Virtual World: Close Combat Mage
chapter-785-30041322

Translator: Exodus Tales Editor: Exodus Tales

“Sending a message directly to them would have been much faster and nearer,” Gu Fei was not convinced by Young Master Han’s reason for being nearer.

“If we do that, how would we be able to determine if any of these guys were actually where they said they were? Take Gu Xiaoshang for example. If she had been out of the city to lead her troops in the battle, then there’s no way that we could find her here where she claimed she was at,” Young Master Han said.

“A simple teleportation scroll could solve that,” Gu Fei countered.

“Then we would at least be able to waste one of their scrolls, that’s not too bad, no?”

“Despicable, and very pointless,” Gu Fei nodded his head.

“Guild leader Surge!” In the time they had their conversation, both men had managed to locate Brave Surge, who happened to be very near where they had first met up with Gu Xiaoshang.

“Gentlemen, a fine evening. What business do you have with me?”

“Heh, do you really have no idea what we’re looking for you for?” Young Master Han asked.

Sure enough, it was like what Young Master Han had said: Brave Surge might not have participated in the ambush, but there was no way that he would not know. There was no way that he would not have heard anything if any decent guild made such a stir in Yunduan City.

“Could you guys be interested in discussing your guild residence’s renovation? Haha, then you have come to the right person. I’ll introduce you guys to a player I know who does interior design. I’ll be able to help you guys get 20% off,” Brave Surge jovially laughed, completely in line with Gu Fei’s view of the man: He was very crafty and scheming.

“Looks like you’re still hesitating over the present prognosis of this situation,” Young Master Han chuckled. He was originally a member of Carouse, so even though he did not really have a very intimate friendship with Brave Surge, he already had a good grasp of Brave Surge’s mentality after observing quite a few decisions the guild made.

Brave Surge could evidently tell that there was no way of hiding his treacherous heart, so he began to chuckle nervously but did not say a word.

“Given the current situation, the enemy’s side has numerical superiority, while most of our men are currently in Jail, and the whereabouts of two of our Priests unknown. It’s just me and Miles here on the move like normal. Say Miles, who do you think is holding the upper hand right now?” Young Master Han asked.

“Clearly, we are the ones coming out on top,” Gu Fei answered somberly.

“I think so as well,” Young Master Han nodded.

“The two of you are really making things difficult for me,” Brave Surge flashed them a grimace.

“Actually, we’re not making things difficult for you, but threatening you. I’m very grouchy today, even going so far as to have slain everyone in my guild. If you’re not gonna tell us, guild leader Surge, I’ll just kill you,” Gu Fei pulled out his Moonlit Nightfalls.

“You won’t do it, Miles,” Brave Surge was actually laughing now. “Even though you would often walk around with PK Value on you, and people’s expressions would change whenever your name is mentioned, I can tell that you’re actually a very principled person, and you had never PKed someone for no rhyme or reason. Of course, you would not hesitate for even a moment and PK me if I’m involved with this matter, but the truth is, I am not. So, you’re simply just trying to scare me, no?”

“I’m no saint either,” Gu Fei answered after a good moment of silence. “I would make the occasional mistake as well, and all it takes is an accidental slip of my palm and the mistake that I would end up making would be unavoidable. Speaking of which, I’ve already made a mistake today already. No wait, that’s not right. I should say I’ve made three mistakes, Deep Waters, Coco, and Eternal Dominion.” Gu Fei sighed. “I shouldn’t have killed them.”

While Brave Surge appeared to be calm on the outside, his heart was actually thumping wildly. He was not exactly sure if Gu Fei was as dangerous as he was rumored to be, or if his mood today was a bit too intense so he was no longer controlling himself. After a brief moment, he finally opened up, “Okay fine, I’ll tell you guys.”

“Speak.”

“According to what I understand of this situation, Traversing Four Seas, The Black Hand Syndicate and Cloud Herder are the guilds that are all behind this attack.”

“Oh? To think there’s actually three guilds that are participating this time,” Young Master Han mused.

“Do the two of you still believe you guys hold the upper hand?” Brave Surge asked.

“Of course we do,” Gu Fei was completely confident.

“Then I shall wish the two of you the best of luck. If you need help with anything, feel free to ask. As long as it is something that I can achieve, I will surely give it my all,” Brave Surge smiled leaving after he bade the two men farewell.

“See, that’s his style,” Young Master Han’s eyes were trained on Brave Surge’s departing figure.

“Is he actually trying to use me to lend a hand and strike at the other three guilds? So it might not actually be those three guilds behind this matter?” Gu Fei wondered.

Young Master Han nodded, “In the end, he would say that he made a mistake, and could even pretend to be wronged; he originally did not want to say it, but you forced him to say it.”

“He’s a really sly one,” Gu Fei sighed.

“However, this already confirms that our target must be one of the three guilds,” Young Master Han said.

“Why?”

“It would be too huge a lie if he completely made up the fact that the three guilds were involved. I doubt that he would dare to try and mislead us at this juncture,” Young Master Han said.

“So one of them would be the real perpetrator?”

“It isn’t just one. I believe that there are two guilds involved,” Young Master Han shrugged.

“How could we tell?’

“If we were to make our move now, the uninvolved party would most definitely clarify that it was a misunderstanding if they had nothing to do with it. When everyone communicates with each other at such a point and learns that it was Brave Surge up to his dirty tricks, the one annoyed by what happened would most definitely be the party who had suffered losses for no reason, and they would most definitely be a guild which we had chosen to assault. After being put on the spot like this, this guild would definitely go tooth for tooth and take revenge by launching an attack of their own on Carouse. In this situation, if we had accidentally harmed two guilds that were uninvolved with this matter, it would become a two versus one situation; Carouse would most definitely be no match, so why would Brave Surge even put himself in such a situation? But if it was only a single guild that would seek their grievances with force, then no matter which guild it would be, Carouse would be able to withstand the reprisal. Furthermore, this would have all been part of his plan and he would have already made preparations prior. Meanwhile, the other party who had been wrongfully accused had just lost a bit of their own power. This means an attack in fitful revenge might end up being poorly organized, and this factor alone would help to boost the chances of Carouse emerging victorious.”

Gu Fei immediately understood what Young Master Han had explained, and continued to add, “We would then exterminate the two guilds which are actually guilty, and since he could finish off another guild by taking advantage of this outbreak of violence, Brave Surge would have successfully thinned the ranks of the top five large guilds in Yunduan City down to just Carouse and Colored Clouds.”

Young Master Han nodded, “Even though they had won this clash, the fear would be that Carouse would have ended up suffering losses as well, but given the style of how Colored Clouds operates, they are quite possibly at their peak already. I don’t really think that they would be able to continue maintaining their superiority from here onward, so Yunduan City would most likely end up in the clutches of Carouse alone.”

“This guy… He has definitely put in plenty of thought to this.” Gu Fei sighed again.

“It is a pity that I’ve already seen through his ploy. Looks like this would be the best time for our guild to rise from the ashes amidst the chaos,” Young Master Han laughed in great delight.

“Let’s quickly identify our two enemies,” Gu Fei said.

“There’s no hurry. If I’m not too far off, I believe the two enemies that we are up against should be The Black Hand Syndicate and Cloud Herder guild,” Young Master Han said.

“Why is that?”

“Because ever since we did that guild quest and aided Oathless Sword and Traversing Four Seas, that man has maintained a fairly positive disposition toward our mercenary group. Actually, this guy is quite the emotional sort. He was not given a choice during the City Wars event, but as long as he had the option, he would most definitely avoid being enemies with us. Actually, he had already treated us as his friends deep in his heart and had been trying his very best to establish a good relationship with us. The only variable there is the player, Youthful Reflection. We’ve tricked that man many times over throughout the course of our time in Parallel World, so he is emotionally unhinged when it comes to us. If I’m not mistaken, were it not for his existence in Traversing Four Seas, Oathless Sword might very well have given us a warning about what was going to happen after hearing the news. But because of that guy, Oathless Sword would waver, and might very well temporarily adopt a stance of abstaining from helping either side. After the situation clears out, there’s a good chance that he might react even faster than Brave Surge and leap into the fray to lend us a hand. You’ve also witnessed first hand his poor acting skills quite a few times yourself, no?”

“Yes, I have. So according to your analysis thus far, you’ve already picked out that The Black Hand Syndicate and Cloud Herder guild to be our enemies this time round, correct?” Gu Fei asked.

“You fool, there’s still the workshop support to consider from the start, the possibility that none of the five large guilds were involved in all this, which was why I needed to verify our next step first. Without being sure, would you really be okay with being sent to beat up and randomly slay people from all five large guilds?” Young Master Han spat.

“Nope,” Gu Fei shook his head. Without a conclusive judgment, he did not wish to randomly slay people as well.

“Therefore, now that we’ve analyzed and discovered Oathless Sword isn’t involved in this, you’re not going to be willing to intentionally kill Oathless Sword in order to incite Carouse and Traversing Four Seas to fight, right?” Young Master Han asked.

“You’re truly a shameless cad!” Gu Fei strongly condemned him.

“Then do you agree with the assessment that our target is The Black Hand Syndicate and Cloud Herder guild?” Young Master Han continued to ask.

Gu Fei nodded, “I agree.”

“Then what are you still standing there for?”

“Hey, even if we know they are our targets, you gotta let me find them, yeah? Unless you want me to just charge into that army of his all by myself?” Gu Fei spat.

“Don’t you have your Bounty License? Get a list of IGNs for both guilds and search. There’s surely someone’s name who would be up there, and we can begin to make our move this way!” Young Master Han said.

“A list of IGNs? Do you have something like that? Brother Assist isn’t with us right now.”

“Don’t you know where Brother Assist is right now?”

“So we’re going to visit the Jail? Are we even allowed to exchange items there?” Gu Fei asked quizzically.

“Yes,” Young Master Han confidently nodded. He had once gifted someone in the Jail money and liquor.

“Then I’ll head on over. What about you?”

“Me? Perhaps I’ll go find a spawn point and log out to turn in for the night. This is up to you now.”

“D*mm*t,” Gu Fei eyed Young Master Han with contempt before turning in the direction of the Jail and departed.

Young Master Han was at least well aware that the two of them were being closely watched by some of the enemy guild’s players from a distance. Even though Gu Fei was even more indomitable, he was not afraid of the little harassment from the enemy. But the same could not be said for Young Master Han; even though he possessed outstanding Priest skills, that would only be treating the symptoms and not the actual problem. He would still turn into a useless noob the moment he ran out of mana.

But all these little things were not enough to bring Young Master Han down. By randomly finding a corner where there were plenty of people around, taking the turn and swiftly changing out of their equipment, how could anyone not know about the trick to disguise themselves? Furthermore, Young Master Han’s face was a unique condition people could use to track him as well.

Gu Fei directly made sure his sword was slung across his back the entire time, immediately getting the impulse to kill anyone the moment he saw that their faces were covered. However, he soon discovered that there were plenty of Thieves that masked their faces, making it momentarily difficult for him to determine who were his enemies, so he could only do his best to restrain himself.

The Jail was not too far away either, and Gu Fei saw that it was really very crowded when he arrived. In such a short time, there was already a good collection of players gathered outside the Jail. Players would rarely find themselves passing through this area near the Jail, so for there to suddenly be a gathering of several hundred people here, there was no need for Gu Fei to ask to deduce just what they were all here for.

Gu Fei was also completely kitted out for combat this time, and he had already borrowed Slyris’ pair of mana regeneration rings and everything, having already retrieved them from the mailbox. Slyris was also having plenty of mixed feelings about this ever since Gu Fei learned she possessed such an equipment. While the rings were hers on paper, the man would always boldly ask to borrow them whenever he had a need for them. Slyris and Vast Lushness have not had many interactions with each other, otherwise, they would have been able to have a shared topic to talk about.

“Several hundred players?” Gu Fei was leaning against the wall on the street and taking a deep breath.

Should I kill them all? Gu Fei had such an idea given how he was very infuriated over the enemy’s unprovoked assault that they had schemed, which really gave him the impulse to just obliterate the hundreds that had gathered here. With mana regeneration in his hands, and by relying on the terrain where people would all be forced to engage in close combat, Gu Fei really had the confidence he could fight them all and win.

But his PK Value! This was a very real problem, and Gu Fei cannot ignore it. There were no more ready-made bounty targets for him to relieve his PK Value, so forget about these hundreds here. Even killing 30 would result in the city guards to come and mess things up for him, forcing him to flee in haste. As such, he would have to first bait the enemy into making the first attack on him before retaliating and eliminating the enemy. This way, he would not incur PK points for his actions, but that would mean he would lose the first-strike initiative.

One against several hundreds of players, plus he would have to be on the backfoot in the exchange of attacks; the difficulty of this fight would rise significantly. As Gu Fei contemplated his next moves, he decided that it was an unavoidable confrontation. Just from the fact that he had over 50 fellow guildmates that were sent into the Jail due to the other party’s involvement was reason enough for him to help give voice to this injustice.

I’ll need to make out the enemy’s attack! Gu Fei reminded himself once more. Passiveness and aggressiveness in games like Parallel World would not have the system prompting them, and that would all depend on the player’s own judgment. The normal player would exchange blows in an orderly fashion, taking turns to attack. This would be easy to determine, but Gu Fei could effortlessly avoid these attacks from these players in the first place. There were times when the opponent had only just raised their hand to wind up for an attack when he acted preemptively. Given Gu Fei’s experience with these situations, the system would not judge such a move to be instigatory in any sense, and he would at least have to wait until the other party finishes their move.

This is it! Gu Fei balled up his fist. This was an unprecedented challenge, to slay hundreds from a passive position! Gu Fei did not even count out just how many hundreds he would be expected to take down either!

Gu Fei leaped out from the corner with a whoosh, exposing himself out in the open in front of all the players waiting outside the Jail as he yelled loudly, “Oh no, why are there so many people here?!”

Everyone turned around, saw Gu Fei and froze.

Silence permeated the place for a whole two seconds, before finally someone shouted, “Oh f*ck, it’s Thousand Miles Drunk.”

Everyone subconsciously took a step back away from Gu Fei, looking like they were all standing by for combat.

Gu Fei had tears streaming down his cheeks by now. Just what sort of situation is this? Are all these guys actually too afraid to take the initiative and attack now that they have seen me? Have all of them accepted their fate of being slain deep down?

Are they really not going to attack? Gu Fei was puzzled, as he took a step back.

The players had their eyes fixed as they maintained their combat formation. Gu Fei continued to back away, waiting, backing off until he could not even see them, and discovered that he had actually backed off to that corner he had first leaped out of. These hundreds of players were still rooted to where they were, not a single one of them moving.

These stationary players were actually very delighted by this, with someone even crying out in disbelief, “Did we scare Thousand Miles Drunk into retreating?”

“We’re too strong!” All of them got rather excited.

“That’s all there is to Thousand Miles Drunk, he would be afraid after seeing how many of us are here,” what came after the excitement was pride.

“Carouse is such a waste of talent; to think that they would still be killed despite having a thousand players on their side, hahaha,” The benchmark of Carouse’s thousand player defeat was apparently impossible to be cleared, and time and time again, it was evoked and used as a metric of measurement by other players.

Just as these players were cheerfully patting themselves on the back, Gu Fei walked out again. Everyone very quickly perked up and sternly waited in formation once more.

Gu Fei stepped forward, and the players remained as they were.

Gu Fei entered the Archer’s range, yet they were still not making a move.

He continued to walk on… all the way till he was within Mages’ range as well. These players gripped their weapons tightly, mentally preparing themselves to step forward and surround the man at any time, but they were still not making the first attack. Gu Fei was now irritated and he suddenly lifted his hand, tossing out a Thunderbolt on a target as well as an AoE spell before turning round to flee.

There was no way to snare a wolf without risking the children; along that same vein, there was no way for him to launch his passive retaliation if he did not risk having PK Value.

Gu Fei had specifically picked out a job class with low HP for the Thunderbolt, not even needing to turn around to check his status to know that his target had been insta-killed when he fled as he saw his PK Value increase. Insta-kill a player with just a single Thunderbolt was not an easy feat; the target would have to have lousy equipment or to be low leveled for that to happen. Otherwise, a player wearing Blue tier equipment above level 40 would not have been electrocuted to death by a single Thunderbolt from Gu Fei, no matter what job class he or she had.

A sea of flames ignited after that Thunderbolt; Gu Fei liked using his Blazing Tree of a Thousand Inferno, as it was a spell that could arise from the ground without any sound of sign. It was unlike a Descending Wheel of Flames that would first flash and kindle in the air before crashing into the ground. This made it more suitable for launching a sneak attack.

Upon hearing the screams of shock behind him, Gu Fei knew that he had successfully sprung his surprise on those players, and his PK Value grew by another 2 points. Gu Fei shook his head repeatedly, the quality of these players was uneven! Sure enough, this was a coordinated attack from various guilds, for if they were like Carouse, there would not have been any such noobs present at all.

There were only the sounds of the players screaming behind him, yet he did not hear even the shriek of arrows piercing through the sky. It was like these players were all unwilling to attack him even if they were facing certain death. Gu Fei turned around to look and discovered there were some Archers who had started to draw their bowstrings, but just as he was feeling gratified in that second, Gu Fei was in tears again. While all of them had finally made their move to attack, the problem was that they were those whom Gu Fei had just attacked, so they were the ones who were passively reacting to his attack, meaning he had already lost his chance to retaliate passively.

Just how am I going to go about doing this? Tears were already flowing freely as Gu Fei ran to that corner he had been hiding behind again. But that was when he saw there was another set of reinforcement bearing down from the other side of the street. These people were at least taking the initiative, however, immediately pointing at Gu Fei the moment they spotted him, “We found him. He’s right over here.”

Gu Fei was stunned. There were really quite a good number of players that were running down the street right to where he was, and if they were to clash head-on, his PK Value would most definitely break past 30 points. Now that Gu Fei was inside the city, he would very swiftly find himself surrounded by the city guards, and he did not dare to test if there would be any preferential regulations in place given his status as a part of the Vigilante Corps. With that thought in mind, he figured it was best if he temporarily made a run for it. Glancing over to his left and right, he noticed that the walls were not too high, so he leaped up and stepped on it, using it as a foothold to further propel himself upward as he cast his Blink, instantly finding himself crossing over to the adjacent street. A normal player did not have the ability to do this, so even though the perpendicular distance between the two parties did not look to be too huge, the actual travelable distance between them was actually a long way.

“PK Value sure is a troublesome matter,” Gu Fei sighed. While thinking of the PK Value issue, he had suddenly become conscious of another problem which made Gu Fei feel such despair that he chided himself for his own rookieness.

The game was designed such that players with PK Value would not have the ability to passively attack in retaliation, and the PK Value that Gu Fei had earned when he previously rescued Young Master Han from the Priest Academy had not been cleared off yet! To think that he had wasted so much time and effort trying to provoke the hundreds so he could have the opportunity to attack from a passive role, but it was a good thing that the enemy did not act in concert with this. Had everything unfolded as Gu Fei wished, he would have slain players to his heart’s content and his PK Value would easily end up shooting right over the 30 points threshold; there would be no time for regrets if that had happened.

Risking PK Value in order to create the conditions for him to retaliate passively… Such thinking would be completely useless in this game, Gu Fei was self-criticizing.

Gu Fei would have to clear his PK points if he wanted to enact the plan he had come up in his mind, and this only made him feel completely annoyed with the system. Taking out his Bounty License but having no idea what name he should be searching. But at the very least he knew the IGNs of the guild leaders that led the two large guilds respectively, so he tried them both.

“Wow, I struck the lottery with this one!” Gu Fei was excited, for he had actually gotten the result for Black Index Finger.

The Bounty Missions were instantly picked up with this one search. However, Gu Fei very quickly wanted to beat himself up as he felt despondent over his actions once more. What was the use of picking up their Bounties? Send them to Jail? That would be going too easy on them. He was trying to reduce their levels right now! However, now that he had Black Index Finger as his Bounty, and there was no way for him to abandon the mission, Gu Fei would have to find himself a helper if he wanted to slay him…