Virtual World: Close Combat Mage Chapter 38-39

Chapter 38 – Finding a Mercenary Group

Gu Fei could see disgust written all over the women’s faces when he suddenly reappeared at the guild house. However, he did not put much thought into it since they had always looked at him that way. Gu Fei stepped forward and opened his mouth to tell them of what he had learned but he burped instead.

The alcohol’s smell became more evident as it permeated the air further. The ladies recoiled as if they had come into contact with the plague.

“Sorry!” Gu Fei covered his mouth as he smiled sheepishly.

“Alright, dismiss!” July clapped her hands to draw everyone’s attention.

“Ah…” Gu Fei originally wanted to stop them to talk, but seeing how everyone rushed to leave, he could only sigh deeply, “Haaaaa….”

“Something the matter?” Luo Luo stopped when she noticed Gu Fei’s expression. There were only three people left inside the guild house now; July was always the last to leave, while Xiaoyu… was still trying to pry open the treasure chest!

“The guild quest that we got this time seems to be a competitive quest…” Gu Fei explained the situation based on what he had learned from Brother Assist.

The two listened intently before July nodded her head, “I know. I wasn’t mistaken. Our guild quest states that the mission only involves retrieving a stolen treasure chest.”

Gu Fei felt stunned.

“Someone set us up to make our quest fail,” July said.

“Oh, do you know who is behind it?” Gu Fei asked. If you don’t, let me tell you who it is, Gu Fei had prepared this follow-up line.

Sadly, July once again nodded, “Traversing Four Seas.”

“Oh… So you already know!” Gu Fei was a little disappointed. He had spent half the day searching for clues like a blind man, yet these women over here had already known who it was.

“I’m afraid this is just the beginning. Do be careful when you’re outside next time, Miles,” July said as she inspected Gu Fei’s appearance. “Oh, you’re not wearing our guild emblem? I suppose you’ll be fine, then. They won’t ever suspect that we have a male in our guild,” July showed a forced smile when she said this.

“Just what’s going on?” Gu Fei was puzzled.

“Traversing Four Seas… A member of that guild has some bad blood with us. This sabotage carried out on our guild quest is probably his revenge, so everyone should be extra careful out there,” July said.

“Okay, got it,” Gu Fei looked at Xiaoyu. The girl was still fiddling with the treasure chest! It seemed like she would not give up until she finally destroyed the thing.

“I’ll be going, then,” Gu Fei said his farewell to the three and left the guild house.

Watching Gu Fei leave, Luo Luo looked July in the eyes, “You’re not going to tell him about ‘that’?”

“No. There’s no need for him to know. He’s a new member we intend to replace anyway, so there’s no need to involve him,” July said.

Luo Luo spoke in trepidation, “How coincidental it is for ‘him’ to spawn in Yunduan City like us.”

July had grown pensive for quite some time when she suddenly asked, “Luo Luo, do you know of any noteworthy mercenary group?”

“Are we looking for external aid?” Luo Luo felt somewhat shocked.

July sighed, “We are in no condition to take him on right now.”

“Don’t forget your original reason for creating this guild, which is just to enjoy the game together with some girls,” Luo Luo reminded.

“And look what happened,” July laughed bitterly, “This is an unforeseen development. There’re many cities to spawn in this game, yet ‘he’ just had to spawn in the same one as us. Looks like this game won’t be simple any longer. With all these ladies following me, I need to come up with a way to get us through this hurdle.”

Luo Luo had nothing to add, “Mercenary group you say… I don’t think there’s one at present that could go up against such a large guild.”

“If one isn’t enough, then we’ll just have to hire more,” July said.

“I know you can afford to hire many,” Luo Luo wore a forced smile, “But the problem is—”

“I know of a superb mercenary group!” Xiaoyu suddenly blurted out. July and Luo Luo almost had a heart attack from Xiaoyu’s interjection. The two were absorbed in their conversation that they had forgotten about this other girl in the room.

“Xiaoyu, do you really know of a group?” July smiled. What could this airhead possibly know?

“I learned about the group when I was doing a solo quest. Someone completed the ‘Seizing the Mountain Bandit Leader Sooto’ quest by hiring a mercenary group,” Xiaoyu told the two eagerly.

July and Luo Luo looked at each other. “Seizing the Mountain Bandit Leader Sooto” was considered as the hardest among the available quests, and completing it was deemed impossible. Just entering Oolong Cave alone would require players to confront monsters above their own levels. Hence, any players that could survive for five minutes inside it would be considered as pretty good. There were even rumors that someone had gathered a large group of players to attempt the quest and managed to make their way up to the boss, but they were all wiped out and sent back to the spawn point in the end. Ever since then, no one else dared to take a crack at it.

“Someone managed to complete that quest? When was this?” Luo Luo asked. The completion of such a difficult quest should have been big news, yet she heard not even a peep about it.

“I think it was last night,” Xiaoyu answered.

“Oh…” Luo Luo finally understood. This news had yet to spread since it had only been completed hours ago.

“What’s the mercenary group’s name?” July began to feel that they had a fighting chance. Given the strength of this mercenary group, they only had to make sure that it was not affiliated to Traversing Four Seas.

“I forgot,” Xiaoyu said.

“How many members does this group have? Who’s its leader?” July continued to ask Xiaoyu.

She began to think hard, yet to no avail.

“Forget it!” Luo Luo smiled, “Let’s not ask Xiaoyu. I’ll just go check it out myself!”

“Go ahead!” July had a solemn expression. This mercenary group was possibly their best bet right now.

======

Gu Fei was currently strolling around Yunduan City as he pondered on a question. July mentioned that somebody from Traversing Four Seas had an enmity with her. It was so bad that it had caused that person to expend so much effort into messing up this one simple guild quest. July did not look like she wanted to speak more on this, so Gu Fei chose not to pursue the matter either.

Parallel World had not been up for a long a time. At least, it was not long enough for someone to develop such a deep grudge toward Amethyst Rebirth. It was apparent that this dispute had occurred in an online game in the past; could it be something that had happened in real life instead? Gu Fei thought of finding Brother Assist and getting him to investigate this matter more, but he felt it somewhat awkward to ask for another favor so soon. He resisted that initial urge and instead thought of how the ladies had done their own sleuthing. Gu Fei decided to find out about the matter on his own, so he logged off immediately.

Gu Fei felt like a novice as he tried to search for information on the internet. He keyed in “July” and was overloaded with all sorts of information one could imagine. Afterward, he unwittingly keyed in Luo Luo’s IGN1 “Ruthless Falling Flower1” and found an entry about a certain online history that was written like a short novel.

In this short story, Ruthless Falling Flower was just a side character who got mixed up in the mess of the two main characters: July’s Heat and No Smile.

“No Smile actually enjoyed smiling.”

Gu Fei felt somewhat startled by such an opening sentence to the story. He could not help but praise the talent of today’s writers.

Since he was not here to appreciate the story, Gu Fei quickly skimmed through it to get to his real purpose.

It had the elements of love and hate, lies and truth, cheating and being cheated like any classical stories. The July’s Heat in the story was a very passionate and generous woman who ended up getting cheated by No Smile until she had nothing left. Gu Fei wondered if this person was really the steadfast guild leader that he knew.

The story did not end there, though. After July had left the game, another character came. This new person used an even more wicked method to cheat No Smile out of everything. The rumors said that this person was July’s Heat, adopting a professional attitude to exact revenge.

No Smile, who was filled with hate, chose to leave the game as well. Since it was an online game, the story had come to an end at that point.

And yet, the characters had all gathered here in Parallel World, as if looking for a chance to continue their intricate story. Gu Fei assumed that the person whom July said she had an antagonistic relationship was this player No Smile.

======

At this moment in the game, Luo Luo left the guild house and went to the tavern where people acquired solo quests. Many kinds of quests existed in Parallel World. Aside from the quests that could be acquired from taverns, there were also those that could be obtained serendipitously from the streets and plot-based quests that involved NPCs. These NPC-related quests would not appear again after their completion, and the quest rewards players could earn from completing them were far more enticing than the normal quests.

The solo quests that players referred to were those listed by the system taverns. The list would refresh every hour for the players to choose anew. Although these quests were limited to a first-come, first-served basis, they were all repeatable. The solo quests were the staple method in which people could earn experience points through questing. The so-called most difficult solo quest to date, “Seizing the Mountain Bandit Leader Sooto”, came from this tavern as well.

Because of this, Luo Luo had an easier time looking for information about her subject compared to Gu Fei. All she had to do was casually asked a few players. However, everyone reacted with shock, just like Luo Luo once did, when they heard that a mercenary group had managed to complete the “Seizing the Mountain Bandit Leader Sooto” quest.

It seemed like this matter had not gotten to the grapevine yet. Luo Luo thought up to this and left the tavern to make her way to the Hall of Mercenaries.

The Hall of Mercenaries had two large chambers: East Hall and West Hall. The East Hall was the place for system-released missions and where a majority of mercenary groups would go to complete missions. The West Hall was for players support. It was the place that embodied a mercenary group’s essence – clearing monsters and solving problems for players for an agreed-upon price – and where professional mercenaries would go to obtain their missions from.

There was a logbook in each of the two halls, which allowed players to check the strength of a mercenary group. Luo Luo arrived in front of the West Hall’s logbook and patiently flipped through it.

Finally, under the Completed Mission section, Luo Luo found the record about the “Seizing the Mountain Bandit Leader Sooto” quest.

The Mage that took the quest did not have the ability to complete it on his own, so he hired people from the Hall of Mercenaries for a high price. That was yesterday.

The mercenary group that took the mission was… Luo Luo tapped her index finger as she traced the log to get the relevant information she needed.

Young Master’s Elite…

Mercenary Group Leader: Young Master Han…

Chapter 39 – Pleasure working with you?

“Young Master Han….”

Luo Luo muttered the name under her breath. Online gaming experts would not easily change their name no matter what games they played. The habit of retaining their IGN for various games was no longer limited to professional gamers, as even the average players did it as well.

Having a famous IGN had great appeal. The value of this intangible asset was enormous in online games, especially when it came to forming guilds, mercenary groups, or similar group activities.

Luo Luo had wondered if the mercenary group was formed by an illustrious gamer after hearing from Xiaoyu about how they completed the “Seizing the Mountain Bandit Leader Sooto” quest. It was not the first time she had come across the name “Young Master Han” despite it not being associated with a famed expert. She was certain that she had seen a similar name in the top few ranks of the official total experience earned leaderboard for the Priest job class. Luo Luo had naturally monitored the rankings since she was a Priest.

Luo Luo noticed a row of words while she was reading the record in the logbook. In the notes column for the mission, the employer had a final remark regarding the mercenary group and it was just this one sentence: “It has the strongest Mage.”

Strongest Mage…

The Mage ranked first in terms of level on the current ranking leaderboard was a player called Drifting. But since a massive amount of experience points was needed to level up once players reached level 30, it was not realistic to be the best by merely getting to a higher level in Parallel World. Equipment and skill proficiencies were what mattered more in deciding the ability of each player. Thus, “the strongest Mage” might not be referring to the current highest level Mage Drifting.

Speculating any further was pointless. Luo Luo decided to simply contact the mercenary group and consider things later. She opened her friends list and keyed in “Young Master Han” to look him up. Seeing that he was online, Luo Luo quickly added him as a friend.

“Hello…” Luo Luo messaged him.

Young Master Han replied in about half a minute, “Hello.”

“Young Master’s Elite?” Luo Luo asked.

“That’s right.”

“I have a request for your mercenary group. Can we talk in person?” Luo Luo asked.

“Ray’s Bar!”

“Got it. I’ll be there right away,” Luo Luo closed the message window, feeling reassured. Young Master Han’s messaging style had the air of a clean-cut professional, which left a good impression on her. The way she saw it, someone who spoke so straightforwardly would definitely accomplish matters with efficiency.

Ray’s Bar was famous. Although Luo Luo had not been there before, she knew where it was located.

After passing a few streets, she arrived at the back entrance of Ray’s Bar. The side alley was hardly used by anyone, yet a person currently lay sprawled there.

She quickly stepped forward and the heavy smell of alcohol filled her nostrils. The player was actually snoring as he slept.

It seemed like the man had drunk quite a lot. Luo Luo furrowed her brows and did not bother about him anymore. She made her way around the prone body and entered the bar.

Ray welcomed her warmly as she entered, “May I take your order, Miss?”

“Uh, I’m actually looking for someone,” Luo Luo said.

“Who might that be?” Ray was still speaking to her warmly.

“Young Master Han,” Luo Luo answered as she stared at the legendary Ray. Was it possible that he actually knew every single customer in the bar?

Ray continued smiling as he pointed toward one of the rooms, “He’ll be over there.”

“Oh, thank you…” Luo Luo was a little surprised as she thanked him and headed toward the indicated room.

As she lifted the curtain aside, Luo Luo saw a man seated within. Anyone who saw the angelic features of Young Master Han would be amazed. Luo Luo could not help but freeze on the spot for a bit before finally asking, “Young Master Han?”

“Ruthless Falling Flower?” Young Master Han answered with a question.

Luo Luo nodded her head.

“Have a seat!” Young Master Han gestured as he shouted out the room, “Ray!”

Ray answered almost immediately, “Do you have an order?”

“Clear the table please. I have some business to discuss,” Young Master Han smiled.

Ray dexterously picked up the empty glasses on the table. Luo Luo found that this surreal bar did live up to its name; it actually had such a thorough and realistic service like a bar in reality! Was the person presently cleaning the table in front of her really the renowned wealthiest player of Parallel World?

“Bring me a glass of water, if you will,” Young Master Han spoke to Ray as he turned to ask Luo Luo, “Do you have anything in mind?”

“Get me a glass of water as well,” Luo Luo said. A bar that actually served water! This was one thing that the system-generated taverns did not have. Luo Luo was interested in finding out just what sort of water this bar would serve.

The glasses were quickly brought over. Young Master Han took one and drank a big gulp as Luo Luo sipped the other politely, trying to taste the difference.

“It’s just water. There’s nothing special about it,” Young Master Han smiled.

Luo Luo felt slightly embarrassed as she placed the glass down.

“Tell me about your request.”

“How many people does your mercenary group have?” Luo Luo wanted to get a better grasp of the situation first.

“There’re six of us,” Young Master Han replied.

“That’s all?!” Luo Luo was taken aback by that answer.

“We’re an elite team. We focus on quality, not quantity,” Young Master Han smiled once more.

“Did you finish the quest ‘Seizing the Mountain Bandit Leader Sooto’ with just the six of you?” Luo Luo asked once more.

“Yup, we did…” Young Master Han’s enunciation of the word “we” softened, and it seemed to lack confidence.

However, such a small detail was not noticed by Luo Luo, who simply nodded her head, “Can you introduce me to the other members?”

Young Master Han did not give her a definite answer as he leaned back and said, “Why don’t you tell me about your request first. If we’re not interested in it, there won’t be a need for any introductions.”

“Oh? Then what sort of mission interests you?” Luo Luo said.

“Something that sounds impossible,” Young Master Han stated.

“In that case, you’ll definitely be satisfied with my request,” Luo Luo said.

“Let’s hear it.”

“Help us deal with Traversing Four Seas,” Luo Luo said this sentence slowly. In truth, the hope she originally had for this mercenary group had dimmed quite a bit. She could hardly believe that this mercenary group had only six members. Even if the six were talented individuals, they were still in the game’s early stages. The gap in terms of strength and skill could not be too far off no matter how powerful these pros were. The ladies of Amethyst Rebirth were insta-killed by the guild members of Traversing Four Seas. That the Traversing Four Seas’ members were able to do so was a clear indication of just how powerful they were. Even the current strongest players would not be much better when compared to them, right?

However, Young Master Han did not even raise his brow upon hearing the name Traversing Four Seas and instead asked Luo Luo, “Isn’t that the guild considered as the strongest in Yunduan City at the moment?”

Luo Luo nodded.

“They won’t be having that title soon,” Young Master Han flashed her a dazzling smile.

“What do you mean by that?”

“Because you just hired my mercenary group to deal with them,” Young Master Han explained very matter-of-factly.

Luo Luo’s eyes widened. This person in front of her was very….

“Right now, I only need to know one thing,” Young Master Han said.

Luo Luo was somewhat puzzled. She felt that there were still many things to discuss with regard to the matter. Surely, Young Master Han planned to introduce her to all the team members and give her a general understanding of their group, right? Or even settle the issue of payment at the very least?

However, the only question that passed Young Master Han’s lips was, “How do you want us to deal with that guild?”

At this point, Luo Luo was utterly flabbergasted. She originally intended to hire just a single mercenary group at first. And if she found that one group was not enough, she would proceed to hire a few more groups. Only then would she and the other ladies in the guild discuss about carrying out their plan. She believed that was what July had in mind as well. But this person spoke as if his six-person mercenary team could handle the matter alone! Could that even be done?

Seeing that Luo Luo was momentarily speechless, Young Master Han suddenly laughed, “Alright. I know what we have to do.”

“You do?” Luo Luo was surprised.

“Ruthless Falling Flower… Ahem, your guild’s goal is definitely to deal with No Smile,” Young Master Han chuckled as he said this.

This Young Master Han is definitely not just a regular gamer, Luo Luo came to this conclusion as only an experienced online gamer would know about the feud between July and No Smile.

“However, I’m afraid just dealing with No Smile won’t be enough. How about we revert back the entire core members of Traversing Four Seas to zero?” Young Master Han asked.

Luo Luo was dumbfounded.

“That’s settled then!” Young Master Han stood up and prepared to leave.

“Wait!” Luo Luo roused.

“What’s the matter? Is it not enough?” Young Master Han asked.

“No, I just wanted to ask about your fee…” Luo Luo said.

“That… Let’s discuss that after we finish the mission at hand. I’m not worried you won’t pay us,” Young Master Han smiled.

Luo Luo was moved. Talking about payment only after the mission was completed was another way of saying, If we can’t accomplish the task, we won’t talk about payment. Was this person actually serious this whole time and not merely bragging about the mercenary group’s capabilities? Or would he end up backing out from the mission after a few days?

“I’ll contact you later,” Young Master Han exited the room with that final words.

He did not seem to be faking any part of this. His mercenary group’s strength might be the real deal after all. Their completion of the Sooto quest was enough proof to back up this claim! They did not seem to have any relations with Traversing Four Seas, so she had to secure their help on this matter. As she pondered on this while staring at the glass in front of her, the bar’s peaceful atmosphere was abruptly overturned by a ghastly cry that rang across, “WHO ORDERED ALL THESE?!”

Luo Luo immediately got up and parted the curtain. She saw Young Master Han standing by the bar, roaring at Ray as he vigorously shook the bill in his hand. Ray’s expression remained unchanged as he replied to Young Master Han’s question, “It was the Mage you were with before.”

“THAT GUY!” Young Master Han viciously slammed his palm on the table before him as if it was Gu Fei.

Luo Luo tiptoed next to him and peeked at the bill in his hand. She inhaled sharply.

Listed on the bill was the current most expensive in-game liquor. A person ordered a whole bottle and four glasses of it! The cost amounted to two hundred gold coins. It was an astronomical sum that even the combined coins of everyone inside the bar at the moment might not be enough to pay fully. That Mage was so strong that nobody right now could afford his bill. Strongest indeed!

“Now… Can we talk about the payment issue?” Luo Luo suddenly smiled as she asked.

Young Master Han turned back and stared at her before he sighed heavily, “Let’s go in and talk about it.”

“Can you introduce me to that Mage?” Luo Luo asked as she made her way back to the room with Young Master Han.

“Don’t mention him in front of me!” Young Master Han’s eyes flashed a murderous glint.

“What’s his name?” Luo Luo pestered.

“You want to know his name? It’s SHAMELESS!” Young Master Han was determined not to speak his name.

“Achooo!” Gu Fei suddenly sneezed while he was looking for more information about July’s Heat and No Smile’s involvement.

“That’s weird. I’ve been sneezing a lot lately,” Gu Fei mumbled to himself as he rubbed his nose.