Jason’s mind raced, and a plan quickly took shape.
He lay flat on the floor with the M4A1 in his arms, pressing one ear against the ground as he listened carefully to the footsteps outside.
They were getting closer.
Louder.
More numerous.
Creak*…*
Someone was pushing open the glass door of the ice cream shop.
Now!
Jason popped up, aimed at the mobsters outside, and pulled the trigger.
The M4A1 in his hands immediately spat deadly fire.
Bang!
Bang!
Bang!
Bang!
A burst of gunfire erupted as hot brass casings flew through the air.
The mobster who had been about to enter was riddled with bullets.
The glass door shattered around him with a sharp crash as he collapsed to the ground.
Jason didn’t let go of the trigger.
He kept firing, maintaining suppressive fire.
The mobsters outside were caught completely off guard.
Cursing furiously, they scrambled for whatever cover they could find nearby.
Jason seized the brief window of safety and rapidly operated the system interface.
[Ding! You damaged someone else’s property. You have earned 10 Villain Points. Current progress: 950/1,000.]
[Ding! Two mobsters killed. You have earned 200 Villain Points. Current progress: 1,150/1,000.]
[Ding! Congratulations, Host. You have reached Level 2 and received 10 Attribute Points. Current progress: 150/2,000.]
Jason immediately allocated the Attribute Points to Agility and Intelligence.
━━━━ ATTRIBUTE ━━━━
✪ Strength: 33
✪ Agility: 32 → 35
✪ Endurance: 30
✪ Intelligence: 28 → 35
✪ Remaining Points: 0
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Jason’s scalp suddenly tingled and swelled painfully, as though he’d swallowed an enormous mouthful of mustard.
A moment later, the sensation vanished.
His mind felt noticeably clearer than before.
So that’s what increasing Intelligence feels like?
Jason had serious doubts.
The next instant, all four of his limbs began convulsing wildly against the floor.
It looked a little like a stroke.
A little like electrocution.
And more than a little like he’d completely lost his mind.
In the blink of an eye, his body returned to normal.
No need to guess.
The system had just increased his Agility.
With his attributes now meeting the requirements, Jason opened the Shop again and purchased Firearms Mastery | Level 5.
[Ding! Purchase successful. Remaining Credits: 3.]
[Firearms Mastery: Level 4 → Level 5.]
It felt as though someone had cracked his skull open and forcibly stuffed an enormous amount of firearms knowledge, technique, and muscle memory directly into his brain.
It was like packing for a trip and desperately trying to cram far too much into a suitcase.
If both hands couldn’t force it shut, you sat on it.
If that still didn’t work, you stomped on the damn thing.
The sensation was miserable, but fortunately, it didn’t last long.
Once the transfer was complete, Jason’s body absorbed and digested the new skills like a sponge soaking up water.
━━━━━ SYSTEM ━━━━━
Host: Jason Walter
Level: 2 (150/2,000)
━━
[Attribute]
✪ Strength: 33
✪ Agility: 35 ↑
✪ Endurance: 30
✪ Intelligence: 35 ↑
✪ Remaining Points: 0
━━
Notoriety: 13
Accomplices: None
━━
Credits: 3
[Skill]
𖦏 Combat Mastery (Level 4)
𖦏 Driving Mastery (Level 3)
𖦏 Firearms Mastery (Level 5) ↑
𖦏 Melee Weapons Mastery (Level 2)
[Shop: Click here]
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Jason tightened his grip around the M4A1.
His understanding and handling of firearms had risen to an entirely different level.
“All right, you sons of bitches.” A cold smile appeared beneath his mask.
“My turn.”
During the brief respite, the pain in Jason’s feet had already subsided considerably.
Combined with the system’s mustard treatment and electroshock therapy, his legs had recovered to almost ninety percent.
“Jason! Surrender!” Vladimir shouted from outside.
“I’ll admit you’re good, but there are more than twenty professional gunmen out here. Unless God himself comes down to save you, you’re not getting out!”
“Are you sure you’ve still got more than twenty gunmen?” Jason grinned.
“And you probably won’t believe this, but God really is helping me.”
After the fighting so far, Vladimir had lost nine men.
Even counting Vladimir and Anatoly themselves, they only had fifteen shooters left.
Jason’s words sent Anatoly into a rage.
“FUCK YOU! Brother, forget taking him alive! Let’s just kill the son of a bitch!”
Losing nine gunmen in such a short time had left Vladimir equally furious.
He frowned at his brother’s suggestion, thought for a moment, then nodded.
“Fine.” Anatoly’s face lit up.
He immediately pulled an RPG from his bag and roared, “Surprise, motherfucker!”
BOOM!
The RPG launcher thundered.
A rocket shot forward with a long trail of flame, streaking straight toward the nearby ice cream shop.
Jason had already sensed that something was wrong.
Without a moment’s hesitation, he smashed through the glass on the opposite side and hurled himself out of the shop.
The next second—
BOOM!
Flames erupted.
The ground shook violently.
The ice cream shop was instantly swallowed by a sea of fire.
“Those fucking lunatics!”
Jason stared grimly at the heat waves rolling overhead, his heart still pounding from the close call.
If he’d hesitated for even one second, he’d already be standing in front of either God or Satan.
Jason released a quiet breath, then turned and looked across the deserted mall.
A cold smile crept across his face.
Now this is my turf.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Anatoly excitedly tossed the empty RPG launcher aside.
“Brother, we can go collect Jason’s corpse now.” He grinned.
“Assuming there’s enough of him left to find.” Vladimir was far more cautious.
With a slight wave of his hand, he ordered one of the mobsters out from cover.
The man raised his rifle and carefully approached the burning ice cream shop.
Half a minute later, he emerged and shook his head at the brothers.
“FUCK!” Anatoly’s face turned red with rage.
He survived a fucking RPG?
Does that bastard really have God protecting him?
Vladimir stood up and said calmly, “Don’t panic. He’s injured. He can’t have gone far.”
He pointed at the mobsters around him.
“Pair up. Enter the mall through different entrances. The moment you find Jason, open fire.”
His eyes hardened.
“Forget taking him alive.”
“Yes!” The men nodded, split into pairs, and entered through several different entrances around the mall.
“Brother, I’m going in too.” Anatoly picked up his automatic rifle.
Vladimir nodded.
“Be careful. Even wounded, Jason isn’t someone an ordinary man can handle.”
Anatoly nodded and waved one of the mobsters over before entering through the mall’s main entrance.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
The mall was right below Jason’s apartment building.
Whenever he had nothing better to do, Jason liked wandering through it, usually while appreciating the figures of attractive women along the way.
After years of doing that, he knew the mall’s entire layout down to the smallest detail.
Walking through it was practically no different from walking through his own living room.
That familiarity was exactly why Jason hadn’t rushed to escape.
Instead, he was hiding in the shadows, preparing to turn the tables on the Russian Mafia.
Inside an Italian restaurant on the mall’s second floor, Jason sat beside a window, eating leftover lamb chops and pasta abandoned by the previous customers.
The seat had an excellent view.
From here, he could overlook nearly the entire first floor with almost no blind spots.
Under normal circumstances, it would have been a perfect spot for a romantic date.
Jason had barely finished his second lamb chop when two mobsters appeared in his field of view.
They advanced slowly with their backs to each other, rifles raised, carefully scanning their surroundings.
Jason smiled faintly.
He brought the M4A1 to his shoulder and aimed at one of them.
After the briefest adjustment—
He pulled the trigger.
Bang!
Bang!
Bang!
Three shots.
Three gaping holes opened across the mobster’s chest and abdomen.
He collapsed into a pool of blood, dead before he hit the floor.
“SHIT!”
His partner spun around in panic, frantically aiming toward the direction the shots had come from.
But there was no one in sight.
He had absolutely no idea where the bullets had come from.
Jason calmly settled his sights on the second man.
Then fired another three-round burst.
Bang!
Bang!
Bang!
The second mobster dropped.
[Ding! Two mobsters killed. You have earned 200 Villain Points. Current progress: 350/2,000.]