Virtual World: Close Combat Mage

It was some time after Gu Fei and Eternal Dominion had left the tavern, and aside from Young Master Han, who was still steadily drinking away, the others were still seated in the same places, each fallen into a dispirited state.

“With such people around, how are we gonna survive?” War Without Wounds was the first to sigh after everyone shared a sullen moment together.

“Let Southern Lone Blade be the one to worry about this problem!” Young Master Han said.

“Aren’t we following them to catch the show?” War Without Wounds swept his gaze over to the others present. Watching a generation of experts fall from grace seemed to be something everybody would be interested in.

“Let’s go! Let’s go take a look!” RGC leapt to his feet.

“Don’t be in such a hurry,” Young Master Han said.

The four turned to stare at him, wondering just what sort of ploy this man was up to.

“Is Linshui City somewhere you can just visit whenever you like?” Young Master Han continued.

“What do you mean?” The four men were puzzled.

“Expert, we need a boat!” He said sarcastically while flashing a look of contempt to the other four who were looking at him solemnly; it was clear they had thought there was some huge problem they had overlooked.

“Oh….” The four men murmured. This was a problem often overlooked by people who were not native to Linshui City.

“So that means they…” War Without Wounds was speechless. Young Master Han had already recalled this fact, yet had not bothered to remind those two. It was really abominable of him..

“There’s no boat right now,” Young Master Han announced after referring to his booklet of notes.

“Ahahahaha!” RGC revelled in this oversight. Sword Demon, at least, was decent enough to send Gu Fei a message about this.

The two men had already stepped out of the city gates when Sword Demon’s message came in. Gu Fei immediately realized this as he slapped his forehead, “When would there be a boat?” he asked Eternal Dominion.

“That’s right, we’ll need the ship to ferry us over!” Eternal Dominion also recalled this point as he hurriedly went about to inquire after the time. He shook his head soon after. “There’s no way we can make it over tonight. It’ll be too late. Let’s deal with all this tomorrow morning!”

“If we log on a bit earlier, can we grab the earlier scheduled ferry?” Gu Fei asked.

“That would be a little difficult… Unless we make our way over to the pier and log off there,” Eternal Dominion said. Luori City’s pier was not a designated log off zone, so there was no reason for them to risk it for this matter.

“Then let’s do it over the weekend, then. Are you free then?” Gu Fei asked.

“Yeah! Make it Saturday!” Eternal Dominion replied.

After confirming the time, the two headed back into Luori City. The experts all celebrated for Southern Lone Blade the moment they learned of this decision: His nightmare was now delayed by two days. Today was Thursday, so there were two days before Gu Fei and Eternal Dominion would descend upon him.

----

On Saturday, Gu Fei rushed to log into Parallel World before noon arrived. Eternal Dominion had also done the same, since the two men had agreed two days prior to take the noon ferry and make their way over to Linshui City.

It was instead the experts from YME who were actually not online during this magnificent period. Gu Fei and Eternal Dominion met up before heading towards the pier together, getting on board and floating their way towards Linshui City.

----

It had been three days since Traversing Four Seas had completed their guild quest. Southern Lone Blade had also spent the last three days impatiently waiting for their arrival. Because the Harbor at Linshui City was also the most bustling and busy location in the city, it was actually very convenient for them to keep watch. Every day, Southern Lone Blade and his buddies would all hurry to mix in with the tavern patrons when the time came for the scheduled ferry from Luori City to arrive, studying the players who alighted.

There were plenty of people arriving on the first day. Even though the quest was over, and there was no need for the players from Yunduan City to gather together, they nevertheless did just that since all of them had to take a ferry on their way back. The whole crowd of them rushed out the moment the ferry docked. Southern Lone Blade and his men were already prepared for this, closely scanning the crowd for their target. But aside from Southern Lone Blade himself, none of the men with him actually knew what Gu Fei looked like, so all they could do was look for any Mage dressed in black robes and get Southern Lone Blade to identify the man himself.

Nor could any of them rush over to any target they had potentially identified, since they had to act the part and calmly drink while still seated, so it was rather exhausting.

In the end, everybody from the ship departed, yet none of the watchers managed to catch a glimpse of Gu Fei, nor any of the experts from YME.

Similarly, they did not see anyone that fit the description of any of these people on the second day.

--

On the third day, those men got ready to watch out for the three scheduled ferry trips once more. There were significantly fewer players coming from Luori City, yet the target they had in mind had not yet arrived. It was some time past noon when the squad of seven ambled towards the harbor yet again.

“You’re here!” the barkeep by the beach warmly greeted the seven men.

Southern Lone Blade was depressed. Naturally, he did not wish to call too much attention to himself, but in order to keep watch on the arrivals, he needed to sit in the most optimal seats. In doing so, he became a frequent patron of these bars during the last three days.

“Has the person you gentlemen are waiting for not yet arrived?” the barkeep asked offhandedly. He did not even bother to ask the seven men what they would like to drink, as he immediately brought the same drinks that they had ordered the past three days.

“Hehe, yeah!” Southern Lone Blade flashed the barkeep an awkward smile. Even his intentions were revealed. Thankfully, it was impossible for Young Master Han and his men to be in contact with anyone from Linshui City, otherwise they would probably have found out about his plan.

The barkeep was someone who had done plenty of jobs within the service industry, so he had a good grasp when it came to reading people’s moods. He could tell from the atmosphere that he was not welcome to stay around, so he quietly retreated back to his bar after he was paid.

“At this rate, it is very possible they are all together,” Flame Singed Clothes said the moment the barkeep left.

Southern Lone Blade nodded. It has been three days, and neither Gu Fei nor any of those experts had appeared in the meantime. Given the fact they were also all friends, the likelihood that they might be travelling together was high.

“In that case, we gotta go with Plan B,” Southern Lone Blade said.

The others nodded in agreement. They had naturally expected the scenario where Gu Fei would be together with those expert friends of his, so they had already made a contingency plan for it.

“This is so troublesome!” the Archer Glue complained as he yawned. He had not have a good night’s sleep for the past three days. That ferry had six scheduled trips in a day, each about fours apart from one another. Realistically, this meant they could only sleep for three hours each time since they did not wish to miss even a single arrival, making the whole situation quite the ordeal for them.

“It’s almost time,” Southern Lone Blade said after a quick glance at the time.

The other six men nodded as they all placed their glasses down on the table and fixed their eyes on the distant water, watching a large ferry slowly appearing.

Their emotions welled up as the ship drew closer to the harbor.

The ship berthed with a loud thump. The system had no fear of damaging the ship anyway, so it was rather audacious about how it handled the watercraft.

The wooden boarding plank slid out from the boat as the seven men looked on attentively. Soon, players began to step off in threes and twos. Finally, a player dressed in black robes appeared. The six men made sure that this man was not a hallucination before turning their gazes over to Southern Lone Blade.

“There’s no mistake about it. It’s him!” Southern Lone Blade sighed in relief, as a burden lifted off his chest. There was still no guarantee he would be able to beat the man, but at the very least this meant the end of their vigil. It was really quite the torment for them!

“I don’t see any of his companions, either!” Flame Singed Clothes was quite excited. Sword Demon, Young Master Han, and the others were all very prominent characters, people who they could all identify with a single glance at the crowd. The ship was empty at the moment, yet they had not caught sight of any of them.

It was Glue, who could see clearer than any of them, that added, “There’s another person with him, though, but they do not seem very well acquainted with each other.”

“So is it Plan A or C?” the Priest among the seven asked.

They had came up with three plans in total. Plan A was if Gu Fei travelled alone, B was if Gu Fei was accompanied by that bunch of experts, while Plan C was if he did not travel with those experts, and was instead travelling with the a random crowd. Even though he did have someone accompanying him, it was just the one person, so there was no need to use plan C. Plan A would probably work in this case.

Southern Lone Blade was about to decide what to do when his eyes involuntarily widened. Flame Singed Clothes, the Thief Blackwater, and the other Priest were equally surprised.

“What’s the matter?” Glue was baffled.

“Why are they together?” Southern Lone Blade was still in shock.

“What’s the matter?” Glue still could not make head or tails of the reason for their reaction.

“That guy with the Video Mage, is Eternal Dominion,” Flame Singed Clothes stated. Back in Luori City, Southern Lone Blade, Flame Singed Clothes, Blackwater, and that Priest had seen Eternal Dominion. By that time, Glue and the other three men from their squad had already died, so the three of them did not recognize him.

“Why would Eternal Dominion be together with him!?” Glue was shocked as well. Eternal Dominion’s name was a symbol of invincibility in Luori City, and this rep had even made its way to Linshui City.

To take on twenty all by himself, to think such a frightening entity existed! Now that Gu Fei was actually accompanied by such a powerful individual, it was clear that neither plan A, nor B, much less C, would work! To think the three plans that they had carefully crafted would all be useless, was all due to the fact that Gu Fei had found himself someone they had not expected.

“How did they even get together like this? Weren’t they fighting head to head a few days ago?” Flame Singed Clothes could not make sense of anything!

“Did a friendship blossom from the heat of battle?” someone suggested.

“What’s the point of asking all these useless question at this point? How are we taking them on?” Blackwater turned to Southern Lone Blade for the answer.

Southern Lone Blade was trying to come up with a new plan the moment he identified Eternal Dominion as the man next to their target. His mind was currently running like a CPU right now…

--

On the other side, Eternal Dominion had immediately exclaimed when he saw the beach the moment he saw the beach in Linshui City. “I finally get to see this for myself, after hearing so much about it!”

“They do barbequed fish over there. It tastes pretty good,” Gu Fei was a repeat customer, so he gave a quick introduction to Eternal Dominion.

The two chatted while they walked, when they suddenly halted in their steps and looked at one another.

“You felt that?” Gu Fei knew what the look Eternal Dominion was giving him meant.

“I felt that,” Eternal Dominion agreed.

“Someone’s really interested in us!” Gu Fei said, as they turned their heads in the direction they sensed people watching them.

“THEY’VE FOUND US!!!” Glue yelped.

“What?!” Southern Lone Blade, who was still trying to figure out a plan, was immediately surprised by the exclamation. He raised his head and sure enough, spotted both Gu Fei and Eternal Dominion looking straight at them, immediately turning into the moment when both parties’ eyes met.

“How can this be…” The position these men had chosen was entirely inconspicuous, somewhere their presence should not have been immediately discovered. How could the two of them immediately discover where we are the moment they disembarked from the ship? These men simply could not make sense of it.

“Here they come!” Blackwater yelled, as Gu Fei and Eternal Dominion strode straight towards where they were seated.

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