Warcraft: When NPCs Have Player Panels

Theft spread like a plague across Azeroth.

Thieves, especially, are particularly addicted to it, making street theft their most convenient pastime. Crowded markets are the perfect place to strike. They pull their cloaks tighter, lower their hoods, and weave through the crowds, searching for their targets.

While an old vendor was looking down to make change, the money pouch on his waist was silently slashed; a woman carrying a child turned around to pick out fruits and vegetables, and the cloth in her basket vanished instantly; even players standing still looking at the notices found their gold coins dwindling without them noticing.

With just a nimble movement of the fingertips, the action is fluid and seamless, without making a sound at all.

After succeeding, they immediately blend into the crowd and move to another location to strike again.

The people on the street were completely bewildered until they started counting their belongings and realized they had been robbed. But the thief had already vanished without a trace, leaving behind only a chorus of furious curses.

Throughout the world of Azeroth, the overall goodwill towards outsiders has decreased significantly.

...

William patrolled the slums through the morning mist, his boots sticking to the mud beneath his feet.

As more and more people migrate from all over to the monastery capital of Tirisfal Glades, the resources here are becoming visibly scarce.

Despite the large amount of farmland being cultivated at the foot of the mountain, there are still people who go hungry.

To survive, they have to take on all sorts of odd jobs in the city, just to get a bite to eat, living one day at a time.

The dilapidated wooden houses huddled together, their thatched and shrub-covered roofs letting in light. The air was thick with the astringent smell of wild vegetables and a faint musty odor—the very essence of this city, a place of hardship.

Even though this city was only recently created by the gods.

Sometimes William couldn't understand why, if the gods could create cities, they couldn't feed everyone. Was that so difficult for the gods?

His gaze swept across the alleyway, his brows furrowing involuntarily—even in the past, when times were tough, one could see the busy figures of ordinary people; today, however, all he saw were figures of despair.

In front of the wooden house at the end of the alley, the figure of the old woman Martha stands out.

She was hunched over, her coarse linen clothes worn smooth and patched upon patched, her cheekbones protruding high, and her face sallow from long-term hunger.

Her little granddaughter, Lina, who was only five or six years old, was curled up in Martha's arms. Her face was as pale as a sheet of paper, her lips were chapped, her breathing was weak, and her big eyes had lost the liveliness that a child should have.

"What's wrong with her?" William walked over quickly and clearly heard Martha's suppressed sobs.

She clutched an empty, coarse cloth bag tightly in both hands, cloudy tears streaming down her wrinkled face as she repeatedly muttered, "My food... my Lina... what am I going to do..."

William's heart sank. He remembered that when he was on patrol yesterday, Martha had tugged at his sleeve, her eyes full of expectation.

Her granddaughter, Lina, had been plagued by an illness since childhood, requiring her to visit a monastery where a priest would regularly suppress and dispel it. Every day before dawn, she would go outside the city to forage for wild vegetables and mend clothes for others, finally managing to exchange them for half a sack of wheat. She planned to take it to the monastery and give it to the priest there to cure Lina's illness.

This morning, Lina coughed badly. Seeing Lina getting thinner and thinner, Martha thought of making some wild vegetable soup to nourish the child before going to the convent.

To her surprise, when she returned, the cloth bag that Martha treasured, hidden in a compartment under the floorboards, was completely empty, not even a single grain of wheat remained.

That was Lina's only hope for survival.

Lina leaned weakly against Martha's chest, coughing softly, her little hands clutching Martha's clothes tightly. Her voice was barely audible: "Grandma... I'm not hungry... Don't be sad..." Before she could finish speaking, everything went black, and she fainted.

Martha was terrified and shook her granddaughter desperately, her cries instantly turning hoarse and shrill.

William reached out and checked Lina's breathing; it was so weak he could barely feel it. Long-term hunger and malnutrition had brought the child to the brink of collapse.

William clenched his fists, his anger almost bursting out of his chest.

He knew better than anyone that this must have been done by those out-of-town thieves!

Perhaps they just wanted to earn a few more gold coins, or perhaps they just thought it would be fun, so they secretly stole the half-bag of grain while Martha was out late at night and Lina was asleep.

To them, it was just a tiny bit of supplies in the game, but to Martha and Lina, it was their only hope for survival. It was Martha's hard-earned money and Lina's lifeline.

These strangers are not stealing food, but the lives of innocent people, and the last chance for survival for the poorest of the poor.

They are indifferent, greedy, and have no moral bottom line, building their happiness on the despair of others.

William watched as Martha broke down in tears, clutching her granddaughter, and breathed a sigh of relief.

He snatched the dying Lina from Martha's arms. "Martha, come with me."

As he walked, he told the patrolling soldiers around him, "Keep patrolling. If you see any strangers committing crimes, and you can't beat them, carefully remember their faces so that the city hall officials can issue arrest warrants."

After saying that, he hurriedly took Martha and ran towards the nearest community chapel.

They sped along, and when William arrived at the church, he carried Lina and pushed open the door to go inside, only to find it empty.

"Martha, you watch over Lina, I'll go in and check on her."

The church is under the control of the Church of the Holy Light, and the Scarlet Crusade is also the Church's armed force. Strictly speaking, they are colleagues.

Commoners had to pay to see a priest for treatment, but William did not.

Deep inside the chapel, William pushed open the wooden backstage door. At the end of the narrow passage, the sounds of a woman moaning and groaning began to emanate from one of the doors.

William frowned and walked over. He listened to the door for a few seconds before pushing it open.

Inside the door, on a large bed, a fat, bald man was lying naked on a thin, bony body, moving up and down.

"Who!" Startled, the bald man quickly wrapped the blanket around himself, covering the woman and himself beneath him.

William turned away in disgust and left the room, leaving only one sentence behind.

"Get dressed, I'll be waiting for you outside!"

A short while later, a middle-aged, overweight man, less than 1.5 meters tall, walked out from inside with an unnatural expression.

He wore a long red robe with red patterns along the edges, and a blood-red cross in the center of his chest. In stark contrast to his previous appearance, the cross and the patterns on his robe emitted a strange golden light under the torchlight on the wall, making the originally short, fat, and filthy priest appear holy and extraordinary.

"I am Father Lawrence of this community. Sergeant, where is your lord? I need to speak with him." The short, stout man looked up at William, his tone quite displeased. "Otherwise, I'll contact the community sheriff to arrest you and get some answers."

"No need to trouble the Commander," William sneered. "As it happens, I am the sheriff of this community."

"Oh?!" The short, fat man touched his bald head, a lewd smile spreading across his face. "Oh~, sorry, I didn't expect you to be Lord William."

"I'm so sorry, I didn't recognize you at first. Your sister, Lady Taylor, and I studied the Way of the Holy Light together in the secret realm of the monastery."

Faced with the fat man's almost conciliatory words, William took a breath and continued, "I'll talk about my sister later. Right now, I have two matters, one business and one personal, that I need you to handle."

"Please speak, Lord William. Whether it's business or personal," Lawrence patted the cross on his chest, "I can help you."

"Personally, I need you to help that girl outside, to dispel her illness until she's cured." William paused, looking at Lawrence's calm face, and continued, "Free treatment."

"Oh~~" Lawrence didn't rush to agree, nor could he. This was an important way for local church priests like him to make money, so how could he agree so easily?

"What about official business?"

"Official business is that I will report your affair with a woman to the prosecutor on duty," William said with a sneer. "Our Holy Light Church has strict rules that govern us, Father."

"As you know, for a priest like you to have a relationship with a woman is a clear violation of church rules. It is a serious offense and will be severely punished by the church."

Lawrence's face immediately lit up with a smile. "Your sincere words have touched me, Lord William. I'll go check on the child outside right away."