Virtual World: Close Combat Mage
chapter-350

Chapter 350 - Still Not Making It to the Boat

After walking for a quite distance with Vast Lushness, Gu Fei realized that he had made a severe mistake.

He had mistakenly assumed that Vast Lushness was sober when in fact she was also totally drunk. The reason for this mistake was due to the people he had been comparing her with; The demure lady Vast Lushness looked as if she had a good hold of herself with the sloppy men like Blue Ease and the lot acting as a contrast.

Without those men, her state of drunkenness was clearly exposed. She swayed in her steps and her breath strongly stank of alcohol. Gu Fei thought of going back to look for Blue Ease and his men, but he did not know the whereabouts of those drunkards now.

“Hey!” he called out to her.

“What?” She half turned and cast him a sidelong glance.

“There’s a tree in front of you,” he informed.

“You think I didn’t know that?” Lifting her arm, she pushed herself away from the tree she had nearly walked into. In the end, her body was thrown off to a side and her head knocked right into another tree.

Before he could say a word, Vast Lushness shook her head to clear her mind and patted the tree. “Sorry!”

What else could he do besides facepalm?

“Say, why don’t we go back to Linyin City and rest there for a while?” Gu Fei suggested as he watched Vast Lushness keep on walking ahead.

“Eh? You think I’m drunk?” She narrowed her eyes and gazed at him.

“Are you not?” he inquired sincerely.

“Of course not!” Vast Lushness vehemently denied as she continued to walk unsteadily forward.

He was speechless. She was someone who would stubbornly stand her ground even when she was being beaten to death. Adding the obstinacy brought by alcohol, she was currently more difficult to coax her of anything.

Gu Fei could only helplessly follow behind her and occasionally prevent her from bumping into trees. Each time, this would be accompanied by her outburst of “What are you doing?! I can walk by myself!”

Drunk people, besides being obstinate, would often become more talkative. The usually taciturn Vast Lushness would become quite chatty as the topic shifted to the nearest person to her: Gu Fei. Naturally, her question to him would naturally be: “How did you get so powerful?”

“It’s because I know kung fu,” he answered truthfully.

“Kung fu? Hmph!” She looked at him in a way that seemed to say, “Don’t try fooling me just because I’m a little tipsy.”

Gu Fei could only facepalm once more. She was just a drunk person; there was no need for him to treat this question so seriously!

“Tree!” Gu Fei already lost count how many times he had shouted this warning.

She twisted her body away using her conditioned reflexes and barely missed the big tree before her.

At this rate, will we even reach before twelve midnight? he wondered forlornly.

However, misfortune and fortune were always paired together. The good news here for Gu Fei was that the duration of being under the influence of alcohol in-game was not long – just like the pain receptor in-game – after having been tweaked to be much weaker than in reality by the game designers. Thus, players would quickly sober up after stopping their consumption of alcohol. This explained how Blue Ease and his men were able to continuously drink for nearly twenty hours straight. These men were not hard drinkers, but they managed to accomplish such a feat thanks to this particular aspect of Parallel World.

Vast Lushness finally lost her drunkenness after struggling through the jungle. Having been talking nonstop during their trek through the jungle, the moment she quieted down, Gu Fei knew that she was sobering up.

“You’re sober,” was his first line of words after mentioning ‘kung fu’ before and the occasional warnings of ‘tree’.

Vast Lushness was feeling deeply embarrassed at the moment. She was considered as a smart person. Whenever a smart person got drunk, they would be aware that their drunken self would tend to leave an interesting impression to those around them.

“Did I say anything?” Vast Lushness was truly smarter than most people as she was even aware of her drunken habits. This was a question plenty of drunkards would avoid asking.

“Not much. You said some nonsense that I didn’t bother listening to.” Gu Fei was a smart person as well. He knew that drunken rambling should not be taken seriously. It was normal for people to unwittingly let slip thoughts that they would never utter when sober. It was not necessarily factual that drunken words would be truthful, as people tended to tell the biggest lies while drunk.

Vast Lushness, who was already a woman of few words, became more reticent at this moment. As a result, the two officially began a supposedly quiet journey together.

“Here,” Gu Fei suddenly said.

Looking over, Vast Lushness saw him holding out a pair of boots to her.

“You should wear my shoes first to hasten our pace.” He offered his boots to her.

“Are your boots that great?” She did not hesitate to receive them from him.

“It should at least be better than yours.” Gu Fei was not spouting nonsense. He had been using Appraisal along the way out of boredom that this seldom practiced skill of his managed to identify the traits of her cloth footwear.

“Whoa! These are indeed awesome!” She was shocked when she saw the description for Windchaser’s Boots and curiously asked, “Where did you get them?”

“It’s a reward for consecutively completing 100 ‘Bounty Mission’.” He did not hide this from her.

“Oh?” Feeling stunned for a moment, she then remarked, “No wonder you keep on doing that. Is it for these rewards?”

Gu Fei never really explained his real reason for constantly doing ‘Bounty Mission’; he would simply inform others of how he got this sort of rewards.

“Oh… I see.” Vast Lushness nodded her head before asking with a faint smile, “Do you want me to keep this a secret?” A majority of players would usually ask others to keep such conditions a secret whenever others learned of them.

“Why? It’s not a big deal.” Gu Fei shrugged.

She could naturally tell what his answer was going to be; otherwise, he would not reveal this piece of information to her in the first place. Replacing her footwear with his Windchaser’s Boots and taking two steps forward, she saw visible improvement in her movement speed.

“Hey!” She suddenly heard him call out from behind her.

She looked backward.

“Lend me your footwear in exchange.” Gu Fei smiled wryly. He was standing barefoot right now.

“Whoops! Sorry!” She hurriedly tossed over her shoes to him.

Vast Lushness’s shoes only had just the one trait that added a flat movement speed. These shoes’ value was incomparable to the percentage increase traits for the all-Agility build Gu Fei. He got the short end of the stick in this trade, yet his movement speed was still faster than her. Once more, the two resumed their journey and made great progress now that Vast Lushness was no longer swaying about. He could feel his hope of making it for the 11 P.M. ferry schedule reignite.

Reality was cruel, though.

Just as the two made it to the pier, they saw a large passenger ferry slowly churned away from the shore.

“Darn it!” She raised her middle finger in frustration at the ferry sailing away, finally showing a glimpse of her demonic demeanor that had once made her infamous in Yueye City.

“I didn’t make it on the ship.” Gu Fei regretfully typed on the mercenary channel.

“So we see,” was Young Master Han’s reply.

“Ah, where?” He for the traces of them around him.

“On the ferry,” Young Master Han answered.

Except for the departing ferry and Vast Lushness’s middle finger, Gu Fei did not catching any sign of movement from the ship. Now that he was carefully looking at it, he managed to see something by the stern of the ferry; Royal God Call had his arms open, imitating the iconic pose from Titanic, but was quickly dragged to the side by War Without Wounds, who then took his position to do the same....

Gu Fei turned his gaze away and on to Vast Lushness. “Alright. Tell me where the designated log-off point here is.”

“Uhm…” She was only aware of that the log-off point’s existence, but she did not know where it was exactly located.

“Get off the deck and head west; it shouldn’t be too far,” a very familiar voice answered.

“Thanks a lot!” he said amid his shock. Someone was actually nearby, yet he failed to sense the person. It was rather mystifying. When he looked at where the sound had originated, he spotted a figure lazing on a bed of straw underneath a half shed by the pier. The arms of the person, whose face was covered by a straw hat, were folded behind the head to function as a pillow while they chewed on a piece of straw.

Seeing the straw hat covering the face and recalling the voice he had heard moments ago, Gu Fei could already tell who the person was. He took two steps forward, drew his sword out, and swiftly flipped that straw hat, sending it flying into the air undamaged.

“Hey! That’s so rude!” Xi Xiaotian’s hand shot out to catch her straw hat, but Gu Fei’s blade was quicker; a quick twist of his wrist knocked that straw hat toward him. His left hand grabbed it midair and he playfully twirled it around his finger.

“What are you doing here?” he asked while gripping his sword tightly and looking at his surroundings. Anywhere Xi Xiaotian appeared would also be an area where danger was present; this was one of the things Gu Fei was certain about.

“Relax. I’m just your average passerby,” Xi Xiaotian grumpily said, adding, “Return me my straw hat.”

“If no one is looking for you, why are you covering your face?” he asked.

“It’s a habit, okay?” she replied.

“Is that so?” Gu Fei flicked his finger and sent that straw hat flying in the air. Xi Xiaotian attempted to reach for it, but he raised his sword in hand and tidily delivered a couple of slashes, shredding the straw hat into a pile of straw that scattered over Xi Xiaotian. That straw hat of hers was handcrafted and not any particular equipment, making it extremely easy for him to destroy it.

“You!” She was so angry to the point of speechlessness.

Gu Fei cared not for her anger as he calmly scanned the surroundings. He was certain someone would appear soon; Xi Xiaotian would not go to such a place, otherwise.

As Gu Fei thought of this, a player indeed hurried over to them and climbed up the deck noisily.

Gu Fei was congratulating himself for his good judgment when the person arrived before them and happily asked, “Did you three miss the ferry service? How about trying my boat?”