Medieval: Kingdom Come: Deliverance

When Peter discovered he possessed a powerful cheat code, a sense of destiny welled up within me.

In the game, you can't save enough money to buy a good two-handed sword by working, gathering, brewing potions, and honestly completing quests for hours. On the other hand, if you master the two amazing skills of "pickpocketing" and "lock picking", you can sneak into someone's house in the dead of night when the patrolling guards are not paying attention, take out two wires and pry open the storage box placed by the bedside, and accumulate a lot of wealth in a short time.

After mastering the art of killing, a wave of slaughter, looting of corpses, and selling of armor and weapons quickly led to financial freedom for him.

By this time, Bohemia had declined, and the increased exploitation of ordinary people by the nobility and the church had exacerbated social contradictions. War raged throughout Bohemia, prices soared, the gap between the rich and the poor widened further, and law-abiding good people were unlikely to ever see the light of day.

So, I'm not going to be a good person anymore!

Since the robbers dared to chase me, why couldn't I fight back?

In the dog-eat-dog world of the Middle Ages, you couldn't stand firm unless you were ruthless!

Kill them!

Having made up his mind, Peter did not collect the large stones on the ground, but instead kept his "weight" below the safety line, reserving the ability to sprint and continue deeper into the limestone crevice.

While playing the game, Peter explored this terrain, completing several explorations of "The Skull with Jewels," "The Devil's Finger," and "The Poacher's Camp," and was deeply impressed by the narrow and confusing maze-like terrain.

And this will be the perfect battlefield for his counterattack.

As Peter ventured deeper into the canyon, he tore his clothes and hung the strips on roadside bushes to "guide" his pursuers.

Just over a minute after Peter left his resting place, the bandit leader and three henchmen caught up with him. The archer, carrying a simple hunting bow, kept checking the footprints on the ground and the direction of broken flowers and grass, and even discovered strips of cloth hanging from the bushes.

"Boss, that guy's entered Devil's Canyon, that's the Tom brothers' poaching hideout. Should we still give chase?"

The archer was once a hunter's apprentice in Upper Semi Village. He followed the old hunter for ten years, serving his master like a beast of burden. However, the old hunter wanted to pass on his position to his clumsy son who had just come of age before retiring!

Medieval Europe was characterized by stark class divisions and rigid social hierarchies. A lord's son remained a lord, a knight's son could become a knight, but a farmer's son could only remain a farmer.

Stable drivers, blacksmiths, carpenters, cooks, hunters, leatherworkers, millers, and tavern owners are all skilled professionals, and even in the game, they are named NPCs. If possible, they would pass on their skills and positions to their sons.

Therefore, everyone in this era attaches great importance to their chance to change their destiny. The archer, who was hired by the old hunter, learned the skills of tracking, hunting and setting ambushes from the old hunter. He originally thought he could achieve a leap in status, but because the old hunter's son was about to come of age, ten years of hard work went down the drain, because the lord said, "A village does not need two hunters!"

The archer was furious at the injustice of his fate and didn't want to continue eating black bread with sawdust. So one night, he took his bow and arrows and fled the village, hiding in the mountains and becoming a poacher, hoping to use his skills to live a life where he could eat meat every day.

According to medieval law, everything within a territory belonged to the lord. Except for man-eating wolves and rampant hares, any animal hunted by a commoner was considered theft of the lord's property and would be punished by hanging.

Commonly known as hanging!

The day an archer becomes a poacher, he has already become a desperate criminal. As his moral standards gradually decline, it is not surprising that he eventually degenerates into a bandit who robs, murders, and steals.

The other members of the robbery gang had similar experiences, whether it was due to family bankruptcy, huge debts, laziness, or being expelled from the country by the lord for committing crimes. The reasons were varied, but that did not prevent them from being a bunch of scum.

And scum has no bottom line.

"Those Tom brothers are nothing! Who do they think they are, daring to make me back down! Keep chasing them! If the Tom brothers try to stop us, kill them all too!"

The bandit leader cursed loudly.

The two sword-wielding robbers grinned and raised their swords in agreement.

Without further hesitation, the archer continued to use his tracking skills and led the way into Demon Canyon.

The complex, maze-like terrain here served as a natural barrier. Peter, familiar with the terrain, had already traversed the maze, ascended the hidden staircases to the cliffs on both sides, and carried dozens of pounds of large stones along the way. His load soon exceeded three thousand pounds, and he began to stagger.

But that was enough. Peter stopped moving and climbed to the edge of the cliff to peek down.

"Run away, hide, I will find you, you damned bastard, I will punish you with the most vicious torture..."

The four robbers entered the canyon with great confidence, but gradually lost their way as they wandered around, and began to complain and curse loudly.

The location is perfect! The timing is right.

Hey! Look here.

Peter suddenly stood up and called out to the four people below the cliff. They instinctively stopped and looked up in the direction of the voice. Before they could even see the figures above the cliff, a large pile of stones fell like petals from a fairy's shower.

Each stone weighs tens of pounds and falls straight down under the force of gravity.

The bandit leader was caught off guard; his helmet offered no protection for his vulnerable head, leaving him completely bewildered.

"Killed a chainmail bandit, experience points +30"

The two sword-wielding robbers, their faces also bruised and battered, fell asleep without uttering a sound.

"Kill the leather-armored bandit, experience points +20"

"Kill the leather-armored bandit, experience points +20"

The archer, positioned too far forward, was not in the center of the attack. He dodged hastily, avoiding a fatal blow, but was still injured in the thigh by a falling rock.

"Ouch, my leg is broken! It hurts so much! Oh, someone please help me..."

The archer fell to the ground, groaning in pain.

Peter was slightly disappointed. He had taken the boulder out of the weight-bearing space, but it could only cover an area of ​​one square meter in front of him. Using gravity to injure the enemy was not a perfect solution. It would be acceptable if it could kill three robbers in one hit.

As for the last archer, Peter didn't dare approach him, instead continuing to throw fist-sized stones from his high vantage point.

"Bang bang bang"

The blows continued to hurl at the opponent, who cried out in agony.

Throwing Proficiency +1

Throwing Proficiency +1

.......

Only after his opponent released his bow and arrow, passed out with his face covered in blood, did Peter slide down the cliff through the hidden path to collect his spoils.

In the game, the looting part of killing is undoubtedly enjoyable. With a tap of your finger, you can take any valuable item from the other person, leaving only a barefoot, white-clothed corpse on the spot.

In reality, however, dismantling equipment piece by piece from a bloodied corpse while enduring the pungent odor is not so easy or pleasant.

"It was smashed too hard; the helmet is completely dented into his head. Can he still wear it after being hammered so hard?"

"Two of the three swords were smashed. You bandits can't even get decent weapons. You deserve to die today!"

"Damn it, you bastard, did you pee in your pants? They're so damp and smelly! How am I supposed to wear them?"

"This chainmail is nice, but it rattles a lot when I wear it, which is not good for stealth."

..........

While muttering to himself, Peter quickly rummaged through the available weapons and equipment, soon assembling a set of chainmail armor. He put on a steel helmet that could double as a cooking pot, a hunter's belt and a hunter's satchel around his waist, a one-handed sword about eighty centimeters long hanging from his waist, a dagger stuck in his hand, and a pair of deerskin boots on his feet.

He has finally shed his shabby appearance of wearing tattered clothes and now looks more like a soldier.

"Cough cough cough"

While Peter was looting the spoils, the archer who had been knocked unconscious woke up, immediately attracting Peter's attention.

Peter leaped forward, stepping on the archer's right hand with his left foot, and drew his dagger again, pressing it against the archer's throat.

"Spare me, spare my life..."

The archer pleaded tremblingly, his eyes fixed on the chilling blade so close at hand, his whole body shaking uncontrollably.

"Want to live?"

Peter stared fiercely into the other man's eyes, trying to extract information from him.

"I want to, I want to, God, please spare me! Your virtue shines as brightly as the Holy Grail."

The archer was not a man of strong will to begin with, and upon seeing a glimmer of hope, he spewed out a string of flattering words.

"If you want to live, you have to tell the truth, otherwise you'll end up like those three."

Peter yanked the archer up from the ground, effortlessly dragging the injured body with his 15 points of strength. He then brought the archer's head close to each of the three men who had been killed by the boulder, asking them for their identities one by one.

"Ah, I'll tell you, I'll tell you, I'm the most honest person, God will be my witness."

The archer trembled even more upon seeing the three dead bandit leaders, and then briefly introduced the identities of the three men on the ground.

Peter breathed a sigh of relief when he heard that the one stripped of his chainmail was the bandit leader. He then pressed for details about the other bandits' movements.

"Our second-in-command, Old Blind Eyes, should have returned to our camp with the other four..."

"Where is your camp?"

"On the mountain west of Shita Lake, near the crossroads."

Peter immediately compared the location of the enemy camp with the game map in his memory and figured out its approximate location. In the game, there was indeed a bandit stronghold there that could overlook the main road from a high vantage point.

"Is there anything else you'd like to say?"

Peter was determined to kill; having abandoned his desire to be a good person, his heart wouldn't soften, and his hands wouldn't be either. But he still mercifully gave the other person a chance to leave their last words.

"No, no, don't kill me! I'm still useful. I can shoot arrows and track, I can serve you... I can lead you to the camp, it's very hard to find... My parents are suffering in the village, please don't kill me..."

The archer clearly sensed Peter's murderous intent and begged for mercy repeatedly.

"I'm sorry, you wasted your last chance..."

Just as Peter was about to plunge his dagger down, he suddenly felt a gust of cold wind and an arrow whizzed past him. Peter quickly shielded the archer in front of him as cover and looked in the direction from which the arrow had come.

Two men dressed in gray hunting attire were seen standing not far away, drawing their bows and nocking arrows.

"What are you doing on our turf?"

Although the two men were questioning them, the slight trembling of their bows betrayed their inner turmoil. The sounds of bandits chasing fugitives had drawn them there, but the scene that greeted them sent chills down their spines. They were just poachers, sneaky sellers of venison and leather, who fled when confronted by guards—not bandits ready for a life-or-death struggle! But out of a sense of territorial sovereignty, they reluctantly issued an order to leave.

"Tom, Jerry, please save me..."

The archer recognized the newcomers as the two poachers hiding in Devil's Canyon, known in the underworld as the Tom Brothers. When he first became a poacher, he had teamed up with these two, but they were too cowardly, only daring to poach and not rob. The archer later parted ways with them and joined a bandit gang.

Poachers Tom and Jerry glanced at the three corpses at the scene and the fierce look in the eyes of the big guy opposite them; they had no intention of making enemies of Peter.

"We don't want trouble, big guy, get out of here right now!"

Tom said, feigning composure.

In a battle between people, it's either the East Wind prevails over the West Wind, or the West Wind prevails over the East Wind. Peter keenly sensed Tom's bluff, so he aggressively stepped forward, but the dagger swept across the archer's neck.

"What if I say no?"

Blood gushed from the archer's neck, but Peter forcefully used him as a shield, advancing step by step toward the Tom brothers, his face stained with blood and contorted in a terrifying grimace.

"You actually killed him."

"Damn it, you murderous maniac."

Tom and Jerry exchanged a glance, both seeing the fear in each other's eyes, then turned and ran, disappearing into the winding maze in a few moments.

"Sigh, as expected, if you're not ruthless, you can't stand firm. Once you cross the line into murder, your intimidation ability increases dramatically."

Peter plopped down on the ground, and it took him a few seconds to recover from the exhaustion of the adrenaline rush.

"Defeat breeds resentment, victory breeds revenge. Now the tide has turned, it's my turn to hunt down the remaining bandits and end the original owner's hatred."

Peter shouldered the makeshift hunting bow and a quiver of inferior hunting arrows left behind by the archer and strode forward.