The NPC soldiers were very clever, so they understood the command to cover their faces. But they needed a cloth to cover their faces in the first place, and it was apparent that the soldiers did not have any on them. However, they understood how to make the cloths themselves, so they all moved a hand to a corner of their attires and tore them. The sound of fabric tearing could be heard as the NPCs created a cloth that they could use to cover their faces with. Sword Demon’s heart nearly shattered when he heard it! The equipment that the soldiers were wearing was all his! Were they still usable after being torn?
Sword Demon used his Appraisal skill in a hurry to check, and sure enough, what had originally been perfectly fine equipment now had a modifier added to it: Torn! The color of this word was the same as the rest of the text, but the quality of the equipment saw a drastic decrease, and with it, a decrease in the stats as well.
Sword Demon had no idea if he should laugh or cry. He appraised the four soldiers once more, and saw that the Warrior’s breastplate he had given was the only piece that was fine… Because the suit of armor was entirely cast in metal, that NPC had no way of tearing it to obtain a piece of cloth and thus resorted to tearing its inner shirt. But the three other NPCs had it much easier. The two Thieves and Mages were given equipment that matched their job class, meaning that they each were able to tear and damage the gear Sword Demon had loaned to them. His heart was aching very badly; it was fine if the Priest robe was torn since that was an item that he had gotten by chance during his grind, and had not gotten around to selling it when he saw it might be worth something. But the two pieces of equipment that the Thieves had torn were items that he had personally wanted to use. He had made quite an effort to keep them in storage, but they were now ruined.
Gu Fei did not notice the pain that Sword Demon was experiencing, as he even praised his four NPCs, “Man, that’s convenient! These soldiers are certainly quite brilliant; knowing it can’t tear any cloth off their armor, they had opted to tear their inner shirts instead. How ingenious!”
“My equipment… Can you not just randomly give an order without sparing a thought?” Sword Demon was really hurt. If he did not remind him now, he was afraid that Gu Fei might give another command without caring for the consequences, and further ruin the items from his collection.
“Oh, do you still want all your equipment back?” Gu Fei asked. Humans differ from one another; the items that Sword Demon had placed in his warehouse for safekeeping were all exquisite equipment worth keeping. This was in stark contrast with Gu Fei’s casual usage of the space to store his excess inventory, who had no use for it beyond keeping only all the weapons out of all the equipment he had collected through the course of his time playing in the game. Furthermore, the weapons that he would most often be found using were conveniently kept inside his dimensional pocket most of the time, and would never be deposited in the warehouse.
“Of course, I want them all!” Sword Demon hurriedly answered.
“Okay!” Gu Fei affirmed, having discovered that the soldiers’ degree of obedience was rather high from this entire affair at the same time. They were apparently able to troubleshoot solutions, like how they tore off their equipment despite not having cloth when instructed to do something as impossible as keep their faces covered. Players were unable to tear and damage equipment like what these NPCs had done. Otherwise, if players were to ruin the other party’s equipment during PKs and lower the stats of the opponent, that would truly be an invincible move.
With that thought in mind, Gu Fei had another sudden brainwave and said to the four soldiers, “Stealth!!”
Stealth was a skill that only the Thieves job class could have access to. Would a bunch of NPC Warriors be able to do it as well? Sword Demon was a little anxious as he stared at these four soldiers. From a player’s point of view, nobody really enjoys seeing the system resort to such shamelessness, as that would leave them feeling a little disconcerted. Actually, every player had the dream of becoming someone who was capable of fully utilizing every job class skills, but that was a very unrealistic wish on their part. No one would be content if they saw that an NPC could actually achieve this dream.
When the four soldiers heard the order, none of them showed any look of confusion. Instead, all they did was squat down and went searching for large boulders or trees for them to hide in, shrinking themselves behind the cover. Gu Fei and Sword Demon exchanged glances. These soldiers were really too intelligent to have actually thought of using such a method to fulfill the Stealth skill that they had been commanded to perform. With that thought in mind, Gu Fei felt that his original plan of wanting to abandon the NPCs to be far too foolish. Why did he not think to just give them an order to wait in the city and call it quits there?
“Stand by for orders!” Gu Fei felt giving this same order now was not too late either.
The four soldiers immediately became motionless.
“Let’s go,” Gu Fei said.
“Where to?” Sword Demon asked.
“Where else do you think? To do the quest of course!” Gu Fei said.
“Then what about the NPCs?”
“They’ll wait there, save them from getting in the way,” Gu Fei said.
“No, let’s bring them along and play!” Sword Demon appeared to be reluctant to just leave the four soldiers there, just like how he was disinclined to just abandon the equipment he had loaned off. This was very interesting! Gu Fei really had no idea just how fortunate he was to actually consider such a fun design as a burden.
“Then you can bring them,” Gu Fei shrugged.
“They won’t listen to me!” Sword Demon retorted.
Gu Fei thought about it, before he faced the soldiers, “All of you will listen to his command.”
“Will that work?” Sword Demon was skeptical, and he proceeded to give an order to the soldiers. “Everyone, get up.”
None of the NPCs showed any sign of obeying that order. Sword Demon was depressed, “It’s better if you bring them.”
“Get up and follow,” Gu Fei commanded.
The four soldiers got up and lined themselves up, standing right behind Gu Fei. Sword Demon was almost dying from jealousy, “Will these soldiers immediately head back once the quest is completed? Why don’t we delay the completion of your quest, so we can play around with them more?”
Gu Fei looked at him, “Do you mean that you want me to bring these guys over to help you finish your quest?”
“No, that’s definitely what I meant!” Sword Demon quickly corrected. “How do you not understand this? Isn’t leading those four soldiers around fun?”
“What’s fun about it?”
“It’s not fun?”
“Fun?”
“Okay, forget it. Let’s not argue about this and focus on the quest! Quest!” Sword Demon stopped their back-and-forth. This was a difference in opinion, and it was a disagreement between someone who did not care about gaming and another who was a hardcore gamer.
And so, the two men continued onward with the four NPC soldiers in tow. With all their faces covered, they slowly got closer and closer to the coordinates. The land ahead was a decline, and it was apparent that a cavity was just up ahead. Sword Demon looked around with apprehension, “There wasn’t a cavity like this last time.”
“It must have been specially made for this, so this must be it,” Gu Fei said. “Come, let’s head on in.”
“No Stealth?” Sword Demon was referring to getting the four soldiers to do what they did before, and secretly slip in.
“There’s no need since that would serve to make us look more suspicious, anyway. Walking in openly like this would make the other party believe we are their allies!” Gu Fei said.
“That makes sense.”
As for the cloth covering their faces, they were no longer something considered to be suspicious since a cloth like that would often be the headgear that people wore, especially among Assassins and Thieves. Adding to the fact that there were no job class requirements when it comes to equipment, the look of having a cloth covering the face had already been frequently mixed and matched. Mages, Priests and Warriors, it was no longer strange to find people of different job classes equipping something like that as part of their get-up. Of course, a single use of the Appraisal skill could easily reveal if said cloth covering the face was a piece of actual equipment, or just to keep themselves masked.
But Gu Fei and the others were not too particular about this since the cloths that covered their faces were indeed used to keep their faces concealed. These players would immediately realize that they were up to no good the moment the fighting begin, so there was really no need to hide too much.
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This pack of two players and four NPCs pretended to be a team of players just passing through as they casually walked through. Before they even got to the cavity, Gu Fei had already sent a message to Sword Demon, “There’s a Thief!”
Sword Demon knew that meant he must have discovered someone Stealthed, so he immediately replied, “Must be an ambush!”
“Yes. Let’s pretend that we have no idea and press on forward. Let’s see how they will react,” Gu Fei said, acting as if he had no idea where the Thief was and continued to walk forward. However, several players came climbing up the cavity at this point, and a Warrior among them in the lead took the initiative to speak, “Gentlemen, which guild are you from?”
Gu Fei and Sword Demon froze when they saw all the faces of these people that stepped forward, subconsciously turning both their heads away to look in other directions. In the end, there was already someone in this other party who said, “Do you think I won’t recognize the two of you just because you covered your faces?”
Gu Fei and Sword Demon had no choice. They were all too familiar. Young Master Han was amongst these people that crawled out of the cavity, and both men could now clearly make out the guild emblem of Carouse pinned on the chests of this row of men. It seemed like it was Carouse who had discovered this quest.
Since these men had already identified them, there was no sense in hiding any longer. Gu Fei tore the cloth off his face as he pulled his sword out and tapped it to the ground, “Quest, those who are not involved can scram!”
“Yes, scram if you know what’s good for you.” Gu Fei intentionally acted a little more imperiously, hoping he could anger the other party into action. He was worried that they would all turn tail and flee the moment that they heard his name, as the chances of such a thing happening became more and more frequent as he has gotten himself more and more famous.
However, he had clearly underestimated how important these players from Carouse had viewed this quest. Upon hearing Thousand Miles Drunk was not about to back out from this by even an inch, the Warrior furrowed his brow, “Is Amethyst Rebirth thinking about snatching our quest from us?”
The Warrior appeared to have quite the knowledge about Gu Fei and was even aware that he was a member of the female guild Amethyst Rebirth.
Gu Fei had always been rather embarrassed by this fact, so now that it had been so openly raised, he actually blushed before hastily answering, “This has nothing to do with the guild.”
“What are you guys here for then?” That Warrior was still posing questions, but Young Master Han had already waved his arm, “Everyone, back off.”
“What?” Everybody was shocked, thinking that Young Master Han was siding with his mercenary group. It was no secret amongst the members of Carouse, and everyone already knew that this top-notch Priest placed greater emphasis on his mercenary group, as for his guild… He would only participate in grinds and activities when he felt like it, acting completely on his own whims and fancy. He was a member of a large guild, yet he ended up making a name for himself from hanging out with unaffiliated parties, causing outsiders to believe that Carouse was jealous of his real talent and had ostracized this expert!
But Young Master Han had only simply added, “Avoid the range of his Blink.”
Most players might have no idea toward Gu Fei and Sword Demon’s capabilities and repertoire of skills, but how could Young Master Han be as clueless? When the messages that he sent were flagged by the system as an attempt to communicate with the enemy and rejected, catching sight of the two loitering around the city battlements through his spyglass, and even witnessed their successful attempt killing Black Rose with that trebuchet shot from before, Young Master Han’s mind had already made the necessary connections and determined that these two were their enemies for this event. It was just that he never expected that he would actually bump into them so fortuitously.
“It’s a little too late to avoid it!!” Gu Fei flashed a wide grin, Blinking right up behind that row of men. But the moment his feet made contact with the ground, a Trap came springing out, ensnaring him on the spot while the ground began to heat up, and the sky glowed in with bright light. Young Master Han turned around and threw a steely gaze at him, “What do you mean too late?”
“You tricked me!” Gu Fei was depressed. His Blink was instantaneous, so he was unable to extend his foot out and probe for traps, and adding to the fact that he had really been a little careless this time, there was simply no way for him to react in time to the trap springing and entrapping him. This was also the time when he saw the cavity in its entirety now that he was so close to it, and he could see that there were a few tents in it with a campfire right in the middle that had plenty of Mages lying in wait.
Just in terms of their Mages, Carouse was definitely the best across all of Yunduan City. In the instant Gu Fei glanced past Young Master Han, he already spotted that man retract his hand signaling the Mages behind him. Gu Fei could now feel the heat gathered beneath his feet and the sky glow red. It was evident that these Mages had already cast their spells at the behest of Young Master Han’s order. He had purposely called for those men to back off just so he could lure Gu Fei over. Having fought side by side for so long, Young Master Han had gotten a very good grasp of Gu Fei’s style of fighting. He knew the Mage was not the sort to waste time chatting and enjoyed diving headfirst into the fray as soon as possible.
“Charge!!” Gu Fei felt it would be far too disgraceful for him to die just like that, and feeling he ought to at least make an effort to leave his mark of resistance, he called out the command and the four Soldiers pounced forward, aligned in a row as they came rushing right in with their swords drawn.
This was something Young Master Han had not expected. Only one out of the four was disguised as a Warrior. Nobody would have thought that those four men were actually all Warriors and the Charge they executed would be far more proficient than what most experts could unleash, every step of their actions completely in line with one another.
Four sharp swords were soon upon Young Master Han and that row of men. The Warrior who had previously been speaking had actually lowered his head and activated his Charge as well, looking as if he was rather confident with his own strength and was eager to clash against these aggressors. Meanwhile, everyone else had already scattered in every direction, causing Gu Fei to be the one exposed to this fierce Charge.
This was exactly what Gu Fei was going for, as he immediately gave the command to that one soldier Charging up to him, “Lightly…”
The soldier’s sword thrust squarely upon Gu Fei’s waist. The flames on the ground were already blazing fervently by now, and it had taken off a good half of Gu Fei’s HP as a result. Were it not for the fact that he possessed a greater amount of HP than the conventional Mage, he would have already turned into a wisp of white light from the conflagration that engulfed him. It was unknown if that NPC soldier had understood the ‘lightly’ command, but the thrust did manage to send Gu Fei hurtling out. The Descending Wheels of Flames barely managed to brush over him, and the burning damage from the Blazing Trees of a Thousand Inferno had already subsided by this time as well.
Gu Fei went flying right into the crowd of Mages, which was exactly what he had been looking forward to. As a Mage, he obviously understood the characteristic of his own job class and flying right into this crowd meant that the other party would not be able to immediately use their AoE spells to attack him. These men would not want to hurt their own comrades, after all!
But who would have thought that Young Master Han had already called out to the Mages as he pointed to where Gu Fei would be landing, “Cast your AoE spells there!!”
Gu Fei was dejected; he had forgotten that the enemy commander was the inhumane sadist Young Master Han! Why would he think twice about hurting his own men? He was not someone that would be bothered with such trivialities, not to mention they were in a setting where nobody would lose levels upon death.
Unexpectedly, it was the Mages who did not heed Young Master Han’s order, throwing a look of wavering uncertainty back at him, “Our comrades are there!”
Now, it was Young Master Han’s turn to be all the more dejected. He knew that this was quite possibly their only chance to kill off Gu Fei, yet none of his men even understood what his intention here. Am I really a blind man? Do I really not know that our comrades are there? I obviously want them to bombard those men as well, how could the lives of those trash compare to one Thousand Miles Drunk?
There was no time for Young Master Han to explain everything. When Gu Fei fell into the bunch of Mages, there was no AoE spell to receive him in their burning embrace. Instead, some of the wise-arse Mages had tossed some fireballs over, believing that they would be enough to take care of their target. How would they even expect that Gu Fei could casually extinguish the projectiles with a wave of his sword, and even the two Arctic Whirlwinds sent his way were very quickly countered with a single Twin Incineration from Gu Fei.
But Gu Fei was still immobilized, the trap that caught him was apparently placed by an expert, so its effect had not yet ended. Gu Fei turned around and watched as the four soldiers very intelligently engaged in battle with the players after they completed their Charge, and that Warrior who had tried to match their Charge with his own ended up being of no match. Just that alone was shocking enough for the Warrior, as the Warrior he was engaged against was dressed in a Priest’s robe.
Gu Fei had only survived his impending fate of being burnt to death, and the Trap was still affecting him. It was still difficult for him to get out from behind enemy lines alive. Seeing the four soldiers fighting, Gu Fei was suddenly inspired as he yelled at the four, “Leap over with Earthsplitter! Don’t hurt me!”
This was a skill that Gu Fei had once seen the NPC guards from Linyin City demonstrate, and it was evident that these four soldiers were nowhere near indomitable as those guards in terms of their power, but they might still share the same set of skills. Gu Fei tried to test this by shouting the order, watching as the four soldiers suddenly disengaged from the players that they were fighting and came dashing right into the cavity in unison. The ground beneath their feet ruptured abruptly when they pitched up in the air with both hands clutching their weapons, angling the points of their swords down toward the ground the moment they reached the peak of their trajectory.
The Mages were all dumbfounded. Nobody in this crowd had ever seen or heard word of such a skill, while only a handful of players having seen it executed in the official promotional video at most. How would any of them have imagined that it would appear right before their eyes, much less used by four different people at once.
The four Warriors landed in unison, the ground fissuring upon impact as they crashed down. Everybody felt the ground around them shake, especially those standing near the area where the Earthsplitters had impacted. The trembling there was especially intense, and these people even saw their HP drop. Conversely, Gu Fei was caught amid everything, yet he received no damage whatsoever. It seemed that the call from before, “Don’t hurt me”, had actually been effective. As the system had a near-perfect control of its NPCs’ actions well beyond what a player was capable of demonstrating, the four Earthsplitters had left the Mages staggering as they tottered about from the tremors while leaving Gu Fei completely unscathed.
“Marvelous!” Gu Fei shouted, even as he shouted out to where Sword Demon was at, “It’s pretty fun.”
“Cut to the chase. Get them to change their equipment and Cyclone already!” Sword Demon was engaged in a fight with another player as well and had not been able to find an opportunity to save Gu Fei. In the end, he saw how Gu Fei had ordered his soldiers, and watched them execute those moves so beautifully. This was especially true for the Earthsplitter call; it was impressive Gu Fei still remembered that the system guards had such a move in their arsenal.
“Change back to your original equipment and use Cyclone!” Gu Fei was afraid that these NPCs would not know what equipment to change into if he simply asked them to change, so he made sure to specifically add ‘original’ to the final command. Thus, it was as if the four soldiers had turned into metal golems, instantly changing out from their mismatched equipment into their original shiny armor. It was only at this moment when the full ferocity of these Warriors came to be, and they proceeded to execute the second part of Gu Fei’s command: Cyclone.
Cyclones exploded into a tempest of cuts among the crowd of Mages. Plenty of them were left in a daze as they heard Gu Fei call out the commands one after another, while those who reacted quickly at the moment they heard him cry out “cyclone” had already run off. However, the movement speed of these Mages was hardly quick, so the moment that the four Warriors began their Cyclones, even as they spun around in a swathe of light flashing around them, Gu Fei could hear Sword Demon yelling amid the chaos, “REMEMBER TO GET THEM TO PACK UP THE EQUIPMENT PROPERLY!”
The pieces of equipment that Sword Demon had loaned to the NPCs were strewn on the ground when they changed back to their armor. It was very apparent that the equipment these NPC soldiers wore had no pockets designed, so they could only toss it aside since they had nowhere to stow them away.
“Maybe later!” Gu Fei yelled out in response. He saw as a sword came flying right for the back of his neck, only managing to avoid that slash after quickly burrowing his head low. That was when he remembered that he seemed to have forgotten to give another command, hastily reminding the NPCs, “Don’t hurt me.”
Seeing what a mess the entire battle had become, Gu Fei concluded that such an order was an imperative with all these AoE skills in full display.