Virtual World: Close Combat Mage
chapter-130

Chapter 130 - Battō-jutsu

Vast Lushness was public enemy number one in Yueye City. If Past Deeds was mentioned in front of Will-low and her friends, the person they would curse and complain about would not be Guild Leader Silver Moon but his wife, Vast Lushness. If she ever came in dire straits, like right now, it was no exaggeration to say that there would be no place she could hide in Yueye City. Death was the only result awaiting her if anyone caught sight of her.

Besides, Dusky Cloud and his gang that that had defeated Past Deeds were no upright heroes. It would be ludicrous if anyone thought that they had eradicated Past Deeds Guild for the sake of justice in Yueye City. Very few people were pacifists in online games. Dusky Cloud and his lot took its place when Past Deeds fell. Considering their hot-blooded nature and ‘might was right’ mentality, their resulting arrogance would definitely be no better than Vast Lushness’. Naturally, they would spare no efforts when dealing with Vast Lushness given their deep animosity toward her. This was clear enough, given how their hunt for her had spread all the way to Yunduan City.

No Smile had a really good relationship with Dusky Cloud. No Smile previously lending his precious dagger, Zephyr’s Whisper, to Dusky Cloud in this online game was already proof of the strong bond that the two shared. Dusky Cloud even tried to off Gu Fei for No Smile and, at the moment, No Smile was helping Dusky Cloud hunt for Vast Lushness. “Why are you two here?” No Smile asked first, recognizing Luo Luo and Gu Fei – of course, he recognized Gu Fei as the despicable person who had snatched his dagger away and not his nemesis, the Masked Slayer.

Luo Luo evidently cared not for No Smile so she did not bother to reply; Gu Fei was the one who spoke to No Smile, but it was not to politely answer the latter’s question; instead, he asked one of his own questions, “Why are you still alive?”

No Smile felt peeved! He was currently considering whether to kill off these two people along the way, seeing as bad blood already existed between him and July, Luo Luo, and the rest.

“Who are these two?” someone beside No Smile asked.

No Smile froze, as the question was not easy to answer. The only person related to him from the previous matter was July. Since July was considered as an ‘enemy’, then Gu Fei and Luo Luo would be the friends of his ‘enemy’, and it would be somewhat of a stretch to say that he was related to them. No need to tangle with these two since I’m just helping Dusky Cloud and his lot hunt for Vast Lushness. No Smile thought of this and casually responded, “Nothing much. I just happen to know them.”

Gu Fei and Luo Luo were quite surprised by his statement. They initially thought that No Smile would use this opportunity to punish them for what they had done before, yet No Smile apparently no longer had that in mind!

“Oh. Would you two please let us through? We’re players of Yueye City who specially made the trip out here to find this woman!” The person pointed at Vast Lushness as he spoke to them.

Luo Luo glanced at Gu Fei. Vast Lushness looked quite pathetic right now, so Luo Luo felt really sympathetic of her plight. However, Gu Fei had always been apathetic toward this woman ever since they had seen her under the tree. His current attitude was very different from Luo Luo’s impression of him that she instinctively knew that there was more to this matter, yet she did not say a thing about this and merely tugged on Gu Fei’s hand, “Shall we leave?”

Gu Fei nodded his head in agreement and took two steps back.

Luo Luo hesitated for a moment before finally saying, “Or should we stay and have a look?” Although she was no gossipmonger, she sure was nosy when it came to stuff like this.

“Fine by me,” Gu Fei easily agreed again. The two took a step back as No Smile and his team immediately surrounded Vast Lushness.

Vast Lushness was a Priest with very slow movement speed, so she did not attempt to escape when she got discovered by them. Now that she was being surrounded, she only softly said, “Just do it already; stop dragging this out.”

The men laughed coldly and said, “You’re not bad, running so far away from Yueye City. Don’t you want to see more of the local sights?” With that, one of them swung a sword toward her.

Vast Lushness tried to dodge the attack, yet she could not dodge it completely. With her much lower level than the attackers and non-combat job class, she could only take the hit while gritting her teeth and bestow Heal on herself.

“You d*mn b*tch! Looks like you want it the hard way!” The person cursed as he scored another hit with his sword.

Vast Lushness dodged again, but she was still struck by it. Once more, her Heal landed on herself.

“I’m joining in as well!” Two more men joined the fray; one was a Mage while the other was a Priest like Vast Lushness.

The Mage did not use spells, nor did the Priest use his healing spells; both waved their staves wildly as they closed in on Vast Lushness.

“Shall I join in as well?” An Archer also stepped up from the men and changed his fighting style to something inappropriate for his job class like the two before him, brandishing his longbow like it was a crescent blade.

No Smile stood to the side with a cruel smile on his face, not joining in the skirmish.

This was not a PvP but an extended session of torture, instead. Since Vast Lushness had no way of retaliating against them and could only painstakingly bestow Heal on herself, the men were beating her up using methods that could inflict the lowest possible damage on her.

“Is this how you fight back? Why are you being so ‘gentle’?” A few of the men jeered at Vast Lushness. Describing her as ‘gentle’ happened to be ironic given her past tyrannical personality, and they laughed at this inside joke.

Luo Luo could not bear to look on anymore. As she was about to say something to Gu Fei, she saw the corner of his eyes twitch.

“Ahhh!” A scream escaped from Vast Lushness, who had been enduring all their painful attacks, when the opposing Priest swiped his staff across her legs and tripped her over.

“HA HA HA HA!” Everyone stopped their attacks as they guffawed in ridicule at Vast Lushness’ sorry appearance.

Vast Lushness quickly climbed up to her feet with her body visibly shaking from the effort. Having stayed online for such a long time, her body was now showing signs of exhaustion.

“Do you still want to do this the hard way?” The opponent berated Vast Lushness as he slashed her once more.

Heal!

“You’re still holding on!” said someone as another slash was sent her way.

Heal once more.

“You’re still at it!” The surrounding men severely chastised Vast Lushness as they continued their attacks.

The answer to their actions was yet another Heal.

“Woman, retreat to the side!” someone suddenly said loudly.

All gawked when they saw Gu Fei stride over. There were only two women here. Based on where Gu Fei was looking at, it was apparent that his statement was for Vast Lushness.

“What are you trying to do? You wanna be a hero?” No Smile laughed mirthlessly as he gripped his dagger tightly. He did not want to make the same mistake twice. I tried making things easy for these two. But since they’re insistent on serving themselves up on a silver platter, they can’t blame me for messing with them, No Smile thought to himself.

Vast Lushness looked at Gu Fei with an emotionless face, “I don’t need your help.”

“I’m not helping you; I’m helping them,” Gu Fei corrected her.

“Oh?” The lot hesitated for a while before laughing, “Bro wants to play with us, too? Go ahead.”

Gu Fei laughed as he entered the crowd and stood in front of Vast Lushness, addressing the men, “I am helping you know what a real PvP is! Twin Incineration! Incinerate!”

The Priest that that had tripped Vast Lushness disappeared under a fiery glow. “F*ck!” everyone exclaimed.

“Step aside; school’s in session,” Gu Fei bluntly told Vast Lushness.

Vast Lushness was in shock. The required Spell Damage to insta-kill a Priest with just Twin Incineration was frighteningly high. What was worse was the fact that Gu Fei casted the spell with just his bare hands.

Gu Fei actually used a weapon, but it was done so fast that she failed to see it. Gu Fei drew out Moonlit Nightfalls from his dimensional pocket, casted the spell, attacked with it, and put it back inside his pocket almost instantly. This technique of drawing out a sword for one strike and returning it to its scabbard was called ‘battō-jutsu’.

Legends had it that battō-jutsu used the resulting arc when the user drew the sword as well as the resulting friction from that action to create an instantaneous burst of power, achieving a slash that was far stronger than an average slash. However, that was merely legends; in reality, the real profundity of using battō-jutsu came from executing it during an ambush.

A sheathed sword would naturally give the opponent a false sense of security. The one explosive attack that came from suddenly unleashing battō-jutsu would have a greater success if the opponent least expected it.

If the lethality was truly a result of the friction from drawing the sword out of its scabbard, then that would mean that the user would have to quickly sheath the sword back once the first slash was executed; otherwise, it would be impossible to perform the second strike.

In other words, swiftly sheathing the sword was more difficult than swiftly drawing the sword from its scabbard. Many Japanese warriors were obsessed with battō-jutsu and they trained the technique of drawing and sheathing their weapons for years. And yet, most of them still could not perform the sheathing part of the technique, failing to master battō-jutsu and discovering the manly seppuku1 technique instead. This could be considered as an oddity in the history of martial arts.

The battō-jutsu technique that Gu Fei was currently using was in fact executed using the method for using a hidden weapon. Honestly speaking, pulling out a sword from the dimensional pocket and putting it away were easier to accomplish in-game than in reality where he would have to use a scabbard.

“You rascal!” one of the men bellowed, resulting into him eating Twin Incineration from Gu Fei as well.

Six men, including No Smile, were chasing after Vast Lushness and two of them already lost their lives in Gu Fei’s hands in the blink of an eye. Thus, the remaining four men no longer bothered with Vast Lushness as it was evident that Gu Fei was the harder opponent.

No Smile’s heart was currently in turmoil. He was uncertain why Amethyst Rebirth had so many top experts helping the guild. Before it was that Fugitive 27149, and now it was this person. If only No Smile knew that ‘that person’ and ‘this person’ were the same one, he would probably be sh*tting his pants right about now. Unfortunately, No Smile did not have much time to ponder on this because Gu Fei once more created another arc of Twin Incineration, instantly killing two more players that that had rushed toward him. In this instance, only No Smile and a Warrior wielding a huge axe remained standing.

“What’s your level now?” Gu Fei suddenly asked No Smile.

“Level 40,” No Smile answered while stepping backward.

“Your level is higher than me!” Gu Fei exclaimed, feeling spiteful.

“YA!” the axe-wielding Warrior accompanying No Smile roared as he cleaved his weapon toward Gu Fei.

Gu Fei turned his body to the side and evaded the move, “You look familiar. What’s your name?”

“This m*th*rf*ck*r here is called Celestial Pig; remember the name!” Celestial Pig growled.

“Oh, got it. Bye!” Gu Fei’s hands moved and insta-killed Celestial Pig.

No Small was paralyzed with fear. He no longer had the will to fight and only thought of escaping. Just as he was about to activate his Vanish skill, two arrows loudly pierced the air and embedded themselves into his forehead. White light shone for the sixth time....

Gu Fei glanced over and saw Royal God Call jumping up and down, “F*ck me! You’re PvPing again!”

Chapter Notes:

[1] Seppuku – or hara-kiri, is the Japanese people’s traditional method of committing suicide by disembowelment or by cutting their stomachs open.