Virtual World: Close Combat Mage
chapter-138

Chapter 138 - A Burden

“Yeah. Why aren’t you fighting back?” everyone asked as well, staring at Gu Fei in wonder.

Gu Fei could only smile at the question, saying to Svelte Dancer, “Why would I? You would be long dead if I did that...”

“D*mn you! You arrogant prick!” Svelte Dancer shrieked in annoyance.

“Woman, you’re pretty wild yourself,” Gu Fei countered, smirking.

“Come on, then! I must have a match with you for three hundred rounds today,” Svelte Dancer boldly challenged.

Gu Fei was not goaded to accepting the challenge, only asking, “You have an all-Agility build, right?”

Svelte Dancer nodded her head, “That’s right. What about it?”

Gu Fei offhandedly said, “If we are casually sparring, I might not beat you. But it’s a different case if I get serious… You might actually die from that.” He was telling the truth. The speed Svelte Dancer had shown was a lot faster than Gu Fei’s, so he was unsure if he could win in a casual melee confrontation. But if it was a serious PvP to the death, Gu Fei could just deal with her safely by maintaining a distance with her and using the chance of her closing in on him to insta-kill her directly with the Twin Incineration spell. However, there was a possibility that he could not insta-kill her with just one spell, so it would still be difficult to predict the result of the fight if Svelte Dancer managed to get close to Gu Fei. After all, she was wielding a dagger and he was using a sword; daggers were far more suitable for a combat at this short range.

Furthermore, Gu Fei’s movement speed was not as fast as hers. It would be impossible to get away once she entered his personal space. While his movement speed was fast enough to shock people, Svelte Dancer’s movement speed was even faster than his. Who knew what types of insanely OP equipment she was wearing. Boots were enough to increase a player’s movement speed, so if Svelte Dancer had a body full of equipment that added to Agility, her speed would naturally reach an unprecedented height.

As for attack speed, the difference between the two was not as large as the difference in their movement speed, yet Svelte Dancer still held superiority over Gu Fei in this aspect. But to fully utilize the advantage of having a superior attack speed, one had to possess keen eyes and sharp battle sense beside having a pair of dexterous hands. Toward this point, Gu Fei fully believed that none could match up to him in his generation. He had trained for twenty grueling years, after all; the keenness of his eyes and the sharpness of his battle sense were already well-proven in his numerous in-game fights.

Gu Fei’s honest words pissed off Svelte Dancer and she regarded him coldly, “Come on, then. No need for some casual sparring. Just attack me for real. It’s fine if you slay me.”

“Seriously?” Gu Fei pulled out Moonlit Nightfalls from his dimensional pocket with sparkling eyes.

Who could feel more strongly about PvP than Gu Fei? PvP was his intention for playing Parallel World, after all. Even if he ended up losing a level to Svelte Dancer, he would simply shrug it off as an insignificant loss. He was mainly worried that insta-killing Svelte Dancer would not be good, but everything was fine now since she did not mind that possibility.

Of course, Gu Fei only considered her as ‘having a chance to win against him’ in melee after he had determined that she was indeed a woman of caliber. If she was the kind of person with limited battle experience that would flaunt her weapon mindlessly during a battle, then Gu Fei was confident that he could kill her off even with bare hands.

Since this was going to be a serious fight, Gu Fei could naturally use the most effective method to confront Svelte Dancer. He believed that she would not even have the chance to get into a close enough range for the fight to be in her favor. Thinking of all this, Gu Fei assumed his fighting stance. “Well since you don’t seem to mind dying… Let’s do this, then!” Gu Fei invited.

Relishing PvP and not caring about the losses, could anyone match up Gu Fei’s calm and collected attitude due to his unique mindset in this situation? Moreover, his calmness was far too intense that it had already transformed into an attack to Svelte Dancer’s psyche.

When Svelte Dancer saw all this, her heart began to thump in trepidation. If she was not confident before, she was even more so now. After all, she was pushed down by Gu Fei moments ago. “Hmph!” Svelte Dancer harrumphed, saying, “I almost got fooled by you. How is this fair if you can slay me worry-free while I have to anxiously try my best to not kill you? You’re too cunning, indeed!”

“Nope,” Gu Fei refuted, saying, “You don’t need to stay your hand, either.”

Svelte Dancer was in tears. This beast did not even give me a chance to back down from this fight! she thought to herself furiously. Seeing Gu Fei hold a sword in his hand, she suddenly asked, “You’re a Mage, so why are you using a sword?”

“Don’t change the subject!”

“You b*st*rd! July, you’re about to talk to us regarding the guild versus guild tournament, right?”

“Hey!”

“Luo Luo, quickly bring me to that famous Ray’s Bar once we are done with the meeting!”

“Sigh… Since you’re afraid, I guess we can forget about it,” Gu Fei sulkily kept his sword back to his pocket.

“Afraid?! Just who is afraid of whom?!” Svelte Dancer roared as she did an about face. Gu Fei had his sword magically reappearing in his hand. “Hmph! My current EXP is at 41.92; I just don’t wish to lose two levels worth of EXP! I’ll teach you a lesson once I hit level 42!” Svelte Dancer huffed in indignation.

This sounded logical. But if Svelte Dancer wanted to “teach Gu Fei a lesson”, why would she even think about the penalty of losing a level? Gu Fei found this really amusing. Sigh... Women! Keeping his sword once more, he sighed deeply, “Forget it. Let’s just leave it like this!”

Suddenly, he realized that something was not right in his surroundings. This room was filled with women besides Gu Fei, so his dejected sigh was tantamount to him asking for trouble! With that realization, Gu Fei immediately said, “Some women just can’t live up to their words. July! I think we shan’t let such people join our guild with the PvP tournament just around the corner. What if they become a burden for us during the ensuing battle?”

The people in the whole room went silent.

Svelte Dancer was one of the Five Unyielding Experts of Parallel World! To be called a burden, she was right on the precipice of breaking down but she managed to calm herself down in the end, “Hmph! Are you trying to provoke me into a fight with you? I won’t fall for your tricks.”

That was close! Gu Fei was relieved. He would not be so mean to her, especially since she was a fellow guildmate. Given the predicament he was placed into, he could only make her feel uncomfortable instead of making all the fifty or so ladies uncomfortable. It was better to make things awkward for some people than everyone else, after all.

It was a good thing that Svelte Dancer’s skill at finding herself an out was second to none. Thinking of that, Gu Fei surreptitiously studied Svelte Dancer just as she furtively checked him out. Meeting each other’s eyes, Gu Fei immediately removed his eyes on her as she indignantly turned her head away from him as well.

Only then did Amethyst Rebirth officially begin their meeting. Gu Fei felt a headache coming on as he sat through it and listened to the discussion. No one knew whether such battle preparation meetings were the same sort in MMOs or not, but July went through the various guilds in Yunduan City just like Brother Assist had done so. However, Young Master’s Elite mercenary group was made up of experts; although there were just six of them, each of them was at the top of the game. Their goal was to be the champion, so Brother Assist only emphasized about Yunduan City’s three strongest mercenary groups.

July was different. The strongest point of the Amethyst Rebirth’s ladies was that they were low key and well aware of their shortcomings. Thus, July’s presentation placed emphasis on numerous guilds that were around Amethyst Rebirth’s level, making it hard to gauge when this meeting would end.

Gu Fei drifted in and out as he listened to her drone on and on about the various guilds. Just as he was about to mention something to end this mental torture, someone beat him to the punch, “A question, Elder Sis July!”

“What’s the matter, Xiaowu?” The one who had raised her hand was Svelte Dancer.

“I heard that the guild versus guild tournament is elimination based. Since our opponents are chosen entirely by drawing lots, how can we be so sure that the standards of all these opposing guilds would be the same as ours?” Svelte Dancer asked.

“Of course, it won’t be that coincidental. But if the guild’s strength is above ours, we are obviously no match for it. If it is weaker, we will easily gain victory. What’s the point of us analyzing the powerful guilds, then?” Clearly, July had given this question much thought.

“Your thinking isn’t right,” Svelte Dancer solemnly replied, explaining, “We should view the strongest guilds as our enemies as well. If we can deal with them, we can naturally deal with all the other guilds. Your method of only having eyes for the guilds around our level, that sort of thinking is too… too….”

“Limited in making progress,” someone blurted out to help Svelte Dancer.

“That’s right!” Svelte Dancer bobbed her head in agreement, and then she suddenly realized that the voice that that had helped her belonged to a man! Turning her head and seeing Gu Fei beam at her, she immediately twisted her neck and said, “No, that’s not right. It’s passive. It’s too conservative.”

“D*mn you, woman!” Gu Fei sighed inwardly.

“So what do you think we should do?” July asked her, helpless.

“Choose two or three of the strongest guilds in Yunduan City and brief us about them. We’ll just treat them as our imaginary rivals in this upcoming tournament. What does everyone think?” Svelte Dancer even knew to seek for the crowd’s input in this matter.

There was an old saying that went: ‘Birds of the same feather flocked together.’ This was a guild that was personally set up by July, so most of the guild members actually shared her way of thinking. They were not actually that competitive, and they felt that it was not necessary to visualize mock battles with Yunduan City’s strongest guilds in preparation for what might happen soon. With nary having so much as a competitive spirit, no one dared make a sound when Svelte Dancer asked the question.

“Hmm… Xiaowu’s words do indeed make sense. If anyone else think we should do as she suggested, raise your hand,” July finally said.

Svelte Dancer looked around and did not feel so alone anymore as some people agreed to her thinking, albeit they were just two. Upon seeing that one of them was Gu Fei, she immediately scoffed, “How can you not have any opinion of your own, simply repeating what others say….”

Gu Fei was about to have a mental breakdown at the lady’s immaturity. Seeing how she vented her anger on him at every opportunity, he could no longer be bothered with her and turned his head to look toward his fellow supporter. With a glance, Gu Fei felt that this world was truly ever-changing. The other supporter was actually Lie Lie.

These two ladies clearly had some grievances with him, so why would they actually stand with him now? Life sure was unpredictable!

July saw that the discrepancy between the two sides was incomparable, so she simply said, “If that’s the case, let’s continue learning about all these guilds that are closer to our standard. When that’s done, I’ll do a rundown of the big guilds, as well!”

Gu Fei felt like crying. At this rate, when would this meeting be over? With that, he unconsciously looked at Svelte Dancer’s direction and saw her show a distraught expression on her face as well. Geez... Seems like this lady’s thinking is completely the same as mine! What lies about visualizing a strong imaginary rival… She clearly just wants to end this meeting as well!