Virtual World: Close Combat Mage

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“Have you guys found a method yet?” Slyris asked Gu Fei and Sword Demon.

“We don’t have to aggro the guards,” Gu Fei said. “I wonder if it is possible to sneak in through a window. Speaking of which, how did you two get up here?”

“He he!” Yan Xiaozhu looked all mysterious, not wishing to say a word.

Sword Demon, who had long noticed the cloud like glimmer that haloed around Slyris’ feet, asked, “Is that the Mage’s Flight skill?”

“Yup!” Slyris nodded

“What’s that?” Gu Fei asked Sword Demon.

“It’s a Mage spell. It allows the user to fly for a short duration,” Sword Demon replied.

“How magical,” Gu Fei mused.

“But it only lasts for a short while and has a long cooldown. It’s useful when fleeing but has limited use in combat,” Sword Demon gave an honest assessment.

“Indeed.” Slyris nodded in agreement.

“Still, I don’t think that spell lets you carry another when you fly; am I right?” Sword Demon took a quick glance at Yan Xiaozhu.

“Ha ha!” Yan Xiaozhu laughed. The two hands she had been hiding behind her back all this while were now revealed to be carrying a coil of rope identical to the grappling hook of Gu Fei. She proudly declared, “I have one, too!”

“You’re a quick-learner!” Gu Fei commended.

“I had a good teacher.” At least, she did not forget to be modest.

Having spent some time engaging in polite small talk, it was time to get down to actual business.

“What do you guys plan to do?” Slyris asked.

“No need to alert the guards. I think it’s be best if I can sneak in through a window,” Gu Fei said.

“Do you know the layout within? Which room the target is in, or if there are guards stationed within?” Slyris asked.

“I don’t know; do you?” Gu Fei returned the question.

“As far as I know, there’s only one player who has been able to enter the Government City Hall, and that person will surely have an idea of what to expect inside,” Slyris said.

“Who?” Gu Fei and Sword Demon asked at the same time.

“Cool Apple,” Slyris answered.

“Didn’t Brother Assist mention about that person being ranked something on the Thief leaderboard?” Gu Fei asked Sword Demon for confirmation.

“Fourth!” Sword Demon confirmed. He more or less knew the names of those that were listed on the Thief leaderboard. Even if Brother Assist did not mention Cool Apple, he was already aware of that person’s existence.

“That’s the one.” Slyris nodded. “This man’s a PK maniac who often looks for players to kill whenever he’s got nothing to do. I heard that, as a result of accumulating a huge amount of PK value, he ended up doing plenty of ‘Bounty Mission’ and earned himself something called a Bounty License, which lets him enter the government building.”

Gu Fei was immediately beside himself with joy when he heard this. “I’ve got a Bounty License, too!” At the same time, he marveled at how big the world was. Others were sure to have accomplished the same things he had done. Even though Gu Fei was skilled, and ‘Bounty Mission’ was the one specific thing he did, the amount of time he spent online was limited, nevertheless. Others probably expended more time than he did, but they were still able to achieve the same feat. After all, Sword Demon had also managed to grind for a pair of Windchaser’s Boots all by himself!

Gu Fei took out his Bounty License and asked, “My Bounty License is number one. What number is his?”

Naturally, nobody was able to answer this.

Gu Fei did not really care to contemplate over this particular detail as he questioned Slyris about something else, “How do I go about doing this? Do I just flash this to the guards before I enter?”

“I... I’m not too sure myself.”

“Let me give it a try!” Gu Fei proposed.

“Now? It might be a little troublesome at the moment because Flowergazing in the Fog is still in the middle of doing their guild quest, I’m afraid that their guild won’t easily let players enter the Government City Hall,” Slyris dissuaded.

“I’ll tell them I’ve got a quest!” Gu Fei said.

“Plenty of troublemakers have used that excuse... Flowergazing in the Fog will surely treat you the same as those guys,” Slyris said.

“Honestly speaking, I’m just the same as those troublemakers since I intend to assassinate the NPC in charge of their quest. I wonder what sort of penalty they’ll receive to their quest progress as a result?” Gu Fei stared into the distance melancholically.

The rest were speechless.

“I wonder if I can still use my Bounty License if I try to enter through the back door,” Gu Fei wondered aloud.

Of course, no one was able to answer this question as well.

“Let me give it a shot!” Gu Fei resolved as he hopped off the wall, Blinked in mid-air, and landed softly on the ground.

There were no members of Flowergazing in the Fog in the backyard, since they had never thought that it was possible for anyone to climb up a wall over ten meters high. Thus, they focused all their attention and manpower on the main entrance to the building, only minding the players that passed through there.

Sword Demon and the other two ladies stood by the wall and watched Gu Fei sprint over to the back door the moment he landed on the ground. Yan Xiaozhu instantly secured that hook of hers by the wall and said, “I’ll get this ready in case he needs to make a run for it!”

In the end, Gu Fei paused for a moment as he approached the two guards and then turned to wave at the three before entering the Government City Hall.

“Success!” The three could not help but feel excited over this despite accomplishing such a simple step.

This was actually the first time Gu Fei had entered such a huge building in the game. The hall within was spacious, candelabras hung on the two walls by the side, while the number of guards matched the number of candelabras. Each of them was spaced out every few meter, flanking the path that stretched.

None of them reacted when Gu Fei entered their sights; this was evidently the effect of having a Bounty License. Gu Fei was emboldened as well. Walking up to the guard, he asked, “Where’s Giordano?”

“Third floor; Vigilante Corps Chamber,” the guard answered.

“Can you show me the way?” Gu Fei tried to push his luck. It was just a NPC, so he might as well use them as much as he could.

“No,” the guard actually gave him a reply.

Gu Fei had no choice but to find his way. He soon received a message from Sword Demon: “What’s the situation?”

“The layout’s complex,” Gu Fei replied. He actually could not find the stairs up, making him feel as if Royal God Call had infected him.

He ended up asking another guard for direction, but he was still unable to find the stairs despite heading in the indicated direction; there was nothing else beyond the walls and doors. But when he pushed a random door open, Gu Fei did not know whether he should laugh or cry, as it turned out that all the doors on this wall were connected to a large hallway, where a spiral staircase led right up on either side respectively

Gu Fei took the stairs up to the third floor and found another guard to ask where Giordano was located before he finally ended up right outside the door to the Vigilante Corps Chamber.

Gu Fei took a deep breath.

Is it really going to be this easy? Will this end the moment I enter and slay Giordano? It’s a game, after all, so even if I die here, the quest will still be completed! Gu Fei thought to himself as he stepped through the doorway.

He was sorely mistaken...

This was a really huge chamber, and there were plenty of people within. Giordano was dressed differently from all the other guards, and it stood right in the middle of a host of guards. It stood right in front of Gu Fei, yet Gu Fei did not dare to make a move.

If it was already difficult taking on a single guard, what more of a whole host of them? He did not even stand a chance to get anywhere near Giordano.

In the end, Gu Fei decided to observe the situation for the moment first to see if these NPCs would simply stand where they were or would move about.

Gu Fei was very patient, so when he saw that there were seats and couches in the chamber, he simply decided to head over to one and take a seat.

A game’s just a game, after all! Gu Fei leaned back on the couch luxuriantly and thought, Has there ever been such an arrogant assassin that sits so brazenly before their target like this? It’s truly too comical.

Gu Fei was patient. This was not the case for those three, however. After waiting in the wind up the wall for such a long time, they finally could not bear the wait any longer.

“How are things? Have you found the floor yet?” Sword Demon sent another message to ask.

“I found it, and I even located the target, but I have yet to find a chance to strike. There’re just too many guards present,” Gu Fei answered.

“Does it not move about? Is there not a moment when it’s alone?” Sword Demon asked.

“That’s what I’m waiting for,” Gu Fei replied.

“Where are you waiting?” Sword Demon asked.

“Right beside him...” Gu Fei replied.

Sword Demon’s mind swirled with thoughts once more. Gu Fei’s previous speech of ‘acting a role in the game to live another life’ had impacted him greatly, but he realized how difficult it was to pick up such a mantle when he saw the situation that they were currently in.

It was really far too inauthentic and unreal for there to be no reaction from an assassin’s target when said parties were face-to-face with one another. Even if this was just a game, it should not be exaggerated to such levels. Sword Demon believed that this reason was entirely because Gu Fei had not picked up this quest at all, so Giordano did not treat him as an assassin, but merely a player who had the rights to enter the Government City Hall.

A game has to follow its regulations at the end of the day! Sword Demon was a little disappointed, for he had really been looking forward to experience this sort of a real second world like what Gu Fei had mentioned.

Meanwhile, Gu Fei had been sitting in the chamber for quite some time. Feeling a little sorry when he thought about the three other players still waiting for him outside, he decided to send a message to them: “Who knows how long I gotta wait here. Do the three of you wish to make a move first?”

“There’s no rush,” the three replied.

Gu Fei pondered further when an idea suddenly came to him. He got up abruptly and went around the chamber once, reaching out to open a side door. There was nobody in this side room, and junk was piled up high in it; it seemed that it had been used as a storage room of sort. Gu Fei stood by the door and immediately yelled out, “Giordano!”

Giordano turned his head as Gu Fei backed out of that room while reciting in his head: Come over... come over... come on over!

Gu Fei daringly used the game’s regulation in hopes of luring the unthinking NPC into this empty room, closing the door and killing it after.

In the end, Giordano gazed at him and did not move. Instead, it yelled as well, “Oh, you’re here. It’s this guy this time. Arrest this man and bring him to justice!”

“What?” Gu Fei could not make sense of what was happening. Giordano stood there unmoving, but he extended his hand out after shouting at Gu Fei.

Gu Fei walked over in a daze, and Giordano passed over a stack of papers while saying. “This is his information.”

Gu Fei reached out to take it, and a system prompt immediately rang: [‘Daily Bounty Mission’ accepted.]

‘Daily Bounty Mission’ was different from the normal ‘Bounty Mission’. It was possible to be refreshed it anew, but everybody could only pick it up once a day, and there was a limit to the amount of missions offered, going by a first-come-first-served basis. Aside from daily missions, there were also weekly and monthly missions or quests. The higher the level of these missions or quests was, the more bountiful the eventual reward would be. Daily missions like these would mainly provide gold coins and experience, but it would be an amount far more than that from a normal mission or quest. In some of the locations where the players had a firm grasp when these daily missions would be made available, players would flood and swarm them at the reset time, amid countless altercations that precipitated. In the end, powerful guilds were usually the ones who would gain a monopoly to these missions or quests, which eventually became an important in-game resource that the many guilds often fought over for control.

Gu Fei had neither done a ‘Daily Bounty Mission’ nor ever considered it, but he had inexplicably accepted one today.