The Strongest PK Killer of All Time

an escort and taking a loaded cart from an NPC to whatever its destination to clear the quest, otherwise known as a delivery quest.

It sounded simple enough on paper, but in all reality, was an absolute pain in the ass.
Why, you ask? Because there were assholes out there called PKers.

“PK” referred to Player Killers.
Their whole goal was to kill normal players like us.
Those who killed people like that had the exclusive class of “PKer”, a hidden class that extensively specialized in combat against other people.
They gained experience through killing other players and taking everything from others by force.
You could almost say PKers and traders were natural enemies to one another.
They were an existence that would steal a trader's gold with any mercy whatsoever.

So, you could bet that any quest a trader had to take on would have a ton of those fuckers lying in wait.
And, if there were a party with the trader, the PKers would match their numbers and show up to strike.

Obviously, a trader that had limited to zero combat ability had no chance at all of winning against a PKer that specializes in combat against other people.
The traders could always employ people in different classes, but then those other people would have to take on the responsibility of ensuring the safety of the traders and their objects, and the outcome of that was just as obvious.

The quest had an amazing reward, and gave plenty of time to fulfill the requirements, but the probability of failure was far too high.
As a result, that quest lost popularity really quickly, leaving traders forever looking for bodyguards to help assist them.
It was a sad situation overall.

This girl was going through the same problem…
It's just that I was the one lending a hand as a bodyguard this time around.

“Thank you so much!”

She sounded so respectful to me that it hurt.

I knew I should've just been honest with her, but I had to say that just for the sake of appearances, at least.

“Let's get going then!”

“W-wait for me!” I shouted at her, stopping her in her tracks as she was about to start the quest straight away.
“I've still got some things I've got to get ready.”

“Oh, okay! I'll be here until you're ready!” she said, bowing.

She sure had some energy to her.

What a waste for her to be a trader of all things.

Okay, now it was time to do all I could to ready myself for a fight against those pricks.

This was the last time I'd be playing RL, after all.
It was a miracle that I'd met another trader at the very end of it all.
I had to go all out for this.
I had practically no chance of winning, but if I could do something that might raise those odds just the slightest…

“Sorry about that.
I'm good now,” I said when I got back.

“No problem at all! I'll start the quest for us.”

“Sounds good.”

She and I started walking towards the quest's NPC.

…This was it.

For her, it was the very first trader quest of her life.

For me, it was my very last.