Virtual World: Close Combat Mage

Translator: Exodus Tales  Editor: Exodus Tales

When Black Index Finger saw that the attacking NPCs only had so much HP, he instantly became a lot more at ease as the other city guard had also taken damage from his Cyclone, which meant that it did not have much HP either. Black Index Finger did not really care to take precautions from the enemy’s attack and after both clashed head on in this manner, that other city guard finally depleted all its HP and flopped down on the ground.

A round of applause came from the people around, cheering for their guild leader. Black Index Finger flashed a wide smile, accepting the acclaim from his underlings as he calmly pulled up his quest log.

But before he could even take a look, he suddenly discovered himself bathed in white light.

The surrounding players were all surprised as well. Experienced players could tell that it was the white light that came from a teleportation formation.

Was that from the quest? Everyone was wondering to themselves.

Black Index Finger was also thinking the same thing, as he found himself teleported away in the next moment.

When he arrived at his destination, he was still staring at his quest log, yet it was as empty like before. There was no prompt from the system that indicated that he had received any new quest.

“Was I supposed to look for someone to accept a quest from after teleporting me all the way out here?” Black Index Finger was taking in his new surroundings, still dreaming about obtaining a quest when he suddenly felt a burst of pain blossom right at his waist from behind him.

Black Index Finger was also considered a veteran of PvP combat, and he immediately knew what sort of attack he had just been dealt with from the pain he felt. It was a Thief’s Backstab.

But the damage from this one stab was appallingly high, and Black Index Finger’s face had instantly turned ashen. Given the amount of experience he had as a gamer, he was not in a rush to turn around to see who was behind him, but instead chose to activate his Charge skill and dash on forward. Everything else can wait after he broke free from his unknown assailant’s attack.

Only after putting a bit of distance away from where he once stood did Black Index Finger turn around, yet he did not see anybody behind him.

Black Index Finger was completely stunned by this point as Svelte Dancer took the initiative to reveal herself.

“I’m letting you die knowing what happened!” Svelte Dancer smiled in delight and sprinted forward with her Fleetfoot active.

“Just what is going on here?” Black Index Finger was still completely baffled about what happened, not realizing that the two real NPCs would be part of a plot to attack him.

However, Svelte Dancer was no longer chatting pointlessly with Black Index Finger anymore, presenting a single stab from her dagger the moment she closed in on him.

Black Index Finger retaliated, yet he knew that he was already in his death throes. He recognized Svelte Dancer, and was all the more keenly aware of the strength she possessed. Forget about the fact he only had a sliver of HP left, even if he was in his tip-top condition right now, he might not be a match for this lady.

It was apparent that Svelte Dancer was very clear as to how much HP he had left, not even bothered to evade Black Index Finger’s attack as she opted to wield her superior damage to clash with him in a foolhardy manner. As such, it was with great sadness that Black Index Finger ended up being killed by a Thief using a Warrior’s style of combat.

“Completed!” Svelte Dancer very happily reported to Gu Fei the result of her attack.

“Oh? Have you successfully made your escape as well?” Gu Fei asked.

“Heh, I escaped first before killing that guy. How is it, genius eh?” Svelte Dancer was pleased with herself.

“What do you mean?” Gu Fei asked.

“That Black Index Finger wanted to solo the two city guards that you sent, so I used that time when they were caught up in their fight to secretly skulk over. Next, I used a teleportation scroll and brought Black Index Finger directly away with me. Hahaha, that idiot most likely must be wondering just how this process worked before he died!” Svelte Dancer gleefully tooted her own horn.

“You’re a real genius,” Gu Fei praised.

“Right now, he must surely be over by the Warrior Encampment. So, do you want to hunt him down?” Svelte Dancer must be addicted to bullying Black Index Finger.

“Don’t be in such a rush. I’m sure he has plenty of men stationed over by the spawn point, so I doubt we would have any chance to strike even if we went there. We’ll need to search for other opportunities.” Gu Fei was very calm and collected.

“We should hurry! He should be level 40 right now; killing him once more would bring him down to level 39. That would be perfect,’ Svelte Dancer was really ruthless deep down.

“He still has his PK Value on him, so the Bounty Mission for him is still active. I’ll send you his updated coordinates in a moment. Keep watch over him at your own discretion!” Gu Fei said.

“Then what will you be up to?” Svelte Dancer asked.

“I’m waiting for a message from someone else, and once that is done, I should most likely be off to clear my PK Value. Oh, that’s right; don’t go to Yunduan City’s Bounty Assignment Hall if you are looking to clear your PK Value. They’ve set up an ambush there. I’ve told you this before, right?” Gu Fei asked.

“Yeah, I got it. You’re such a nag! Quick, tell me the new coordinates!” Svelte Dancer was feeling quite eager to continue her hunt for Black Index Finger.

—————————————

Respawning in the Warrior Encampment, Black Index Finger was of course very depressed. At the moment, he was looking forward to the ambush around the spawn point, so that he could at least get his bad mood off his chest. But unfortunately for him, all he saw were the players from his coalition, all with their faces covered. Black Index Finger walked out from the encampment with a glum expression stuck on his face. However, due to the cloth covering his own face, the others could not tell who he was nor see his expression, so they all thought that he was just another player who had been killed by Thousand Miles Drunk, so no one came forward and showed any concern.

Similarly, there was no one from The Black Hand Syndicate here camping out the Warrior Encampment. Black Index Finger was not comfortable with ordering these other people, but he had somewhat made sense of what just happened to him. Thousand Miles Drunk must have picked up his Bounty Mission and thus was able to accurately direct Svelte Dancer to kill him. Actually, Black Index Finger had intentionally gotten some PK points on himself as he felt that it was a way to lure Thousand Miles Drunk to show himself. He had succeeded in luring Thousand Miles Drunk out to make his move on him, but what made him vomit blood was that the man had actually succeeded, though not in taking his Bounty, and had actually sent another player to properly kill him while he was still bearing PK points. This was not only failure, but it was also an overwhelming defeat, and there were simply no words that could describe the level of regret Black Index Finger was feeling right now.

At this moment, he began to suspect that there was something wrong with those two city guards, and that line of thought left him terrified. If they were sent by Thousand Miles Drunk, then it would be extremely difficult for him to take the necessary precautions against it. Visually speaking, the two NPC guards looked like any other normal guards that roamed the city. If players were completely incapable of differentiating them, they could not possibly take the initiative and make the first move. They would truly be digging their own graves in the event that they accidentally attacked an actual city guard.

In his guild channel and private messages, countless messages were asking Black Index Finger about his current situation. Black Index Finger truly did not have the face to tell them the truth! It was evident that he had been a victim of a ruthless scam by someone else, yet he did not detect even a hint of it until he died, still foolishly dreaming that he had stumbled upon some quest; it was a really huge humiliation on his part!

But no matter how embarrassed he was, he still had to give everyone an account, especially since Black Index Finger was completely afraid of leaving the Warrior Encampment by himself. He knew that Thousand Miles Drunk still had a handle on his coordinates, and it would be a complete tragedy if he were to be ambushed once more.

Should he get people to escort him out? Black Index Finger was first somewhat embarrassed to ask for this, and second, just how many people would be appropriate for this escort? Would having 100 players end up getting all of them killed by Thousand Miles Drunk’s hand? After mulling over this fact, Black Index Finger decided it was best if he endured this. Since that 1 PK point that he had on him had been on him for quite some time by now, he simply decided that he would just let it naturally fall off instead.

After checking Black Index Finger’s coordinates several times and discovering that there had not been any changes each time, he immediately deduced that the man got scared and must have decided to wait for his PK Value to disappear before moving, so he relayed this matter toward Svelte Dancer.

“Hmph. Then I’ll go take a look around the vicinity of the Warrior Encampment. I refuse to believe that he would stay inside forever,” Svelte Dancer huffed.

“Don’t get too reckless. Everyone inside the place is most likely working for him,” Gu Fei did not support this decision, as he felt that the enemy must have already considered such a simple plan like what Svelte Dancer just proposed. He was certain that the area around the spawn point there would be filled with scouts who would all be checking for suspicious players from every angle and location. Given Svelte Dancer’s arrogant attitude, she was actually very poorly suited for such covert operations, so she would very likely expose herself.

“Stop your nagging already. I’ll just run away when I get discovered, no?” Svelte Dancer scoffed.

“It’s your choice!” Gu Fei was actually uninterested to harp on this matter too much either.

Young Master Han finally sent a message from his side at this time, cutting straight to the point as he directly responded with his answer, “Remarkable Flair.”

“Oh. Are you dead yet?” Gu Fei was a bit more humane tonight, putting his comrades’ life and death as his top priority.

“B*llsh*t,” Young Master Han said.

“Do you mean b*llsh*t that you’re dead, or that you’re not dead?” Gu Fei helplessly asked.

“Is yours truly someone that would be so easily killed?” Young Master Han said with disdain.

“I think their target wasn’t supposed to be you, which was why they held back and didn’t make their move on you, right?” Gu Fei guessed as well.

“Do you think that I would just teleport over to let them kill me without making any sort of changes on myself despite knowing that there’s an ambush waiting for me on the other side?” Young Master Han asked.

“Oh, what did you disguise yourself as?” Gu Fei asked.

1

Young Master Han directly ignored that question of his, “How are things on your end?”

“Black Index Finger was killed and lost 2 levels as a result,” Gu Fei announced.

“That’s not enough. They won’t feel threatened if it’s just 2 levels,” Young Master Han said firmly.

“But he’s now holed up inside the spawn point, not making his move. I won’t be able to get a hold of his coordinates once he loses all his PK points,” Gu Fei responded.

“Get someone to spy on him,” Young Master Han said.

“Wouldn’t that person be discovered?”

“Such a conspicuous person like yourself would of course be uncovered. Get someone more mundane, like someone from Forever in Flowers,” Young Master Han retorted.

“Hey, that’s a good idea,” Gu Fei nodded. Actually, Sakurazaka Moony and his boys from Forever In Flowers had been messaging Gu Fei all this while, expressing their wish to lend a hand as well; he and his lot of reprehensible men actually had a very dutiful sense of obligation during such crucial moments.

Gu Fei immediately contacted Sakurazaka Moony, who burst out into laughter the moment he heard the request, “Drunk bro, don’t you worry. This sort of job is our specialty.”

“Yes, do be careful. Every person inside the spawn point is from their group right now,” Gu Fei said.

“Aren’t they all covering their faces and not wearing guild emblems? Everyone can do that.” Sakurazaka Moony and his band had not gone their separate ways all this time, and they had all been waiting to join in turbid waters! There were people who were afraid of getting into trouble, while others who enjoyed hurtling head first into trouble; The men from Forever in Flowers would always be the latter.

On Sakurazaka Moony’s orders, all of them immediately pulled out a piece of cloth and covered their faces. They had all already taken off their guild emblems long before this, what with their guild’s widely known notoriety. Anyone who wore their guild emblem would simply be inviting people to assassinate them. This was something that they had all realized even before the City Wars event started.

All 50 or so players headed directly toward the Warrior Encampment very valiantly. When the players from the various guilds that were preparing to ambush the Warrior Encampment saw such a troop of players making the trek all the way over all of a sudden, they were all very surprised. After all, none of them had received any word about any reinforcement or such coming over.

COMMENT

There was ultimately someone who was the overall in charge at every spawn point, and the moment they saw how strange it was for this troop of players to make their way down as they did, he hurriedly stepped forward and asked, “Which guild are you from?”

“Kill him,” someone from the other party gave the command.

“What?!” the one in charge was still wondering about their identity! People saw these players suddenly initiating their attack, with a majority of them using bows that insta-killed the one player in charge.

“Scatter!” Sakurazaka Moony yelled once and everyone around him ran in random directions. The entire Warrior Encampment was thrown into a state of disarray as players that were lying in wait each revealed themselves in an attempt to vanquish this new group of interlopers, but because every player in Forever In Flowers was Agility-focused, all it took was a short jog before they all disappeared into the distance. With none of these players able to track where the men from Forever In Flowers ended up, as well as the fact that the one in charge of them had already been killed off, these ambushers were all abnormally annoyed by this skirmish. They were truly defenseless against their reprehensible ways.

Black Index Finger could only watch everything unfold from inside the spawn point, even showing his face after the initial dust had settled to help put everything in order, immediately getting in touch with the various guild leaders to discuss this. Needing to inform all the guild leaders of what happened and obtain a subsequent consensus in order to mobilize their manpower, Black Index Finger wanted to put an end to the situation where anyone who had kept their faces covered would be able to make their way over and make a mess of things.

At the end of their discussion, it was still Black Index Finger who made the suggestion, “It’s clear that even though we’ve cornered Extremely Heaven Defying in the Jail, Thousand Miles Drunk still has external forces he could mobilize; Amethyst Rebirth and Forever In Flowers, the two guilds that we had arbitrarily let off before are now coming together to retaliate against us. I believe that we should hunt and kill these two guilds since our identities have been compromised by now.”

“Hunting down the members of Forever In Flowers isn’t an issue. But Amethyst Rebirth… That’s not going to look good, yeah?” Someone was worried. As Amethyst Rebirth was an all-female guild, they were renowned in Yunduan City for being a well-mannered guild that had no dispute with anyone. Getting caught up in a guild struggle with such a guild would most definitely cause them to incur unfavorable opinions from the public.

“So what if they are Amethyst Rebirth? Are you saying that we’re not going to fight back now that they are killing us right at our front door?” Black Index Finger said.

“Are they really killing us?” Someone was wondering. Most of these guilds were still not aware of that incident that resulted in Black Index Finger being slain by Svelte Dancer at this time.

Black Index Finger immediately told everyone about what had happened to him, and each of these guild leaders instantly realized their imminent danger, and all the votes went through, “Let’s kill them!”

“Amethyst Rebirth doesn’t really have much of a combat power, so any random two squads would do! Forever In Flowers would be somewhat troublesome, since their members are all Agility-focused. Furthermore, they have their faces covered as well, making themselves look just like us. They are so damned reprehensible, does anyone have any solution for that?” Black Index Finger asked.

“That is really annoying!” These guild leaders were all agonizing over this.

Black Index Finger was still discussing this and completely had no idea that men from Forever in Flowers were already right beside him. Sakurazaka Moony was quite crafty himself, and he had intentionally killed people just so to create some chaos to capitalize on the mayhem. Someone among them had very successfully blended into the space while keeping his face covered, so even though it was a matter of time before he got filtered out, Sakurazaka Moony also understood the situation that Black Index Finger was currently in, and he was just waiting for his PK Value to drop. He reckoned that it would not be too long now, so hiding for that duration should still be possible.

“Black Index Finger is making his way out!” The player who was keeping an eye on their target had finally given them an update, and right now, the system had also announced to Gu Fei that his Bounty Mission for Black Index Finger had failed, so it was evident that Black Index Finger’s PK Value was now back to zero.

“Are you still going to kill him?” Gu Fei asked Svelte Dancer.

“But of course. I’m going to kill him till the end,” Svelte Dancer. “Is something up?”

“Didn’t you say you were taking a walk around the area? What did you learn while strolling around?” Gu Fei asked.

“I saw a bunch of men charge out in complete disorder, kill one of the enemies, and sprint off in a complete mess again. Did you have something to do with this?” Svelte Dancer asked.

“Nope, not me. It was Sakurazaka Moony,” Gu Fei corrected.

“Are they keeping an eye on things now?” Svelte Dancer asked.

“That’s right. Look for him if you need any information!” Gu Fei said.

“Ugh…” Svelte Dancer felt somewhat uneasy with those reprehensible men.

However, slaying Black Index Finger was still much more important, so Svelte Dancer nevertheless took the initiative to contact them. Forever In Flowers was abruptly thrown into a frenzy of excitement, none of them could hardly believe that they would be working in tandem with the beauty Svelte Dancer this time.

“Black Index Finger has already stepped out, but he doesn’t seem to have any intention of leaving. Perhaps he could be waiting for others? He might not dare to leave on his own,” the man from Forever in Flowers who was undercover sent his report thusly. Excitement was one thing, but they still had a task to do.

“Wait for him to leave and tell me the route he would be heading,” Svelte Dancer said.

“Roger that!”

Black Index Finger had finally begun to move, but he was really not alone. The man had ultimately thick-skinnedly asked for reinforcement, and The Black Hand Syndicate gathered almost 300 players on that order. He had really taken huge steps of deterrence against Gu Fei.

“There are so many people here; I reckon there’s close to 300 of them…” The man from Forever in Flowers saw Black Index Finger leave with such an unabashedly large force and felt there was no way that they could carry out the ambush as originally planned.

“It’s only 300. You can take care of them, right?” Svelte Dancer turned to ask Gu Fei.

Gu Fei sighed, “Do you think we’re back participating in the City Wars event!?! I’ve got to limit my kills to under 30 players right now, otherwise, the city guards would be mobilized to target me. It’s really such a bother.”

“Then how are we doing this? Why don’t we call everyone over!? Add those reprehensible lads as well, and we can all fight it out!” Svelte Dancer declared.

“What are you acting so recklessly for? Slow down a little; it’s not the time to throw down the gauntlet yet,” Gu Fei said even as he felt regret build up within him. It was not often that he would find such an opportunity. Had this happened when the City Wars were going on, he would most definitely be the one who came forward to kill them all. Yet, all he could do was stare blankly for now. He simply lacked the manpower!

“What are you up to right now, anyway?” Svelte Dancer asked.

“Clearing my PK Value of course! What else could I be doing?!” Gu Fei sighed again as he very casually killed off the target that he found. He had used a teleportation scroll that did not originate from Remarkable Flair and left to do his thing. He was extremely unfamiliar with the city he was in, and he was certain he had never been here before. Gu Fei did not even know its name, and was simply bustling about with his business.

Forever In Flowers and Svelte Dancer were all watching Black Index Finger lead the 300 men and leave, completely incapable of doing anything about this. They were all feeling very depressed seeing that man walk off like that.

We could at least cause a bit of a commotion, right? Sakurazaka Moony thought to himself. They were all speedsters, so they could very well be able to attempt a hit and run. Perhaps they could be able to just barely get away with something. As such, Sakurazaka Moony decided to gather his guildmates and inform Svelte Dancer of their intention to attack; if she saw any sort of opportunity she could use during their attempt, Svelte Dancer was more than welcome to kill off Black Index Finger.

Svelte Dancer was elated hearing this, immediately making her move as well.

Sakurazaka Moony led his band out and met with Black Index Finger and his men out on a wide street, but before he could even take the first shot, it was the enemy who took the initiative, “We’ve been waiting for you guys for quite some time!” A single command was given, and the enemy’s firepower was far more fierce than what Forever In Flowers could throw out. The cloud of arrows that launched had not only forced them to retreat, but they had even pressed on to give chase after them.

The majority of men from Forever In Flowers played around with traps, and their archery skills were no match for the proper Sharpshooters. Furthermore, their combat strength was significantly weaker than the studs from The Black Hand Syndicate, so they were essentially defeated after this exchange of arrows. Players died in the process of their getaway, all the way until they were forced to split up and scatter in every direction so only a portion of them managed to escape with their heads intact. Svelte Dancer had very happily run over waiting for a chance to strike, only to be left speechless upon seeing the men from Forever In Flowers being chased around like stray dogs.

“This isn’t easy!” Sakurazaka Moony had failed to get away, and had very glumly sent this message to Svelte Dancer.

“We need a team that possesses strength…” Even Svelte Dancer, a lady who always enjoyed being the heroine, had realized that there was no way to resolve such a situation just by individual strength alone.