Virtual World: Close Combat Mage

“That guy…” Southern Lone Blade had truly forgotten about Fleeting Smile’s existence. Actually, Silver Moon’s guess before was not off the mark; Southern Lone Blade and the others had already resolved not to pick up any request related to Thousand Miles Drunk. Unfortunately, they still ended up meeting someone who intended to eliminate Thousand Miles Drunk. Having felt that outrightly rejecting that man’s request back then would be far too discouraging to the other party, he gave them the vague chance as a show of support, which was why he had casually quoted the five-digit figure of 20,000 gold coins.

A single level for 20,000 gold coins! This insane price he had quoted made Southern Lone Blade feel a little embarrassed; Glue even privately messaged him, asking if he had gone insane back then.

However, before Southern Lone Blade could even give an answer to Glue, the other party ended up consulting him on the matter measuredly. As it turned out, Southern Lone Blade was not the one who had gone crazy but it was the Priest Fleeting Smile standing before him that had lost his mind, instead.

To accept a price of 20,000 gold coins for a single level, Southern Lone Blade suspected that he would laugh himself awake from the dream if the target were not Thousand Miles Drunk. Still, even if the target was Thousand Miles Drunk, the high remuneration was so very attractive that Southern Lone Blade felt it would be worth going all out just this once. Nothing was truer than the saying ‘high risks come with high rewards.’

However, when the details of the agreement were finalized and it was time to pay the deposit, Fleeting Smile mentioned that he needed to gather the necessary funds. Southern Lone Blade merely chuckled when he heard this. 20,000 gold coins was indeed a huge sum, so it was hardly surprising for the other party to be unable to pull out such an amount at one go, but what he had asked for was just the deposit, which would come at around 3000 to 5000 gold coins given their conventional rates, so that should not be a sum that a wealthy player could not fork out.

Southern Lone Blade suspected that Fleeting Smile had merely been humoring him, which was why he had accepted his exorbitant price of 20,000 gold coins. Especially since there had been no contact in these past two days, Southern Lone Blade felt that his guess held water. If that person was truly a wealthy man, would he have any trouble getting the 3000 to 5000 gold coins needed for the deposit in these few days?

There was no doubt that the man wanted to deal with Thousand Miles Drunk, but there was a good chance that he had been frightened off by his quote of 20,000 gold coins, which was how it was supposed to go. How much of a grudge must there be to justify that 20,000 gold coins for a level? Did he have some sort of patricidal vendetta against Thousand Miles Drunk?

“Has that guy contacted you recently?” Southern Lone Blade asked Glue. Although the 20,000-gold coin price he had opened with before was done to scare the other party into backing down. But now that he had to stomach this bellyful of rage, Southern Lone Blade was honestly starting to consider searching for others to work together with in viciously finishing off that scourge known as ‘Thousand Miles Drunk’.

“Nope. The last time was that day after that auction,” Glue replied.

“Auction…” Southern Lone Blade muttered this word. That was what had triggered their recent tragedy.

“He wanted to find out who the buyer was that day as well. In the end, he left after a while when that person didn’t show up,” Glue replied.

Southern Lone Blade did not say a word for a while. Suddenly talking about that person and considering everything that had happened, Southern Lone Blade realized something at once.

—————————————–

After Gu Fei pestered Southern Lone Blade with “I dare you to tell me where you are now!” a few more times, the latter ended up restricting any incoming messages, not even once replying to the former; this made Gu Fei feel ennui.

Now that it was the winter holidays, he had more time to play the game, and just as he was about to demonstrate the full extent of his kung fu prowess and take care of the whole lot of them, the other party ended up running away faster than a fleeing hare.

I’m stuck searching for the target yet again! There was nothing more frustrating to Gu Fei than this. ‘Bounty Mission’ was Gu Fei’s main source of activity in the game and locating the target happened to be a huge part of it, which explained why he found this particular affair so tiresome. Actually, he was very envious of how Vast Lushness was being treated; rather than needing to head out to find people to fight, people would actually take the initiative to come looking for her.

Gu Fei saw no signs of those he wanted to find after walking down two whole streets, nor did any criminal came forward to rob him. Now that he had a lot of time on him, Gu Fei felt all the more lonely. Usually, playing around with ‘Bounty Mission’ for two hours or so was fine, but Gu Fei found it to be a little unbearable if he were to keep doing that overnight. Besides, Gu Fei hardly found any joy in the act since most of the average players he ended up facing would die with a slash of his sword.

The idle Gu Fei could only choose to log out, but because he was a little unfamiliar with the layout of Baishi City, he had to ask a passing pedestrian where the nearest designated log-off point was before he made his way over.

Soon, Gu Fei learned what it meant to walk along boundless expanse with no end in sight, what it meant not to reach his destination despite wearing down metal shoes, and what it meant to search endlessly in a dream!  ¹

Reaching the designated log-off point in the Archer Range, the moment Gu Fei stepped through the main entrance he caught sight of three figures in his periphery. He turned to look and saw Glue, Flame Singed Clothes, and the other person, whose name he was unsure of but recognized as the other Priest in Southern Lone Blade’s team of seven. The three men were seated by the base of the wall, holding handcrafted cards as they had quite an intense time with each other.

Glue and the Priest, who had already spotted Gu Fei upon lifting their eyes from the game, stared with dumbfounded eyes at the man. Only Flame Singed Clothes, who had his back on Gu Fei, remained oblivious to this fact even as he raised his hand high with the four cards in hand. Slamming them down on to the ground, he shouted, “Four 2s! Ha ha ha ha!”

The expression on Glue and Verdant Timber’s face went stiff, their eyes not even registering the bomb Flame Singed Clothes had dropped. Seeing the rascal still gleeful at what he did, the two men twisted their mouths to gesture toward his back.

Flame Singed Clothes went cold as he hunched himself, killing intent showing on his face as he asked the two in hushed tones, “Is he here?”

Before either man could reply, Flame Singed Clothes turned around, and he went even more exaggeratedly rigid than the two.

“Hey! Having fun?” Gu Fei was elated to see these three, immediately making his way over to them.

“What are you doing?” Flame Singed Clothes scrambled back a good distance, the cards strewn all over the floor.

“Where’s Southern Lone Blade?” Gu Fei enjoyed getting straight to the point.

“We don’t know.” The three men naturally gave such an answer. Glue grabbed hold of Flame Singed Clothes, reminding him that they were at a spawn point, and it was one that let players log out.

“Bumping into you three ain’t too bad, either. Heading out?” Gu Fei asked.

The three shook their heads mechanically.

“I am about to log out, too. I truly didn’t expect to find you three hiding here having fun.” Gu Fei continued.

With a mouthful of bitter anguish, the three men thought inwardly just how unlucky they were! Glue quickly sent a message to the other four players not present. “We’ve been discovered!”

“How?”

“Thousand Miles Drunk!”

“How did he end up there?”

“He said that he’s passing by on his way to log out.”

“F*ck! That shameless *ssh*l*, didn’t he say that he’s not gonna sleep tonight?!” Southern Lone Blade was extremely dispirited. This Thousand Miles Drunk is simply too d*mn shameless for going back on his words mere minutes ago…

Glue was speechless. The man was already right before them now; what was the point of quibbling over those things at this stage?

“What are you playing?” Gu Fei flipped over the cards they dropped and had a look. The cards looked to have been self-made, and they looked to be specifically used for Landlord. There were not even the different suits, directly depicting the series from A to K.

“How do you make the joker?” Curious on how they drew the jokers, Gu Fei ended up flipping them over.

“D*mn! That’s rather realistic!” Gu Fei praised. Of the two jokers for this game, the big joker had a large ‘KING’ character drawn on it and the small joker had a small ‘king’.

The three men felt the impulse to kill Gu Fei wash over them; it was just unfortunate that safe zone played no favorites and did not just protect them.

“All right.” Gu Fei stopped grinning. Neatly packing the cards all over the floor, he handed them over to Flame Singed Clothes before he stared at the three. “Are you three hiding here trying to assassinate someone?”

“We’re playing cards!”

“What business is it of yours?”

The Priest Verdant Timber decidedly kept his mouth shut when he saw how the other two had not even coordinated their rebuttal.

“Forget about getting anything done with me around.” Gu Fei was calm and composed when he said this. It was the winter holidays, after all. There were no classes tomorrow, and that greatly emboldened him.

“Hmph. Why do you care?” Flame Singed Clothes was obviously the most afraid of Gu Fei out of the three, yet he instead had the most to say in front of the man, which only made it more evident just how anxious and panicked he was inside.

“Come; let’s continue.” Flame Singed Clothes dragged Glue and Verdant Timber with him, calmly hoping to continue their game of cards in another corner.

The two hesitated for a bit, evidently a little annoyed by the childish defiance Flame Singed Clothes was showing. Still, when they considered the fact that they could do nothing else with Gu Fei blocking their path out the door, their only options were either to continue with their card game or log out. Thus, each of them threw a glance over at Gu Fei before they headed to where Flame Singed Clothes was to resume playing their card game.

The three were preoccupied the entire time, playing out their cards even as they furtively looked at what Gu Fei was doing. As for Gu Fei, all he did was position himself at one side. Staring at the three men, he suppressed his smile and did not say a word.

Going through the cards as they played, once Glue drew his cards and Flame Singed Clothes went to get his own, he discovered that there were only three cards left, which was very strange. “Did you draw the wrong amount? I should be the one getting the last card!”

As players who often played this game, they could easily tell that the count was off, and Flame Singed Clothes should still have another card right now.

“We’re short of a card?” Flame Singed Clothes looked all around. When the cards scattered all over the floor, it was possible for the wind to blow one away right under everyone’s noses. In the end, as they went about searching for that lost card, Flame Singed Clothes caught sight of Gu Fei’s treacherous smile and immediately realized. “Did you hide one of our cards?”

“Nonsense,” Gu Fei coolly replied. “I’ve clearly hidden four.”

“F*ck! Give us back the cards!” Flame Singed Clothes fumed.

“Didn’t I already tell you guys? You all won’t get anything done with me around,” Gu Fei said even as he revealed a hand – the four cards wedged between his fingers. Next, with a twist of his wrist and flick of his fingers, he chanted a spell incantation.

Twin Incineration!

Flames came to life on Gu Fei’s fingertips; this fire he had created enveloped the four cards with a motion of his wrist. Even though the flames that a Mage conjured needed mana to sustain its burn, and it would only be ablaze for a moment, given how flammable the cards were, being engulfed in the fire thusly was already enough to reduce them into ashes, which scattered with the wind.

“I’ll just make them again myself!” Flame Singed Clothes was infuriated. Pulling out writing materials from his dimensional pocket, he was about to redo the cards he had just lost.

“It’s fine.” Glue stopped Flame Singed Clothes from making such a petty action. After he calmed himself down, he gazed at Gu Fei. “What’s the meaning of wasting your time with us? You might have no problem squandering a day or two in this fashion, but do you intend to do this your whole life?”

Gu Fei laughed. “Of course I won’t be doing this that long. But since our paths have coincidentally crossed, I won’t be able to sleep tonight if I pretend not to see you all. Seriously though, there are seven spawn points in a city; why did you guys choose this one I happen to be logging out of?”

“Why aren’t you the one at fault for choosing this place to log off?” Flame Singed Clothes called out.

“Could it be fate?” Gu Fei mused.

Flame Singed Clothes nearly vomited blood.

“Just what do you wanna do?” Glue asked.

“Your boss asked me the same thing; it’s really a profound question. I’ve been thinking about it for quite some time myself! Actually, I can’t really afford to go on like this with you people, either, but I just don’t know if it’s me or it’s you guys that are unlucky for us to constantly bump into one another. It’s not my style to just turn a blind eye once I chance upon something like this. All right. I see you’re also having a really agonizing time. Consider everything you’ve caused; what do you think we should do about it?” Gu Fei asked.