THE KILLING HOUR

Chapter 7 · The Fire

[You killed

[Intimidation +30]

[Cunning +50]

[Fearless +40]

[Killing +80]

[Trap +20]

Sin +40] Staff

Ask,

Icy, Three—

four players. Your rating has increased.

Only after getting word of all four deaths did Kyle Vance turn and walk away from the basement door.

As time passed, the fire below only grew. Guests poured from their rooms in a panic; some simply screamed inside, waiting to be rescued.

The hotel owner had probably fainted crying in the bathroom. This fire would put the hotel in the history books.

Every few minutes, Kyle's Sin value ticked higher. That meant the fire was eating the lives of NPCs in the game—and the only person who could stop it chose to stand by.

To players like them, these people were just game data. However real they seemed, they were virtual.

Put the fire out and the ignition point and the bodies in the basement would be found. He'd be the town's most wanted man.

The fire bought him time. So the fire had to happen.

As for the lobby manager?

And his front-desk identity?

Simple.

He'd told the manager he wanted to try a day at the front desk—no pay needed, and he'd even give the man 50 rubles for his trouble. That was two months of the manager's wages, and all the "trouble" involved was showing up and saying a few words.

Kyle paid half up front. The other half would be handed over in the basement, at a time he chose, after luring the man down.

The manager, still congratulating himself on fleecing an i***t, was knocked flat the moment he entered the basement. A little persuasion got him to record the message Kyle wanted. Then he was drugged and left on the floor as part of the setup.

The timing had been razor thin—the Hunters' arrival at the hotel, the deal with the manager, luring Icy down to the basement and setting the scene, all within seven minutes.

Why seven minutes?

Simple. Icy's rooms were on floors two and three, the others on four through eight. With the elevators shut down, they had to take the stairs. From going up and down to finding the rooms,

realizing something was wrong, and getting back to the front desk, it took at least—

seven minutes.

So if Kyle didn't want his scheme exposed, he had exactly seven minutes. Inside those seven minutes he was safe. Past them, cracks would show.

So far, it looked like he'd pulled it off. And running wild like this in a game gave him no guilt at all. After all—it was just a game.

He took out Icy's phone. The passcode had already been changed by Kyle,

and every detail was filed in his head.

The security system here might as well not exist.

After checking the state of the town, Kyle began composing a message on the phone.

Behind him, the sky was full of fire. Kyle calmly changed back into his own clothes, flagged a taxi, and left.

On the other side, Grandpa had been working the case alone for an hour. Veteran that he was, he'd scoured the place until his legs gave out and still hadn't found a single suspect. Which meant the Fugitives probably weren't in this hotel

but the other one.

"You have a new message."

His pocket buzzed. Feeling sorry for his bad luck, Grandpa pulled out the phone and read.

[We're chasing a Fugitive. No sign of the classified document.

The other four Fugitives are three men

and one woman. Names as follows—photos attached.]

They left the hotel at 12:18.

"Didn't think these guys had it in them. Found a Fugitive this fast, plus some useful intel."

Reading it, Grandpa felt a flicker of satisfaction. He'd never expected these rookies to be any help, but his teammates were pulling their weight.

The opening stretch mattered most. Useful intel now meant they could trace these people's positions fast.

Otherwise, finding them would be a nightmare.

Log into the security system, scan the photos from the phone, run them against the database, and wait.

[Targets locked. At 12:30 they appeared at the intersection of Qingyang Road and Ping'an Road]

[13:00 they appeared outside XXX Bar

[13:45 they entered XXX Supermarket]

A stream of results came back, all from matching against surveillance. Clearly the group hadn't thought to hide their faces, so the street cameras caught them.

In under five minutes, the Hunter had located every one of these rookie Fugitives.

"Open the town map."

The Fugitives' last known position was five minutes old. Grandpa flagged a taxi and headed that way while voice-commanding the town map open on his phone.

Criminals weren't statues—they moved every second. Chasing their tail would get him nothing but air. A Hunter had to figure out their goal, then set the ambush ahead of them.

Studying the map, Grandpa's years as a Judicator let him see their thinking in an instant. He immediately—

—redirected the taxi.

As a Second-Rank Judicator, it was his duty to show these people who chose Fugitive the weight of justice's iron fist.