Virtual World: Close Combat Mage

As everyone sifted through their memories, all their eyes turned to Sword Demon. The man shook his head in response. “I don’t know…”

“Of course, you wouldn’t know. Everyone here saw him use the skill earlier, but who knew back then?” Young Master Han asked.

“Isn’t that just your guess? How are you so sure?” Royal God Call asked.

“Well then, why don’t you go ahead and run around on your own? I hope that the target’s you,” Young Master Han said.

“Tsk. I don’t like to loiter on the streets,” Royal God Call said.

“Yes, that’s no secret.” Young Master Han nodded.

The miserable Royal God Call was just about to roar in anger when Brother Assist stopped him. Thinking back on the details, Brother Assist also realized this problem, and he was rather embarrassed about it himself. While he was someone dubbed as the Information Expert, that was just in the field of collecting information; admittedly, he was nowhere near as good as Young Master Han when it came to analyzing data. This situation, for example, was an inference made based upon the design of this game. Brother Assist felt that he should be good at this aspect as well before he could be called the King of Information.

“Who do you think he has targeted this time?” Brother Assist asked.

Young Master Han swept his gaze over this table once before he enunciated, “Indubitably, it’s either Royal or Wounds.”

“Why?!” Royal God Call felt that Young Master Han was just trying to scare him.

“In terms of importance, yours truly is of course doubtlessly the core…” Young Master Han could not help pausing when he heard their collective ‘boos’, but after everyone stopped, the man continued as if nothing had happened. “But the position yours truly holds as the core isn’t something that can be eliminated with levels – even if they bring me down to 0. Thus, that man should be well aware that taking me down will be a pointless endeavor.”

Another round of boos resounded from the peanut gallery.

“Similarly, Brother Assist won’t be a target as well. His value when it comes to information has nothing to do with his level, and considering his actual combat worth… Well, no one will be picking Brother Assist in terms of that, right?”

Brother Assist was in tears, but he could not refute this claim.

“Considering that this won’t be a short skirmish but a drawn-out war, it is far more effective to reduce our combat might by removing our available combatants,” Young Master Han said.

“What about Sword Demon?” Royal God Call was dissatisfied.

“Sword Demon was Stealthed outside back then; thanks.”

“That doesn’t mean that guy won’t have equipment or skill that can detect Stealth!” Royal God Call said.

“Sword Demon is at level 40, and that fool is at level 36. With a four-level difference, how high of a chance do you think he has in detecting Sword Demon?” Young Master Han raised this question.

“But the chance remains!” Royal God Call defended.

“Chance, your sm*rt*ss.” Young Master Han did not bother arguing with Royal God Call as usual.

“Then, between Royal and Wounds, which one do you think will be the more likely target?” Brother Assist interrupted once more.

“I think it’ll be Wounds.” Young Master Han regarded the Warrior.

War Without Wounds, who had been keeping his mouth shut all this while, finally could not resist opening it this instance. “Why?”

Young Master Han raised a finger. “First, Royal is such an annoying brat; no matter what reason or issue, no one will ever choose to pick him when given an option, right?”

“I agree,” War Without Wounds nodded gravely.

“Agree, your sm*rt*ss!” Royal God Call yelled.

“Second.” Young Master Han lifted a second finger. “Take a guess…”

No one was interested in making themselves look bad, so everyone kept their mouths shut. Brother Assist only opened his mouth to express his abstention. “And the second point is?”

“It’s so obvious, yet none of you can see it? If a loathsome child isn’t selected, of course all that is left is Wounds.”

Everyone was so demoralized; they felt like banging their heads against the wall.

“Is there a third point?” Brother Assist was the only one with the resolve to continue playing with Young Master Han.

“Yes. The third point is his survivability when facing a sneak attack. Archers will have a much easier time using their advantage in Agility to escape if the initial attack doesn’t result in an insta-kill. A Warrior, on the other hand, might be able to survive the first round of attacks, but all he or she can do is counterattack when ambushed. It’s very difficult for Warriors to make their escape if they don’t utterly defeat their assailants. From the enemies that we know we may face, they are more than capable of taking down Wounds as long as they joined forces, so they can essentially ignore Wounds’ retaliation. Ambushing him can be seen as a near foolproof plan.”

“That reasoning is a lot more forced… It’s not really that easy for Archers to escape,” Brother Assist said.

“Don’t forget that this is Linyin City. In the trees that surround us, it’s much easier to escape than locate someone, right?” Young Master Han pointed out.

“Uhh. True—”

“That is why, as long as he’s intelligent enough, Wounds should be his number one choice.” Young Master Han shrugged.

“So, we should quietly set ourselves up and use Wounds as bait. Wait till they fall into our trap before we kill them all in one fell swoop,” Brother Assist said.

“Brother Assist, you’re pretty heartless, too!” War Without Wounds was crushed.

“If you’re killed this time, your points for this will be doubled,” Young Master Han announced.

“Yes!” Sword Demon, the one in charge of keeping a record of the points, agreed to this as well.

“Is my life really worth just that handful of points…” He was the dignified number-one Warrior, someone ranked second in the Warrior leaderboards in Parallel World, but he was nothing but a pawn that could be casually sacrificed here in Young Master’s Elite; War Without Wounds’ heart might as well shatter from hearing all this.

“That’s not bad already. Even Brother Assist can’t fight for such a chance even if he wants to,” Young Master Han said.

Brother Assist turned his head away, pretending to miss what he had said.

“Let’s go!” Young Master Han stood up and waved his hand.

“Why don’t we wait till Miles get online later tonight?” War Without Wounds anxiously proposed. Gu Fei would naturally be a powerful confidence booster here.

“Dragging things out till then might only cause the other party to lose their patience, or perhaps there’s a limit to how long this skill of his lasts,” Young Master Han rejected.

“Isn’t that a good thing?” War Without Wounds countered.

“You gotta get this to your head; he’s no longer the one in the driver’s seat with the plan here. We’re the ones that have set up a trap, waiting for them to fall for it, hook, line and sinker. Be a little more excited and energetic, and stop looking like you’re half-dead!” Young Master Han said.

“Of course, you’re all energetic…” War Without Wounds continued to bemoan his fate.

“Relax. We’ll be nearby. You won’t die there,” Sword Demon assured.

“Don’t be too far from me!”

War Without Wounds repeated that very line a total of 54 times in the time they made their way into the jungle and began choosing their positions. Young Master Han waited until everyone was in position. The message ‘Don’t be too far away!’ appeared over the mercenary channel, making it the 55th time…

“Everyone found a spot?” Young Master Han asked.

“Ready!” everyone replied.

“Good. Comrade Wounds, I’m telling you right now; to prevent the enemy from noticing our presence, we’re quite a distance away from you. Thus, you must be on your guard. Fire off a message the moment you get ambushed. We’ll hurry along as fast as we can, so try and stall them as much as you can,” Young Master Han instructed.

“F*ck. What if I can’t do that?” War Without Wounds asked.

“Then, you shall be the winner of the huge double-point prize in our mercenary group – the first ever recipient since our group’s conception,” Young Master Han replied.

“…”

“Randomly find some monsters to fight. Make it look like you’re grinding like you would usually do any other day,” Young Master Han said.

“Mhm…” Now that the situation had gotten to this stage, War Without Wounds helplessly hummed his answer and then pulled out his sword to begin fighting monsters.

————————————

Time passed. The four men that had set themselves around War Without Wounds some distance away continued to keep their eyes out for any movement in their surroundings even as they chatted away to pass the time.

“Can you guys be quiet?!” War Without Wounds cried out in dissatisfaction when he saw the others very irresponsibly conversing on the channel without a regard for his circumstance. He was very afraid that his cry for help over the mercenary would be swept away by the tide of messages when he was attacked; such a death would truly be such an injustice!

Ten minutes, twenty minutes, half an hour, a full hour, two hours… the end of daytime in-game, nighttime, and finally daytime again…

No one was using the channel to chat at this point, and there was no sound around besides War Without Wounds killing monsters. Finally, the one to interrupt this silence was Gu Fei’s message breaking through the mercenary channel. “I’m here! Anything happened today?”

“F*ck! Even Miles got online!” Royal God Call finally could not stand it anymore, as this meant that they had waited for a whole afternoon, and not once did they catch a trace of the enemies. To prevent themselves from being looked down on, no one questioned Young Master Han’s deduction, but looking at the time, none of them could really tolerate it any longer.

“Just what exactly are they planning? Why aren’t they attacking yet?” Brother Assist asked.

“Did Young Master come to the wrong conclusion? Royal God Call spoke boldly. He was a youngster that was like a newborn calf, unafraid of the tiger.

However, Young Master Han did not say a word in response over the mercenary channel.

“Sword Demon, Young Master?” Brother Assist called out.

“Here!” Sword Demon quickly replied, but Young Master remained quiet.

“What’s going on?” Everyone was tense.

“Young Master?” Brother Assist shouted across the channel and sent a private message at the same time, yet he still got no reply.

“Where’s the guy?” Everyone wondered.

“Did something happen?” Gu Fei had no clue what was happening since he just logged on, but he could see that everyone was searching for Young Master Han from the looks of the chat log.

“What the hell!” Their messages continued to pour through even as they ran toward Young Master Han’s position.

In the end, they found Young Master Han with his head resting against a tree, a straw mat covering his body. He was hugging a bottle of beer, reeking of alcohol, as he slept soundly.

“F*CK!” Royal God Call lifted his leg, looking to stomp on the Priest’s head. No one went to stop him. Everyone was happily hoping that Royal God Call’s leg would connect, but the youth regained his sensibility at the last minute. Retracting his foot, he lightly kicked Young Master Han awake, instead.

“Hmm. You’re all here!” Young Master Han said as he opened his eyes.

Nobody momentarily knew what to say in this gloomy atmosphere.

“Did they not appear?” Young Master Han asked.

Their faces were still black with anger.

“This means that their judgement isn’t as good as I thought. I overestimated them. Given my superb intellect that transcends mortals, it’s truly difficult for me to put myself in their frame of minds. It’s better if you mortals do this sort of deductions next time!” Young Master Han said.

“It’s probably because our enemy Priest didn’t actually mark any of us at all, right?” Royal God Call asked.

“Nope. The mark wasn’t put on Wounds unlike what I’ve previously thought. Instead, when they made their way over, saw the one with the actual mark in position, and deduced that we’ve prepared an ambush for them, so they quietly retreated. I came to the wrong conclusion because I was far too smart. What a tragedy!” Young Master Han explained the situation as such, but the expression on his face was that of intoxication, with not even the slightest bit of sorrow.