Messenger of Calamity

Chapter 4: Public Warehouse

After the character died, the game automatically returned to the character selection screen, leaving only “Yan Qing” as the sole available character.

“Yan Yi” had lived for less than twenty minutes from birth to death.

Yan Qing was completely baffled.

No, why?

From the situation, Yan Qing naturally understood that “Yan Yi” had been killed by those two guards, but… why?

What was the reason?

“Yan Yi” didn’t even have shoes, nothing on his body—so why kill him?

It was just a game; in real life, if something like this happened, Yan Qing would never rest in peace.

Yan Qing immediately created a new character, “Yan Er,” with the same appearance and attribute distribution, and still selected “Realistic Mode.”

Although he could pick a different starting village, Yan Qing wanted to find out why those guards killed him, so he chose to be born again in the “Buye Tian’s Starter Village.”

Arriving in the ruined, dilapidated village, Yan Qing controlled “Yan Er” and immediately headed toward Pingcheng.

Just as he reached the main road, he felt the game console’s linear motor vibrate.

Turning his view around, he saw a group of knights galloping up from behind.

The knights were clad in heavy armor, wearing Ghostly masks—just through the screen, Yan Qing could feel their imposing aura.

Yan Qing paid no heed and continued walking forward with “Yan Er,” and then—

“Chah!”

“Yan Er” was impaled from behind by a long lance.

The lead knight, using the horse’s momentum, lifted him off the ground, then raised the lance high and flew “Yan Er” through the air like a kite.

The other knights laughed boisterously—this scene reminded Yan Qing of a group of young guys cheering when one of them kicked a soda can into a trash bin.

When “Yan Er”’s health bar emptied, the Ghostly knight flung the lance, hurling “Yan Er” into a fleeing woodcutter hiding by the roadside.

They collided heavily, rolled together for a moment, and fell to the ground.

“Yan Er” didn’t survive, and the woodcutter, an innocent bystander, was likely doomed as well.

As the knights’ triumphant hoofbeats faded into the distance, the game displayed a prompt:

“You have died.”

After this run ended, Yan Qing put down the console and went to the bathroom, organizing his scattered clues.

Firstly, he was certain that the NPCs in the game must be real people—they were the only ones capable of reacting like that. They might even be real people from the main world outside. When Yan Qing controlled “Yan Yi” and “Yan Er,” those two individuals must have appeared in the outside world.

Secondly, though other areas might differ, the environment in the “Nightless Sky Affiliated Region” was extremely hostile—guards were like wolves, knights like tigers.

These people gave no chance for communication; if they wanted to kill you, they just did.

Logically, since the surroundings of the Nightless Sky were tough, he could have gone to Chang’an or Jiangnan. But since he crossed into this world, he had been holding back resentment—crossing randomly, entering the Thieves’ House for no reason, getting dragged to this place for no reason… even being killed in a game inexplicably!

In real life he kept meek; in the game, would he not dare strike back?

More importantly, Yan Qing found that character death carried no penalty—death itself was the only cost—so that gave him much more room to maneuver!

He created another new character, but this time he didn’t choose the default Face #01. He went with Body Type #06: the big muscular build.

At the attribute distribution screen, the default “Health” was suddenly 3, and Yan Qing still had 10 unspent attribute points!

Indeed, in “The Messenger,” body shape affected default Health.

Normal players wouldn’t do this—sacrificing fashion for just 2 extra health points is like losing a watermelon to pick up sesame seeds.

Of course, some players with unique aesthetic tastes deliberately chose this build—they would carefully pick outfits to create an “Ancient God’s Appearance” to shock all other aesthetically normal players.

Then Yan Qing put all attribute points into Health, creating a character ahead of the game curve: starting stats of Health 13, Soul 1, Agility 1, Comprehension 0. It’s notable that Health only matters early on; in mid- and late-game, Soul and Agility are the focus, and a Comprehension of 0 means he would face a leveling bottleneck at the fourth rebirth—even with the 5% experience bonus in Realistic Mode.

But Yan Qing didn’t intend to play this character long-term—he just wanted to vent his resentment, so he didn’t care about Comprehension.

He named the character “Yan San” and descended into the “Buye Tian’s Starter Village”!

It was the same shabby village, but this time with a different character.

Yan Qing noticed the sun was angling west in the sky—it was already afternoon—further confirming that the game was tied to the real world outside.

“Yan San” headed toward Pingcheng and didn’t encounter those knights this time. He moved much faster.

The high Health gave high stamina and stamina recovery, and the tall build meant longer strides, allowing “Yan San” to reach Pingcheng’s city gate in just a few minutes.

Nothing seemed changed—same people queueing, same guards at the gate—but the city gate now showed an additional head—“Yan Yi”’s head was hung by straw rope at the gate, with a “Mountain Bandit” tag inserted in its hair.

One had to admit that humans adapted quickly.

After two in-game character deaths, Yan Qing no longer felt much toward this scene.

But what he needed to do remained unchanged—he controlled 'Yan San' to walk to the door, and when the guard came over to question him, he gathered strength and punched, knocking out the man's teeth!

The guard, struck with such force, fell straight to the ground, and the spear in his hand naturally dropped as well.

‘Yan San’ immediately picked up the spear and thrust it into the ground three times in a row.

The scream the guard was about to let out was choked by the blood in his throat.

After twitching a couple of times on the ground, he no longer had the strength to move.

This sudden scene stunned everyone around.

The farmers and woodcutters entering the city quickly backed far away.

The guards at the other gates shouted loudly, but none dared approach.

“There’s a bandit killing people!”

“Quick, call the archers!”

“Get the shields!”

“This is a bandit here to assassinate a noble, quickly call the Hundred-Guardian Knights!”

Since they wouldn’t come over, Yan Qing would go to them!

‘Yan San’ charged forward, spear in hand, toward the guards.

But these guards weren’t cowards either—they boldly surrounded him.

However, ‘Yan San’ was a mini Lü Bu with 13 points in health.

Yan Qing didn’t need any fancy moves; just random jabs and backsteps were enough to stab two guards to death.

Seeing the situation turn bad, the last guard immediately turned and fled.

Yan Qing originally wanted to chase after him, but just then, the game prompted that 'Yan San' had leveled up—

"You have comprehended 《Basic Spearmanship》, current level: 1."

"Your health increased by 0.1."

"Your spirit increased by 0.5."

"Your dexterity increased by 1."

"You have reached level 2!"

This showed that in the early stages, health, spirit, and dexterity were easy to increase.

It was only because 'Yan San' had a high base health that the level-up only added 0.1.

In a normal game environment, these three attributes weren’t worth deliberately investing in.

But in this bizarre and chaotic world, having no strength in the beginning meant having no right to a future!

The level-up had taken a moment, and Yan Qing saw that the last guard had run far away, so he didn’t bother chasing.

He was here to vent his anger, not to die.

If he rushed in, he’d definitely get surrounded and beaten.

It was better to see if he could fight guerrilla-style outside the city gate.

If more people came to guard the gate, he’d just stab them too.

Yan Qing wanted to see how many people this city could send to guard the gate.

The sound of pounding hooves came from afar, and even the controller's motor vibrated.

Yan Qing shifted the camera and saw a squad of Ghostly Knights charging from inside the city toward the gate.

He thought, wasn’t this perfect—his target enemies had delivered themselves.

So he waited by the city gate.

The lead Ghostly Knight said something, and the other knights suddenly pulled on their reins.

Only he continued charging alone at ‘Yan San’.

Just as his long spear was about to hit, ‘Yan San’ executed a perfect dodge, entering a 0.1-second aerial slow-motion state, and stabbed the Ghostly Knight!

《The Messenger》 did have action elements, but they required very high precision and offered only moderate rewards—

This also related to ‘Yan San’ having low dexterity.

If his dexterity were higher, he could attack multiple times in slow-motion.

Faced with the full-force blow of 13 health, a barrier like glass suddenly appeared on the Ghostly Knight’s body.

The spear shattered upon impact, yet the knight didn’t fall from his horse; he merely tilted slightly.

A token!

This Ghostly Knight had already changed class into a Messenger!

Yan Qing felt both surprised and that it made sense.

《The Messenger》 was a world with supernatural powers, so the rulers naturally wielded such power.

But now he couldn’t win the fight.

Among mortals, 13 health was indeed invincible.

But against a Messenger who had already changed class, he was just a stronger mortal.

Just as Yan Qing was about to go all out, the Ghostly Knight pulled on the reins and stopped attacking.

Instead, he said: "You, not bad! Come with me!"

A quarter of an hour later, Yan Qing watched as ‘Yan San’ entered the military camp, registered his name, received a set of bloodstained, filthy leather armor, a hard bow, a long spear, and a shield.

He even got to live in a fairly luxurious single-person barrack and had a knight-slave at his command.

Huh?

Survived?

The last two times he’d died unjustly without doing anything.

But this time, after killing a few people, he got pulled into the army instead?

“You’ll practice spearmanship and archery tonight and rest well.”

“If you’re still alive tomorrow, I’ll recommend you to become a Hundred-Guardian.”

After saying that, the Ghostly Knight left.

This person’s way of doing things was just like this land—strange, rough, and savage.

But since he had survived, Yan Qing kept playing.

The military camp was huge—one could even call it 'spectacular'.

Dining hall, bathhouse, everything was present.

It was like a city within a city, with buildings of blue bricks, neatly lined.

Compared to the military camp, the outer Pingcheng looked like a poor relative’s home.

The training areas and equipment were also incredibly varied.

There were even places to simulate siege warfare, street battles, and forest combat.

When ‘Yan San’ approached the spear and archery training areas, the game popped up: “Participate in spear/archery training?”

Choosing “Yes” made ‘Yan San’ automatically participate, without needing Yan Qing’s input.

"You have comprehended 《Basic Spearmanship》, current level: 2."

"You have comprehended 《Basic Spearmanship》, current level: 3."

"Your health increased by 0.1."

"Your spirit increased by 0.5."

"Your dexterity increased by 1.5."

"You have reached level 3!"

...

"You have comprehended 《Basic Spearmanship》, current level: 5."

"You have comprehended 《Basic Archery》, current level: 4."

"Your health increased by 0.1."

"Your spirit increased by 0.5."

"Your dexterity increased by 1."

"You have reached level 5!"

"You have unlocked your personal and public storage. Press the + key to view."

When dusk dyed the sky blood red, ‘Yan San’ had already reached level five.

His spearmanship and archery skills were notably superior to ordinary Hundred-Guardian Knights.

Others had initially been wary of the stranger ‘Yan San’, but after two hours of training, many had a complete change of attitude.

Some even invited ‘Yan San’ to dine with them.

It seemed that in this place, strength naturally earned preferential treatment.

The Hundred-Guardian Knights’ meals were quite good—there was actually meat, buns, and pork rib soup.

This place that looked ancient in style wasn’t much worse than modern society in terms of living standards.

However, Yan Qing looked at this scene and sighed, because he had a very real problem: he was hungry too.

So what if the in-game character was powerful?

Everything in there was fake—no matter how full the game character was, the real him would still go hungry.

At that moment, Yan Qing saw a "Pick Up" icon appear over the roasted lamb leg on the screen.

He instinctively pressed it, and the right side of the screen showed the lamb leg had been added to his personal storage.

Oh right, after 'Yan San' reached level five, he unlocked personal and public storage.

Opening the personal storage, he immediately saw the lamb leg sitting in the first slot.

The personal storage had 4×4=16 slots total—if identical items could be stacked, then it wasn’t a small capacity.

Opening the public storage, it had a total of 5×5=25 slots—this was a bit limited.

There must be expansion items in the game; otherwise, players would definitely run out of space.

Just as he was about to exit the storage page, Yan Qing suddenly thought of something.

Public storage?

That meant this was a shared storage usable by all accounts, right?

Yan Qing returned to 'Yan San’s' personal storage, selected the lamb leg, and sure enough, the option "Transfer to Public Storage" popped up.

After moving the lamb leg to public storage, Yan Qing clicked on it again, and the game displayed three options:

"Take"

"Transfer to another character’s personal storage"

"Discard"

Yan Qing felt his heart pounding nervously and clicked on "Take".

"Take" prompted two selectable options: "Taken by Yan Qing" and "Taken by Yan San".

The next second, a steaming hot roasted lamb leg appeared out of thin air before his eyes.

If Yan Qing hadn’t reacted quickly, the greasy leg would’ve fallen to the ground—

Then he would’ve had to eat a lamb leg mixed with dirt and dust.

One bite down, and the juices exploded between his teeth.

The meat was incredibly tender—even though the seasoning was minimal, it was still delicious.

It was just a bit overcooked, showing the chef wasn’t very skilled.

But Yan Qing felt like he had been hungry for a long time.

The more he ate, the faster he chewed; the more he ate, the stronger he felt.

In the end, only a thick bone remained from the lamb leg—stripped clean with not a shred of meat left.

Plop.

A teardrop landed on the lamb leg bone, and Yan Qing froze for a moment.

He rubbed his moist eyes and mocked himself, “Crying because it’s that good… really?”

He covered his eyes, his shoulders trembling slightly, breathing heavily.

It was as if he was exhaling all the frustration, unease, anxiety, fear, and regret from his body.

No one knew how much time had passed.

He took a deep breath, rubbed the redness from his eyes, and slapped his cheeks forcefully, trying to wake his soul.

Through this lamb leg, Yan Qing finally found his path to redemption in this world.

Although he couldn’t log into his original account, all accounts could exchange items via the public storage.

That meant even if Yan Qing stayed at the Thieves' House, he could still acquire cultivation resources from this world through alternate characters!

There were five days left until the first theft mission.