Virtual World: Close Combat Mage

Deep Waters’ question stunned Brother Assist. He did not take note of where the man from the workshop had gone either, or in other words, no one from the guild had paid special attention to him. Most players did not really have a favorable impression toward workshops, after all.

“I wasn’t paying any attention to him,” Brother Assist was thinking hard as he knitted his eyebrows hard. “When we started dealing with the disorganized mob, I’m certain he wasn’t with any of the three speedster teams you guys were a part of. He most likely must have been mixed in with us… And then after that, when we got surrounded, everyone was panic stricken, so I’ve completely forgotten that he existed.”

“So did I, d*mm*t.” Deep Waters was despondent, feeling like such an incident should not have happened while he was around. He had always held a deep resentment and disgust toward people who were affiliated with workshops, so how could he have forgotten to keep an eye on that person?

“This matter should not have anything to do with him this time, right? If he was involved, there would have absolutely have been no reason for him to run off, since that would only raise suspicion,” Coco said.

“Perhaps he had thought of this very point, so he had intentionally fled to use that to absolve him of potential guilt?” Deep Waters posed.

“You’re just splitting hairs!” Coco protested.

“Okay, stop arguing. Right now, our best course of action is still to dig out the spy in the guild first,” Brother Assist mediated.

“Do you have any ideas?” Deep Waters asked.

“Not yet, but I’m on it.” Brother assist affirmed.

“Think all you want then. We’ve got plenty of time anyway,” Deep Waters sighed before shrinking back into a corner.

Brother Assist observed the people around him and was feeling very vexed deep down in his heart. Uncovering such things was not his forte! Furthermore, there were only about half of the people here; what if the spy was in the other cell? Was there anyone in the other cell that had realized this fact?

Brother Assist was looking at the players in his cell, roughly figuring out just who would be in the other cell.

Southern Lone Blade. There was at least someone with a good head on his shoulders in the other cell. He should have already realized quite a few things on his end, no? Brother Assist was pondering this when he suddenly heard the sounds of gambling echo out from the cell on the other side. It was apparent that those over there had already begun using what limited tools they had on themselves to whittle their time away and entertain themselves.

Brother Assist was speechless, and it was at that moment when Sword Demon’s voice came from the other side, “Brother Assist, are you there?”

“Yeah,” He quickly responded.

“Tally up the duration of everyone’s jail time there! I doubt that the other party would let us go so easily like that. It would at least be a bit better if we coordinate and choose a time to leave the Jail en masse,” Sword Demon said.

“Okay, you got it,” Brother Assist answered as he shouted over to the other side, “Big South, you heard that? Help do a tally for everyone in your cell.”

“Got it,” Southern Lone Blade’s voice could be heard as Brother Assist pulled out a quill and paper and began getting to work.

—————————————————-

Outside Yunduan City, the news regarding the death of those players that were sent to kill the players that respawned in the Priest Academy had already spread, and the guild leaders who had participated in this operation were all feeling uneasy. The strongest, most terrifying and lethal enemy had actually managed to make a clean getaway, and he had even given them all some parting words, clearly stating his intention to take revenge on everyone. It was too horrific.

“Relax, he doesn’t know who we are,” the guild leaders were all in a party, and they were all assuring each other in the channel that they shared.

“You fool. We’ve mobilized so many people for this operation, it’s far too easy for information on us to leak just like that. It’s not even difficult to inquire after our identities,” Someone chided.

“F*ck, then what is even the point of hiding our guild emblems and getting all of us to have our faces covered up like this?” someone else complained.

“D*mm*t, we’ve got to take all the precautions we could take! We had originally believed that we would most definitely be able to take down that guy, since our spy had informed us that he had a PK Value of 78 points! Think about it; the man would have lost 9 levels with such a high PK Value. He could possibly kill a few more in the process and end up earning over 80 points, which means he would lose 10 levels upon dying, and all the equipment that he had on him would drop without fail. What are we still afraid of him for? But the situation has changed now. That guy had actually managed to run away safe and sound. D*mm*t, just how did he do it?”

“What’s the point of wasting time thinking about that? Let’s hurry up and think of a way to finish the guy off!”

“That’s right, we have no way to back out any longer. Now, it’s either we kill him off, or we are doomed.”

“Aside from the Mage Academy, let’s temporarily call back our manpower from all the other spawn points. Let’s get them all to gather in the direction of the Priest Academy, and be sure to keep hunting for traces of Thousand Miles Drunk’s tracks. We should hurry on over as well. Do we still have anyone over by the Priest Academy?”

“Yeah.”

“Where did Thousand Miles Drunk run off to?”

“He didn’t go anywhere. He’s still chatting with the Priest inside, Young Master Han.”

“Chatting…” All of them could not help but feel despondent. The powerful statement that Thousand Miles Drunk made simply by ignoring the prevailing mood was a deep cut to the pride of all these guild leaders. Thousand Miles Drunk clearly knew that they would surely send their manpower over to surround and block their passage, yet he was still standing there chatting, utterly unconcerned and self-assured.

“That’s right, we can pick up his Bounty Mission!!” Someone suddenly jolted to a start. “Didn’t he kill some of our men just now? It’s rare to find anyone with as high a PK Value as that man. We simply have to pick up the target with the highest PK Value and we would most certainly find him. This way, we won’t have to be afraid of him running off again.”

“Run? Why the hell would he be running? Didn’t you hear he’s busy chatting?” someone barked fitfully.

“He’s inside the designated safe zone right now. I reckon by the time we surround him, he would still be able to escape, using a teleportation scroll or whatever. It would be most convenient.”

“So are we going to do the encirclement or not?”

“Of course we are… Hold up a minute. He’s leaving!”

“Where to?”

“Who knows!? The point is that he’s no longer at the spawn point.”

“Get someone to keep an eye on him!”

“I know that!”

———————————————

After Gu Fei and Young Master Han took some time to slightly plan their next move, they departed the spawn point together, directly walking out to the row of stalls that players had set up outside the Priest Academy. Both of them came to a stop in front of a certain player’s stall, and Young Master Han shook his head repeatedly, “Your acting skill is really terrible.”

It would have been far too strange for a player setting up a stall to have his face covered as well, so when Gu Fei and Young Master Han had detected his presence and came face to face with him, the expression on his face had already turned ashen. He had no idea how he had exposed himself, so he could only forcefully pretend to calm himself, “What do you two gentlemen want?”

“You’re still going to keep up with the charades?” Gu Fei pulled his sword out and burrowed the tip of his blade into the ground. The players to his left and right were all startled by this, hiding in the distance as they watched the scene unfold from afar.

“Bro, there are so many people here, yet you are constantly looking over to the two of us. Come now, give us a good explanation for this,” Young Master Han asked.

That man was left rather tongue-tied. He had thought his sneaking glances the entire time had been furtive; his eyes had quickly darted back after his brief glances. How could they have sensed anything?

“Which guild are you from?” Gu Fei asked as he caressed the handle of his sword.

The man did not answer.

“Are you able to Appraise his job class?” Gu Fei asked Young Master Han.

“He’s a Warrior.”

“Hand me the teleportation scroll for the Warrior Encampment,” Gu Fei reached his hand out to Young Master Han.

So Young Master Han offered a scroll up to Gu Fei.

“I’m about to begin if you’re still keeping mum,” Gu Fei retrieved his sword from its upright position.

A most contentious struggle was storming inside this person’s mind; should he betray his guild or give up his level? After a moment of internal struggle, the man seemed to have gotten an epiphany as he quickly sent a message to his guild, “I’ve been discovered by Thousand Miles Drunk. He’s about to hunt me down, so I’ll sacrifice myself to lure him to the Warrior Encampment. Quick, get ready!!!”

At the same time, the man lifted his head and stared right at Gu Fei, “Will you let me go if I tell you?”

“It’s worth considering,” Gu Fei nodded.

“Just a mere consideration?”

“I would also suggest you quit your guild after telling me this, because your guild would most definitely close down,” Gu Fei said.

“Let me think about it,” the person responded.

“He’s stalling for time,” Gu Fei said to Young Master Han.

“Very evidently,” Young Master Han nodded even as he began his lecture, “Everything you do is just too obvious. Look, even your attempt to stall for time has been seen through by the two of us, so do you think we would fall for the trap you’re setting for us? Like sending men to set up for an ambush over by the Warrior Encampment. Just tell them to stop!”

That man was completely speechless now.

“Help me relay this message to your guild leader. He better keep himself hidden as best as he can, including his comrades and his guild itself,” When Gu Fei finished his sentence, his sword cleaved down onto the Warrior, wreathed in the flames of his spell. The man did not even have a sliver of intention to resist, letting Gu Fei kill him right there and then.

“We couldn’t scare him…” Gu Fei shook his head and sighed after he slew that player. “He was level 41, right? Maybe we would get a better result with level 40.”

“No matter how you put it, he did end up losing a whole level, so that’s still quite a frightening experience,” Young Master Han sighed as well.

“Guess we gotta keep inquiring,” Gu Fei said.

“Yeah.”

“Then let’s hurry up and be on our way!”

“Wait a moment, I want to buy a ring. How much does it cost?” There was plenty of equipment suitable for Priests that were being sold from the stalls set up outside the Priest Academy. In the time Gu Fei took to slay that man, Young Master Han had spotted a ring that he was interested in obtaining and was in the midst of conducting the transaction.

Gu Fei had no choice but to wait for him to be done, just as July and Sakurazuka Moony sent a message to him respectively, “Are you guys okay?”

“Perfectly fine,” Gu Fei replied.

“That’s good to hear.”

“What happened to all of you? Just what exactly was the plan you’ve got?” July and Sakurazuka Moony were two people from two different worlds, yet the questions that they posed were completely the same right now. That was because they had both received the same message from Gu Fei before, “Lead your guild away. We’ve got a way to get out of this.”

July and Sakurazuka Moony were both players who were capable of seeing the bigger picture during crucial moments, and the moment they got Gu Fei’s message, it was about the same time the other party was shouting out about letting them off, so they had brought their guilds away without any problems.

“They’ve all been sent to Jail through my Bounty MIssions. Right now, it’s just me and the Priests who did not manage to earn any PK points out here,” Gu Fei told the two.

“So what are you planning to do next?” The question that both of them asked was still the same.

“There’s no way I can let these people off, of course. Naturally, I’m afraid they would not dare to relax on me either, but it’s just that I still have no idea who I am going up against. What I mean to say, is that I’m going to need your help to dig up this information!” Gu Fei explained.

“That shouldn’t be too tough. With so many players involved, there must surely be rumors flying about,” July nodded and immediately mobilized her ladies to probe about this matter, and all of them were of course more than willing to oblige. It was only Svelte Dancer who was rubbing her fists together, insisting on joining Gu Fei to kill them all with him.

“There’s no need for that. Wait till the ladies find out who the target is, you’ll be free to hunt them down as you see fit,” Gu Fei was also being ruthless in this instance.

“This madam here will throw her money out to buy the information!” Svelte Dancer was also infuriated as well.

Meanwhile, over by Forever In Flowers’ end, it was the Vast Lushness and her colorful combat experience that gave Gu Fei advice, “It’s very apparent with how different the second encirclement was from the first; there was a clear formation and plan, and adding to the fact that there were even players camping out the various spawn points, it was totally a single, carefully thought out operation. This was definitely no plan cobbled up together at the last minute, and I doubt that they would have had enough time to pull everything off even if they immediately started to implement their scheme right after the City Wars event ended. The way I see it, this group might have come together during the City War, and furthermore, there needs to be someone who could convince and lead the masses in order to gather and organize players to such a degree. Given the situation here in Yunduan City, only the five large guilds would be able to rally such numbers, or perhaps just one or two among them.”

“That makes a lot of sense,” Gu Fei agreed with her assessment, relaying what Vast Lushness had analyzed for Young Master Han to hear. However, Young Master Han was shaking his head repeatedly, “I don’t think this was an operation that could be organized just by relying on guilds alone.”

“Why not?”

“The conclusion that I came to before already highlighted the fact that the other party’s goal here is to force our guild to disband, so what they are targeting might very well be the six city Precincts that were awarded to our guild. However, there are only six precincts, so there would at most be six guilds that could obtain a Precinct for themselves no matter how the system reassigns the places after we got annihilated. The first wave of players that attempted to surround us could be viewed as the faux cannon fodder, and without a doubt, adding the second wave and the players that were camping out the spawn points, I reckon that would be no less than 20,000 players in all. How many guilds would that be? Even if they were all level 6 guilds, that would require 20 guilds in total! But there are only six city Precincts for them to vie for; there’s simply no way for so many guilds to distribute the resultant benefit to every guild that participated,” Young Master Han said.

“So if we were to follow your line of reasoning, would that not mean it was essentially impossible to rally such a group to such sizes?” Gu Fei wondered.

“Workshop. Only a workshop could achieve something like this. Furthermore, even if we were vanquished, is there a guarantee that our guild’s city Precinct reward would be redistributed? The system had not announced such a stipulation yet. However, there must definitely be such a rule pertaining to this which isn’t public knowledge yet. Nevertheless, these are workshops that we are talking about, so it is possible that they have their channels to obtain inside information about this, which is why they were so eager to strike on a weaker guild that also possessed plenty of Precincts like us.” Young Master Han surmised.

“Wait a minute. You’re the one who had deduced their goal is our city Precincts all this while, right?” Gu Fei said. “What about the possibility that they simply just want to take us down as revenge for winning the City Wars event in Yunduan City?”

Young Master Han nodded, “Indeed, there are only three possible reasons they might want to take us down. The first would be for the city Precincts as I’ve mentioned. The second would be for the reason you said; that they are discontented with the outcome of the event, so they had decided to rally under one goal and use us to vent their frustrations. As for the third reason, they could have seen our guild’s development potential and decided to strike while we are still in our infancy. The first is for their own benefit, the third would be due to the competition we represent within the game. As for the second reason… Even an idiot, or to be exact, only an idiot, would think of it.”

“Hey, it seems like killing you and losing a level just once isn’t enough, huh?” Gu Fei was seething.

“Let me put it even more plainly for you. The first reason would be based entirely for the sake of profits, the third would be an attempt to fight for power and authority. As for the second, it would be purely for momentary satisfaction. Please don’t you dare tell me that you firmly believe that the other party had planned this one assault to such a degree all as a result of their emotions, so as to feel satisfied. There couldn’t possibly be so many immature players out there, right? Not to mention there should be even fewer guild leaders who would be that immature, Oathless Sword, Brave Surge, Foe-herder, Black Index Finger and Gu Xiaoshang! Just within these 5 guild leaders who are in charge of the 5 large guilds here in Yunduan City, which do you think would be the sort that would be so impulsive like that?” Young Master Han asked.

“Gu Xiaoshang,” Gu Fei answered immediately.

“Hmm…” Young Master Han was actually speechless for a moment, before swiftly adding, “Yes, she might do that, but if she was the one who did this, she would have led her men and clashed with us head-on. She would not resort to all this sneaking about and covering up her tracks.”

“You’re right.”

“That’s why I say the second proposition does not hold any water, since not a single guild out of the 5 large guilds active in Yunduan City would create such an emotional dispute like this. If it was none of them, then there is no other organization out there that could gather at such a large scale,” Young Master Han concluded once more.

“But you’ve previously said that workshops could do this.”

“That is why we’re going back to that first reason I raised. Or perhaps you think that there might be a workshop out there that would be interested in having this sort of emotional clash with us?” Young Master Han continued to maintain his stance, speaking to Gu Fei with contempt.

“Fine, the second reason won’t make any sense, so let’s drop it. But with your first and third hypotheses, there’s no need to consider them separately. Perhaps they each had their own plans and came together as a whole, drawing what they aimed to achieve by sharing a common goal in our guild’s destruction,” Gu Fei said.

“Indeed, that is the most likely possibility. For a workshop to even consider planning something like this, they would ultimately have to borrow the strength of the five large guilds, unless one of the five large guilds was already directly under their control.”

“Then let us not waste any more time and quickly inquire after their identities! We’ve been followed this entire time, so there’s no telling when we would find ourselves surrounded once more,” Gu Fei said.

“Just kill them all!” Young Master Han’s answer right now was easier said than done.

“They’ve sent Archers who are currently dozens of meters away from us. How would I even cut them all down?”? Gu Fei asked.

“How did you discover them? Isn’t that distance outside the range of that nonsense killing intent you keep harping on about?”

“Do you think I’m a blind man that can only rely on that one sense? I have eyes too. Have you not heard of the term ‘panoptic vision’?”

Young Master Han ignored the last comment as he suddenly waved his hand and called out to someone in front, “Hello guild leader Gu.”

Sure enough, at the street exit up ahead stood Gu Xiaoshang. She turned her head when she heard her name being called, smiling when she spotted the two men. She greeted them before asking, “What are you looking for me for?”

“Looks like guild leader Gu isn’t aware of what we’ve encountered tonight,” Young Master Han said.

“What have you guys encountered?” Gu Xiaoshang really looked like she was clueless about what transpired.

“We’ve been ambushed. The enemy this time was very insidious; they first sent a horde of noobs to surround us, so we had to break through their lines and end up with large amounts of PK points. But it was only then when their real plan was revealed: they wanted to use this scenario to threaten the players, and by doing so, cause our guild to disband. Adding the disorganized mob that first tried to entrap us in an encirclement, it was around 30,000 to 40,000 players that were involved in all this,” Young Master Han gave a quick summary of the events.

“What? Did such a thing really happen? I have not even heard a pip about this. But looking at the two of you now, everything is fine now?”

“Well, that’s a long story, so I’ll elaborate on it later. We are looking for you so as to trouble you to help us inquire after the identity of these people who made an attempt to attack our guild. They had kept their faces covered and removed their guild emblems during the entire affair, so we still have no idea where these people came from,” Young Master Han explained.

“Oh, something like an operation on such a scale with tens of thousands of players involved… I’m sure there are quite a few players who would have noticed them, right? I’ll go help you guys ask around,” Gu Xiaoshang promised.

“Thanks a lot,” Young Master Han said.

“Okay, I’ll contact you via messages. Actually, there’s no need for you to meet with me face to face just to tell me this!” Gu Xiaoshang mused.

“Then let’s keep it to our messages,” Young Master Han waved his hand as he sent Gu Xiaoshang off.

“We’re gonna learn about the other party this way?” Gu Fei was expressionless.

“I’m utilizing every possible resource that we can tap,” Young Master Han said.

“Then why don’t we meet up with the four other guys and do the same?” Gu Fei said.

“That’s exactly my plan,” Young Master Han nodded.

“Who’s the next person you’ve contacted?”

“Brave Surge,” Young Master Han replied.

“That guy is really crafty. I wouldn’t be surprised if he is involved in this,” Gu Fei commented.

“You’re wrong. It is precisely because of how crafty he is, which is why he would most definitely not be participating in this matter directly. However, he would most definitely be keen to jump in now that everything has progressed to such a stage, since he would then be in the prime position to fish in troubled waters. He most certainly did not participate in the operation tonight, but there’s no way that he would not be aware of what had happened.”

“In that case, we should have looked for him first. Why did you bother contacting Gu Xiaoshang?”

“Because she’s nearer.”

“What?”

“I checked all of their coordinates and Gu Xiaoshang was the nearest to us when we set off, which was why we met up with her first. Is there a problem?”

Gu Fei had no words.