VRMMO: World's First Glyphborne-Chapter 89: Playing the Hero

"I already told you to stay away from me, creep." A woman barked over her shoulder, quickening her pace as she moved through the back routes of the merchant district. For all their expensive buildings, none of them came back here, leading to pathways made of compacted dirt that were barely illuminated by the mid day sun.

Passageways perfect for the lower classes who wanted to avoid the carriages racing past them, as too many had been struck by them to the point that they felt like the drivers were swerving to hit them on purpose.

The only issue was that it made them easy targets for those who would want to do them harm in other ways. But that was nothing new to the types of people who took these shortcuts often.

Being robbed or attacked, that was just expected to happen at least once or twice in your life. It was all part of living the wonderful life in the big city.

That was why, as the man following the woman also quickened his pace to match hers, the woman in question slipped her hand into her blouse. Her fingers danced over the blade she had hidden inside. It might have been a crude blade, but whether it had fancy decorations or not didn’t matter when it was jammed into your throat.

Her fingers curled around the handle as he drew closer and his footsteps grew louder. She tracked those footfalls and, just when he was about to reach her, she whipped around and slashed behind her. 𝕗𝕣𝐞𝐞𝘄𝐞𝚋𝚗𝗼𝘃𝗲𝗹.𝚌𝕠𝚖

Her blade found purchase, jamming deep into the creeps chest just like she had practised a dozen times, yet he didn’t fall backwards. His hand lunged forwards, clamping around her throat as she let out a sharp scream that was quickly muffled.

He lifted her easily off of the ground, as if she was made of straw, and slammed her against the nearest wall.

"You missed." He said plainly, wrapping his free hand around the knife and slowly pulling it out of his chest. There was barely any blood on the crude knife, and even less poured from the wound. It was as if his heart didn’t beat in his chest.

Her eyes trembled as she watched the actions of this monster in human skin, before looking up into his eyes. Eyes that glowed with a soft crimson light.

Up until this point, she had been kicking and struggling against his iron-like grip, but as she gazed into his eyes she felt all of that fade away. Her need to struggle was dampened, her feat diminished and a wave of calm and relaxation flooded her body as even her own thoughts became muted.

"That’s right. Just relax. You won’t feel a thing. You won’t even remember this happened at all. It will just be a bad dream." The man said softly. his voice worming its way into her mind as her gaze remained fixed on those enchanting crimson eyes.

He licked his lips and slowly leaned in, opening his mouth to reveal rows of razor sharp teeth as his hot breath curled against her throat.

"Stop!" A third voice shouted, causing the man to instantly freeze in place. He didn’t turn to see who had shouted, he didn’t try to pull away to defend himself. He simply... stopped everything, even breathing. At least until he got punched in the head.

The man was launched across the alley, the woman dropping from his grip, as he flew until he smashed against a wall and crumpled into a broken heap like a sack of potatoes.

"Heh, Guess I still don’t know my own strength." Belladonna joked to herself, before glancing at the woman beside her. The woman in question was slowly blinking and shaking her head, as if she was coming out of some kind of stupor, before looking up at Belladonna standing over her.

Instantly the woman’s face contorted into a look of annoyance as she scoffed at the clothes Belladonna was wearing.

"Nice outfit, although don’t think for a second that’s going to work on me. Next time you should make sure you can afford the shoes before spending all your money on something to impress people."

The woman rolled her eyes and frowned at the knife that was laying on the ground, before snatching it up and quickly walking away. All the while, muttering to herself about the weirdo’s in the big city and how she longed for the countryside.

Beans manifested from underneath Belladonna’s hair and clambered onto her shoulder as he let out a low, rumbling growl and batted his paw in the air in the woman’s direction. Belladonna clicked her tongue, glancing at Beans before shaking her head.

"I know, right? The manners of some people. Not even a thank you. Plus, my outfit is great by the way!"

She shouted the last sentence at the woman, who simply waved her off and didn’t even bother turning around, causing Belladonna to click her tongue in annoyance.

Beans turned away from the woman and leapt off Belladonna’s shoulder as his wings manifested on his back again. He glided across the alleyway with just a few flaps, until he landed on the crumpled body of the... robber? She wasn’t sure exactly what he was trying to do when she arrived, but she did know that it was something that deserved a punch in the head.

The mischievous little cat bapped the man a few times with his trademark beans, before starting to rifle through the man’s pockets in search of goodies.

"Hey dude," Belladonna said as she strolled over to the man, "You can stop pretending. I know you aren’t dead, so there’s no point in just laying there unless you want us to take all your stuff..."

She gently kicked the man’s foot, only for it to limply drop down as if he was dead. But the idiot still had his eyes open and was staring at her with eyes filled with fear and bafflement, which was expected from some creep that got sucker punched.

They were always so surprised when it happened, as if it wasn’t the obvious outcome. Of course, if she could hear his thoughts then she would have been even more confused.

’It can’t be... It’s impossible. This should not be possible! I need to tell her! She must know! Or... would she kill me for knowing? Oh gods...’

But she could not hear these thoughts. So she just kicked him a few times, hoping to get some entertainment out of it, before letting out a deep sigh of boredom. She stuffed her hands in her pockets and turned on her heels, utterly fed up with the whole scenario. Playing the hero so wasn’t worth it.

As if to ruin her fun even more, her Bio warning popped up to tell her that she was going to have to log out to eat and go to the bathroom. The woes of mortality.

"Come on Beans, no need to dig around in the trash." She shouted over her shoulder as she sauntered away, "And as for you dude. Play dead, shit yourself, run away or do whatever it is you wanna do. I don’t care.

But If I catch you doing this again, you won’t be playing dead the next time."