Virtual World: Close Combat Mage

Translator: Exodus Tales  Editor: Exodus Tales

On the end of the street, after watching Xi Xiaotian and Broken Water Arrow’s figures disappear into the distance, Coco, who was in Stealth this whole time, finally sighed in relief and revealed herself. Soon after, Royal God Call poked his head out from the roof, while War Without Wounds was standing at the corner of the street and had not left completely. On the next street over, Sword Demon took a U-turn to come back.

“How was it?” Royal God Call asked.

“Seems rather successful,” Coco replied.

“I’m not asking about that; I’m asking about those arrows I’ve shot. Pretty cool, huh?” Royal God Call said.

Coco was speechless.

“B*llsh*t. Is it as cool as my Cyclone? Even Sword Demon was forced to climb up the houses thanks to my efforts. Ha ha! For real though, Sword Demon, would you have been able to escape had that been a real battle and had I not shown mercy?” War Without Wounds patted Sword Demon on his shoulder as he asked this.

“It would be difficult,” Sword Demon answered truthfully.

“Ha ha ha ha!” War Without Wounds laughed gleefully.

“But there’s no way I would tell you the position I took while Stealthed.” Sword Demon had saved the truth for last.

“Ha ha ha ha ha ha!” It was now Royal God Call’s turn to laugh maniacally.

Coco was in no mood to laugh at these two men’s antics. They might have finished their performance, but the entire operation was still ongoing. The more critical component hinged on Xi Xiaotian’s solo act. Unable to watch and only able to wait for news to arrive, anyone could imagine just how they were feeling right now.

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Back in the tavern, with the Memory Blackbox Scroll in use, Xi Xiaotian could tell from the rate of her mana consumption with the scroll up that she had about 4 minutes and 24 seconds to maintain the spell and record what she needed. This should be more than enough if everything goes according to plan. As she thought about this, she caught a glimpse of Broken Water Arrow’s gaze from the words she had just said. She felt very gratified at this, for she was at least still able to learn a bit of information from the man’s eyes.

After all, she still needed to observe the other party’s reaction before she could proceed to the next step. In their field of expertise, this was known as ‘cold reading’. While the name sounded mystical, the truth was that it was a mix of observation and inference. For example, upon seeing someone wearing a wedding ring, it could be inferred that this person was married; wearing a watch on the right hand meant it was very likely that the person was left-handed, et cetera.

Being able to make inferences and draw information from such details was naturally the highest degree of this skill, and like any other skill, this required experience and practice before anyone could become consummate with ‘cold reading’. Plenty of swindlers that had spent decades submerging themselves in their world would be able to boast of this. A twenty something young swindler like Xi Xiaotian often had no lack of innovation or skill, except for the chance to hone her cold reading.

Nevertheless, there was such a thing known as talent in this world. Just like how Gu Fei was talented when it came to kung fu, Xi Xiaotian was similarly gifted when it came to cold reading. Unfortunately, Broken Water Arrow’s face, which was covered by a thick layer of paint, was a huge hindrance to the skill, making it seem as if the man had no body language to speak of that she could pick up on. He was seated there, with both arms placed firmly on the table. After raising his glass to Xi Xiaotian the first time around, it never moved again. Maintaining a steady gaze, the man would not even be looking at Xi Xiaotian were he not speaking to her. She knew that he was not trying to avoid eye-contact; rather, he was showing courtesy and respect to her as a woman.

This was the only thing Xi Xiaotian had managed to grasp from the moment they sat down together and she began using her skill at cold reading at Broken Water Arrow. She cherished that exchange wholeheartedly, constantly going over that single gaze he swept her with and tried to guess just what it meant. At the same time, she was sitting there waiting for her mark to respond.

In the end, there was no answer. Broken Water Arrow quietly looked at her with an encouraging glint in his eyes for her to continue talking. She, once again, felt the prickliness of the situation; unable to glean any information from his expression, she could only hope that he would speak more, which would allow her to extract valuable details from. Unfortunately, the man spoke very little, and this made her feel that she was having quite a difficult time maintaining the conversation.

“It is through your outstanding performance in Deep Freeze that caused us to take note of you,” Xi Xiaotian quickly probed, not forgetting that there was time constraint.

“That’s nothing,” was the man’s even reply.

“Actually, we are also very interested in this plan you guys are enacting,” Xi Xiaotian said.

His eyes! There was a flash of astonishment in his eyes just now. Xi Xiaotian caught a clearer look this time, and the important label she had said to illicit this response was ‘you guys’. That meant that there was a group of them. Was Broken Water Arrow surprised because of that label? Xi Xiaotian really wished she could just remove the paint on Broken Water Arrow’s face to get a good look of the naked truth hidden behind it.

“Honestly speaking, we’re not so greedy to the point of wanting to obtain the both you and the plan you guys have.” She continued to speak along that train of thought. This time, she did not believe Broken Water Arrow would remain impassive.

Sure enough, he helplessly shook his head. “I have no intention of joining a workshop. As for the plan, I feel that there’s been some sort of misunderstanding here.”

“Oh? Is that so?” She did not say much. It had already taken quite a lot of effort from her to get Broken Water Arrow to open up and talk this much.

“What I am doing is purely to give them all a hand, and you say you’re interested in that? According to what I know, which is not a lot when it comes to workshop, aren’t you guys supposed to be chasing for profits in a game like Parallel World? Why would you be interested in the things that I’m doing?” Broken Water Arrow asked.

This guy! She had not expected the man to give such an answer. What he said is the truth. It could also be that there’s a flaw in our plan, which made him realize what’s happening here. Did he actually guess my real reason for being here? Does that mean that I’ve been the one feeding him information from my reaction, and the one getting read here has been me all along?

Xi Xiaotian did not have the time to go through every detail of the entire plan right now, and she was feeling rather regretful that she had used the Memory Blackbox Scroll too soon. Still, she had no other choice but to press on; Xi Xiaotian had long decided that she would activate the scroll the moment they started discussing about ‘the plan’. From what she learned of Deep Waters’ personality according to Coco, it was apparent that the only way to convince the man was if every single detail of this dialogue was recorded and presented to him.

“Is that so? So there’s actually a huge difference between our understanding of this matter and what you guys are really after!” she said. She could tell that their plan had failed miserably upon hearing Broken Water Arrow’s reply, but considering how much effort was expended to get to this stage and that the Memory Blackbox was already in use, Xi Xiaotian decided to make one final gambit.

“Oh? What do you guys think?” The man’s reply was precisely what she had expected him to say.

“That you guys infiltrated Deep Freeze to win over its members’ hearts by teaching them of the utilization of jungle warfare—trap formation, techniques, and such. Once that is done, you’ll find an opportunity to oust the original guild leader and take control of the guild.” Xi Xiaotian laid out their presumption to him. Expectantly, Broken Water Arrow did not have too much of a reaction, merely shaking his head slightly. It was difficult to get much out of someone as composed as he was, even if Xi Xiaotian had managed to hit the nail on the head. The man was still shaking his head when he calmly said, “That’s a huge misunderstanding; that’s not my intention in the least.”

“But you’ve fulfilled the conditions for this. Since you don’t have any intentions of joining a workshop, perhaps you should consider taking up a short-term work for us. Just do according to what I tell you, and after that we can—”

“Enough!” He interrupted her. She knew that this had been a total failure and that last resort had been to induce the idea to him. Naturally, she had hoped she did not need to present to Deep Waters an entrapment attempt like this as evidence by luring Broken Water Arrow into a partnership with her. In that scenario, the Memory Blackbox this time around would have to be tossed out as she adopted the identity of a co-conspirator in preparation for obtaining convincing evidence afterward. In other words, if this current move of hers succeeded, an originally innocent man would be turned guilty by her. There was no doubt that such a ploy was extremely despicable, but at least she would be able to obtain proof. Whether Coco and the others would use it at that point would be up to them.

Unfortunately, even this final hand of hers failed as well. Before she could even offer a realistic and tempting price for this work, he already interrupted her, and she could sense a deep sense of loathing in the man’s eyes. He stood up and glared at her. “No matter what your intentions are, I am truly grateful for your aid, but we are from different walks of life. You know my name, so no matter what, as long as you are doing something aboveboard, I could still return you the favor. Anything else, I hope we don’t have any further contact with each other.”

“I’m sorry, but I’m taking my leave now.” He did not forget his manners as he turned to leave.

She was in a bit of a daze as she sat where she was. In the end, the only thing she managed to dig out was the look the man had given her. There was no doubt that there was only one of two possibilities: first was that Broken Water Arrow had seen through their plan and was a far craftier swindler than her; second was that there was no problem with Broken Water Arrow at all, and Gu Fei and the rest were the ones who had misunderstood him from the very start…

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Atop a roof of a certain tavern, that very same moment Xi Xiaotian and Broken Water Arrow left, Young Master Han stowed away the spyglass into his dimensional pocket. Brother Assist, who was next to him, was feeling very dejected. Thinking that he had probably missed another exciting show, he did not even bother borrowing the item again and merely proceeded to ask. “How was it?”

“Idiot actors wasted a rather exciting script,” Young Master Han remarked.

“They failed?” Brother Assist was surprised. The two had a pretty good understanding of the plan Gu Fei and the others had set in motion. Since there were no need important roles for them to play in this show, they settled with watching the happening from afar via the spyglass so as not to draw people’s suspicion. It was just too bad for Brother Assist for being unable to even catch a glimpse of the silent confrontation between Gu Fei and Broken Water Arrow from start to finish…

“If I were Broken Water Arrow, they would surely fail,” Young Master Han said.

“What do you mean?”

“We don’t know if this is a bust yet,” Young Master Han replied.

“What exactly happened?”

“Royal God Call managed to interrupt Miles’ spell with a single arrow. Moments later, he showed off by unleashing that powerful Snipe of his. Let me ask you a question; if you possess a skill that has high damage and you can hit the target with a sneak attack, will you not try to directly insta-kill your opponent?” Young Master Han asked.

“This…”

“Even if Broken Water Arrow did not realize it in that moment, if he were to think about this particular factor later, do you think he would be foolish enough not to grasp this?” Young Master Han asked.

“Doesn’t that mean that their failure was all but guaranteed?” Brother Assist mused.

“I sure hope he’d only recollect the event at a later period…” Young Master Han sighed.

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