt the other was a good person who shouldn't be attacked.

Witchcraft!

The other had to be a heretic, using witchcraft on him!

"Damned bastard — I don't need the divine envoy's power to tear you apart with my bare hands!"

Matti tried his best to act angry, forcing himself toward the black-robed figure, attempting to use his absolute physical advantage to suppress them.

But with no hostility in his heart, his punches and kicks were all gentle and sluggish; by all appearances, he looked more like he was trying to shoo the black-robed figure away than trying to keep them there.

Matti couldn't bring himself to strike, but the black-robed figure could.

He raised his hand, and a silver revolver poked out from beneath the long robe.

Seeing the muzzle, Matti cursed. He wanted to dodge, but the cramped space of the back-door entryway made turning around especially difficult.

Wedged in the narrow corridor, he was like a living target pinned in place.

Accompanied by six consecutive gunshots, Matti was hit in all four limbs — especially with two bullets in each knee — forcing him down onto his knees.

The black-robed figure reloaded right in front of him and kept firing. This time the bullets hit his shoulders and arms.

The black-robed figure let out a "huh?" and reloaded again…

Matti didn't know how many shots had been fired before his body finally gave way to weakness and he slowly lost consciousness.

In the last instant before he passed out, only one thought filled his mind.

At such close range, dozens of shots fired in succession, and every single one missed a vital spot.

Could that Son of the Beach across from him be some kind of master of tracing bullet trajectories around the body?

Watching Matti lose consciousness from blood loss, Wu Chang holstered the Silver Dawn and let out a long breath.

He needed Matti alive, not dead, so he'd avoided the vitals and only targeted Matti's limbs and joints.

Who would have thought Matti was some legendary tank — his health bar was absurdly thick; it took emptying five magazines and nearly turning his limbs into mincemeat before he finally passed out.

Things had gone even more smoothly than expected. The avatar condensed through Rebirth into the True Self could not only inherit the attributes on his stat panel, but even the hidden attributes not shown on the panel could be perfectly inherited.

For example, the karma value hidden within the Quiet Town instance.

The karma value his main body had piled up by over-completing work had successfully transferred to the True Self, making it so Matti couldn't borrow the divine envoy's power — and even uncontrollably showed friendliness toward the True Self.

!

It's just like when you're playing a game and you clearly know the monster in front of you is about to attack you, but the monster's name is displayed in green.

Without the divine envoy's power, Matti was just a small elite mob from an ordinary C-rank instance — his stats were far below even Liu Wei's.

Add to that his unwillingness to fight the True Self, which further weakens his combat effectiveness.

Layer upon layer of factors stacked together, making the fight a complete one-sided affair.

【Lock Matti up so he can never work, and see if he goes crazy!】

With the battle over, it was time to fulfill the former postman's blood-soaked dying wish, full of dark humor.

Matti ran a general store — the nice thing about a general store was that no matter what you needed, you could always find a suitable substitute.

To be safe, he found several coils of hemp rope from the shop and bound Matti up layer upon layer.

Then he entered the storeroom inside the general store, pried up a section of the floor, revealing a passage leading underground, and dragged Marti into it.

Beneath the storeroom was a makeshift dungeon.

The dungeon was only twenty or thirty square meters, with four or five iron cages like dog kennels piled in the corner, stuffed with white bones whose flesh and blood had not yet fully rotted away.

This "buffet" of rats and maggots gave off a truly "indescribable" terrifying stench; that smell, in the unventilated underground, had settled and fermented, and just half a breath of it nearly sent Wu Chang to his doom.

This rotten bastard really had no sense of hygiene at all.

Iron hooks and a rack were fixed to the ceiling and walls of the dungeon, and the massive iron table and chairs were covered with all manner of torture instruments, every one of them stained with blackened blood.

This dungeon was one Wu Chang had discovered earlier when scouting with his spirit body; it was probably Marti's private "playroom."

The practiced technique Marti displayed when executing his duties as a postman must have been honed right here.

Thanks to Marti's particular hobby, he didn't have to worry about where to imprison him.

He tossed Marti into an iron cage, and the rats and maggots among the bones, catching the scent of fresh flesh and blood, all began to stir restlessly.

Wu Chang cast a disgusted glance at the cage. Told you, you rotten bastard who never cleans up—now that the guest has become you yourself, you'll finally learn the importance of a tidy environment.

Because the intel Marti gave was so accurate, the act of subduing him drew no attention from any of the townsfolk.

After cleaning the bloodstains from the entryway, Wu Chang arranged his True Self around the general store, to prevent Marti from breaking free of his bonds and escaping the dungeon, and also to relocate Marti in time should any other townsfolk notice anything amiss at the store.

Although he was very curious about the intel on the Divine Emissary, the interrogation of Marti had to be pushed back.

He returned to the post office, changed into a formal outfit, took his letter of introduction, and headed straight for the mayor's house.

Today was the day he was to enter the town council; from what Mo Leina implied, there was still a grand event waiting for him that evening.

(End of this chapter)