Virtual World: Close Combat Mage

“He’s also in Linyin City? No way!” Southern Lone Blade felt a shiver down his spine. It was truly coincidental as he was in Linyin City these few days as well. After his group got wiped in Xiawu City, they were naturally in a hurry to leave. All the guilds in their city of origin, Linshui, were still hunting them down, so they did not dare to head back. Luori City was out of the question, too, as it was where Eternal Dominion’s mercenary group resided. Thus, Linyin was the only city left that neighbored Xiawu City. Who would have thought that he would receive such news after staying out here for a handful of days?

“He’s not here to hunt me down, is he…” Southern Lone Blade muttered to himself. He quickly hailed his other brothers-in-arms. Business was secondary. Leaving Linyin City was the right choice at the moment.

———————————-

Silver Moon made sure to inform Ye Xiaowu of his negotiations with Southern Lone Blade, obviously not admitting that he was hiring a hit on the original owner. All he said was that the negotiations for the purchase had been made, but because the seller was in a different city, it would take time for the other party to make their way over.

These guys really are somewhat competent… Ye Xiaowu thought to himself. While he possessed knowledge of this game no other player had, Ye Xiaowu had no way of besting them when it came to the contacts these expert players possessed.

Just as he was thinking of this, he suddenly became mindful of something, and he abruptly turned his head in a certain direction. Reaching out with his right hand, he tossed a Heal over, and an originally blurry figure revealed itself in that flash of white light.

No Smile was standing there in shock, not knowing what to say.

“What are you still doing here?” Ye Xiaowu called out naturally.

No matter how cunning No Smile was, he simply could not find a good excuse at this moment. Ye Xiaowu had asked him to do some reconnaissance work of their enemies using the scroll, and he had openly agreed to it. However, he was not entirely mentally prepared to take such a risk, so after rounding a corner of the street and being out of sight, he quickly entered Stealth and made his way back. He did not dare to do something as frightening as getting anywhere near the members of Young Master’s Elite, but he was instead very interested in stalking Ye Xiaowu in hopes of finding just what sort of secret the man was hiding.

Both he and Silver Moon shared the idea of gaining personal benefits from Ye Xiaowu. Since No Smile could tail Ye Xiaowu and see what he was up to while remaining unseen, he had higher chances of gaining insight and making discoveries from the latter. No Smile had been toying with this idea for quite a while now, but he simply had no chance of executing it because he had been with Silver Moon this entire time. It was rare for everyone to split up and go about their matters, so No Smile instantly grasped this chance to spend his time secretly following Ye Xiaowu.

Never would he have guessed that, in the very moment that he got near Ye Xiaowu, he would immediately be discovered, interrupting his Stealth with a single cast of Heal from the man.

Stealth is useless; I was completely countered, No Smile cried woefully to himself. A mere level 36 Priest was actually able to see through it.

“What are you doing? Why aren’t you searching for that person from Young Master’s Elite?” Ye Xiaowu repeated the question even as he saw No Smile stare at him foolishly without any reaction..

“Ah!” No Smile finally returned to his senses as he came up with an excuse. “I don’t know them!”

“Don’t know who?” Ye Xiaowu was confused.

“Yes! As I am on my way over, I recalled that, aside from Thousand Mile Drunk, I don’t know any of those guys from Young Master’s Elite since I’ve never met them before. I don’t know any of them,” No Smile hurriedly explained. He was actually being honest. Back when he was being executed for ten consecutive times, everyone of Young Master’s Elite had pitched in the first two rounds, yet they had all kept their faces covered. The next eight levels were all Gu Fei’s handiwork, and the others no longer participated in it. No Smile, who had already fallen into the abyss thereafter, never did get a chance to run into the others again. Saying that he did not know the faces of the rest of that group could be construed as a barely acceptable excuse.

“Is that so? Why are you in Stealth mode for?” Ye Xiaowu asked, seemingly interested in how No Smile would explain that.

“Uhhh… Safety is number 1… It’s much safer to be Stealthed.” Safe my *ss! No Smile angrily cursed to himself after saying that. He decided never to trust Stealth from here on.

“Ha ha ha!” Ye Xiaowu laughed – a laughter that left No Smile’s scalp tingling. He next heard the Priest say, “It’s better to play it a little more safe. There are a number of players out that now have Stealth detection equipment or skills at this stage of the game. You’ll be the one at a disadvantage if you blindly rely on Stealth.”

“Yeah!” No Smile had tears streaming down his cheeks. He, the originator, of being at a disadvantage in this sense, could not possibly miss out on this opportunity to learn more, so he quickly asked as casually as he could, “How did you know that I was here?”

“Blessed Sense. It’s a passive skill that allows the user to detect traps, Stealth, or other similar concealment skills,” Ye Xiaowu replied.

“That’s… That’s too OP!” No Smile’s mouth hung agape.

“It’s nothing as outrageous as you think. It depends on the level, proficiency, and other such factors between the parties involved. In reality, you are a level 41 Assassin; the chances of me, a level 36 Priest detecting you with my Blessed Senses is mostly at 0.4%,” Ye Xiaowu explained.

No Smile really felt that he ought to delete his account. This ID he was holding was so unlucky, there was probably no way to salvage it.

“Since you don’t know them, just return that scroll to me!” Ye Xiaowu said.

“Well, how about this: let’s both go together. Point them out to me first, so that we’ll have an easier time dealing with things from here on,” No Smile proposed.

“Oh? I don’t know Stealth, though,” Ye Xiaowu said.

“Stealth isn’t safe, anyway; let’s just randomly change our equipment and keep our faces covered. There’s no guarantee that they’ll recognize us even if we sit right beside them since there’re plenty of players with their faces covered running around this city nowadays.” No Smile glanced at the two Hunters with their covered faces that walked past them before adding, “Plenty of strange clothes and weird equipment, too…” Two members from Deep Freeze, who were too lazy to take off their camouflage outfits, just went down this street they were in.

“If that’s the case, then all right!” Ye Xiaowu chuckled as he agreed to No Smile’s suggestion.

“This guy, just what exactly is he thinking of…” Although No Smile succeeded in convincing Ye Xiaowu with his excuse, he still had a lingering uncertainty in his heart, completely unable to make sense of what Ye Xiaowu was thinking. No Smile and Silver Moon were not doing a good job at concealing their greed for getting benefits out of Ye Xiaowu; as such, No Smile did not believe that he had not realized it even now. It was really awkward that he got detected by the level 36 Priest when he attempted to stealthily follow the man moments ago. Even though he managed to find a suitable explanation at the last minute, No Smile still felt that his excuse was rather forced. Ye Xiaowu did not seem to mind it, though.

“Just what exactly is he thinking…” This sentence kept running circles in his mind.

——————————-

Over at the Maple Leaf tavern, the five members of Young Master’s Elite were seated around a table. Royal God Call was feeling depressed. “Why did we leave that tavern, climbed over a house, and took a long walk, yet we still ended up in a tavern?”

“Because that tavern’s style clashes with mine,” Young Master Han calmly explained.

“Didn’t you say that you have a plan in mind? Could your plan actually be changing a tavern and continue drinking?” Royal God Call asked.

“Have I ever said that?” Young Master Han turned to question him back.

“You—”

“All right, you two!” Brother Assist quickly defused the situation before Royal God Call exploded and said to Young Master Han, “You didn’t say that you have a plan, but you did say that everything is well within your grasp.”

“That’s right.” Young Master Han nodded.

“Why don’t you tell us what you’ve grasped, so that we can at least settle our hearts!” Brother Assist suggested.

“Do you all remember how they easily located Sword Demon twice before?” Young Master Han questioned.

Everyone nodded.

“How is it so easy to just find someone on a whim? Could it be that Sword Demon made some sort of arrangement to meet with them?” Young Master Han probed further.

“Enough with your nonsense,” Sword Demon remarked, mildly annoyed.

“I do believe that we’ve already come to a conclusion, and that is that they have a special method to track down the coordinates of a particular player just like when someone picks up a bounty mission.” Young Master Han continued to inquire.

“Yeah. You’ve already mentioned that.” Brother Assist represented the rest of his comrades and nudged along Young Master Han’s plodding pace of conversation.

“That is why I so boldly deduced that that fool coming to the meeting wasn’t without a purpose; he did something to one of us in secret and got a good grasp of someone’s coordinates here,” Young Master Han explained.

“How can you be so sure?”

“Because the second time Cool Apple went up against Sword Demon, if he had all our corresponding coordinates, there’s no reason for that man to choose that particular moment to act as he’d surely realize then we were not too far off from him, too. That was one of the reasons why I arranged it so that we were watching the fight from a distance not too far away; it’s all for this purpose of checking if they had a grasp of everyone’s coordinates,” Young Master Han continued to expound.

“You didn’t say that then.” Royal God Call pouted. “You’ve thought of this at the last minute and weaved it into this narrative accordingly, haven’t you?”

Young Master Han did not say a word, merely using the gaze he always used when looking at an idiot on Royal God Call. War Without Wounds shook his head at the side. Such is the way of the youth. To actually slap himself in the mouth at this time, isn’t this young man just looking to get himself punished at this point? Look at me; I didn’t even say a word. War Without Wounds was thinking of this rather painfully to himself even as he kept his mouth shut. This was because, Young Master Han’s snide remarks, tone, and demeanor were expressed in a way the entire time that made anyone listening want to leap out and refute his claims, but the man was ready with a quick look of disdain the moment anyone attempted this. Anybody could see just how vicious Young Master Han’s bad intentions were.

“So, what you’re saying is, once the other party has a hold of the coordinates of one of us, that will then be the player whom they’ll be targeting, but they’ll only make their move just like what they did to Sword Demon, by waiting for the person to be by himself before striking?” Brother Assist asked.

Young Master Han nodded.

“Unfortunately, we have no idea who the target this time is, so we can’t simply make the same arrangement as what we’ve done with Sword Demon previously.” Brother Assist sighed.

“What’s more; the fact that he helped Silver Moon escape and is now helping him acquire the equipment he needs shows that he’s gathering manpower. Right now, we know that the people on his end include Cool Apple, Broken Water Arrow, and Silver Moon. If these three players join hands and attack any one of us, I do believe that that person is bound to have difficulty taking them on,” Sword Demon added.

Royal God Call gingerly probed, “When you say ‘us’, does that include Miles?”

“Can you stop talking b*llsh*t?!” The lot of them scolded him.

“Aside from these three, I dare to say that there should still be another,” Young Master Han said.

“Another? Who could it be?” they asked.

“I don’t know who it is, but I’m certain that there’s one more.”

“Why so?”

“The first time they ran into Sword Demon, they managed to kill him. It’s common knowledge that death will remove all sorts of statuses on a player, so I believe that this marker they have won’t be an exception. And yet, Sword Demon carried this marker when he respawned, which led them over to the tavern. At that time, that foolish Priest, Broken Water Arrow, and Cool Apple were still in the forest, so they must’ve stationed someone else at the Thieves’ Union at that time to place the mark on Sword Demon once he respawned.”