PvP can occur anywhere, sure. There are laws in place to prevent casual PvPers, though. What happened after he killed you was he lost some citizenship points and I believe got flagged as a criminal, so guards can kill him and get a hefty kama reward for it. 80 isn't really that huge in the grand scheme of things so I'd imagine he's been cashed in by now, if it's any consolation.
Note people cannot PvP you inside your nation's starting area town place, and if there are any guards around at all they're likely not to bother, as well, guards will jump in.
Eh? No, I'm not talking about any particular class. I'm talking about the series of fights that renders you(r entire party) unequipped and completely unable to damage 3-4 30-40 level enemies (several with AoE or ranged damage), with the only way to progress via gimmick. Gimmick which requires you to step on certain squares (Oh, and the squares? They change every turn.). While 4+MP doomcreatures waddle around and lock your skinny arse to the floor and lop off chunks of your HP every round.
Bring teleporters or frikkin' die, is what I'm saying. Several are going to probably frikkin' die anyway.
This is a set of battles via devil gimmick. Someone on the dev team spun the sadist dial to "Just go the hell away."
Sorry I dropped off! Internet fell out and only just came back. We'll have to give it another go sometime, maybe with the Iop and jump. Or maybe when I get teleport flux on the feca!