Virtual World: Close Combat Mage

Chapter 230 - Satisfied amid their Dissatisfaction

From the moment that Brave Surge and his men had entered the forest, he had been moving within Young Master Han’s expectations.

Using his fellow mercenaries as bait for Gu Fei to cast AOE spells on the enemies... This was but a small part of his entire scheme. While that gambit might work on the enemies for the first person that fell down, Brave Surge would begin to expect for Gu Fei to cast spells on a bunch of them whenever someone fell down. As a result, he would surely stop any melee job classes from getting near any man that fell down and would choose to have the ranged job classes finish off the target, instead.

It was when Brave Surge had made such a decision that he had thoroughly fallen for Young Master Han’s scheme.

The melee job classes dared not to close in on a target, while the ranged job classes’ attacks were severely restricted by the forest’s terrain. No matter how many ranged job classes Water Flower mercenary group sent, those players’ capabilities to fight in this type terrain would certainly be limited. This was the key to Young Master Han’s current stratagem.

Using himself as the bait to provide Gu Fei a chance to bombard the enemies to death was the real trap here. This ploy caused Brave Surge to make decisions according to Young Master Han’s expectations.

Brave Surge’s judgment was not really mistaken. Water Flower would have truly held the advantage in terms of number and would not have lost the match due to such limitations if this had been a conventional fight. Unfortunately for him, Brave Surge and his men were not just facing any average mercenary group today but an elite bunch of men.

Each of the six men of Young Master’s Elite displayed eagerness to kill that Water Flower struggled to fend them off and was at a loss on what to do. In the end, even Brave Surge lost his cool upon seeing the messy situation that that had unfolded due to his erroneous command – a command that provided Gu Fei an exploitable opportunity.

Twenty-nine men! They only had twenty-nine men left, and they were mostly made up of Priests and Knights, too.

The players who were in charge of dealing damage now had their dream configuration, wherein each of them could have a personal Priest and Knight assisting them. This type of treatment was usually reserved for the strongest players in a group. And yet, despite experiencing the treatment reserved for top experts, not one of them could find it in them to smile.

The forest grew silent once more. Gu Fei, Sword Demon, and Royal God Call stopped attacking the enemies simultaneously. Young Master Han was still hiding behind the tree from before. As for Brother Assist, he was up in the tree. Only War Without Wounds in Young Master’s Elite was heroically standing right before the twenty-nine men.

War Without Wounds had been standing in front of the enemies ever since he fell from the tree at the start of the skirmish. But for a reason or two, he was never the one leading their group’s assault. War Without Wounds cared not for this, though. Today’s PvP had allowed him to enjoy his kills sumptuously, and more importantly, he had gotten a rarely acquired tidy amount of kill points. He always had difficulty earning himself contribution points with Young Master’s Elite’s configuration. Gu Fei, Sword Demon, and Royal God Call could kill plenty of enemies that earned them a lot of contribution points, while Young Master Han and Brother Assist could earn contribution points even if they did not participate directly in a fight. As for him, he was only able to kill a limited amount of enemies every match. Sword Demon felt pity for him that he would even give him five points for protecting Young Master Han and Brother Assist.

Such humiliation! It was simply too humiliating for War Without Wounds. He was known as the number one Warrior in many MMOs, yet he was nothing more than a glorified bodyguard in this mercenary group. War Without Wounds had always been looking for a chance to display his skills, and today had been that fated day.

Gu Fei had fortunately saved him at the start; otherwise, he would have long been sent out of the PvP arena by the surrounding enemies. War Without Wounds shuddered at the thought. If he had been killed off just then, he might not even have earned those five contribution points for being a bodyguard. Inadvertently, War Without Wounds disregarded the twenty-nine men before him in his contemplation!

Young Master Han leisurely appeared from behind the tree and chuckled softly at Brave Surge’s direction.

Brave Surge laughed as well, albeit with bitterness. He really had no way of dismissing this loss in today’s match like how he had done during that previous guild match. Back then, many coincidental occurrences had caused them to feel dissatisfied at the final outcome. Water Flower had been losing this fight today from start to finish, so they had no way of feeling disgruntled about it.

Just as Brave Surge was about to say something, a sudden rustling of leaves sounded from above and the branches and leaves parted to reveal a person that came swooping down to Brave Surge in lightning speed.

The players of Water Flower who clearly witnessed the scene exclaimed, “Oh, there’s a rope!”

The Tarzan-like person was none other than Gu Fei. His hand was holding on to a piece of rope that was tied to a part of a tree. When the enemy players saw this, they quickly added two and two together. Recalling Gu Fei’s smooth dive from the sky before, they associated the rope to his previous feat.

“Twin Incineration! Incinerate!” Gu Fei did not swing over for nothing and immediately used his signature move. Having finished replenishing his mana by eating a piece of fruit while atop a tree, he caused a fiery glow resembling a dragon to streak pass the heads of the Water Flower’s remaining men that were marveling over his suspension trick. Four unlucky players happened to be in the path of Gu Fei’s swipe and were unceremoniously insta-killed.

Twenty-five! Water Flower mercenary group only had twenty-five men left.

Gu Fei was not Tarzan, after all, and he did not train in flying from tree to tree like a monkey. Discovering that he had no place to land upon reaching the highest point of his swing, Gu Fei decided to obey the laws of physics and used inertia to swing backward.

This act pissed off the players of Water Flower.

In wuxia novels, sci-fi films, and even the animal kingdom, anyone who utilized such a move would dashingly land himself or herself by a tree on the other side. Who would have thought that Gu Fei would actually have no idea on how to do that and would cowardly swing back when he found no place to land his feet? This sort of swinging motion that would take forever to end seemed like a mockery to them.

The swing was the main prop to project a warm and fuzzy feeling in romantic dramas, yet everyone here was co-starring in an action-packed novel; this was therefore utterly inappropriate! Gu Fei also realized how inconvenient his backward swing was, so he hurriedly lifted his sword and chanted, “Translocation! Blink!”

The good thing about instant-cast spells was that the spell-caster did not need to strike a pose when casting. As long as a Mage wished to do so, he or she could cast it whenever he or she liked.

At the end of his incantation, Gu Fei disappeared from the rope. When the players of Water Flower saw that Gu Fei was no longer idiotically swinging by, they swept their eyes over the surrounding trees to find where he had teleported himself. Suddenly, someone screamed from behind them. Everyone turned to look and saw Gu Fei currently flourishing his sword toward them from behind. It was not just him, though. They did not know when but the Thief had appeared once more and launched an attack on one of them while they were preoccupied.

These two men swiftly killed off two players of Water Flower before each hastily fled to a big tree for cover. Having committed the whole map to his memory, the talented Young Master Han expertly directed them to their current positions that were dead angles for the ranged job classes. Sadly, the directionally challenged Royal God Call could not enjoy Young Master Han’s superb guidance and could only pitifully fire off arrows from within the tree branches whenever he could.

Sword Demon who had Stealth and Gu Fei who had Blink proceeded to take two or three enemy lives once more after their respective skills’ cool-down time ended before disappearing into the surrounding trees once more.

Royal God Call continued to shoot arrows from above. Meanwhile, War Without Wounds had been standing idly all by himself when he smugly faked charging toward the swiftly decreasing players of Water Flower. This left the enemies literally on edge of mental breakdown. The only thing they managed to gain from all this was a better grasp of the cool-down time for Gu Fei’s Blink.

This continued for quite a while. The players of Water Flower could not come up with any good stratagem to counter Young Master’s Elite, so they could only helplessly watch their fellow brothers-in-arms fell one by one. When only five men were left of the opposing group, Young Master Han once more revealed himself from behind the tree and asked Brave Surge with a smile, “Are we done here?”

Brave Surge sighed before he squeezed out a smile. “I’ll see you outside, then!”

Young Master Han nodded his head. Brave Surge and the remaining four players who were mentally drained from everything that that had happened silently forfeited the match by voluntarily exiting the PvP arena.

In the semifinals of the mercenary PvP tournament, the six-man group of Young Master’s Elite once more achieved a ‘perfect’ score.

To be able to kill to such a degree… Not only did the exceptionally bountiful experience points and gold rewards please the six men of Young Master’s Elite, the outcome of the match was also beyond satisfactory to them. Nevertheless, they all appeared calm like still water. After all, Brave Surge would be waiting for them outside of this PvP arena!

In the end, they were unable to escape the ensuing pleasantries. Brave Surge was truly intent on lassoing them into the guild and merely stopped short of promising to revere them as if they were his paternal grandfather upon joining the guild.

The skills of these experts to act dumb really shone when it came to this point. Royal God Call acted high and mighty, treating the offer with disdain; War Without Wounds acted humble to the point of being disgusting; Brother Assist remained quiet. Aware of his mediocrity when it came to PvP, he knew that Brave Surge and company were only treating him with deference due to the five others; Sword Demon honestly told them that he was currently not thinking of joining a guild; Young Master Han did not say a word as he was already a member of Carouse; as for Gu Fei, after his fellow mercenaries had expressed their opinions, he merely shrugged his shoulders to Brave Surge and company that were hoping to recruit him the most. His look seemed to say, “I am just going with the flow.”

Brave Surge also knew that forcing them to join would be useless, so he did not insist further. He merely laughed it off and said, “I’ll wait for the day when we have a chance to work together in the future, then. If you meet with any difficulties in your missions, don’t hesitate to ask for our help!”

Mercenary groups were formed to do business. No matter how indifferent Young Master Han was, he would never reject such good will when offered. Thus, he simply reciprocated the other’s laugh and said, “Since we are familiar with one another, we will naturally help one another in times of need!”

It was quite a unique sight to see people lose a match with such joy. The harmony that permeated before the battle and the general exchanged of good will after the match… This round of the mercenary PvP tournament had ended with much amity.