Virtual World: Close Combat Mage

There was no doubt that Young Master Han getting up and saying goodbye was the signal. The moment he said those words, War Without Wounds’ butt cleared off the stool he was sitting on moments ago and dashed out, not caring if he was hurtling toward an enemy or otherwise. With how forceful and dauntless this Charge was, he immediately made it over to the door and cleared out a path right there.

Meanwhile, the powerful display he had shown undoubtedly drew most of the enemies’ attention to him. In game lingo, this was equivalent to their aggro momentarily being gathered on to War Without Wounds. Young Master Han lifted his hand and bestowed a Heal on the Warrior even as he ran close to the man. Sword Demon and Brother Assist flanked his left and right respectively. As for Royal God Call, he was bring up the rear and fired off an arrow straight at Ye Xiaowu while the gang made their escape.

Even though Ye Xiaowu was a low-level Priest, his reaction was not slow in the least. Coupled with the fact that no one else was more familiar with the game than he was, the man seemed to have already expected to have been shot, for in the time it took Royal God Call to let loose the bowstring, he had already ducked under a table.

Royal God Call found this to be entirely unexpected. Would a man with such a detestable god-complex act so unsightly during an actual skirmish?

“Trash!” Royal God Call spat out with contempt as he rushed out of the tavern after the other four. This entire sequence, which took no more than five seconds, was far more successful than they had imagined.

“My Charge is just too powerful,” War Without Wounds declared. “It’s all thanks to me that we managed to make it out of there alive.”

“It was all beautifully coordinated, with not a single error in the least,” Brother Assist praised. As a completely mediocre player when it came to combat prowess that found himself working alongside these remarkable individuals and expert combatants, he usually loved to emphasize on their group effort.

“There’s no ambush outside.” Sword Demon let loose a sigh of relief. Having just lost a level, how would he not be feeling his heart ache over it? It just so happened that they had more pressing matters at hand, so he had no time to wallow in his pain. Their recent success at escaping that entrapment, of which the purpose was precisely to avoid losing a level, only served to remind him of his earlier loss, making him feel an intermingling of sadness and glee.

Naturally, they were still not out of the woods yet just because they made it out of the tavern. They continued to flee for their levels and even specifically picked the complex and winding back alleys and side roads. They could only play a game of hide-and-seek with their pursuers to take care of their comrades with slower movement speed, ensuring that everybody would be able to safely make their escape.

“Trash, trash, trash! HA HA HA HA!” Royal God Call kept looking behind him even as he cursed away in his exhilaration, like he had gone insane. They had gotten about 500 meters away from the tavern and even switched to three different alleys at this point, yet he remained as unhinged as ever.

“What’s wrong with you?” The others could no longer stand it.

“That trash, a single shot from me scared the man into diving under the table for cover,” Royal God Call boasted.

“Is that so?” Young Master Han suddenly came to a halt.

“Hurry!” Brother Assist, who was beside the man, tugged at his arm as he frantically looked all around them. Given his rather slow movement speed and his cautious nature, he would not be in the least bit settled until they ran for about five kilometers.

“There’s no rush.” Young Master Han waved his hand. “Is there anyone chasing behind us?”

“We don’t see anyone!” The rest shook their heads. All they bothered to do was flee as far as they could the moment they got out of the tavern. Turning into an alley and seeing no one else chasing after them, they all attributed it to their escape being a success.

“That’s weird,” Young Master Han said. He flicked his wrist. “Royal, go and take a look.”

Thus, Royal God Call turned his head around and looked back to Young Master Han. “There’s no one!”

“F*CK!” Everyone pointed their middle fingers at him.

“Are you guys sending me to my death?!” Royal God Call cried out as tears welled in his eyes. Even though he often claimed himself to be an apex expert, the capabilities of an expert like Gu Fei taking on many opponents at once was not something he could duplicate. This was why Royal God Call considered Gu Fei as an anomaly that was comparable to a Super Saiyan. As a mere mortal, he had no wish to compare himself with such an anomaly.

“Isn’t our breakout a little too successful?” Young Master Han asked.

“That’s all thanks to my Charge! It was pure perfection!” War Without Wounds stuck his thumb out.

“We had great coordination,” Brother Assist praised as well.

“And there’s no ambush outside,” Sword Demon replied evenly.

“The boss was paralyzed in fright by my hands,” Royal God Call added.

The four finally said the words in their hearts, and Young Master Han pointed a middle finger to them.

“Are you implying that they’ve intentionally gone easy on us?” Brother Assist asked.

“Considering how high and mighty that person acted, I don’t think that he’s the sort to dive under a table in fright,” Young Master Han replied vaguely.

“What else could he do besides that? With that peerless shot of mine…” Royal God Call bragged. Still, logically speaking, at such a distance, without possessing GU Fei’s Super Saiyan-level of dexterity, anyone could only use the terrain of the tavern to their advantage. While Ye Xiaowu’s action of scrambling under a table was rather unseemly, it was entirely reasonable and effective.

“Go and randomly find a Guardian with his or her shield up and shoot that!” Young Master Han spat.

“That lightning-quick shot I made—”

“Lightning, my *ss; if even a level 36 Priest had the time to hide under a table, what sort of lightning is that?” Young Master Han shot his argument down.

“That man probably expected Royal God Call to fire an arrow at him yet choose not to take any precaution toward it, finally opting to evade it so tiresomely. Is that what you’re getting at?” Brother Assist concluded.

Young Master Han nodded.

“What does that mean?”

“That means that those guys we’ve thought to be his underlings were no more than acting the part,” Young Master Han explained.

“And that means?” Royal God Call could not make sense of it.

“Bro, this round is on me. Take this token sum and give me a hand. Just stand up and stare at that table when I say so later.” Young Master Han slung his arm around Royal God Call’s shoulders.

The others exchanged glances. Young Master Han’s demonstration was just an example of how it happened, but everybody understood what he meant. The Priest must have casually gotten a bunch of bit players to act the part, causing them to mistakenly believe they were surrounded by enemies. In reality, those people were nothing but background characters; they had no other intentions aside from standing up and staring at them.

“That explains why our escape has been very successful…” Sword Demon carefully recalled what had happened. Indeed, not one of those players that had stood up made any attempt to stop them from breaking out.

“If he carefully made arrangements to stop us intentionally, even if we managed to make our escape, there’s no way we would be able to do so unscathed,” War Without Wounds said. He was a veteran as well, so he was able to be conscious of this fact.

“Furthermore, it doesn’t seem that there’s anyone pursuing us…” Brother Assist added. Everybody was only standing and chatting over at this spot for quite a while now, yet he did not catch even a single person behind him. It was truly unlikely that they could so easily shake them off like this.

“That rascal, he even managed to fool me.” Young Master Han laughed mirthlessly.

“Why would he want to do something like this?” The others were confused.

“Would any of you listen to what he had to say were you not preoccupied by that situation earlier?” Young Master Han asked.

Everyone immediately came to realize the truth. Sure enough, had it not been for the fact that they were surrounded, none of them would have patiently let such a loathsome person ask them those questions one by one. Seeing the foe that had just dropped Sword Demon by a single level, they would have immediately acted to kill the man. Any word they would have would be shelved for later.

—————————————

This same answer was also repeated to Broken Water Arrow by Ye Xiaowu back in the tavern.

“All right. Let’s hurry up and leave! Those guys are experienced veterans, after all. They would most likely guess that something was amiss in no time at all,” Ye Xiaowu said.

“Sure.” Broken Water Arrow nodded. After the members of Young Master’s Elite left the tavern, these two men also left the premise right after.

“To think that all those men have the same attitude toward this; I guess Thousand Miles Drunk really has his ways when it comes to making friends.” Ye Xiaowu sighed.

“He’s not really a man of poor character. He might be a little too passionate when it comes to PKing, but most of his energy is channeled toward doing ‘Bounty Mission,’” Broken Water Arrow said.

“I know.” Ye Xiaowu nodded. “But ludicrous is ludicrous. Since we are unable to eliminate him directly, I can only become his nemesis to restrain him.”

“Confronting those friends of his won’t be much easier despite them not being on the same level as him,” Broken Water Arrow said.

“Yes, which is why we need accomplices of our own. How are those men you are in charge of getting in touch with?” Ye Xiaowu asked.

“It’s not difficult getting in touch with them, but the rumors about them aren’t exactly favorable…” Broken Water Arrow replied.

“I know that. We’re only borrowing their strength to suppress Thousand Miles Drunk. As for their issues of character, we have no right to interfere in that, so we’re gonna temporarily feign ignorance about it,” Ye Xiaowu answered.

“Still, in order to use them, we may end up letting them gain some rather unfair benefits. I feel that allowing such men to get ahead would be nothing compared to letting those guys just now get them,” Broken Water Arrow said.

“He he. Don’t worry about that! I know the limits.” Ye Xiaowu chuckled.

“Speaking of those men who lent us a helping hand back at the tavern… What’s all that about the grotto on Emerald Island in the Chilling Loch?” Broken Water Arrow asked.

“Oh, that? It’s exactly what you’ve heard. It’s a boss’s lair, except that the Chilling Loch is right in the center of Century Woods. Century Woods should originally be a high-level grinding map, and since the high-level monsters found loitering around that lake travel in tightly knitted packs, it is entirely impossible for players to make it through by force. Players need to do the necessary background scenario quest first before they can set foot on Emerald Island. Once the world storyline has been set into motion, the surrounding monsters will change their distribution and dispersion rate. Only then will players have the chance to reach Emerald Island,” Ye Xiaowu explained.

“So, what you’re saying is, even though those players learned the coordinates for that place in advance from you, they won’t have any means of making it in?” Broken Water Arrow asked.

“That’s right. The triggering of background scenario quests should be a gradual process. Unfortunately, Miles began to advance these world storylines at level 30, causing a domino effect, which changed parts of the quest contents in Yueye City. The difficulty of missions and quests increased as a result, with many of current players having no ability to complete them. That guild chain quest from Yundan City is affected by this difficulty spike. If it weren’t for the coincidental participation of Thousand Miles Drunk, it’s very likely that they would run into an impasse at that stage,” Ye Xiaowu explained.

“So, that means… Isn’t this a flaw in the game design?” Broken Water Arrow asked.

Ye Xiaowu nodded. “Yup. We did not expect for a powerful player, with such prowess, to emerge in the game. We also didn’t predict that matters would align so serendipitously that a quest he had encountered before would cause such a change in the overarching storyline of the world in this game, much less for him to achieve a 90% completion rate to a chain quest that is well beyond his level… His imbalance is not just in his strength alone but also in that lady luck seems to be on his side.”

“I… I think I more or less get it now.” Broken Water Arrow nodded.

“Previously, I thought that, as long as the players’ level and strength increase, he would be naturally restrained as well, but who knew that, even with the increase in the levels of the majority of the players, he would only become more and more indomitable… That is why we must take such drastic measures,” Ye Xiaowu said.

Broken Water Arrow nodded in agreement.

“We don’t have the capability to directly take on their mercenary group, so we can only find an opportunity to divide and strike first!” Ye Xiaowu said.

“Yeah. I’ve already given that item to Cool Apple,” Broken Water Arrow answered.