Virtual World: Close Combat Mage

Gu Fei felt humiliated that he did not even know who his killer had been. He was now back in the city, and was unable to access the mercenary channel. But it did not seem like Young Master Han was involved in this attack since no one else from Young Master’s Elite was online right now!

Gu Fei quickly pulled out his quest log and had a look. Sure enough, all the quests that he had were marked as failed after he died during the City Wars event, be it the search for Guillermo or the bounty for Oathless Sword’s head. Gu Fei had no choice but to head to the two locations where he had gotten the quests before and see if what the NPCs would say about this.

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Outside the city, the 212 members from Carouse were so excited that they could not calm themselves down for the longest time after they had successfully killed Thousand Miles Drunk. Their guild leader Brave Surge was especially thrilled and he really wanted to share this happiness with everyone. In the end, he took a glance at the guild leaders who also had Thousand Miles Drunk as their target: Oathless Sword was not online. Gu Xiaoshang was not online. Brave Surge swallowed his saliva, and could only turn around and celebrate with his own men around him.

Even Brave Surge had forgotten about the reason why they were there in the first place in all that celebration. However, Folding Fan Invader was able to stay composed, and the first thing he did was run over to the spot where Thousand Miles Drunk had abruptly appeared before and carefully searched the ground.

There was nothing that dropped on the ground, so Folding Fan Invader ran back and got a hold of Beyond Thirty Miles, who was still busy cheering with the rest, “So, is there any progress made to your quest?”

“Quest? Oh, right! Quest,” Beyond Thirty Miles started when he recalled the matter at hand as he quickly checked his quest log for any changes, though the description was still the same as before.

“Do we need to return and look for another NPC?” Beyond Thirty Miles made a guess.

Brave Surge had also come back to his senses and remembered the reason for their operation in the first place. Beyond Thirty Miles did not receive any prompts from the system, and nothing was dropped when they killed Thousand Miles Drunk, so the whole lot of them immediately set off for Yunjiao Lakeside where the NPC Guillermo had parked itself at for the time being. Worried that the NPC would suddenly walk off and disappear, Brave Surge had especially left some of their men behind to accompany it this whole time!

Along the way, everyone was still immersing themselves in the elation and delighted in having killed of Thousand Miles Drunk. Brave Surge momentarily experienced a sense of deja vu, vaguely recalling that time when his guild had first been established, how he and several comrades picked up a guild quest together and had finally managed to successfully slay a BOSS and accomplish the quest after losing many of them one after the other. The excitement everyone had felt back then was very similar to how they were right now.

It has really been a long time since we felt this sort of simple and pure happiness. This must be the thrill of taking down a sufficiently strong opponent! Saying so, it was not as if they did not usually have their own opponents. It was just that the fighting between guild leaders like Oathless Sword and Foe-herder was largely focused on intrigue and all-encompassing in nature. Furthermore, things were always at a head and even if they were to grab an advantage, there was never that sense of pleasure quite like what he had experienced. Instead, it was defeating Thousand Miles Drunk, that sort of BOSS-like existence, that had granted everyone with such a fulfilling satisfaction.

The people from Carouse were all full of energy, laughing and joking all along the way, yet when they got to Yunjiao Lakeside and went to meet Guillermo, they were immediately given the cold shoulder treatment.

“Hey! We’ve already killed Thousand Miles Drunk!! Stop acting dumb!!” Beyond Thirty Miles wished he could just accost Guillermo forcefully.

“What are you saying all that to an NPC for?” Folding Fan Invader did not know if he should laugh or cry. He maintained his cool composure as he turned to regard Brave Surge.

Brave Surge had utterly experienced what it meant to have celebrated for nothing right now. He was happy that he had managed to slay Thousand Miles Drunk, but there must be a reason for Brave Surge to do so for him to truly enjoy this success. Even though none of them had reacted at the moment before, at least all of them knew deep down that the kill was very meaningful and they would greatly benefit from it. But now, the meaning, the benefit… None of that was present. Guillermo still said the same things he said to Beyond Thirty Miles before, and it was very obvious that there had been no progress in the quest at all.

“How could this be?” The guild channel was buzzing with discussion.

Brave Surge thought for a moment, before suddenly asking, “Who was it that said that the quest needs to be taken from Thousand Miles Drunk?”

Beyond Thirty Miles pondered about this, as his forehead began sweating profusely. He did not even catch the entire conversation from the NPC when he picked up the quest, and had merely heard what Young Master Han discussed about it. However, that man intended to use him as cannon fodder, and so had no reason to elaborate on matters with him. Beyond Thirty Miles was historically the most befuddled quest holder, not even certain about the details regarding the quest in any sense. He had been in a state of flustered terror when he first exchanged quick words with the NPC, inexplicably getting himself the quest. After hearing everything that Guillermo was telling them right now, it seemed to be saying that someone had obtained something important from this cabin before they did, so they needed to get it back. Nothing it stated explicitly indicated that Thousand Miles Drunk was the perpetrator.

“Ah, then… That means…” Beyond Thirty Miles stammered as he struggled to find the words. Where was Thousand Miles Drunk in all this?

“Search around Yunjiao Lakeside. See if there are any clues. Especially the area around the cabin,” Brave Surge ordered.

Over two hundred men scrambled and began their search while Beyond Thirty Miles looked like a child who had made a mistake, standing right near the corner facing the wall in shame.

“Ultimately, this quest had still started from the cavity. Come along, anyone who knows something about it, gather around. Let’s all come together and organize what we know about this quest,” Brave Surge was directing everyone to get to work even as he called everyone together to discuss things through the guild channel.

The one who would be clearest about the details of the quest would of course be the quest holder himself, but the person who had the quest before Beyond Thirty Miles was the traitor Wind Seal who had run off to another guild. Brave Surge could only patch together from all the small details that they learned based on what some people could share about the quest and attempt to paint a fuller picture of everything.

Unfortunately, there was hardly anyone in Carouse who was a questing maniac like June’s Rain, nor did they have someone who was a fiend for information like Brother Assist. As a result, all of them were largely indifferent toward the quest’s details. Since the guild had only positioned them at the site in order to defend the place, that was exactly what they would do. Nobody cared to listen to the story behind it. Reportedly, this was the sign of an expert as well! When experts quest, they would always seek efficiency or the rewards, so why would they have the time to care about anything about the plot? Because Parallel World was a simulation of reality, the NPCs would not speak like the games of old, where the players could use their mouse and fast forward the dialogue. Plenty of people were bothered by this. It was already something that players avoided, but now, not only did none of them know what was going on, they had to go up and inquire about the matter. How was that possible!?

In the end, Brave Surge could not find any plausible information regarding the quest, and what information he had initially learned from Wind Sea’s report was actually far more detailed than everyone’s account thus far. But Brave Surge was also too embarrassed to mention this, since he had also adopted the expert’s way of not placing much importance toward the plot of the quest. He had heard Wind Seal verbally give his report, but he was barely paying any attention to what was being said. Now that there was no record for him to look through, there were plenty of details he was still quite foggy over. Everything he had said in the party channel was completely vague as well, and when everyone saw that their guild leader was also terrible at it, the others saved themselves the trouble of even racking their brains to recall what little they know.

“G*dd*mm*t!” In the end, Brave Surge did not really get the complete story behind this quest, so all he could do was vent his anger over the channel, “Everyone, take note! These City War quests aren’t normal. Next time, when anyone receives a quest, make sure to get the plot down. There are some things that the NPCs would state that we need to deduce from what we learn according to the plot, right? Take now for example. The NPC said someone else had obtained something, and some people are saying it was Thousand Miles Drunk. We’ve no idea just why the hell it is Thousand Miles Drunk, but we’ve all killed him, yet we got nothing out of it. If this isn’t a joke, tell me what is?”

“So what are we going to do now, guild leader?” someone asked.

“Let’s search around the area first, see if there are any clues to be found,” Brave Surge ordered.

“I’ve got a thought,” Folding Fan Invader suddenly blurted out.

“Then hurry up and share it with us!” Brave Surge was in no mood to beat around the bush.

“Have we forgotten about someone else?” Folding Fan Invader asked.

“Who?”

“Sword Demon!”

“Eh?” Everyone jolted to a start.

“In the beginning, back in the cavity, it was both Thousand Miles Drunk and Sword Demon that were sowing chaos there together. Those two were already friends from the start, so now that they were designated as city defenders together, they might very well do plenty of activities with one another. If this item retrieval quest we got was really something related to Thousand Miles Drunk, perhaps it’s not him, but Sword Demon instead?” Folding Fan Invader continued.

“What you’ve said… Makes a lot of sense,” Brave Surge nodded his head vigorously.

“Because Thousand Miles Drunk is overwhelmingly powerful, we’ve all paid no attention to Sword Demon’s existence. Everyone, think about it. From what we’ve found out about the occupation of Encampment no.3, Thousand Miles Drunk had been making his way over from somewhere else. He had only stepped onto the encampment and logged off only after the encampment had been dismantled. Thus, Thousand Miles Drunk actually had nothing to do with the capping of the encampment, which meant it was done by Sword Demon back when everyone was only concentrating on searching for Thousand Miles Drunk! If someone had been looking out for Sword Demon, perhaps we might not have lost the encampment,” Folding Fan Invader said.

“That’s right, it must have been Sword Demon!” Everyone nodded in agreement.

“Thousand Miles Drunk is definitely Parallel World’s top player when it comes to PK, but for things like quests and the ilk, he might not be on par with a veteran gamer like Sword Demon. That is why I believe, there’s a good chance that the target for this quest here is actually Sword Demon, so we should be searching for him instead,” Folding Fan Invader concluded.

“We’re hunting for someone again…” Hearing this conclusion, everyone felt like puking.

“Sword Demon isn’t comparable to Thousand Miles Drunk, so if someone were to identify him, I doubt anyone would be afraid to attack him. We’ll need to move quickly. I feel that these quests found during the City Wars event are very flexible, so if Sword Demon were to be killed during this period of time, perhaps the quest item would be dropped upon his death. And if anyone were to bring this item over to this location, there’s a very good chance that they would be able to continue the quest in our stead.”

“You’re right! But Sword Demon isn’t online now,” Brave Surge said.

“Then we shall wait for him! Sword Demon isn’t as difficult to deal with as compared to someone like Thousand Miles Drunk. Now that we’ve confirmed that Thousand Miles Drunk temporarily does not have anything quest related in his possession, why don’t we avoid him? Let us wait till Sword Demon comes online. I do believe the people from Colored Clouds and Traversing Four Seas will also get on around the same time, and it just so happens that we can use them to take on Thousand Miles Drunk, while we focus our attention onto Sword Demon,” Folding Fan Invader had thought this out quite thoroughly.

“Yes, we’ll do just that!” Brave Surge very quickly came to a decision and disseminated this order. “Everyone didn’t really get a good night’s sleep yesterday, so we should log off and rest up for a while now; grab something to eat and so on. This will give us a time difference for the men from Traversing Four Seas and Colored Clouds. They would naturally organize themselves to go fight with Thousand Miles Drunk at that time, and we can let them get a head start on this. We’ll come on a bit later and target Sword Demon.”

Randomly picking out several men to be left with Guillermo, Brave Surge dismissed everyone and departed from Yunjiao Lakeside to log out of the game.

——————————————————

There was an abnormal period of peace during this time. There were no large scale assaults on any of the four city gates, and the system was barely taxed by those who opted to engage in light harassment. When the afternoon passed, large amounts of players began to get back online and enter the game. The time these people spent resting was not in vain; there were players who had internalized what they had learned from yesterday’s experience, with some coming in with fresh and new ideas that came to them in their dreams, or some that learned from the forums what the other cities had done in their attempts, eager to test it out in their city. In any case, compared to the good majority of players that had despondently logged off last night, their fighting spirits were all vibrant and raring to go right now. For example, there were several dozens of guilds that had read Luori City’s post about their assault for the city, and had decided to expand upon it even further by digging a tunnel right into the city. At the moment, they were all gathering the manpower and had already begun the huge excavation project after relaying instructions to them.

The many experts from Young Master’s Elite had also got on around this time, and Gu Fei was already outside the city by this time. Having previously lost his quests from his death when he first logged on, Gu Fei had once more went and picked up the relevant quests again. Over in the Hall of Guild Creation, he apparently was unable to pick up Oathless Sword’s bounty from the list of the top 100 villains, so it seemed like the system had only given players a single chance at this. Gu Fei was helpless, so he could only change it to the name that was second on the list, Brave Surge. However, the Vigilante Corps was still as considerate as ever. Just like how his previous quest had failed once, the quest this time was also made more difficult this time, though the quest description remained the same: Search for Guillermo and talk to him.

Gu Fei had not stepped out of the city for too long when he saw Sword Demon and the others get online one after the other. Gu Fei quite glumly recounted how he had been killed by players who camped out the log out point over by the dismantled encampment earlier today on the mercenary channel, and of course, everyone laughed at him for it. Even Young Master Han sighed, “I’m surprised that I did not think of such a cheap method myself.”

“Enough about that. I’m off to do my quest.” Gu Fei said.

Thus, Sword Demon privately messaged Gu Fei, “Saying that exposed your intentions too barely. Now that everyone knows you’re off to do your quest, Young Master Han will definitely set something up for you.”

“Which is why I was merely bluffing when I said that. I’m in no rush to quest. It’s not like there’s a time limit for this one,” Gu Fei replied.

Sword Demon was speechless, simply feeling that he was just too honest when he heard that.

The two men, neither intending to head out and do their quests, happened to meet up with each other, and they headed in the direction of the northeast encampment. Having destroyed encampment no.3 that was found in the north, the two men coincidentally had designs for the same encampment, and when they arrived near the site, they had instead found that the place was heavily guarded. There were so many players that appeared to have settled themselves down in encampment, looking like they had absolutely no intention of leaving.

“Looks like there’s even less of a chance to succeed today than yesterday,” Gu Fei wistfully commented.

“Yeah, forget about the players for a minute. Just the four NPC guards stationed there would be quite troublesome. They would be alerted the very moment we step into the camp and would home in right for intruders as well. Furthermore, if these guards do not die, there’s no way for the system prompt of occupying this encampment to appear. Killing off those four NPCs is far too difficult with just the two of us. Now that the guild players have all learned their lesson, that trick we pulled on them the last time won’t work anymore either,” Sword Demon sighed.

“Plus, there’s no way to lure those four NPC guards out of the encampment either. They would immediately return after taking a scant few steps out of the place. There’s no way for me to even pull them away to somewhere without anyone around and slay them,” Gu Fei added.

Both men sighed. They circled around the northeast encampment from a good distance. They happened to bump into someone while doing this, and Gu Fei did not steer clear away when he saw that this was someone whom he was familiar with.

“Oh, it’s the two of you! How coincidental!” Gu Fei and Sword Demon had inadvertently run into Xi Xiaotian while they were circling the encampment.

“Which guild are you fooling around with this time?” Gu Fei greeted.

“I’m temporarily guild-less,” Xi Xiaotian said, before asking, “The two of you have designs on that encampment again, huh!”

“Of course,” Gu Fei did not deny this. This was because Sword Demon and he were already prepared to give up on the idea. They simply had too little manpower, and facing NPCs that have omniscient vision along with the horde of vigilant players defending the place, they simply could not find a chance to make their move.

“It’s really difficult!” Xi Xiaotian commented.

“It’s completely impossible,” Sword Demon sighed. “It would be great if we had as many players being city defenders as there are assaulters. We would instantly swallow this encampment whole.”

“Speaking of which, how did the two of you end up becoming city defenders?” Xi Xiaotian asked.

“There are Factions in the game, so that designated us as city defenders,” Gu Fei gave a simple explanation.

“Oh, so that’s how it is… I do have an idea of how you could swallow this encampment whole!” Xi Xiaotian said.

“What are you thinking of doing?” Gu Fei was on his guard.

“Look at how nervous you are,” Xi Xiaotian laughed before looking toward Sword Demon, “Boss Sword Demon, you don’t have a guild now, right?”

“That’s correct!” Sword Demon nodded. But he suddenly realized something and corrected himself, “Wait, that’s not right. I did join a comrade’s guild before the City Wars event started. Originally, the plan was for me to give them a hand, but who would have thought that this actually happened.” Sword Demon had been without a guild for a long time that he had actually completely forgotten about his prior arrangement.

“If that’s the case, what would happen if you quit the guild? Say, if you do quit the guild, what would happen if you then start another?” Xi Xiaotian asked.

“Create a guild during the City War?” Gu Fei and Sword Demon repeated what Xi Xiaotian had suggested at the same time.

“That’s right! Why haven’t I thought of this before?” Gu Fei slapped his forehead. “The way I see it, there’s an 80 to 90% chance that this new guild would belong to the city defenders’ side like this, and we would be able to get our manpower this way! We could very well mix things up and finish off the encampment!”

“This… This idea…” Sword Demon rapidly considered this, “I clearly recall that the system had closed the function for players to request joining a guild, but I really did not check to see if we could establish a guild ourselves or not.”

“Why don’t we give it a shot?” Gu Fei suggested.

“But even the creation of a guild would require people to second the formation. Now that the entire city is on lockdown, and the neutral third party forces are out in the wilderness, where are we gonna find the people? Even if we do find them, the system function to request to join a guild is closed, so would these people be able to even second themselves?” Sword Demon sure had plenty of doubts about it.

“Oh? There are such conditions too? I have no idea how are things inside the city, since we’re all outside right now. However, if it is just a matter of lacking people, I can help you guys gather the amount you need,” Xi Xiaotian said.

“You? Counting you, we still need 18 more,” recalling that there needed to be at least twenty players to form a guild, Gu Fei had very unhappily swept his gaze over to Xi Xiaotian as the lady looked up to the sky, whistling nonchalantly.

“18?” Sword Demon regarded Gu Fei strangely. Just what sort of arithmetic standard was this? Should it not be 17?

“I have a guild, bro. Unlike you, I can’t just quit the guild whenever I want,” Gu Fei saw that the ladies of Amethyst Rebirth were already very accepting of his presence in their guild, and did not wish for him to leave it. As a kind person, he could not bear to hurt their feelings.

“It doesn’t matter if I don’t end up joining anyway. How could I not be interested in something that involves slaying people?” Gu Fei patted Sword Demon’s shoulder as he said this with great zeal.

“Say, when I’m talking about gathering people for this, I don’t just mean myself. I can easily find 19 if need be,” Xi Xiaotian said.

“Oh?” Gu Fei was suspicious once more. “Are you looking to charge us for this? After we establish the guild and paid up, you guys will all immediately quit the guild, causing it to disband? Is this a new method of swindling where you specifically help people gather the people needed to form a guild? Where do you get so many people? Have you already assemble a gang for this? A swindlers guild? Or perhaps a swindlers mercenary group?

“Oh? Why don’t I look for Sakurazaka Moony and the others? Get those twerps to help make up the 20 I need,” Gu Fei suddenly said.

“Uhm… Aren’t we establishing the guild right now for the sake of this City Wars event? What’s the point of getting those men to join us?” Sword Demon gagged.