½ Prince

Chapter 1: Conference of the Five Overlords – translated by Akakuroi

Preparations began for the gathering of the overlords of the five continents. Even if we lose in ability, we must not lose in spirit, for if we lose in spirit, we will lose face, was what everyone was thinking. No matter what, we have to give the people from the other continents a taste of the Central Continent’s overwhelming enthusiasm!

White Bird drifted gracefully toward me and requested my judgment, “My liege, we’ve decided to adorn Infinite City lavishly, so as to display Infinite City’s strong spirit to the other overlords. What is your opinion on this?”

“No problem, no problem,” I answered hastily. Anyway, it’s got nothing to do with me. If they’d like to turn the city gold, silver, or even rainbow colored, it’s all up to them. Although, there’s just this tiny little craving in me… Is it okay to make it pink?

Upon hearing that, an extremely rare, kind smile appeared on White Bird’s face. This—this… Why does this remind me of Yu Lian-dàsăo so much? A cold chill went down my spine and I had a feeling that something bad was about to happen. Just as this thought occurred to me, White Bird raised her hands and clapped twice. Suddenly a line of people appeared from both sides, each with a very weird object in hand. There was just one similarity between those weirdly shaped objects: they were all golden.

“Someone shut the doors!” White Bird shouted at the row beside her.

Shut the doors? Don’t tell me the next line is the legendary “let the dogs out?” I swallowed uneasily. Could it be that White Bird has had enough of me and is going to set the dogs on? This… After the new patch, I wonder if it’s possible for a player to get rabies.

With a voice as low as a cello, White Bird slowly said, “Liege Lord, strip!”

I was stunned. Strip?! While I was still wondering if it was April Fools’ Day today and if White Bird had been sent to trick me, the row of people next to me started crowding around me… Hey, hey, hey! Aunty on the left, why are you taking off my shirt? At my age, I could almost be your son! Ah, ah, the uncle on the right, my pants aren’t where you should be touching!

“No!” I cried out as I tried in vain to cover myself. Feeling violated, my eyes kept drifting toward White Bird, who seemed perfectly unconcerned with it all.

Then, while looking me up and down, White Bird slowly picked out a pile of weird gold stuff and said, “Let’s try this set first.”

What? Again, before I could figure out what was happening, the old aunties and uncles started crowding around and a mass commotion occurred around me. In the confusion, I was knocked on the head countless times and had to gulp down two mouthfuls of an HP potion in order to heal all the bumps on my head.

“No good; change!” White Bird said simply.

“Change again…” White Bird said after I had been stripped down and dressed again.

So White Bird was only choosing clothes for me. She scared me to death! And here I had thought that instead of losing my virginity to Lolidragon, it would be lost to the hands of these aunties and uncles.

“That is not flamboyant enough! That is not flamboyant enough either!” White Bird exclaimed as she stared at me with mounting anxiety.

Just when I was about to say a few words to comfort White Bird, someone kicked the door wide open. Both White Bird and I turned around in sync and saw Jing and Yun both holding more weird gold stuff. Yun was even shouting, “The flamboyant clothes are here!”

“Could that be…?” I stared with shock at the horrible thing in Yun’s hand. “Isn’t that Huang Wei’s armor?”

“That’s right!” Jing replied as though it was the most ordinary thing.

I recalled the time when I had been in the Eastern Continent, when I had first seen Huang Wei. It had been exactly that sparkling golden armor that he’d worn that had shocked me. I had thought, ‘how could one actually have such bad taste!’ However, this time, it was me who had to wear this thing. Is this what they call turning the tables? I mocked his taste, and now I have to wear that?! With that, I immediately shook my head and shouted, “I don’t want to wear that!”

It was only then that I realized how important this ‘prestige of a ruler’ was that White Bird kept trying to enforce onto me. If I had any, I would never have allowed these three people and this bunch of aunties and uncles to do this to me! I thought with an internal sob.

After being forced to wear that “gold plate”, I couldn’t help but look around to see if this armor that gave Huang Wei a “hilarious” effect would look equally “hilarious” on me.

“Don’t worry, Prince, the effect you have when you wear this is totally different from Huang Wei; it looks rather good on you,” Yun consoled me.

“Not bad, not bad. Now this is flamboyant enough,” White Bird said, nodding. The satisfactory look on her face absolutely worried me. It meant I had to wear that gold plate and have a meeting with all the other overlords of the five continents. How terrible is that?

“It looks gorgeous. It seems my efforts to borrow it from Huang Wei didn’t go to waste,” Jing chattered as she circled around me.

“Huang Wei was willing to lend this?” I didn’t expect that. Was Huang Wei that generous? Or had he lent it to us because of Jing’s beauty?

“Under Jing’s threatening glare, and with a troop of warriors behind her, of course Huang Wei was willing to ‘lend’ it to us,” Yun muttered to himself.

Smacking the back of Yun’s head, Jing turned around and said to White Bird, “Let him wear this.”

Seeing White Bird nodding her head as if pounding garlic, I knew my fate was just like the pitiful garlic that had been pounded, and my chance of changing out of this outfit was just as low as the chance of that garlic returning to its initial state. Depressed, I dragged myself—complete with a huge long red cloak, shining golden armor from head to toe, and a belt which had innumerable gemstones embedded in it—all the way across the red carpet to the throne covered with a white fur rug, and flopped down lazily, feeling exhausted both mentally and physically.

“How come the other overlords aren’t here yet?” I asked unhappily. For today’s conference of the five overlords of the five continents… Well, technically it was the five continents, but the Flower overlord of the Northern Continent’s whereabouts were still unknown, the smiling overlord of the Eastern Continent would never do any non-profit gaining activity, and the Southern overlord—Undying Man—would forget about anything at the sight of a beauty, so the only thing that could be confirmed was that Neurotic and DanDan from the Western Continent would show up…if they didn’t get distracted by any beautiful things, that is.

“Speak of the devil,” Lolidragon said as she walked in from the doors, smiling.

Raising my eyebrows, I was just about to ask what she meant when I spotted Neurotic and DanDan waving frantically at me. A smile immediately spread across my face as I stood up from my throne and skipped happily forward to welcome them with open arms.

Suddenly, my right foot seemed to step on something very soft, and then it seemed that someone was pulling on my shoulders. To add to this, right in front of the throne were the stairs… Ah, I’d stepped on my own cloak! I finally realized what had happened. After my hands had reached out straight, my body had fallen a full ninety degrees, and I had had intimate contact with the red carpet.

“Wow, even his falling pose looks so beautiful,” DanDan praised while Neurotic nodded enthusiastically in agreement by her side.

Hearing that, I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. When I looked up, DanDan’s sincere smiling face appeared before me as she reached out her hand to help me get up. Her action was worlds apart from that of the heartless Lolidragon, who stood smirking off to the side.

With the heavy golden armor on me, I struggled for a long time. First, with both hands against the ground, I pushed myself up with enormous effort. Then, with my right leg reaching forward, I bent my knees and went into a crawling position. Finally managing to stand up, I was greeted with the sight of a bunch of people laughing uncontrollably. Blushing, I explained, “This set of armor is really heavy, alright? So standing up after falling is really hard.”

“Liege Lord… Oh my god, I’m going to faint, I’m going to faint,” White Bird said weakly, seemingly on the verge of collapsing.

“Aiya, White Bird don’t faint, don’t be angered by a certain rotten wood and dirt wall,” Lolidragon said as she pretended to run dramatically to White Bird’s aid.

You two actually teamed up against me. I, I… I can only scratch my nose and let this incident pass. Turning around, I immediately asked Neurotic and DanDan, “Are you guys alright? Anyway, we’re friends, so you guys wouldn’t spread this embarrassing story, right?”

Neurotic immediately patted his chest and promised, “Don’t worry, my wife and I will definitely not say a word about this…”

“But can you fall again for me to see?” DanDan could not help but add.

“Let’s discuss the assassin incident now,” I held back my desire to roll my eyes at DanDan and got down to business. Frowning, Lolidragon turned very serious and said, “Western Overlord, please describe the assassin situation on your side.”

“Sure!” Neurotic folded his arms and recalled, “We’ve encountered assassination attempts about two times. The first time was when my wife and I had just returned to Freedom City for a short while. As for what we were doing then, well—I’ve forgotten.”

DanDan immediately cut in and said, “At the time, we were both standing in front of the city gates, planning how to beautify them.”

Looking enlightened, Neurotic looked thankfully at his wife before continuing, “That’s right. At that time, my wife and I were indeed wondering how to beautify our city gate. Actually, I felt that embedding some gems would do, but my wife felt that we should create a sense of natural beauty by coiling some tendrils on them instead, however—”

“Just the main points!” both Lolidragon and I shouted.

Neurotic immediately changed the topic and said, “Suddenly, someone asked me if I was the Freedom City’s overlord, and of course I replied yes. Then a glittering blade came straight at me. While I was dodging, I heard my wife screaming and when I looked, it almost scared the life out of me. There was another assassin attacking my wife. Luckily, due to my wife’s fast reflexes, while dodging she summoned the Bloody Blade to fight against them. Speaking of which, my wife has always been so clever…”

Both Lolidragon and I sighed toward the sky. Just how long would it take to finish hearing about this incident?

Luckily, DanDan seemed to know her husband’s habits too and picked up from where he stopped, “Let me tell it, hubby. That day, when I realized that someone was trying to assassinate my husband, I immediately heightened my senses. The ones who were attacking my husband should have already known that we are never separate from each other, so there couldn’t be just one working on this mission. Indeed, just when I heightened my awareness, I sensed someone right behind me.”

“Then, we realized that the two of them were alarmingly strong. As far as we know, people with that kind of skill on the Western Continent are all people whom we know. Hence, we found the situation very strange,” DanDan recalled carefully.

Scratching his head, embarrassed, Neurotic added, “It wasn’t that odd to me; I was really excited about fighting against them. In the end, though, the two of them ran away when my teammates heard the commotion and started rushing toward us. Their speed was amazingly fast, just like thieves, but their strength was equally good, just like a warrior’s. I really can’t figure out exactly what their class was.”

“That’s right!” Upon hearing that, I shouted, surprised, “The one I encountered was the same, with speed faster than a thief but with strength comparable to a warrior. How peculiar.”

“That should be impossible. Theoretically, in order to have high speed, other skills must be sacrificed,” Lolidragon said suspiciously.

“Could this be a bug? Or…something even worse?” Lolidragon said gravely, immediately causing us to start worrying.

Looking at Lolidragon’s worried face, I comforted her by saying, “Maybe it isn’t that bad. Let’s wait and discuss some more when the other overlords arrive. But… I wonder if the other overlords will come,” I said uncertainly as I tilted my head.

With a disgusted face, Lolidragon replied, “At least that Undying Man will definitely arrive.”

“The Overlord of the South? The strongest warrior of Second Life?! I really want to meet him,” I said excitedly. I wonder just how strong Undying Man is; I really want to learn from him.

However, the moment I said that, a weird expression appeared on the faces of the three people before me. I immediately looked at Lolidragon with inquiring eyes.

“Undying Man’s really more comparable to an undying cockroach.” With a fearful expression, Neurotic continued, “I heard that he has sworn to never die. It is said that he once fought so much that even his intestines were falling out. However, he forced his way back to town by eating herbs with miniscule healing properties growing by the side of the road. He crawled his way back to town, across the entire city square, and back into the castle to find a cleric to heal him, all the while dragging his intestines.”

Eh? This…shows that he has high pain tolerance and has a spirit that never gives up, right? I frowned, trying to find an excuse for Undying Man.

“I heard that he loves to propose to girls. It is said that he’s been rejected over three thousand times. Doesn’t he know that beautiful things can only be viewed from afar?” DanDan shook her head and sighed.

Been rejected over three thousand times… Just how many times in a year would he have to propose? Even if he proposes once every day it would take at least ten years to achieve, right? But who would propose once every day?

“The last time I went to find him, I added another ten times to his record. If I’d stayed for a few days longer, I probably would’ve made his record a record-breaking four thousand times,” Lolidragon said through gritted teeth. It seemed that she got rather fed up with Undying Man. I wonder if my brother felt jealous.

Upon hearing their explanations, it got me wondering. Shouldn’t all elite fighters be cold and cool like Kenshin and Cold Fox? But how come the strongest player of Second Life sounded like the lecher of the century? And a lousy lecher of the century on top of that.

“Hmm, I really want to see how he looks like when he gets rejected,” I mused aloud.

“You’ll soon get to see it, and you’ll never want to see it again,” Feng Wu Qing’s voice replied coldly from the door. Turning around, I saw him leaning lazily against the door, looking over with a rather disdainful expression. Then, he added, “And I’m here to announce that the Undying Overlord of the Southern Continent is already here, and he’s currently in the midst of proposing to Yu Lian, Phoenix, and Rose.”

“Didn’t Wolf-dàgē do anything?” I asked, shocked. Undying Man won’t even pass up Yu Lian-dàsăo? Then, Wolf-dàgē can’t even defend his wife?

“Before Wolf-gē could even react, Yu Lian-dàsăo had already rejected him. And then—”

Before Wu Qing could finish his sentence, a sky rocking howl rang through the hall. “Oh god! I’ve failed again! Oh god! I’ve been rejected over four thousand times now! God, why must you do this to me? Is giving me a girlfriend that hard? Let me tell you, I’ll definitely get a girlfriend and show you! I’ll prove to you that man can triumph over fate!”

“That’s him,” Wu Qing said crisply, pointing backwards with his thumb.

At the same time, in an extremely helpless voice, Yu Lian-dàsăo started urging him kindly, “Undying Overlord, this thing about proposing, please leave it till later. Would you please go to the hall now to meet our Liege Lord of Infinite City?”

“Anything you say, beautiful,” said an extremely disgusting and toady voice.

“I feel that this person could stir up big trouble,” I said sternly.

“Don’t worry, he definitely couldn’t cause as much trouble as our Liege Lord,” Lolidragon said grimly. What kind of attitude is that? Do I cause that much trouble? Do I?

“My lord, the Overlord of the South has arrived.” Soon after this announcement, White Bird led a bunch of people in. As for the person walking in front, I guessed he probably was the Overlord of the South.

Overlord of the South? I wonder if he’s a super ugly person. You know, to propose three thousand times is not an easy task. Even if one closed his eyes and shot randomly three thousand times, one would eventually hit a few birds, right? Hence, I concluded that unless he was so ugly that his looks would even scare the gods and the ghosts, to get this record of four thousand times that should be impossible to achieve.

I started scrutinizing his looks. A very muscular body, that’s good—although I didn’t like muscular men, there are quite a number of girls who do; a very defined face, that’s good too; a very determined mouth, which even I found rather nice; and there were very handsome eyebrows. Under the eyebrows were… A pair of huge, sparkling, shoujo-manga style eyes that were even more astonishing than Doll’s cute big eyes!

This… I’m not saying it’s bad to have big and sparkly eyes, but can you imagine, a tall and muscular manly man with a huge pair of eyes with long eyelashes from those shoujo-mangas? For those who can’t imagine, I can just tell you this, it’s utterly disgusting!

I turned around to look at the others. Neurotic looked as if he’d stepped in shit while DanDan stared with her eyes opened wide, her mouth opening and closing as though she was having difficulty breathing. That’s great; it seems that I’m not the only one who’s shocked.

But all visitors were guests. Gathering my courage, I faced the Undying Overlord waiting before me again. The Undying Overlord was now looking at me blankly. When our eyes met, I politely flashed a genuine smile at him.

“What a beauty! No, you’re a goddess; the most perfect angel in this whole world!” A look of craze and desire suddenly appeared in his eyes (No—no, please don’t let your huge shoujo eyes have an expression of craze and desire, it’s terrifying!), and he had a painful expression on his face. After what seemed like he’d determined something, he started charging toward me with the horsepower of a train, slid across the floor, and kneeled before me. Then, a splendid red rose appeared in his hand and words of praise came pouring out of his mouth. The words came out so smoothly that it seemed that he’d already said them a thousand times… It should be a thousand times already indeed—or should I say four thousand!

Frowning while listening to those long and disgusting words of compliment, I really couldn’t tell if it was the compliments that were more terrifying, or those eyes that were glued on me.

I looked at everyone around me questioningly, but everyone looked equally dumbfounded; it seemed that no one would be able to give me any help. Then, finally, someone who had been following behind Undying Overlord, slowly walked forward, stood beside the overlord, placed a hand slowly on his shoulder, and said, “Overlord, the person before you is male.”

Undying Overlord’s still blabbering mouth immediately snapped closed. His face slowly rose up to look at me and at the same time I slowly lowered my eyes to meet his gaze. But when I saw that look of disbelief in his eyes, I forcefully broke his strand of hope, “I’m a guy.”

Two rivers of tears started streaming from his eyes. Just like how Nobi Nobita cries while complaining to Doraemon, his tears became two arc shaped rivers. While I was stunned with what I saw, he actually started hitting his chest and cried hysterically, “How unfair! God, even if you want to punish me, you don’t have to be so cruel! Letting me meet the most beautiful woman in the world, and then telling me that she’s actually a he!”

I… But I have never been mistaken for a female before. My looks shouldn’t be very feminine, right? Flustered, I looked at the despairing Undying Overlord, who seemed ready to commit suicide at anytime, not knowing how to comfort him.

However, the companion who had broken the news to Undying Overlord explained in an experienced tone, as if he’d already said it thousands of times, “Don’t worry about him. In three minutes he’ll be back to normal.”

Speechless, everyone waited and watched as the Undying Overlord howled hysterically for three minutes. Then, he suddenly stood up, wiped away his tears, and, in a composed and polite tone, said, “Nice to meet you, Bloody Overlord of the Central Continent. I am Undying Man from the Southern Continent.”

Impressive, he’s actually a rather polite person. I replied, “I’m very honored to meet you, I am…” However, halfway through introducing myself, I suddenly saw that pair of sparkling shoujo eyes staring straight at me. Wuhh! Finally forcing my stomach’s contents back to where they were supposed to be, I added immediately, “I am Prince, Central Continent’s—”

Before I could finish my sentence, Undying Man suddenly went haywire again and, extremely excitedly, started charging like a bullet train toward Lolidragon. With tears of excitement, he said, “I missed you to death, Lolidragon!”

“But I didn’t miss you at all,” Lolidragon said, rolling her eyes. She gave him a look as though she’d just seen food that’d been left outside for a month.

“Hey!” Feng Wu Qing’s voice sounded from behind Undying Man. As he was turning around a shadow immediately sent a flying kick toward him. Giving a bellow, Undying Man quickly dodged to the side.

I stared with my eyes wide open, as did Feng Wu Qing, as he withdrew his foot, which had landed right on Undying Man’s face. Then, he said, embarrassed, “That…I didn’t mean to do that. I just wanted to kick beside his ear to scare him a little; he was the one who went and moved and planted his face on my foot.”

That… From what I just saw, that seems right…

“Why did you kick me?” Undying Man suddenly approached Wu Qing with teary eyes. Feng Wu Qing was shocked and stared at the shoujo eyes, which were only five centimeters away from him. Then, his whole body tensed up and he started foaming at the mouth, and then with a shudder, collapsed. Finally crawling into a corner, Wu Qing started vomiting profusely. Not bad; he knows that he shouldn’t vomit right in the middle of the hall.

“Hey, are you alright? Why are you vomiting like this?” Looking concerned, Undying Man walked to the corner and patted Wu Qing lightly on his back. Wu Qing turned around to face a pair of extremely horrifying eyes that were just three centimeters away from him. Wu Qing immediately covered his mouth with his right hand, crawled into another corner with his left, and started another earthshaking vomiting experience.

“Is he sick? Should we go to the pharmacy and get some medicine?” Undying Man asked while turning a pair of worried yet sparkling eyes on everyone.

Gross! I couldn’t stand it anymore. Turning around, I very wastefully contributed all the breakfast I’d eaten earlier today to the wall…

“I’m not sick…” Wu Qing replied sickly. Not daring to glance at Undying Man again, he said, “I just wanted to warn you not to get near my wife, Lolidragon, again.”

“Who’s your wife?!” both Lolidragon and Undying Man bellowed.

“You, of course, Lolidragon.” How amazing, even after vomiting so terribly, Wu Qing could still assume a refined, handsome look and reply.

“Are you really his wife? Lolidragon?” Tears started pouring from Undying Man’s eyes like running taps.

“Of course not…” Looking at Undying Man’s eyes, Lolidragon immediately turned around and started regulating her breathing. Then she pointed at Wu Qing and said through gritted teeth, “I’d rather be Undying Man’s wife than be the wife of someone like you.”

“I don’t believe you,” Wu Qing said coldly. “I dare you to stare into his eyes for ten seconds.”

…That was too harsh. Everyone looked as though they felt it was an impossible task.

The three of them started quarreling. There were cold and sarcastic tones, angry bellows, and little sobbing sounds…

“Do they even know what we’re doing right now?!” White Bird asked, rubbing her temples with an annoyed expression.

“It seems that I actually do have the prestige an overlord should possess,” I said slowly. Watching the still quarrelling Undying Overlord, I strongly believed that I might actually be the most professional.

“Please stop quarrelling, let’s take care of important matters first,” White Bird urged Lolidragon and Wu Qing, an edge of desperation in her voice.

Settling back lazily onto my throne, I started wondering if the overlord of the East would be equally interesting, “I wonder what kind of person Winter Triumph is…”

“I heard that he’s a plutomaniac. I really want to compare our money making methods,” Yu Lian-dàsăo said with anticipation, causing Wolf-dàgē, who was standing at the side, to give her a helpless look.

“Let’s wait for the Overlord of the East to arrive before proceeding with the discussion. Is that okay with you?” I asked Neurotic with a smile.

Neurotic shrugged, smiled faintly, and pointed at the still quarreling group, “No problem, we can’t discuss anything right now anyway, not with that going on.”

“Then you guys had better stop the quarrelling,” Nan Gong Zui’s voice sounded from the door. “The Overlord of the East has just arrived.”

“Excellent!” Before I could speak, the person who I assumed was the Overlord of the East spoke.

“What are you talking about, I’m not that excellent…” I said, trying to be modest.

“What a strong wall!” A scholarly looking man walked in horizontally while touching the walls and said, “Tsk, tsk, tsk, this material, this coat of paint, everything is of top quality.”

The wall? I was still trying to figure out what he was talking about when the scholarly man shouted again, “Beautiful!”

This time he should be talking about me, right? “Your looks are equally…”

The scholarly man hugged a pillar on the side of the hall while scrutinizing and fingering the carvings on it gently. “Such beautiful carvings, I wonder how much it would cost to carve all this.”

Finally looking at me, the scholarly man walked quickly toward me. With a glint in his eyes, he said, “How handsome and overpowering.”

I coughed two times, then I swung my right arm to allow my red cloak to flutter handsomely and said, “Not at all, Overlord of the East, you’re also very—”

Winter Triumph quickly walked past me. Turning around, I saw him hugging my throne tightly and muttering to himself, “If this throne costs less than one hundred gold coins, no, no, no, less than fifty gold coins, I’ll have one made.”

“It costs three thousand gold coins,” I said coldly.

“What?” Winter Triumph shouted in disbelief and jumped away from the throne. “Too expensive! This is too expensive! How can it be so expensive?”

After muttering to himself for a while, Winter Triumph’s eyes suddenly lit up as he looked toward me. No, I understand this time that he must be looking at the sparkling golden armor and not me.

I was proven right when he said, “This set of armor can’t be cheap, right? What a pity, because even though the defense level is high, it seriously hinders one’s movement. One would be better off getting a set of armor that has low defense but has high agility. That way you could save money and be more efficient when it comes to fighting mobs.”

“Better yet,” he said with a strange look in his eye, “let’s trade. The defense of this armor is not low, plus it provides ease of movement, allowing you to make your way swiftly around any battlefield!” Winter Triumph started profusely advertising his armor.

A cute young lady beside Winter Triumph rolled her eyes at him without any attempt at saving face and said, “Stupid brother, why do you want to trade with him? You’re also an agile type, so what’s the use in getting that heavy armor? Other than for show, it’s practically useless.”

“You idiot, can’t you tell that it’s made out of gold?” Lowering his voice, Winter Triumph whispered, “Do you know how many gold coins you can make from melting that thing? It is much more expensive than this set of armor.”

“Oh!” the girl replied, looking enlightened.

“Are you interested in trading with me?” Winter Triumph asked, smiling politely.

“Stupid brother, they’ve already heard what you just said!” Making a wry face, the girl said, “He’s not going to want to trade with you.”

“Is this true?” the East Overlord exclaimed. After a moment, his plan uncovered, Winter Triumph laughed weakly.

“Yup!” I replied with a bitter smile. This set of armor isn’t even mine.

“I’m the overlord of the Eastern Continent, Winter Triumph. This is our first time meeting, and this is my sister Disi,” Winter Triumph smiled as he introduced himself and his sister.

“I’m Prince from the Central Continent. Pleased to meet you.” After introducing myself, I turned around and started introducing Neurotic and DanDan to them. “This is the Wandering Overlord of the West continent and his wife, DanDan.”

“Ah, it’s the wandering couple. I’ve heard a lot about you both.” Again, with a smile, Winter Triumph started chatting with Neurotic.

I then pointed at the three who were still fighting and quarreling over love and said, “That one over there, with tears pouring down like a tap, is the overlord of the Southern Continent, but I don’t think he has the time to greet you now.”

Just when Winter Triumph was about to reply, Disi suddenly cried out in alarm and pointed her finger directly toward the front of the room. Both Winter Triumph and I stopped to look in the direction Disi was pointing. What appeared in front of my eyes was Yu Lian-dàsăo, who looked extremely surprised. Then, Winter Triumph gave a tiny “Ah.” Looking at their expressions, it was obvious that Yu Lian-dàsăo knew Winter Triumph and Disi.

“Yu Lian, you know them?” Wolf-dàgē asked, surprised.

Before Yu Lian-dàsăo could respond to Wolf-dàgē, Disi had already rushed forward, grabbed Yu Lian-dàsăo’s hands, and started shooting off words out of her mouth like bullets, “Aiya, Yu, why did you resign without any warning? Everyone misses you so much! Hurry and come back to us, to the department. Life without you is like missing an arm.”

“That’s right. It got so busy that the amount of money earned has dropped too,” Winter Triumph added with emotion.

“Re…really?” Yu Lian-dàsăo replied weakly.

Disi suddenly threw out a really baffling question, “I heard that the princess is on the Central Continent too. Yu, did you run into the princess here?” I was shocked by this question. Princess? I wonder if this has got anything to do with Doll? She said something about being a princess…

Yu Lian-dàsăo did not reply and instead just stood there blankly. However, when I saw Winter Triumph’s frowning expression and Disi’s look of understanding, I wondered if Yu Lian-dàsăo was using the private messaging channel.

“Yu Lian?” Wolf-dàgē asked in a doubtful voice.

Surprised, Yu Lian immediately turned around and smiled at Wolf-dàgē. “They are my former colleagues.”

“Then what is this about a princess?” Wolf-dàgē asked, frowning.

“About that…” Yu Lian-dàsăo’s eyes started drifting away, not daring to meet Wolf-dàgē’s eyes.

I was wondering the same thing too. Was there something between Yu Lian-dàsăo and Doll? Or was this simply just a coincidence?

Looking to my left I saw my brother and Undying Man, still quarrelling nonstop; Lolidragon, who seemed to be getting madder by the second; and White Bird, who looked close to tears, mediating between the two quarrelling parties. To my right I saw Winter Triumph and Disi clinging to Yu Lian-dàsăo with ambiguous smiles on their faces, with a frowning Wolf-dàgē at their side…

Besides scratching my face and looking on at this mess, I really didn’t know what else I could do. For what reason, exactly, did we organize this conference meeting to begin with…? What with all of the drama, I couldn’t seem to recall.

“Prince, you seem to have leveled up a lot. How about we go out and have a match?” Neurotic asked, waving his Sword of Elite, looking as though he couldn’t wait to battle.

With a glint of desire in my eyes, I replied, “Sure thing! Wait, let me change out of this armor first.” I hurriedly rushed to change clothes, not forgetting to tell Neurotic where to wait for me.

Standing in the center of the chaos, Nan Gong Zui muttered, “First, I’ll go handle some of the office work in the military department. Then I’ll go group the new warriors before discussing with Wicked and Broken Sword how to distribute the new weapons. After handling all that, I should still be able to make it in time for the meeting.”

Footnotes

 “Shut the doors, let the dogs out.”: This a famous line from a Taiwan movie “九品芝麻官” that starred Stephen Chow. Meaning to enclose someone in one’s sphere of influence so as to beat the sh*t out of someone efficiently.

 “…rotten wood and dirt wall.”: The original phrase from Confucius “朽木不可雕也，粪土之墙不可杇”, or “Rotten wood can’t be carved anymore, a wall of dirt can’t be dirtied anymore,” was used by Confucius to scold a student who was sleeping in class, describing how he was so pathetic that there was no point in reprimanding him anymore.

 Disi: A goddess from Norse Mythology.