Continental borders, somewhere near the edge of the imperial borders.

Bekaz, the plague mage, stood on a hillside, staring blankly at a small village at the foot of the hillside and the people who lived in it.

Even if they were nominally included in the garrison of the Imperial Frontier Army, in reality, if the rogue bandits from outside the border who had no national power came to ransack, the people here would most of the time have to rely on their own strength to meet the enemy. Therefore, most of the residents who were able to settle and survive in the border area had a fierce spirit that the inland people did not have, and even if they had enough swords and horses, they would not mind leaving the village to go beyond the border during the off-season, or even crossing the border corridor to the border side of the Free Federation to make a few cameos as bandits.

The village that Bekaz is watching is one of the famous "bandit villages" in the border area. This kind of village is notorious in the border area, and except for the symbolic planting of the land during the fixed agricultural season, the rest of the time they do the same thing as ordinary bandits. It's just that because they are still nominally residents of the empire, and they never trouble the imperial army and other villages that are also residents of the imperial border, the imperial army not only ignores them, but also occasionally cooperates with them, and leaves any dirty work that is inconvenient to these people to deal with, which can be regarded as a group of "official bandits" privately raised by the imperial army.

At the moment, however, the village doesn't have the same vigor – or rather, the sky. Gone are the men who had come back from a robbery and were noisy in the village's only tavern, the spicy women who were born in the village and picked up knives and guns that were no less than the men, and the children who had started playing bandit games at a young age were gone...... In their place, there were a group of poor people who looked gray and weak, and who walked staggeringly and sickly.

The village is experiencing a plague that is even more terrifying to the people living on the border than the enemy army or the wandering bandits. If there is a plague outbreak in a small village in the interior, then the first reaction of the upper-level officials is to save it, but in the border area, they have reason to believe that if the news of the epidemic in this village spreads, the first reaction of the imperial border army is definitely to slaughter their entire village and bury it, after all, the border army does not have so many materials and manpower to invest in the treatment of the epidemic, kill them, the imperial army can say that they just killed a group of bandits who tried to bring the plague to the territory of the empire...... Whether it was "plague" or "bandits", the people of this village could not refute it.

Hiding the plague and doing everything possible to find a cure for the disease is the only thing the people of this village can do now, but they don't know that their efforts are in vain, because they are not ordinary diseases at all, but a plague of the dead that is now smelling in the Free Federation.

Their plagues...... No, their deaths have long been written into the script by a plague mage, and they will be a very important key player in a good play that the plague mage has planned to direct in the Borderlands.

Having seen enough of the miserable condition of the small village at the foot of the hillside, Bekaz turned and walked towards the dense forest on the hillside, and had not gone far when suddenly he felt something stop.

“…… The Federation is finally starting to move...... It's the fortress to the north, and it's ready tonight and will leave tomorrow morning...... Oh, yes, that's good, if it's those forts in the south, it might make me think a little harder, but now......"

Muttering to himself with a grim smile, Bekaz turned to look again at the village below the hillside, and then turned his gaze to the plain on the north side of the village, where the nearest Imperial stronghold was located.

“…… The stage has been set up, and now, the actors are ready. ”

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Imperial Army Border Fortress, God of War Pass.

As a pass surrounded by level 40-50 monsters, there are not many players in the God of War Pass at the moment, and most of the Imperial players who come to the border area now choose to temporarily station at the southern end of another Imperial Border Fortress located at level 30 monsters or go to the Holy City, except for some special tasks that need to be done, not many Imperial players or choose to hang around near the God of War Pass at this time.

Because of this, after returning to the God of War Pass, Mu Yun didn't have to worry about his figure running around here being discovered by the opponents on the empire's side, and after observing that there were no players around, Mu Yun stepped down from the teleportation array and hurried towards the general's mansion in the God of War Pass.

Normally, Mu Yun, who was still near the border fortress of the Free Federation, had no way to rush back so quickly, thanks to a special small object he obtained during the mission when he was doing a special mission triggered in advance with the experience of rebirth, and the incidental skill of that special item allowed him to lock a safe zone location, and then no matter where he was, as long as he was not in a combat state and did not receive a special spatial shield, he could be teleported to that place.

The reason why Mu Yun was in such a hurry to come back was precisely because of the Rococo and his party he had met at the border before.

As a reborn, Mu Yun, like Rococo, knew that at this time in his previous life, there would be a major event in the Holy City of Bekaz attacking the holy city of Arya Val, which would trigger a series of major turning points in the game. However, the difference is that the game information that Mu Yun has in his previous life is completely from the perspective of an empire player, and because of this, he and Rococo also have completely different sensory views on this whole thing.

And the most decisive gap is the perception of Bekaz as a person. Mu Yun doesn't know the inside truth of this world like Rococo, so it is impossible for him to know that the events of the Holy City in his previous life are actually not the phased main plot originally written in the main script of the "Redemption" game, but are completely due to the extra branches generated by the rampage of Bekaz, a special NPC with his own self. Because of this, Mu Yun did not understand like Rococo that the plot of the national war that broke out immediately after the Holy City incident in the previous life game was actually not in the main plot plan of the original game at all.

Because he firmly believed that the Holy City Incident was the main plot of the game that could not be beaten, and its role was to start the national war, Mu Yun was convinced of the authenticity and rationality of the Federal Army's behavior of trapping the Imperial Army as the fuse of the beginning of the national war in the Holy City Incident in his previous life. Unlike Rococo, he firmly believes that the incident that was completely tragic for the Imperial Army was a carefully planned conspiracy by the entire Free Federation, and it is even likely that it was the result of a covert collusion between the Free Federation and the plague mage Bekaz.

After all, in the previous life, although the Goddess of Creation Sect finally defeated the undead legion, it was entirely because the guide Orlanardo won the plague mage Bekaz in the competition of personal strength, and it had nothing to do with the two reinforcements that were called for help by the Holy City, the imperial army was because the border army suffered heavy losses and the main army was dragged by the beast spirit clan in the north, but it is very doubtful that the Free Federation has no achievements.

Mu Yun didn't know that the Free Federation was actually in a state of chaos that could not be seen from the outside but was chaotic from the inside, and he felt that the Holy City incident was actually very likely to be caused by Bekaz and the Freedom Council-what? Bekaz had just attacked Lancarus at that time? So what, judging from the results, that incident was completely a lot of wind and rain, okay, in the end, Lancarros County was fine, and Bekaz also retreated, who knows if there is anything bad in such a "peaceful" ending? After all, even if Bekaz is notorious, he is also from the Southern Continent, and it has always been a thing since ancient times that the Southern Continent and the Eastern Continent, where their empire is located, have always been incompatible.

With this in mind, Mu Yun thought that he had made full use of his advantages as a reborn to plan his actions and goals in this Holy City event. Although the situation in the border area before the Holy City Incident was completely different from that in his previous life, Mu Yun believed that some of the "main lines of the game" - for example, the fact that he believed that there was a collusion between the Free Federation and Bekaz should not change, in this case, the tragedy of the Federation Army and the Undead Army teaming up to kill the Imperial Army in the previous life is likely to reappear in a different way.

And what Mu Yun has to do is to expose this conspiracy as much as possible and report it to the Imperial Army Commander in time. Based on his experience in the game, this is the equivalent of redeeming the lives of an army on the outside, and on the inside it is a bonus point to rewrite the direction of the plot, so the final mission reward must be amazingly rich.

Before, he secretly ran to the area of the federal border to wander alone, just to see if he could find evidence of collusion between the federal army and the undead, but obviously this was like looking for a needle in a haystack for him without any clues, but just when he was about to give up, he saw Rococo and his party.

Coincidentally, when Mu Yun saw Rococo and them, they had just killed the Plague Knight, and Rococo was using the magic ring to receive the knight's soul for self-confession. Mu Yun, who didn't see Rococo and his party fighting fiercely with two elite plague knights, saw from a distance that Rococo, a player of the Free Federation, was talking to two revenants - it was a bit difficult to distinguish between ordinary souls and revenants who had been made into slaves by necromancers at such a distance, Mu Yun decided that this team of players of the Free Federation was likely to have secrets that he would be interested in.

Although it's just a suspicion, but anyway, the Federation and the Empire are now hostile, even if he guesses wrong, at least he can get the honor of killing, so Mu Yun didn't hesitate, he directly sneaked over incognito, and took this free Federation squad as his hunting target, as a reborn person who has the best resources in the game at this stage, a natural protagonist who has become the first assassin in the game after reliving a lifetime, At that time, Mu Yun didn't think that the team in front of him, which did not include the future Federation power master players he was familiar with, would cause him any trouble.

As a result, for the first time since he was reborn, he kicked such a hard iron plate.