Virtual World: Close Combat Mage

The four others had no idea what else to say, so all they could do was stand there mutely staring at Young Master Han as the man got up from his haphazardly done straw-bedding.

“If the target isn’t Wounds, then who is it?” Young Master Han asked the four.

The four kept their mouths shut, not saying a word.

Young Master Han’s gaze stalled on Royal God Call, and the Archer turned his head away, not daring to meet his eyes.

“Is this a conclusion you’ve come using a mortal’s wisdom?” Brother Assist could not resist asking this.

“Using a mortal’s wisdom?” Young Master Han showed a look of pained horror. “I can’t do that!”

The four bit their lower lips. The one to speak in the end was still Sword Demon. “Let’s head over to the spawn point. Let’s just go offline for a bit. Parallel World’s statuses will be cleared once we log off. Let’s just forget about turning their trap on them.”

“Boss Sword Demon’s idea is still the more reliable option,” the other three praised.

“Since you guys like that sort of method, I have no comments.” Young Master Han shrugged.

“Let’s go, then!” The four men prepared to leave the jungle.

“Aren’t you going?” Sword Demon realized that Young Master Han did not seem to be leaving with the others.

“The target can’t be me,” Young Master Han said.

“Maybe the action our enemies have taken was very ordinary, and the target just might be you.” Brother Assist was still the expert when it came to smoothing things over.

“What you’ve said makes sense as well.” Young Master Han nodded. “After all, it’s not without reason for them to target me.”

“Oh, yeah? What’s the reason?” Brother Assist asked, as he casually placed his hand over Young Master Han’s shoulder.

“Jealousy of my looks,” Young Master Han stated matter-of-factly.

“Ha ha…” Brother Assist laughed dryly, his hand upon Young Master Han’s shoulder stiffening.

“Let’s go; let’s go!” Royal God Call and War Without Wounds urged everyone to leave, and the five men left the jungle together. Over by Gu Fei’s side, he was still clueless on what had just happened, so he kept pestering them for a recount, and Brother Assist eventually provided him a simple summary of today’s event. The moment Gu Fei heard that he had not missed anything interesting but had actually avoided a disastrously dull session of waiting, he was beyond elated. It was at this moment when he received a new message. Pulling it open and reading its content, he saw that it was from Fireball – someone whom he had not been in contact with for a long time. “Drunk bro, a major incident occurred!”

“What happened?” Gu Fei buzzed. The one thing he feared was a day of peace.

“Someone is plotting against us here in Baishi City!” Fireball explained.

“How exciting!” Gu Fei was envious. Why had no one come to plot against him even now? It was not every day that people came after him, yet all their new enemies did was attack his friends; it was just too disappointing.

“Quite a number of my bros got killed. If we’re not mistaken, their target seems to be Lushness.” Fireball continued to say.

“Oh? Who are they?”

“We’ve got no clue. Their faces are all covered! A standard job-class team,” Fireball replied.

A standard job-class team was a technical jargon used in Parallel World referring to a party that consisted of all the job classes in the game, besides the Fighter. Even Gu Fei knew this.

“Baishi City, yes? I’ll make my way over as soon as I can,” Gu Fei eagerly said.

“If you’re too busy, you can just lend me your equipment. He he he!” Even though it was a message, Gu Fei could imagine that unpleasant smile of his. So that’s the real intention of this guy. Does he want to borrow my equipment so he can show off a little?

“Hey! Is there really an issue or not?” Gu Fei was irate. There was a high chance that this twerp was just looking to borrow his equipment so that he could look good while chasing skirts!

“There’s really an incident here. You can ask Moony or Lushness if you don’t believe me. I’m just worried that you’re busy on your end…” Fireball insisted.

“I’m not busy. I’ll be there right away.” It was not that Gu Fei was stingy and feared loaning him his equipment; rather, he did not wish to miss out on being a part of a potentially exciting affair.

“Svelty…” After ending his conversation with Fireball, Gu Fei quickly sent a message over to Svelte Dancer.

“What?” Svelte Dancer’s response betrayed a sense of vigilance.

“Do you still have Teleportation Scrolls?” Gu Fei asked.

“D*MM*T!” Svelte Dancer had come to know by now that it was never a good thing when Gu Fei contacted her, and she would usually end up paying for something as a result.

“Where are you now?” Gu Fei inquired, instead.

“Still in Linyin City,” Svelte Dancer replied. She, who had originally come to this city with Gu Fei and the rest, was still having fun here, so she was in no hurry to leave.

“How coincidental. So am I,” Gu Fei remarked.

“SCRAM!” Svelte Dancer rebuked.

“Lend me a scroll,” Gu Fei requested.

“What are you doing?” Svelte Dancer asked.

“I have friends over in Baishi City that got into some trouble. I’m heading over to help,” Gu Fei explained.

“I’m going, too,” Svelte Dancer hurriedly said. Anyone looking for Gu Fei’s help would surely be something related to PK, and Svelte Dancer loved crashing such parties.

Gu Fei hesitated. If Svelte Dancer joined him, there was a good chance that she would snatch his kills, and that was not something Gu Fei looked forward to.

“Hmph. If not, I won’t be giving you the scroll,” Svelte Dancer said this when Gu Fei failed to respond for a while. Baishi City and Linyin City were not neighboring regions, so it would take a substantial time to cover the distance even if Gu Fei could fly.

“Fine!” Gu Fei had no choice but to agree to a compromise. “Where are you?”

Svelte Dancer reported her coordinates to him.

“Then, let’s meet over at the mailbox over by the north side,” Gu Fei said.

“What are we going there for?”

“Don’t you need to send it over to someone in the city to note down the coordinates?” Gu Fei asked.

“Nope. I’ve already got one for Baishi City,” Svelte Dancer answered.

“When did you get that done?”

“I made sure to get one for each city as I made my way back to Yunduan City,” Svelte Dancer replied matter-of-factly.

“Just… Just how many scrolls do you have…” Gu Fei was surprised. From what he had heard from Brother Assist and the others, Teleportation Scrolls were somewhat rare commodities in Parallel World, but why would it be no more than a daily consumable to Svelte Dancer? Gu Fei could not help but sigh in admiration. The rich sure have it easy.

The two, thus, decided to make the halfway point of their respective locations as their new rendezvous point. As he made his way over, he fired off messages to a handful of players in his friends’ list. “I’m on my way to Baishi City.”

There was no need to mention just how dejected Ye Xiaowu felt when he got this message. There should be a limit to his savagery! Ye Xiaowu thought to himself as he ruthlessly closed the window and proceeded to disregard it.

“Did you get it?” In the end, Gu Fei sent another message over to confirm that he had received it.

“F*CK!” Ye Xiaowu once more closed that window and refused to reply.

Svelte Dancer did not have much to say after meeting Gu Fei. Simply pulling out a scroll, she unfurled it. A teleportation array then materialized before their feet and whisked them away in a flash of light.

———————————-

Baishi City. Gu Fei looked around his surrounding upon his arrival, immediately sending a message over to Fireball. “I’m here. Where are you guys? What’s the situation?”

“Drunk bro… Seriously? What a decisive and rapid response.” Fireball was stunned. It had just been under twenty minutes since he last contacted Gu Fei.

“He he! Where are you?” Gu Fei asked again.

Fireball had no choice but to report his coordinates.

“Quick; over here!” Gu Fei sent the coordinates to Svelte Dancer, and the woman immediately disappeared like a gust of wind. Gu Fei was already unable to outrun her, so he was unconcerned by it. He calmly trailed after her even as she sent him a message thereafter. “What are we going there for?”

“Vast Lushness and the others ran into a spot of trouble here,” Gu Fei replied. He had no idea if Svelte Dancer would know who he was talking about if he mentioned Fireball and his comrades, but she should at least know Vast Lushness.

“Then, what are you still dragging your feet for? Hurry!” Svelte Dance was annoyed as she was currently dozens of meters ahead of him. Gu Fei was saddened; everyone could be considered as dragging their feet in her eyes.

The location of the coordinates was right in front of them. Gu Fei was still a hundred meters away when he saw Svelte Dancer kick open a door, yelling, “I’M COMING TO SAVE YOU, LUSHNESS!” as she charged right in.

“Careful!” By the time Gu Fei shouted from behind her, Svelte Dancer’s figure had already disappeared. They were up against a full job-class team, which meant that it consisted of at least six players. Sakurazaka Moony and those rascals were not exactly noobs, so to be forced into such a degree meant that the enemies were pretty strong. While Svelte Dancer might be topnotch, Gu Fei felt that it was still far too risky to go charging in so suddenly like that.

Gu Fei made it to the door after a while and was rather astonished to find that it actually led to a tavern. There were plenty of players inside, so it was common for a scuffle to break out abruptly as a result, but few would choose such a spot to cause such a targeted trouble. Seeing it was a tavern, Gu Fei’s heart suddenly stopped momentarily. Could Fireball and those rascals have gotten themselves into trouble with others while they were teasing some lady, that resulted in them retaliating on Vast Lushness? It would be rather awkward if he jumped in to lend a hand for something like this.

Gu Fei warily pushed open the door to the tavern and poked his head through to look about. Everything looked normal inside, and there was no trace of PK-induced fight within. Just as Gu Fei was wondering what was going on, he heard Svelte Dancer loudly shouting, “I’ll take care of this myself. I’ll kill one if one comes, and a whole team if a whole team comes.”

Gu Fei followed her voice over and saw Svelte Dancer, with her leg propped on a stool, as she made her declaration. He saw Vast Lushness and Sakurazaka Moony, as well as Fireball and a handful of the other guys staring at Svelte Dancer lasciviously.

“What’s the major incident?” Gu Fei was all confused as he walked over.

“Drunk bro…” Fireball quickly received Gu Fei the moment he saw him, a trace of fear on his face.

“What’s going on here?” Gu Fei’s hand shot out and gestured to the scene before him. How was this not just a normal tavern gathering with people drinking and merrymaking? He did not see a major incident anywhere at all.

“It’s a long story…” Fireball had a big dumb grin on his face.

Meanwhile, Sakurazaka Moony and Vast Lushness were looking at Gu Fei strangely. “Why is Drunk bro here, too?” Sakurazaka Moony asked.

Gu Fei stared at Fireball.

Fireball lowered his head and secretly messaged Gu Fei. “Drunk bro, there’s a guy who’s also a Mage here, and he’s very arrogant. I originally contacted you to borrow your equipment and show off a little…”

“Then, you should’ve said that earlier.” Gu Fei did not know whether he should laugh or cry. It turned out that he had not been wrong in his assumption of Fireball’s motive for contacting him. Even though he did not intend to borrow his equipment to show off in front of the ladies, his intention was still to use it for something equally lame.

“Still, now that you’re here yourself, Drunk bro, can you perhaps deal an even more brutal blow to him?” Fireball perked up.

“That might not be the case,” Gu Fei rejected. “I’ve already dealt a blow to that guy before.”

Gu Fei already identified the Mage Fireball was looking. That person was also staring at Gu Fei. He was that old friend of Vast Lushness back when they were still terrorizing Yueye City. He had also met the man in Linyin City when he was doing Traversing Four Seas’ guild quest last time.

“Is that so?” Fireball was instantly all smiles when he heard this. Proceeding to stand beside Gu Fei, he straightened his back.

“Just what’s going on here, Fireball?” Sakurazaka Moony could tell that Fireball had secretly contacted Gu Fei to come over.

“Nothing, nothing. Drunk bro and Big sis Svelte are just passing by, right?” Fireball said.

Laughing bitterly, Gu Fei nodded.

“Passing by?” It was instead Svelte Dancer that was flabbergasted.

“Uhh… yeah!” Gu Fei replied.

“You wasted my scroll just to pass by!” Svelte Dancer screeched as she dove straight for Gu Fei, ready to beat him to death.