57. Two Yuan Each, Two Yuan Each

[Acquired skill: 'Quite Amateurish Stealing']

After Charlie demonstrated it to him a few times and provided hands-on instruction, the skill was officially acquired.

Acquiring skills within the "Endless Corridor" is often a troublesome chore.

For example, without Cha Bai around, if Li Nuo wanted to learn [Comprehensive Combat], he would need to find a knowledgeable NPC and genuinely get beaten up until the other party was truly willing to impart the skill. Only then could he acquire it.

The more complex and powerful the skill, the more troublesome the acquisition channel.

To give another example, wanting to learn the Leap of Faith requires you to ensure that when you fall from hundreds of meters high, you don't crush any pedestrians, land precisely in a hay bale the size of a toilet bowl, and possess some kind of cheat to avoid dying from the fall.

Stealing, however, was not that complicated.

It belonged to that category of tricks you could learn at any moment simply by wanting to.

Just walk down the street with a wallet dangling from your hand, and you were guaranteed to attract a crowd of masters eager to teach you.

Yet, learning a skill came with a specific condition.

The more eager the instructor was to teach you, the higher the success rate.

Once the skill transfer succeeded, Li Nuo could view the unlearned skill on his personal panel.

[Quite Amateurish Stealing]
[Type: Skill]
[Learning Conditions: Insight 13, Reaction 10]
[Effect: For targets within the user's level range, allows viewing of some items carried by the target, with a 50% success rate of theft]
[Description: Frequently commits crimes on moonlit nights, always sending a advance notice letter to the target beforehand. Wears a white formal suit, a monocle over the right eye, a cape that can transform into a hang glider, along with playing card guns, smoke bombs, and numerous other criminal tools. Don't doubt it—what was mentioned above has nothing to do with you; that's Kaito Kid.]

"Is there something wrong with the description..." Li Nuo still couldn't help but complain about the "description" text.

"Sir... May... May I leave now?" Charlie pleaded from the side.

"One last question. Answer me," Li Nuo said.

Charlie nodded. He had no choice; the "sir" before him could easily kill all three of them even without a weapon.

"Have you seen anyone looking a bit strange, like me?" Li Nuo asked.

"Sorry, sir, I, I don't understand."

Li Nuo rephrased his description and asked, "Have you noticed anything unusual about me?"

Charlie gritted his teeth and said, "Handsome, powerful, merciful."

Li Nuo smiled. "You're quite the joker."

Then, turning solemn, he asked, "Do you have any recollection of someone who seems entirely out of place in this world?"

Charlie lowered his head, thought for a moment, and said, "There are two newly arrived guards in the prison. The way they walk, the way they eat, and their catchphrases—none of them look like people of the Empire. It feels like they come from overseas."

"Appearance?"

"Sorry, sir... The people of the Sacred Fire Cult wear large cowled hoods and faceplates; I don't know what they look like."

Puff—

An iron club pierced straight through Charlie's eye.

[Eye-poking Thug: Cumulative eye-poke count, one]

With almost no pain, he was left behind in this cave forever.

Li Nuo stood up, struck the three corpses with his club to make sure they were dead, and muttered in self-reproach, "I know killing the donkey the moment it leaves the millstone is wrong, but I have no choice... Letting the three of you walk ahead would still be a nine-deaths-out-of-ten scenario for me. You three might as well fulfill your respective duties and attain eternal bliss."

He used the corpses' clothes to wipe the blood off the club and his own body, and then drew the random card rewarded by the [Prologue Quest].

[Megaphone Filled with Blood and Tears]
[Quality: Common]
[Description: The stories inside the recording are filled with a history of blood and tears.]

"Isn't this the prop used by that complaining guy during the rookie screening?" Li Nuo hung the megaphone around his waist and walked deeper into the cave.

From Charlie, he had obtained a piece of crucial intelligence: players might be inside Kaer Morhen Prison posing as "jailers" or "guards." As for their objective, there was a high probability they were also searching for the [Trial of the Grasses Decoction].

As he walked, Li Nuo pondered a question.

Becoming a Witcher required drinking the highly toxic [Trial of the Grasses Decoction]. Its toxicity was so fierce that ordinary antidotes probably couldn't cure it, though it wasn't excluded that antidotes from "casual" games might work.

But that was only the first step; the trial phase followed.

Collectively, they were known as the "Witcher Trials."

Step one: the Trial of the Grasses, drinking the lethal [Trial of the Grasses Decoction]. This was an extremely painful process, and the survival rate of the Trial of the Grasses was typically only three in ten.

Step two: the Trial of Dreams, throwing the survivors into a place infested with monsters. After surviving, eye mutations enhance night vision capabilities, and the mutations also affect bone marrow and hormones, granting the Witcher many physical advantages.

Not long after, he reached an area where the boundary between metal and stone walls was distinctly divided. The end of the cave opened into a large, hollow pipeline interior.

Not far ahead was a small door. Li Nuo stood before it; the outside should be the path to the exit. He pressed his ear against the door for a long time, and sensing no movement, he pried the lock open with his iron club and quickly slipped inside. This was a storeroom, stockpiled entirely with daily necessities.

Just a few steps further forward, he heard the sounds of "smack and slurp"...

He looked over.

Two guards were locked in an embrace, passionately kissing...

They, too, heard the movement and turned their heads to look at Li Nuo.

The three of them just stood there in silence.

Li Nuo was dumbfounded. Ah, well... I've never experienced this before... Regarding special emotional needs, Li Nuo maintained a neutral attitude. Compared to perverts who wouldn't even spare lizards, men with men might simply have developed a special sense of dependence under the wrong kind of high pressure. Why do many men like ladyboys? It still comes down to that old saying—men understand men best.

Even though his brain was running wild, Li Nuo didn't hesitate.

He drew his iron club, sprinted forward instantly in a cheetah-like stance, and accurately poked an eye out.

[Eye-poking Thug: Cumulative eye-poke count, two]

The other guard snapped out of his trance and tried to draw his weapon, but Li Nuo used [Comprehensive Combat] to counter-twist his arm in a weapon-disarming maneuver, snatched the blade, slashed horizontally to cut his throat, and then reverse-gripped the blade to stab it straight into the opponent's eye.

[Eye-poking Thug: Cumulative eye-poke count, three]

"That was close..." Li Nuo let out a long breath, then quickly changed into the other person's red hooded robe and faceplate.

He fished a matchbox out of one of their pockets; regardless of whether it was useful or not, he took it with him.

These two pieces of clothing had no special attributes, so there was no need to dwell on them. In short, Li Nuo could temporarily take off [Emhyr's Mask] and use the looseness of the robe to conceal the iron club and folding stool.

Then he placed the [Megaphone] he had just drawn near the door, turned up the volume, set the timer switch, and walked out of the storeroom.

Outside was the prison area.

Inside the prison, the paths were narrow, and emaciated prisoners were locked in cages. Li Nuo stood in place, filtered out the stench, filth, and shouting, and observed carefully: there were sixteen guards in total here.

"I always feel like I'm playing Hitman..." Li Nuo muttered inwardly as he walked past a few guards and found the wooden door leading to the lower level at the end of a narrow corridor.

A guard wearing the same red robe was standing watch there.

As he walked over, the guard stretched out a hand to block him and said, "Show your badge."

[Side Quest Triggered: Behind the Door]
[Quest Details: On the second underground level, something that many people are interested in is hidden]
[Quest Rewards: ???]

Upon hearing the system's prompt, Li Nuo walked up and asked, "The long night is lonely. Care for a game of Gwent?"

The opponent was slightly stunned at first, then suddenly said with a stern expression, "Hmph, I happen to be a master."

He was already prepared to quickly poke out the opponent's eyeballs.

However, right at that moment.

From outside the corridor came the wailing, howling roar of a megaphone—

Two yuan, two yuan, everything is two yuan! You can't lose, you can't be fooled!

...

*(I discovered one thing: a fever isn't the hardest part; what's agonizing is the coughing that starts after recovering. I coughed all night, hahahahaha... my lungs hurt)*