Virtual World: Close Combat Mage
chapter-212

Chapter 212 - The Most United Guild and the Most Divided Mercenary Group

“How many more rounds are there in the mercenary PvP tournament?” Gu Fei suddenly asked. Recently, he no longer found doing ‘Bounty Mission’ as satisfying. The participants of the PvP tournament had far better skills compared to his ‘Bounty Mission’ targets, and the further they went in the PvP tournament, the stronger the opponents were. Gu Fei sincerely wished that Parallel World’s event would never end, so that he could keep on fighting even stronger opponents.

Sadly, Brother Assist’s answer immediately killed off his wish, “Yunduan City is now in the final 16!”

“Final 16? That means there are only four matches left!” Gu Fei exclaimed rather dejectedly.

“Speaking of which, why is it ‘16’? Why not 15, 17, or any other odd number?” Royal God Call asked.

Brother Assist smiled, “In the first four to five rounds, there were indeed guilds and mercenary groups that got a bye. This is how the system made its adjustment when faced with odd numbers, plotting out the final journey by relying upon the sequence of 1, 2, 4, 8, 16, 32, and the doubling at each stage. The situation that you mentioned has long been accounted for by the system.”

“There are still four more rounds!” Everyone had varying thoughts regarding this. While Gu Fei was feeling depressed that he would no longer have a chance to PvP after this, the rest were feeling sad that they had yet to display their prowess in this tournament thus far. Gu Fei’s fighting ability had caused large guilds to search for him all over the city. Although it was seen as a huge joke by many, countless experts actually hoped to achieve that feat. Gu Fei already took the first step ahead, while they… They still needed to work hard.

“We’ll let them see our greatness today!” Several of them cried out at the same time, especially Royal God Call and War Without Wounds who were brimming with confidence due to their acquisition of top-grade equipment.

Just as Young Master’s Elite made preparations for today’s match, those students of Gu Fei went to see their guild leader, Ah Fa. Ah Fa happened to be the student who had brought Gu Fei into Parallel World by giving the latter the Mage account.

“Ah Fa! Ah Fa!” Several students called out when they spotted him on the street.

“Argh! How many times do I have to tell you guys not to call me by my real name in-game? Call me by my IGN, instead!” Ah Fa was a game enthusiast whose lifelong dream was to create a legendary IGN, such as Sword Demon, Royal God Call, and the rest of Young Master’s Elite, that would leave people breathless when they heard of it.

One of the students chuckled, “Wouldn’t your name still be called Ah Fa¹ if we call you by your IGN?”

“Don’t shorten it however you like! Call me Fatal Reckoning!” Ah Fa replied solemnly.

“That’s a mouthful. Can’t we just call you Ah Fa?” someone suggested.

“Fine. Ah Fa it is…” Fatal Reckoning helplessly accepted his fate to be called as Ah Fa. “Why are you guys looking for me, anyway? Are people bullying you again?” Ah Fa asked upfront. They were all classmates in reality. While Ah Fa was just a nondescript student in school, he was actually the big boss in the game. This was mainly due to him acquiring a Parallel World account during the game’s open beta days.

After the game was official released, the new players were able to choose which in-game city to spawn at, so all his fellow classmates naturally flocked over to Yunduan City since Ah Fa was in there. Therefore, it was truly inevitable for Gu Fei to encounter his students in Parallel World given their proximity to him.

“Nobody bullied us. In fact, we even ganked² a guy who was stealing our monsters!” someone happily answered. This was the student Gu Fei was supposed to be sending to prison, serial number 19857.

“Then, what’s the matter?” Ah Fa asked.

“Can you guess who we just met?” another student excitedly asked Ah Fa.

“Is it Oathless Sword? While he’s the guild leader of Yunduan City’s largest guild, you guys shouldn’t feel so excited just by meeting him,” Ah Fa replied.

“Nope! It’s Teacher Gu Fei!” the person excitedly declared. He was afraid that Ah Fa would not recall who was Gu Fei, so he said the teacher’s full name.

Ah Fa immediately laughed once he heard this, “And I thought this was some huge matter! It’s not news to me that Teacher Gu is playing Parallel World, as I’m the one who gave him his gaming account!”

“What?! Why didn’t you tell us about it before?!” They were all dumbfounded.

“Teacher doesn’t want me to tell others about this! But I suppose it is okay now since you guys have bumped into him,” Ah Fa replied.

“Then, why didn’t you drag teacher into our guild?” the students pressed on.

“That… Teacher belongs to a guild already!” Ah Fa reasoned.

“What is his guild’s name?” they all asked.

Ah Fa could not answer that. He hemmed and hawed for a long time, causing all the students to laugh in unison, “Ha ha ha! We thought you were close to Teacher Gu Fei. Turns out you know nothing at all!”

Ah Fa’s silence only proved this point. He had originally wanted to use this opportunity to get close to Gu Fei by playing the game together, but he did not even manage to add him as a friend after that first day because he chose to run off with that scrupulous gaming employee back then.

Although he knew of Gu Fei’s IGN, he could not add the latter no matter how many times he tried as the latter had put restriction to his ‘friend request’ setting. Afterward, he tried getting close to Gu Fei during class, but he actually got admonished by the latter in front of everyone. From then on, Ah Fa and Gu Fei pretty much kept to their own and did not meet each other again despite being in the same city.

After the game’s official release, Ah Fa expended a lot of effort and resources to set up a guild called Ultimate Class 3 and brought his classmates, who had come to play Parallel World, into it.

But despite being the guild leader of Ultimate Class 3, the class monitor in class was still called by that title in the game by his classmates, while he was still called Ah Fa by everyone. It was only until he had helped his fellow classmates by ganking several other newbies and defeating the bosses that they had no means to fight in their quests that they saw him differently, which caused him to become even busier.

“Ah Fa, I can’t kill this monster; quickly come and help me!”

“Ah Fa, I’m lost; come and find me!”

“Ah Fa, I need 5 gold coins; send some to me by the Second Peddlers’ Street!”

“Ah Fa, I got killed by someone; come avenge me!”

Ah Fa may have spent his days running around at everyone’s beck and call, but he had actually enjoyed being valued like this. After all, they were all classmates from the same classroom who spent most of their time attending classes together! Ah Fa dreamed of having a bunch of brothers following him as he played the game at night, he could hardly believe how this dream of his had actually became reality!

That was how he had ended up becoming a guild leader that was more like a nanny to his classmates. Still, he was quite happy with being needed by everyone that he even forgot about his original intention to become friendlier with Teacher Gu Fei. It was evident he had no clue how to answer these questions about Gu Fei that his classmates were now asking!

“Let’s get teacher to join our guild!” a student said.

“Let’s tell this news to everyone first!” another student said as he fired off this information on the guild channel. Ultimate Class 3 Guild had twenty-one members. The number was little since the members were all students of Yulin Middle School’s Year 2 - Class 3. Although the level of their guild could not compare to Amethyst Rebirth, they were much better than any other guilds in terms of unity and cohesion. They were all friends in reality, after all. Only students like them would be able to gather together from so many different places like this.

As for Gu Fei, he was currently facing a group that was the exact opposite of the students’ united guild.

Just as what Brother Assist had reported and Young Master Han had deduced, High Cloud was completely divided. This was first demonstrated by how all eighty members of the mercenary group were present for this match. Until now, not one mercenary group or guild would be able to make all its members be present for a match. But because all the members of the mercenary group were fighting for their own enjoyment and goals, not one of them would miss a single match of the tournament. This was not because they cared for their group’s welfare but because they wanted to gain more for themselves. Their similar way of thinking formed a different sort of unity that was a great irony in itself.

At the start of the match, Young Master Han, as usual, climbed up a hill to get a good view of the PvP arena’s terrain.

Atop the small hill that could be called the vantage point for this entire map, six men stood against the brisk wind as their gazes swept over the field below and noted that the opposing mercenary group’s eighty members had already spread all over the map in search of their enemies.

“Oh. So they’re not totally disorganized, after all. They still have some modicum of unity,” Young Master Han used a newly emptied bottle of liquor to point at a certain location in the map.

Indeed, High Cloud mercenary group was not wholly divided as its players formed up over ten different smaller teams depending on which guilds they had originated from. These unevenly divided teams then scattered about across the map in search of the enemies.

“Let’s see which group will find us first!” Royal God Call wiped his newly bought Sniper’s Whistle in anticipation. As this would be his first ever shot using the bow, Royal God Call wanted it to be a beautiful memory.

“Aren’t we being too arrogant by just standing here? Won’t all eighty of them make their way over here once they spot us?” Brother Assist asked.

“They’re gonna take turns. Just watch!” War Without Wounds extended his hand and pointed.

Sword Demon nodded his head, “Looks like those guys will be the first one.” He was talking about a team of five men that was fast approaching them.

“Prepare yourselves, everyone. These players are looking to fight separately, so they will be coming at us one after another. If everything goes well, we can kill them off one by one and achieve victory,” Young Master Han said.

“Don’t worry!” Gu Fei already had his sword out.

In the blink of an eye, the five enemies had already made their way to the foot of the hill. Royal God Call was in no hurry to shoot them, so he cheekily waved at the five men in greeting. Who knew that these five men would just look at the six of them and then head toward another direction?

“What just happened?” The six men exchanged glances.

“It… seems like they thought that we are one of their own!” Gu Fei replied.

“Man, this mercenary group’s lack of unity is scary!” everyone sighed.