Virtual World: Close Combat Mage
chapter-606

Chapter 606: Chapter 606 – Everything is not over yet.

Translator: Exodus Tales Editor: Exodus Tales

These four minutes passed by in the blink of an eye. Southern Lone Blade and the others did not know the exact time, so they were still staring at the people queuing in front of them. Meanwhile, Gu Fei checked the time and more or less confirmed that this whole auction transaction had come to a close. If Southern Lone Blade had not made any mistake while they were keeping watch over it, could the Utopian Magic Staff have really been bought off but not retrieved?

Gu Fei wondered as he turned to regard the seven men. Noticing his expression, they began to express their astonishment.

“Has it ended?” Southern Lone Blade asked.

Gu Fei nodded.

“How could that be?” six out of the seven men croaked.

Gu Fei could not make sense of things, either, so all he could do was shrug.

The seven exchanged glances. During this period, they had devoted a majority of their time to this magic staff, but the conclusion they had gotten was truly too miserable. It was like they had played mahjong for an entire afternoon; The winners would be euphoric, and the losers would become dispirited, even going as far as to resolve to get revenge next time. However, for someone who had not really won or lost, the feeling they got was akin to not existing at all, and it would most likely feel as if everything had been for naught.

“During our entire lookout here, we’ve been interrupted several times…” Southern Lone Blade reflected. None of them believed that there would be a player out there would purchase the Utopian Magic Staff and not retrieve it, so Southern Lone Blade was convinced that they must have slipped up on their watch this whole period.

“Perhaps, there’s a method for that buyer to retrieve the item from right under our noses?” Glue guessed.

Southern Lone Blade shook his head in a daze, for he simply could not come to a decision. Having expended so much effort on this for so long yet not even having anything to show at the end of it, such a conclusion could potentially be fatal to everyone involved.

Even though Gu Fei could not completely approve of their actions, he was rather sympathetic when he saw how dejected each of them looked. He realized that this bunch of men was just like Xi Xiaotian. While what they were doing was not ‘clean’, at the very least, the level of perseverance and earnestness they showed was worth affirming.

“You guys shouldn’t be so bothered by this matter anymore. We’re gonna set up a workshop, so join us! There won’t be any need for you guys to keep committing crimes anymore.” This time, Gu Fei officially extended the invitation to the men, sounding really sincere as he did so.

“Thanks!” Southern Lone Blade expressed his gratitude for his team. “Still, we’ve got some things to settle.”

“You guys still want to carry on?” Gu Fei was a little dissatisfied when he heard this.

“Having taken the client’s money but unable to accomplish anything, we gotta at least account for it,” Southern Lone Blade explained.

“Silver Moon’s the guy who hired you guys for this assignment, right?” he asked. This was something they had already deduced.

“Yup!” Southern Lone Blade was no longer denying this now that things had reached this point.

“What are you gonna do?” Gu Fei asked.

“According to the conditions we’ve set, failure to accomplish the assignment means we gotta return double the deposit.” Southern Lone Blade sighed.

“Why even care about that unscrupulous guy? Just keep that money as pocket money!” Gu Fei said.

Southern Lone Blade’s men looked at Gu Fei in surprise, taken aback that this man would turn out to be so unprincipled. Actually, this was a result of both parties having different standpoints and thoughts about this issue. The seven were viewing this matter as a business deal, wherein integrity was a huge factor. After all, how could a man without integrity get clients to give a deposit when there were no binding conditions to safeguard their money? Even though it was all agreed that Silver Moon was a scumbag of the worst sort, as well as a detestable human being that they had even laid out an ambush for him to vent their frustrations that one time, Southern Lone Blade’s gang still had such a deep-rooted belief of paying back the deposit in double upon failing an assignment and would not make an exception even for someone like Silver Moon. In a way, this was them giving consideration to the overall situation.

“Ahem… That’s not a good thing!” Even though it was Gu Fei who had offered such a suggestion, the seven men were a little uncomfortable with it.

“Weren’t you guys preparing to ambush him a few days ago? What’s up with that?” Gu Fei had been pondering on this and could still not make sense of it even now. Fortunately, he finally had the chance to ask this now that their two parties were set to build a closer relationship.

“Ahem…. That’s nothing.” Southern Lone Blade and the others all showed an awkward look. Their attempt to ambush Silver Moon was a rage-induced decision they had rashly made due to their inability to deal with Gu Fei, and these men found it a little embarrassing to mention it.

“Did you succeed?” Gu Fei asked.

“Nope. We kept a lookout the entire day and didn’t discover where that man was,” Glue answered.

“What a waste.” Gu Fei sighed with regret before perking up. “You guys are gonna pay him back the money now, right? Do you intend to meet him in person?”

“Uh… Normally, when we can’t complete our assignment, we ask the client to meet us so that we can offer an apology, as well as give the money we owe, in person,” Southern Lone Blade said.

“Yes, just like what you did with Slyris.” Gu Fei nodded.

The seven men lowered their head in embarrassment, wondering if Gu Fei had intentionally mentioned that to further humiliate them. However, seeing that his expression remained unchanged, like he was speaking in passing without any ill-intentions, the seven reckoned that it was simply their guilt at work, so they soon calmed down.

“From what I’ve gathered from your words, I take it that you guys aren’t planning to do the same with Silver Moon?” Gu Fei asked.

“That’s right. We can’t be bothered to meet that guy, so my plan is to send a mail and enclose the money within as we call it quits,” affirmed Southern Lone Blade.

“Why not use this chance to invite him over and slay him after?” Gu Fei asked.

None of the seven men particularly minded this, especially Flame Singed Clothes who was very taken by the idea. Having been slain by Gu Fei a few times, he wished to experience what it felt to work side by side and slay someone else together for a change.

“Okay. Glue will contact Silver Moon. Since I no longer have him in my friends list, that guy might get suspicious if I take the initiative to invite him again.” Southern Lone Blade was still as thorough as ever. Gu Fei sighed. Southern Lone Blade’s gaming caliber is topnotch, and he’s quite adept at schemes and plots, too. He’s truly a man of talent.

“Bro, we failed to get the Utopian Magic Staff. Sorry about that. When are you free to meet us? We want to give the double deposit we owe you.” Glue sent this message over to the man, as if everything was normal.

“In that case… forget about meeting up and just mail it to me directly. Forget about the double deposit as well. Considering our relationship, if it’s too inconvenient for you guys, just consider the deposit as my prepayment! I’m sure we would still have plenty of opportunities to work together in the future. Ha ha!” Silver Moon laughed the matter off, acting entirely consistent with the slick and sly nature he was known for. Even though this was a conclusion he had keenly hoped for from the start, he did not ruthlessly take that 4000-gold-coin recompense in the end, as this was not what he needed at this time.

This reply left Glue feeling greatly astonished, and he quickly relayed this message to Southern Lone Blade and the others.

“That guy…” Southern Lone Blade sucked in a sharp cold breath. Silver Moon was scum, and he was the terrifying sort. At the very least, with how little he regarded these thousands of gold coins, it only showed how high the man had set his sights on. Presently, this was his attempt at currying favor with Southern Lone Blade’s gang to repair and strengthen the relationship between the two parties. His usage of the term ‘prepayment’ was even cleverer. To put it more crudely, this was him insinuating just how tightly the two parties were bound together. If this was just Silver Moon foregoing the double deposit he was owed, Southern Lone Blade and his men would see it as a favor from the man this once, but because this was 2000 gold coins that was being ‘gifted’, it would, instead, leave Southern Lone Blade’s team being in debt to Silver Moon. What made this even more shameless was that half-joking tone he had when talking about this prepayment; the choice of whether this sum was written off or otherwise was essentially placed entirely in Silver Moon’s hands. At the end of the day, Silver Moon did not waste a single coin at all but, instead, left Southern Lone Blade’s gang heavily indebted to him. Truly, that man was the trashiest scumbag possible.

Silver Moon’s move here would surely have succeeded if this was just like any other time; Unfortunately, his notoriety for his scummy ways was well-known by now. Besides, Southern Lone Blade was not exactly someone who could be easily dealt with in such manner. An evidence of this was when the man said to Glue angrily, “Immediately send that scum the money we owe, and make sure its the double cost! I really don’t intend to have any further dealings with that man.”

At the same time, he turned to face Gu Fei. “Silver Moon is sure to be on guard given his current situation, so I doubt that he’s going to agree to meet us in person.”

Gu Fei nodded. “You’re right. We’ll talk about this at a later period, then!”

“Hmm. So, what now?” Southern Lone Blade asked.

“Do you guys have anything else left to settle?” Gu Fei asked.

“Nope. Everything will be settled once we pass by a mailbox and dump the money into a letter for Silver Moon whenever we please,” Southern Lone Blade replied. Using words like ‘pass by’, ‘dump’, and ‘whenever we please’ was more evidence of how much the man despised Silver Moon.

“In that case, follow me to the Wilderness Camp so we can all go over everything in its entirety,” Gu Fei suggested.

“Okay!” Southern Lone Blade nodded, and the seven men followed him out of the Auction House and the city. These men did not completely trust Gu Fei at this time, and several of them privately messaged Southern Lone Blade, wondering if Gu Fei had ulterior motives.

Southern Lone Blade could not be bothered to put too much thought into this right now. Having expended plenty of time and effort, he was now looking forward to some relaxation time, so he casually handled these worries. Still, as he looked at Gu Fei leading the way, he could not help but feel a little perturbed as well.

Meanwhile, Gu Fei had already informed Young Master’s Elite of his success in convincing Southern Lone Blade’s team to join them.

“That took some skill,” Young Master Han commented offhandedly. Royal God Call and War Without Wounds were still a little unhappy about it. The former was acting like a child with a difficult temper, while the latter was holding a grudge over Southern Lone Blade originally ranking above him on the Warrior leaderboard, so even though that man was no longer ahead of him, War Without Wounds still held certain reservations to the man. Sword Demon had no comments about this, but it was actually Brother Assist who was really pleased with this outcome. He was originally friends with Southern Lone Blade, but things had gotten awkward between them due to those events transpiring. Brother Assist could not be any happier, or more supportive, now that they had the possibility of burying the hatchet and return to how it was before.

The bustling sight that greeted Southern Lone Blade and his men when they arrived at the Wilderness Camp left them stupefied. They had nearly become the resident shut-ins of the Auction House as they staked the place out; it even reached the point where they were clueless about this huge happenstance outside Baishi City.

They walked a good length, still dumbfounded, and took in the situation all around them. Southern Lone Blade eventually recovered and wrinkled his brows. “The state of affairs here seems to be pretty complicated, huh?”

“That’s right. Look. The area over the 9527 outcrop is our turf, and the others you see around are those who started their own business after grasping our teaching. Furthermore, the price that they’re offering it is significantly lower than ours. We’re completely out of customers when I left earlier, but it seems that things have taken a turn for the better now.” Gu Fei was looking over at the outcrop, and he could see that quite a good number of players were gathered under it.

“That’s not what ‘m refering to,” Southern Lone Blade shook his head. “Look; the Wilderness Camp has essentially reached a state of overpopulation, and there’s definitely more players than monsters at this point. The way I see it; quite a lot of players are still unfamiliar with the monster grinding routine you guys have created, and there’s a good portion of players who are still learning it at the moment. Right now, it can be said that one monster is shared among hundreds, so the equilibrium could still be maintained, though barely. But as more and more players come forth to learn, and more and more players grasp it, that would be when the efficiency of your efficient grinding routine would truly shine, can you imagine just what sort of scene we will be confronted with?”

“A stampede for monsters?” Gu Fei offered.

“That’s right, and it will be a very intense stampede for monsters to boot,” Southern Lone Blade remarked. “Let me give you an example. Consider the Wilderness Camp as a newly opened double EXP ¹ grinding map. Logically speaking, players from all over the world will be surging here to fight over it.”

“That does sound really troublesome,” Gu Fei echoed. If such a development were to really occur, the Wilderness Camp would transform into the ultimate PK wonderland well beyond even that of Yueye City.

“If you don’t wish to see such a situation unfold, we’ll have to control methodically the rate at which we develop fighting routines for new monsters. If we just continuously develop more of these double or even triple EXP grinding maps, releasing all at one go, there’s no way that we can guarantee our profits. But it won’t be good either if we push out a new fighting routine statically, every three or so days. Right now, what we should take note of is the number of players present in the grinding maps; that’s the crucial indicator.”

When Gu Fei heard this, he realized that it was very similar to the plan Young Master Han had proposed in the beginning, so he asked unhesitatingly, “What do you think should be the ideal number of players, then?”

“This… I can’t tell you that at the moment. I’ll have to do some calculations and observe further,” Southern Lone Blade admitted.

Looks like there’s still a little gap between them , Gu Fei thought to himself. Young Master Han had immediately given them the number of five times past the point of saturation, albeit he himself had no idea just how much this ‘five times’ would really be.

In the time that they were talking, they had already arrived at the 9527 outcrop, and the hearts of Southern Lone Blade and his team were palpitating at a peak crescendo right now. If Gu Fei and the others had any scheme, this should be when they sprang it on them.

Moreover, the current instructor conducting class atop the 9527 outcrop was not Eternal Dominion but Brother Assist, instead. He was teaching the no-Agility, long-weapon fighting routine, and while he was nowhere as dexterous as Gu Fei or Eternal Dominion, he was still fairly skilled; those bootleg instructors were essentially at the same standards as him, with some not even at his level.

Brother Assist flashed a friendly smile to welcome Southern Lone Blade and the others when he saw them. Young Master Han and the others did not exactly react to their presence, but that was not them showing any hatred. They were a bunch of experts that were cocky in the first place. This was just like how Royal God Call had not initially thought much of Gu Fei during their first meeting, while the others only treated Gu Fei as a person because he had come highly recommended by Sword Demon. Considering how Southern Lone Blade’s team were as players that had lost to them, which of these experts would care to greet them courteously? This was not a place that accepted everyone as equals.

Instead, it was Eternal Dominion who immediately jumped off the rocky outcrop. When Southern Lone Blade and the others saw that Eternal Dominion was present, their hearts lurched.

Eternal Dominion took two steps forward and asked, “Does that assignment to kill Southern Lone Blade still count?”

The seven men immediately sought to turn tail and sprint off when they heard this, but they heard Gu Fei snappily reply, “Forget that; it’s not gonna count.”

The seven had only managed to turn around and were just about to run away, but hearing Gu Fei’s reply, they turned around amid their alarm, only to see Eternal Dominion’s glum countenance. “But… the employer hasn’t said a word. Why would it not count just because you said that it won’t?”

Southern Lone Blade and his men were frightened even as they asked, “Who’s the employer?”

Eternal Dominion had strong professional ethics, so he did not say a word. Gu Fei was not in the profession, so he was not bound by the same ethics, and he immediately uttered the name. “Svelte Dancer.”

“Oh…” Southern Lone Blade’s reaction showed his understanding. At the end of the day, he did stomp on her chest and caused her to lose a level.

“Heh… No matter how you explain it to that lady, this will be a very thorny issue.” Gu Fei scratched his head.

“If I apologize to her and let her kill me once, will that resolve everything?” Southern Lone Blade asked.

Gu Fei was surprised. “You’re willing to do that?”

“It’s no big deal,” Southern Lone Blade did not mind.

Sword Demon and Southern Lone Blade were experts, but there was a distinct difference between the two. Things like an expert’s dignity could not be found in Southern Lone Blade, or to be precise, it was not that it did not exist but that Southern Lone Blade had never considered himself as an expert. The things he valued were not those, and he was only searching for the best method to earn money. Larceny required levels, equipment, and in-game skills, which was why he had strived to become one of the Five Unyielding Experts in this game. It was all in order to possess both good equipment and skills. Since the job he was picking up now did not require such things, he was not particularly too worried about losing a level.

“With that attitude of yours, perhaps she’ll instead lose interest in you…” Gu Fei thought about what he knew of Svelte Dancer. If Southern Lone Blade was the sort not to put up a fight, there was a high chance that she would be bored of it and not act.

“You’re not intentionally faking this, are you?” Gu Fei suddenly asked. He was evidently aware that Southern Lone Blade was a fairly scheming individual.

“Seems that you’re not too much of an optimist yourself!” Southern Lone Blade sweated.

“Fine. I’ll call her over and let you two settle it yourselves,” Gu Fei said.

“Okay.” Southern Lone Blade nodded.

“Did Svelte Dancer mention anything about dealing with us?” the other six asked.

“I’m not too sure,” Gu Fei answered.

“Then, we’ll wait for her as well!” The six men stood beside Southern Lone Blade, looking like a band of brothers, extremely reminisce of the Calabash Brothers.

“Svelty,” Gu Fei called out, “are you still intent on slaying Southern Lone Blade?”

“No sh*t!”

“Then, come over quickly!” Gu Fei said. “Wilderness Camp, 9527 outcrop.”

“You caught him? What a bro!” Svelte Dancer was over the moon.

“Uhm… not really. We’re looking to work with them for something, so we want to settle this matter between you two.” Gu Fei was being very forthcoming with her.

“F*ck me! You betrayed your very nature; you’ve been corrupted!” Svelte Dancer was yelling.

“Just come fast…” Gu Fei had no wish to elaborate further.

Indubitably, Svelte Dancer was the fastest player in Parallel World. Not long after Gu Fei had sent that message, the fiery red figure of hers already appeared in everyone’s area of vision. Young Master Han lifted his spyglass for a look and said, “She’s here.”

The eyes of Southern Lone Blade’s teammates all shifted to the item Young Master Han was holding, trembling as they asked, “What’s that in your hands?”

Young Master Han flashed them a warm smile. “A spyglass.” With that, he specifically regarded Glue. “It’s even clearer than Eagle Eye.”

Someone among the seven men vomited blood. This was why they felt that their every action was being watched without them knowing it. This was why they had successfully been followed despite there clearly not being anyone on their tail. Plenty of the questions floating in their minds were finally answered, and the answer to everything was this spyglass he was holding.

Another of the seven could no longer hold himself back and vomited blood as well.

“There’s such a thing in this game?”

“Where did you get it?”

“I borrowed it from someone.”

That same warm smile was maintained, and those that were vomiting blood continued.

Svelte Dancer was right before them in the blink of an eye. The seven men hurriedly collected themselves from the dejection that they shared. They were prepared to make a stand and die for it. Otherwise, they would look far too ugly in the state they were in.

In the end, Svelte Dancer did not glance once at these people when she came over and was poking Gu Fei’s nose, instead. “Why do you want to work with them? What sort of activity is it? Is it something fun? Why didn’t you inform this madam first?”