Virtual World: Close Combat Mage
chapter-319

Chapter 319 - A Suspicious Trap

The players from Yunduan City reorganized their formation once more before venturing into the jungle. Oathless Sword continued to take the lead, holding the map in hand as he directed everyone toward the indicated coordinates. But after taking several steps forward, he froze up, stared at the coordinates ahead, and compared them with the stated coordinates for Linyin City’s location.

Oathless Sword rushed out of the jungle, checked the coordinates again, and ran back in to stare at the coordinates. Finally, he expressed his astonishment, “This entire jungle is a Class 2 map!”

When the players heard of this, they were astonished as well, each of them starting to take note of the coordinates. Running to and fro to the jungle – much like what Oathless Sword just did – the fact that the jungle was a Class 2 map eventually spread among the players like wildfire.

“Class 2 map?” Gu Fei was unfamiliar with this term.

“It is the name for places that have a separate set of coordinates from the map,” Brother Assist explained. He felt that his explanation was still a little vague, so he cited examples, “Most caves and the inside of houses have Class 2 maps; each of them having its coordinates.”

“Even a house would have different coordinates?” Gu Fei was positive that was untrue. Whenever he did ‘Bounty Mission’, he mostly found his targets indoors. Therefore, he was certain that the inside of houses had no unique coordinates.

“Well, small-sized houses are still reliant on the coordinates depicted on the world map, but there are slight variations in how things are depicted. For example, (R100,100) is the coordinates for inside the house, while (100,100) is the coordinates for the house’s rooftop. Have you not noticed this?” Brother Assist asked.

“Oh.” Gu Fei immediately understood.

“However, for this entire jungle to actually be a Class 2 map… Just what sort of luck do we have to run into such a design?” Brother Assist murmured.

There was nothing really scary about a Class 2 map. In fact, this made it easier to identify the difference between the map coordinates more accurately. The problem was that in their current situation, the map Oathless Sword was using to lead the expedition was a Class 1 map, which the players had colloquially called as the world map. Since the coordinates within the jungle were of the Class 2 map, everyone could not help but suspect that this was the system making things difficult for them once more.

Some quests were not challenging in terms of combat or intellect, so MMOs would often waste players’ time by incorporating those quests with long-distance travels or tedious steps. Obviously, this part of the expedition the Yunduan City players were currently doing belonged in this category. Each of them griped incessantly, with some even expressing their skepticism about the jungle only being a Class 2 map for the quest, much like how the system had eroded the road back in the Oolong Mountain Range.

“Everyone, pipe down!” All had retreated from the jungle by now, cursing loudly, so Oathless Sword had no choice but to step up and control the situation.

His shout was only heard by the first dozen or so players, yet these men dutifully turned to spread the word until everyone knew of this order. The jungle outskirt where their expedition was gathered became quiet.

“Now that we’re aware of our current situation, let me ask everyone; do any of you have friends in Linyin City?!” Oathless Sword shouted. The best way for them to save time was to find a guide that would lead them to the city.

The players began to discuss this among themselves, yet no one answered. The closest form of discussion that was relevant to the matter was when some players mentioned how they had friends who used to live in Linyin City but later departed from it. Oathless Sword was very surprised by this turn of events, as he had never expected that out of this nearly one thousand-strong crowd, not one player actually had a friend in that city.

“Anyone? Anyone at all? You will be well thanked for your aid!” Oathless Sword did not give up. Originally hoping to play the friendship card, he now decided to offer up a reward. There was a saying that went: ‘A brave soul will step up when a bountiful reward is present’. Oathless Sword was not looking for a brave soul right now, though, but a local, instead.

He swept his gaze through the crowd once more and only found a sea of shaking heads.

Oathless Sword was now blankly staring at Gale Force and Youthful Reflection. Neither of them seemed to have expected such an outcome, as well.

“Well, if that’s the case…” Oathless Sword continued, “I guess we’ll have to rely on ourselves to find the city. Do you all wish to begin our search for the city or do you prefer heading back to Baishi City to rest up for the night and begin inquiring the next day?”

“Let’s search for it now!” everyone shouted. This was a no-brainer. Heading back to Baishi City now would take more than three hours of travel time; they would easily waste another three hours or more getting back here tomorrow. Anyone with half a head on his or her shoulders would naturally choose to push onward now than to come back here tomorrow.

“That settles it, then! We’ll get a lock on the horizontal coordinates of Linyin City from outside the jungle before we venture inward in a straight line. I’m sure we’ll be able to find the city at this rate.” Once Oathless Sword finished saying this, he began to move and align himself toward the horizontal coordinates for Linyin City. The current plan was to arrive at Linyin City by walking into the jungle in a straight line. They were all rather confident of their ability to keep their bearings straight; after all, they were searching for a city. Just the area of the coordinates itself occupied at least the entire ‘N’ symbol on their mini-map. With their destination being that large, these players were certain that they could locate the city even if they were to stray a little off to the side while inside the jungle.

Thinking of this fact, all stopped their condemnations of the existence of this Class 2 map for the jungle as they courageously set forth into it once more.

A jungle with the atypical Class 2 map category was truly a different breed. The trees were sturdy and densely tangled; these trees were also overgrown from the boundary to the very depths of the jungle.

The battalion advanced in the same formation as before. Traversing Four Seas took the front, while the mercenaries followed closely behind. Young Master’s Elite was once more trailing at the back, and the Amethyst Rebirth ladies were not too far away. Sakurazaka Moony and The Great Hunting were naturally lingering near the ladies. Sakurazaka Moony was currently walking alongside Vast Lushness as he said to her, “It’s really easy to put up traps in places like this. No need to even dig a hole; just toss a bunch of loose leaves, cover up the trap with more detritus, and no one will be able to detect it.”

As he said this, a scream was heard coming from the front of the pack.

That scream sounded exceptionally vivid in this remote jungle; when those at the back asked what had happened, the report from the front that reached them was: “Someone stepped on a trap!”

Their hearts trembled as they each began checking the area beneath their feet, which thereby led to further questions. “Did the person accidentally step on the trap that someone has forgotten to dismantle? Is the trap intentionally placed?”

There was no answer at the moment. Eventually, Oathless Sword called for the self-proclaimed number one trap expert Sakurazaka Moony to save that man.

Sakurazaka Moony quickly made a beeline for the man.

“Anyone started the timer yet?” Just that first question Sakurazaka Moony asked when he arrived already showed the difference between an expert and a layman. Not one men from Traversing Four Seas had thought of counting how long a trap would last the instant someone stepped on it, causing all of them to stew in their embarrassment.

“Let’s start it now, then!” Sakurazaka Moony said to the men around him as he casually picked up a hefty stick off the ground and dug at the detritus around the trapped man’s foot. There was a thick layer of leaves littering the jungle floor, so their feet might accidentally land in a small hole on the ground if they were not careful. This was precisely why Sakurazaka Moony had told Vast Lushness about how suitable this place was for laying traps.

There was a metallic shine from the jaws of the trap that had snared the man’s foot. Sakurazaka Moony inspected it left and right while the surrounding men watched with bated breath for him to come to some earthshaking conclusion.

“It’s a Hunter’s Trap,” Sakurazaka Moony announced.

“F*CK!” everyone exclaimed in unison. Hunter was currently the only job class that could set up traps like this, so it was rather obvious which job class was responsible for this.

“But I’ve never seen this sort,” Sakurazaka Moony continued.

“What do you mean?” Oathless Sword, who had been standing beside him all this time, asked.

“It’s a lot more intricate; it probably means that the level of this trap is higher than what I’m used to.” Sakurazaka Moony lifted his head to look at the trapped player, “Did you take any damage or are you just unable to move?”

The man said that he was just rendered immobile.

Sakurazaka Moony muttered, “So a higher level trap doesn’t seem to do any damage; I guess there isn’t much point raising this skill’s level!”

The man was mildly annoyed by this, feeling as though Sakurazaka Moony had used him as a guinea pig.

Sakurazaka Moony’s gaze began to turn toward another direction. As everyone’s eyes followed his, he hurriedly shouted, “Don’t stop the timer!” All of them hastily returned their gazes on the man’s right foot. The man started feeling uneasy with many looking at his trapped foot.

Sakurazaka Moony took that stick of his over to another side and began poking around. Soon, he lifted the stick and a trap was slightly exposed on the other end of it.

“There’s another one!” Oathless Sword came over, his brows knitted.

“Timer!” Sakurazaka Moony said to him.

“Where’s the timer?!” Although Oathless Sword came over, the rest were still busy staring at the trapped man’s leg!

“This might not be all!” Sakurazaka Moony proceeded to toss the trap aside as his stick continued to poke and prod with everyone following him closely. Suddenly, a pained shout came from behind him, causing the surrounding players to leap to their feet in surprise. Even Sakurazaka Moony jumped at this. He turned to look backward, only to angrily chide the person, “Are you an idiot? Didn’t you see me toss that trap over there? Why did you step on it?!”

“Isn’t the trap dismantled?” that man glumly asked.

“Bro, is there even a Dismantle skill yet?” Sakurazaka Moony retorted.

The man could only feel ashamed over his lack of gaming knowledge, as Sakurazaka Moony asked, “Did you time it this time?”

All froze up as they once more felt embarrassed at their failure to do so.

“Act like professionals,” Sakurazaka Moony criticized. Everyone could only keep mum and endure his censure. There was no way around this! Trappers were already in the minority, and few of them were skilled. While Sakurazaka Moony proclaimed himself as the number one trap expert in Yunduan City, no one knew who the number two was. It even felt as though no one was competing with him for the top spot, since any high-level Archer chose to advance to a Sharpshooter job class, instead.

Sakurazaka Moony continued to prod and soon managed to pick out another trap. His eyes turned solemn as he said, “It’s very unlikely for three men to forget their traps here… These traps are clearly placed here intentionally. Perhaps, they are even targeting us.”

“Who would do such a thing? Are they players or NPCs?” Youthful Reflection asked.

“Ha ha! It’s over!” The man who had originally fallen for the trap was finally free from it.

“A minute and one second!” Before Sakurazaka Moony could ask, the person counting the time had blurted this out.

“Adding the time we have missed out earlier, it lasted at least over a minute and ten seconds. That’s pretty impressive!” Sakurazaka Moony exclaimed.

“Furthermore, these are clearly placed by players. If they were NPCs, they would long since reveal themselves,” Sakurazaka Moony said as he looked at the people around him.