Game of the World Tree
chapter-144

▪️ELVEN AND DRAGON BANDITS

Relatively speaking, the strength of the mercenaries isn’t that much higher in comparison to Boxlunch’s team.

However, without their weapons to defend themselves, these smugglers are entirely no match for the players at all, and can only be chased down one by one by the agile elves and be mercilessly slaughtered unceremoniously.

There is nothing uncomfortable about it.

For one’s actions solely determined their stance.

Although these mercenaries are also human, Boxlunch’s teammates showed no hesitation in eliminating them at all.

It may seem cruel but in their eyes, this world is simply a game and the NPCs of this world only come in two types;

Friendly and hostile, wholly represented by the green and red label, hovering above an NPCs’ head respectively.

These two contrasting colours determines most players stance on whether should they curry favors or eliminate a particular non-player character instead.

One’s race and status didn’t matter.

Anyone that’s shown in red simply needs to be eradicated.

And if they can’t beat someone, then simply call for more players to help.

Moreover, the ones participating in this sidequest is Boxlunch’s team, all of whom are experienced players in combat and are considered battle maniacs!

In just a few moments, more than a dozen mercenaries have already been killed by them as every fallen bodies were instantly turned into ashes the moment after they were slain.

Looking at the rapidly accumulating experience points within their own respective status screens, each participating players became even more excited as their breathing turned much more heavier with each passing seconds.

“Don’t kill me! Please! I…I surrender!” Looking at these group of crazy elves, the last surviving mercenary was so scared that he involuntarily peed his pants and quickly knelt down as he begged for mercy.

However, some players easily caught up to him and casually asked, “Do you have any hidden quest?”

“H-Hidden quest? I… I don’t know…what t-that is.” The shivering man was left completely stunned as his mind turned blank, having no idea at all about the matter these crazy elves are asking him about.

“Then do you have any hidden information instead?”

“In…Information?”

“Tch, this guy’s useless…I guess he’s probably just an ordinary mob.”

“Lets just go ahead and kill him man, at least it’s a few thousand experience points.” Another player suggested as he curled up his lips and the kneeling mercenary was then killed just like that.

Looking at this brutal surreal scene from afar, Nightingale couldn’t help but be frozen in place as her eyes gradually became cloudy.

These elves won’t spare even the ones who had already surrendered?

Upon seeing the few remaining mercenaries being killed off by the players, Meryer no longer played around the two silver-ranked experts and instead just opted to pounced and bite the two experts before swallowing them in one bite.

“What the f***! Did Blackie just eat those two!?”

“Oh my god…Meryer, those were two silver-ranked experts! At least leave some for us to kill!”

“Goddammit, how much experience points did eating those two give? My heart hurts so much! Such a waste!”

Seeing this scene, the players chasing the mercenaries felt heartbroken…

Nightingale, on the other hand, became even more confused.

She looked at these wholly excited bloodthirsty elves bathed in cold blood and felt her mind go blank as chaos reigns within herself.

Do these insane and cruel elves really belong to the same race as her?

She had initially thought there would be a big battle…

But she did not expect the human caravan, whom seemed to be very powerful upon her eyes, be completely overwhelmed and eventually be destroyed in such a bizarre fashion…

For a moment, Nightingale couldn’t snap out of this sudden change of outlook.

After exterminating every personnel within the human caravan, the players’ actions still didn’t stop from there and began looking around as if searching for something valuable.

Nightingale saw them looking for something excitedly, with voices carrying a hint of eagerness within their vocal tone.

“By the way, what about the caravan’s goods?”

“In the ruins! They said it was stored in the ruins earlier!”

“Guys let’s go and see if there are any good treasures left behind by these smugglers!”

“Treasure chest! Time to find some treasure chest!”

The players jumped around joyfully and quickly ran towards the ruins that Belus had pointed out earlier.

However, the one who moved much faster than most of the players was the black dragon hovering above the skies. Meryer flew to the side of the high tower just like the wind and aimed himself directly at the ruins as he flapped his wings to lift a portion of the roof before entering the ruins premises.

Nightingale and her siblings were startled by this and quickly hid themselves at a darkened corner before resuming their observations.

After a cloud of dust had settled in, eight fully loaded wagons appeared right in front of the juvenile black dragon.

Meryer’s eyes quickly lit up at this sight.

He tentatively sniffed and immediately recognized the scent coming from one of the wagons.

In an instant, the black dragon was overjoyed.

“These…these are my lost treasures!”

“Hahaha! This lord has found you! Great! I had finally found you!”

The juvenile black dragon laughed boisterously as he spoke in an elated tone before biting through one of the wagons.

Immediately, a pile of shiny gold coins and jewels were exposed as some cascaded down into the floor.

Meryer’s eyes greedily lit up as he took the plunge down into the gold, silver, and jewels scattered into the floor and rubbed his face against them as he happily licked some coins with his tongue.

S-So much money!

For a brief instant, Nightingale’s eyes widened as a little bit of greed permeate her subconscious mind.

Having this much treasure for herself…would probably be enough for her and her siblings to live a wealthy life for a very long time even if they stopped working completely. If it weren’t for the black dragon guarding these treasures, then she would have reached out and snatched some of it already.

“F**k! So much treasure!”

The players’ eyes also lit up greedily upon arriving inside the ruins a moment later.

They were utterly excited and slowly advanced…up until they were met with Meryer’s angry roar.

“Leave! Get out! Get out of here!”

“These treasures originally belong to this lord! They are mine! You greedy people cannot have it!”

The black dragon glared at the approaching players with bloodshot eyes and bared his teeth whilst moving into a threatening stance.

Meryer’s innate dragon pressure also began expanding, while he growled lowly like an agitated husky protecting its food.

The players “……”

Little Salty Cat whose riding upon his back sighed, tapped Meryer’s scales with her wand.

“Meryer, these treasures are all yours, no one is taking them from you.” She then paused and added, “However… let’s share the other goods on this wagon okay? Especially the equipment and magic materials, you don’t need those anyway, so just give them to us!”

“Hehe, we’ll roast you lots of barbecue when we get back! I’ll even add some honey as well if you share these with us you know!”

Roasted…barbecue…

And with honey as well!

Meryer subconsciously swallowed a mouthful of saliva.

He then looked cautiously at the players whose staring at him with expectant eyes and after thinking for a moment, showed his teeth and said, “Ruaah~! Alright fine!”

“You can come and pick up things up, but you are not allowed to take any gold coins or jewels! Did you hear me? Not even a single one!”

“These are all mine! Whoever dares to steal even a single one will be eaten by me!”

The black dragon threatened and it wasn’t just pure empty talk as well.

Having learned what these players’ are capable of, Meryer also knew that these guys could easily resurrect themselves indefinitely.

If anyone really is bold enough to try then he would actually go through with eating them just like what he did with the two silver-ranked experts earlier.

After hearing Meryer’s words, each players’ eyes lit up, and patted their chests and proclaimed,

“Don’t worry! Meryer, we don’t want your treasures at all!”

“That’s right, are we the kind of people who only care about money?”

“That’s right, we only want materials and equipment!”

Hmm…

Currently, gold, silver and jewelry aren’t in circulation amongst the entire playerbase due to its scarcity.

Instead, things such as magic materials, equipment, and contribution points are the real hard currency widely used by the players. Apart from their instinctive excitement, the players don’t have much demand for these luxury goods right now.

Hearing the players’ words, the black dragon snorted and reluctantly nodded.

And with Meryer’s approval, the players finally rushed towards the wagon, akin to a group of bandits who had never seen the world before, and began to rummage through the pile of treasures.

“Whoa! All the magic materials here are top-quality! They’re great as an offering to the goddess or be traded with the NPCs!”

“There are also equipment! Human made equipments! It’s an armor that we can wear directly even without modification! It’s all brand new as well!”

“Well I think they look a bit uglier and they don’t have the usual special effects like those equipments that we can buy at the contribution store.”

“Idiot! Be content we got this in the first place. After all, this are merely an item drop from a quest…it’s normal for them to be ordinary looking.”

“Huh? There are inscriptions on this armor! It’s a magical equipment!”

“There’s even food? I think I’ve never seen a consumable like this before.”

“There are also some seeds here. Guys look, they appear to be grains of some sort right?”

“Hmm…? Is this a spice? Wow! Seasoning! It’s a new seasoning!”

“Spices? That’s great! I’m tired of eating while also using only the coarse salt made by the Moe Moe Committee every day.”

“Come on guys, just having something to eat is already good enough you know.”

Each players showed excitement as they eagerly chatted with each other whilst rummaging around the goods.

Nightingale and other young elves on the other hand looked at these greedy players, completely stunned by their behavior.

Are they…

Are they elves or bandits!?

Nihil Note : Sorry for the delay, something came up irl that needed my full attention. Good news is that its mostly done and I’m probably back to my usual updates.