Virtual World: Close Combat Mage

“That’s the plan then! Continue to keep watch over Carouse, I’ll go contact them,” Oathless Sword made the decision and immediately walked around searching for Black Rose and White and Black. Oathless Sword personally knew both men, but they were not exactly good friends, which was why he did not have either of their names on his friends’ list. Since all the guild leaders were gathered in the same area at this time, Oathless Sword walked around the area twice, seemingly with nothing to do, before he spotted Black Rose in a certain corner. The man was looking gloomy, though it was evident that his friends around him were gleeful. He could clearly tell that these men were taking the mickey out of Black Rose after the embarrassing fiasco earlier today!

Oathless Sword pretended to walk past, and taking the chance when those men burst into a bout of laughter once more, he curiously swept his gaze over and looked at the laughing men, “What are you guys so happy about?”

“Oh, it’s guild leader Oathless!” The crowd chuckled. Oathless Sword was someone many people in Yunduan City would recognize. Black Rose was obviously unwilling to put himself through this continued ridicule and was eager to change the subject. The man made his way over when he saw Oathless Sword taking the initiative to approach them, “Guild leader Oathless, when are we beginning our assault on the city?”

This was around the time when the medium-sized guilds were the most lonely; the large guilds were in control of everybody’s activities, while Black Index Finger was currently in charge of contacting and organizing the small guilds. This meant it was the medium-sized guilds that were stuck in limbo, feeling as if there was nothing to do.

The moment Oathless Sword saw Black Rose stepping up to start a conversation, he happily chuckled, and very unassumingly entered into their conversation circle…

——————————————————–

Several minutes later, the melancholia that Black Rose was feeling from being squashed by the large rock was swept away. The man pulled out that pike of his from his dimensional pocket, and raised his bulging arm into the air, “Brothers, we’ve found something to do!”

“Take care!” Oathless Sword kindly called out from the side, feeling delighted deep down. Youthful Reflection had really picked a fine candidate for this task. All it took was a few words to fan the flames; Black Rose must undoubtedly be recalling the scene of how he had embarrassed himself whenever he was left to his thoughts, urgently needing something to distract himself and everyone.

“Gather our men, let’s go!” Black Rose led his friends and departed with the rest of his guildmates. Oathless Sword did not waste any time either, turning round to search for White and Black. This person was much easier to find, because of how distinctive his equipment was. Furthermore, White and Black was different from Black Rose. His level 5 guild was rather strong, so in front of the guild leader, Oathless Sword from the level 6 guild Traversing Four Seas, the man still had quite the spine to talk as an equal.

Oathless Sword had been a guild leader for a very long time, and he still had quite a few tricks up his sleeves when it came to sorting things out with White and Black. He made sure to emphasize on how it seemed difficult to tell how and where players could earn some contribution scores for the event, Oathless Sword then pretended to inadvertently try to figure out whether it seemed as if Carouse had located some important quest, which was how they ended up clashing with Sword Demon and Thousand Miles Drunk. He further mentioned how he had heard from certain friends that Carouse had gathered over 100 experts somewhere out by the west gate, and wondered aloud just what they were up to.

“I just can’t make sense of things,” Oathless Sword concluded thusly, showing an expression of utter confusion, before turning to look at White and Black, who was already in deep thought by now. Oathless Sword felt that he had done enough, so he bade his farewell and quietly left the area where Black and White, Life or Death Federation had set up camp, before heading off to a dark corner to secretly watch what they would be doing.

Before either of those two guild leaders parted ways, there were two details that Oathless Sword made sure to reveal. The first was the fact that Brave Surge had sent experts there, but they only numbered somewhere around 100. Pike N’ Roses as well as Black and White, Life or Death Federation were both guilds with over 500 members and 700 members respectively. Going up against just the 100 players from Carouse, Oathless Sword was confident that they should at least have faith in succeeding. The second detail was the allure of what Oathless Sword had implied, which was not merely getting either guild to just disrupt Carouse’s quest, but the possibility of snatching it from them.

This was because he was very certain that neither guilds would actually consider Carouse to be their direct competitor. At the end of the day, the difference between their strength was apparent, so ruining Carouse’s quest was not something that either guild would be interested in. It was only if they could snatch said quest away from Carouse, directly benefiting themselves as a result, were both guilds ultimately enticed to act. Oathless Sword had homed in on these two points and easily tugged at their heartstrings. Black Rose had already led men and they were headed to the west gate, while White and Black spent a short while deep in thought. Soon, he went off dragging several of his comrades to discuss this further, before everyone finally got up and left for the location.

“Success!” Oathless Sword sent a message to Youthful Reflection.

“We should deploy some of our men there as well! We don’t want to be in a situation where we need manpower, yet have none available,” Youthful Reflection replied.

“Got it,” Oathless Sword nodded and immediately sent a team of reliable elites from Traversing Four Seas to reinforce the men that were already waiting by Carouse’s site of the quest.

—————————————————————–

Over in Yunduan City, Gu Fei and Sword Demon had both set off with the three soldiers in tow once more. After getting past the battlefield where the players and city guards clashed like last time, the two-man and three-NPC party began to observe the surroundings for anywhere that would allow them to covertly operate from. Both men inadvertently caught sight of a collection of trees nearby at the same time, its location not particularly too far away from the cavity that Carouse had based themselves in. The short discussion that ensued between Gu Fei and Sword Demon saw the pair coming into an agreement to use this position to wait for the opportunity to strike.

“Did you happen to catch sight of that NPC when you were fighting before?” Gu Fei asked.

“You mean the master Civil Engineer? Nope,” Sword Demon answered.

“Say, do you think the quest would be completed if we simply kill it off?” Gu Fei asked.

“If I remember correctly, did your quest not state that this is a rescue?” Sword Demon was apprehensive.

“Oh yeah…” Gu Fei took a look at his quest description again and saw the word ‘rescue’ written clearly on it.

“But if we have to save the NPC, then that method that you suggested before where we kill the player who picked up the opposing quest would only cause Carouse to fail their quest, but that does not mean that we would successfully accomplish our quest either!” Gu Fei said.

“Rescue huh… If that’s the case, does that mean we will have to escort it safely back into the city?” Sword Demon posited.

Gu Fei could not help but look at the chaotic battlefield behind them, “If it would listen to our commands, we could perhaps get it to change into a different outfit, right?”

“I… I don’t know,” Sword Demon said.

In the time Gu Fei and Sword Demon had spent talking, they had both circled round the collection of trees and began making their way into the foliage. As they moved in the direction of the site of the quest, Gu Fei glanced at the time, “We still have 34 minutes. We’re cutting it really close now!”

“With so little time left, do we still even have the time to escort the NPC back after we rescue it?” Sword Demon was skeptical.

“From this point you raised, I don’t think we need to escort it back,” Gu Fei said.

“You should never ever underestimate the shamelessness of the system,” The veteran Sword Demon warned Gu Fei with grave concern.

“There’s someone here!” Gu Fei suddenly sent this message to Sword Demon instead of saying it out loud like they had been talking before. He even pointed ahead in the direction they were headed toward. By the fringe of the treeline in front of them, several players were carefully keeping themselves hidden behind trees, poking their heads out from behind from time to time.

“Who are these people?” Sword Demon messaged back.

“Let’s get close and take a look. Don’t make a noise.” Gu Fei said.

Sword Demon nodded his head, and Gu Fei turned back round to give the three soldiers the command to hold their position. When doing something sneaky like not making any sound, Gu Fei was completely uncomfortable with bringing along the mindless NPCs.

The two paid attention to their own footfalls, ensuring that each step they took made no sound, as they slowly crept up closer to the men in hiding. Sword Demon leaned his body out, took a look at a certain player’s profile, and sent Gu Fei a message, “That’s Youthful Reflection. He’s a member of Traversing Four Seas.”

“What are they doing here?”

“I don’t know. What do we do?”

“Kill them!” Gu Fei typed out.

“Should we leave Youthful Reflection alive so we can ask him what’s going on?” Sword Demon suggested.

“Alright. Let us quietly kill them off, one by one. So that he won’t realize what’s going on,” Gu Fei said.

“That’s a little difficult!”

“What’s so difficult about it? Just gotta act a little quicker, and we can take two each. Which two do you want?” Gu Fei said.

“Let me take a look,” Sword Demon was being very serious, using his Appraisal skill on each of them, and he chose the two he was more confident of taking down. The scouts that Youthful Reflection had brought out for reconnaissance were obviously players with high movement speed that naturally had low HP as a result, making it all the more convenient for Sword Demon and Gu Fei to assassinate them. With their two targets allocated accordingly, these men hiding in this collection of trees had no idea that Death was right behind them.

A single wave of his finger and the two men made their move. Gu Fei suddenly Blinked right in between his chosen men, and before they could even react to this, Gu Fei’s Moonlit Nightfalls had flicked smoothly to the left and the right like a whip, created a flaming ‘S’ that ran from his left to right, cutting the two men across their head and butt respectively before they transformed into beams of white light.

On Sword Demon’s end, he used a simple Bludgeon on one of the men, followed by a Shadowmist Assault right on the other target. He proceeded to barrel back with his Fleetfoot activated, and he used a single Backstab and another stab as follow up, finishing off the man that had yet to recover from his Bludgeon.

By this time, Gu Fei had already strolled over to Youthful Reflection, the only man still alive, and patted him on his shoulders.

“What?” Youthful Reflection did not even turn his head around.

“What are you up to?” Gu Fei asked.

“What else!?” Youthful Reflection turned round even as he said this, but his eyes were not trained on Gu Fei. Any experienced gamer could tell in a glance that Youthful Reflection was currently reading the messages he just received!

The messages he received were of course, “We got killed!!”

Youthful Reflection was jolted to his senses and finally register the man in front of him: Thousand Miles Drunk!

“You you you…” Youthful Reflection stammered for a good while, uncertain of what to say.

But Gu Fei was acting really friendly, hardly intending on causing the man grief as he asked again, “What are you up to?”

Youthful Reflection calmed himself, and when he saw that Gu Fei did not seem to have any immediate desire to send him back to the spawn point, he answered his question with one of his own, “What are you up to?”

“Quest!” Gu Fei said.

“What quest?” Youthful Reflection pressed.

“How could I tell you what I’m doing?” Gu Fei pouted.

Sword Demon had moved to where Youthful Reflection was positioned and was looking out to see what he was looking at. He could already get an inkling what he was doing, “Are you here to monitor the men from Carouse?” Looking out from the spot Youthful Reflection had chosen, he could see what was happening in the cavity where the quest was situated. At the same time, Sword Demon was also originally from a guild himself, so even though he personally disdained the veiled struggle beneath the open strife between guilds, that did not mean he did not understand it. He immediately knew that Youthful Reflection was not here out of the kindness of his heart and in a certain sense, what he was trying to achieve actually aligned with Gu Fei and Sword Demon’s goals.

“This place is a great spot to do something like secretly monitor what’s happening over there,” Gu Fei concurred.

“That’s right!” Youthful Reflection flashed them a forceful smile. “Isn’t that why we are all here now?”

Gu Fei nodded, “You’ve got your eye on this spot, and we’ve done the same as well. For someone like Young Master Han, do you really think that he would not have realized there would be such an ideal place as well?”

“CRAP!!!” Sword Demon could already see the sudden appearance of a Mage’s head poking out from the cavity in the ground ahead, waving his magic staff.