Virtual World: Close Combat Mage

Chapter 786: Chapter 786 – Bounties spanning across Cities

Translator: Exodus Tales Editor: Exodus Tales

When slaying someone, it was apparent that Young Master Han would not do it. First, the man lacked any sort of firepower, and he secondly claimed to have never dirtied himself with something like PK points. Thirdly, he was a total babyleg too, and that was a taboo when it came to killing players. Babylegged killers could only be human explosives and suicide themselves with the enemy.

But flipping the three conditions that disqualified Young Master Han from helping, another name leaped out in his mind: Svelte Dancer. Actually, ever since they had been encircled and subsequently separated, Svelte Dancer had been endlessly making noise, asking Gu Fei when she could let herself loose and kill with untrammeled abandon. Gu Fei told her to wait, but the lady kept bugging and hurrying him, and she finally received the message from Gu Fei to attack.

“Hahahaha! It’s finally time for this madam to get on the stage! Who are we killing?” Svelte Dancer asked.

“Black Index Finger,” Gu Fei answered.

“Who’s that?”

“The guild leader of The Black Hand Syndicate, don’t you know him?” Gu Fei was astonished.

“Is he strong?” Svelte Dancer asked.

“Nope...” Svelte Dancer had actually asked the wrong question; there was basically no one in Parallel World whom Gu Fei would consider to be strong, and for him to even acknowledge anyone to be decent, to have even gotten his attention, show some standards and the like, would already be considered an exceptional player.

“Where is he?” Svelte Dancer asked.

“Wait a bit, we’ll go together. Where are you?”

“Ugh, why are you so long-winded? Just tell me his coordinates first and I’ll go over and scout things out,” Svelte Dancer snapped.

Gu Fei had no choice but to relay the information to her. However, he was not particularly worried for her sake. While Svelte Dancer was someone who enjoyed playing the hero, she was not someone who would take undue risks. He doubted that she would be foolish enough to charge into the enemy’s ranks without first understanding who she was up against.

“G*dd*mn it, how do you have such accurate information?” Svelte Dancer was surprised Gu Fei had provided her with the exact coordinates.

“I’ve picked up a Bounty Mission for him, so I will have to depend on you to make the last strike; I don’t wish to send him to Jail,” Gu Fei explained.

“Oh, then you better set a teleportation scroll for his spawn point. What’s his job class?”

“Warrior.”

“Have you set your scroll for the Warrior’s Encampment then?”

“Not yet...”

“Then what are you dragging your feet for? Go on and do that first!” Svelte Dancer lambasted. This was how the rich lavishly hunted their quarry. Actually, the average player engaged in such activities would rarely use a teleportation scroll, since they would have to kill a lot of people just to cover such an expense!

“There’s no need for that. If we exert too much pressure hunting him down, what would happen if the anxiety gets to him and he logs out? It’s better if we take it slow!” Gu Fei had thought through this to a deeper degree than Svelte Dancer, knowing how to apply the logic behind using warm water to cook a frog when killing people.

“That’s way too sinister,” Svelte Dancer did not say another word after throwing that criticism out, already arriving at the coordinates Gu Fei provided. Gu Fei was running over as well, as he kept Svelte Dancer updated with the latest coordinates. In contrast, Gu Fei’s progress was not as favorable, It was unknown just how many waves of players the enemy had organized to hunt him down, but he would always encounter such obstacles as he made his way down the streets. Gu Fei was grinding his teeth! Were this during the City Wars event where PK Value was not being calculated, he would have slain all these people without a moment’s hesitation. But now that he was viciously suppressed by the existence of the 30 PK points limit, he was feeling a deep sense of discomfort all over him.

But even though Gu Fei’s path was full of twists and turns, it was alarming without any danger. If he was ever blocked, a simple Blink and he would be able to get himself up on the roofs. The players who were hunting him knew that Gu Fei still had this move up his sleeves, but they could do nothing about it! None of them were able to predict when Gu Fei would be engaged in such leapfrogging, so there was no way that they could set up an ambush prior to this either.

Gu Fei continued to home in on Black Index Finger’s coordinates as he kept dodging and evading his pursuers. Slowly but surely, he realized that he seemed to be just circling around a single point. That was when Svelte Dancer’s message came in, “There’s a lot of people here.”

“Where are they?” Gu Fei asked.

“Outside the Jail,” Svelte Dancer answered.

Gu Fei was stunned. He had spent such a long time running around the place for nothing. Had he been camping out that one place before, Black Index Finger would have delivered himself to his doorsteps.

“Can you confirm the target?” Gu Fei asked.

“Not at all,” Svelte Dancer was currently Stealthed, loitering around the vicinity of the Jail. Actually, it could hardly be qualified as vicinity, since Black Index Finger had brought along an uncountable number of players along with him when he arrived at the scene. Svelte Dancer could only observe from afar the coordinates that Gu Fei had told her; confirm the target? Even without mentioning the fact that everybody present had a cloth covering their faces, there was essentially a sea of players out here in the location of the coordinates provided, and it was completely illogical for her to identify any one man in here.

After Svelte Dancer relayed this news to Gu Fei, he had no choice either. There were still people hot on his trail right now, and he was feeling very pressured by everything that was happening.

“Thousand Miles Drunk, stop running if you’ve got the guts!!!” Because Gu Fei had been hiding and avoiding them all over the place, the players that had been sent to hunt after him became more and more arrogant, yelling out loud in the streets as they gave chase. There were plenty of such shouts happening in several of the streets in Yunduan City, but it was clear that Gu Fei would only appear in just one street. This was because these players had discovered that shouting in such a way would make their ego grow, as this one shout would often send the players on the street turning their heads in surprise, showing a look of admiration and worship in their eyes. They were all feeling especially refreshed whenever they received such looks from all these people.

Gu Fei was pissed. He was temporarily unable to make his move on Black Index Finger, yet this one Bounty Mission had thoroughly demonstrated Black Index Finger’s participation in this matter, given how he had brought his men along to lay an ambush outside the Jail. As for those noisy underlings behind him actually believing he was afraid of them, Gu Fei glanced at his own PK Value. 7 PK points. If he were to keep himself under the 30 PK Value limit, that meant that he could still slay 22 more players. Looking behind him, though there were more than 22 players pursuing him, he was still able to clear out more than half of these people. Let’s see if they would dare to be so brazenly rampant after that.

Gu Fei committed to this decision and suddenly turned around, making a mad dash right into the troop of pursuers that was on his tail.

The players that had been chasing after him had someone with a Bounty Mission on Thousand Miles Drunk leading the way, and they had been on his trail for a very long time. While these squads of players that were hunting him down appeared to be doing so in a completely disorganized fashion, they would actually put in the effort to examine and study potential routes after they received the updated coordinates for Thousand Miles Drunk each time, predicting just which direction Thousand Miles Drunk would be going as they attempted to surround him. They were even used to the scenario where Gu Fei would climb the walls upon meeting any obstacle, and this squad had reckoned that it was about time for Gu Fei to begin his acrobatics once more, and none of them expected for him to swing back around and make a beeline straight for them.

“He’s coming right for us! What is he trying to do?” Someone exclaimed.

“B*llsh*t, what else do you think he wants to do? Prepare for combat!” The leader of this squad waved his arm and the ranged job classes began to fire, covering the length of the street with arrows and spells. The players that were on the street quickly scattered in every direction. It was truly bad luck to be caught in the crossfire of a group PK situation since no one would care to reason things out even if they were accidentally injured in the process.

When Gu Fei saw that the attacks were about to reach him, he suddenly turned his body sideways and ran over to the nearest wall on the street, leaping toward it and tapping his foot on it for the briefest moment, casting his Blink and concealing himself up on the top of the wall.

“D*MM*T!” All the players in the squad raised their middle fingers. Seeing Gu Fei charge toward them so unflinchingly, they were all wondering what he could be up to, only for it to have been the same old move as before!

“4th Squad, Thousand Miles Drunk has crossed the south wall, so he might be very near the street you’re in. Make sure to prepare yourself!” the leader had very quickly sent this message to another squad, as this was how huge their web of encirclement had been set.

The moment this message was sent out, all of them suddenly realized darkness was cast over their heads. Lifting their heads up to look, Gu Fei was already swooping upon them like a hawk. A hawk would extend its sharp talons upon descent, and Gu Fei had his Moonlit Nightfalls out, already flicking out a tongue of flames in mid-air as he sliced through the throats of these players as he fell. Those who did not have much HP were insta-killed, while those with enough HP to withstand this one attack were all ashen faced, scattering in every direction to evade further aggression.

Aside from his PK Value, there was nothing else holding Gu Fei back. His sword was circled around him after he landed on the ground, even as he yelled out loudly, “Twin Incineration”. This spell was still on cooldown, so it was not coming out no matter how loud he shouted. However, none of these players had even considered this fact to any degree. The moment they heard that this ultimate move was about to be cast again, they were already scared to the point that the first thought in their heads was to step back and avoid the attack, which only created a circular space around Gu Fei in an instant.

Pointing his sword to the left and right for a quick moment, Gu Fei chanted the spell for a Descending Wheel of Flames and a Blazing Tree of a Thousand Inferno. Presently, Gu Fei did not dare to stack up both spells together, in case these players were too stunned and actually not actively dodge the spells. He would be in huge trouble if he ended up killing off 20 players in one go like that. Killing off four players just as he landed with the revolving Twin Incineration he executed, Gu Fei now had 11 PK points on him.

“Don’t panic; stall him!” that leader rumbled with a deep voice. Actually, it was not that these players had no idea how powerful Gu Fei was; nobody in this 50-man party actually dreamt of defeating Thousand Miles Drunk. Even if they were able to stall him and hold out till their reinforcement lending a hand arrived, that act alone would have been a huge contribution by itself. When attempting to defeat Thousand Miles Drunk, forget about possessing firepower well beyond his; just send a mob and overwhelm him! That was the current limit of comprehension for these players from Yunduan City.

These players had Gu Fei go around in a circle but had not taken the initiative to approach him, merely maintaining their distance like they planned to keep chasing Gu Fei forever as they continued to ring around the place. But since these squads were following such a balanced group composition, how were those babylegged job classes capable of the movement speed necessary to keep up with Gu Fei? Even if there were speedy job classes, Gu Fei had his specialized kung fu footwork, and that was enough to leave these players dizzy. It was very normal for veteran gamers like them to be able to determine just where their opponent would be going toward, but how a player would move in the game was completely dependent on the attack style of the job classes from both parties, the characteristics of their skills. Gu Fei’s manner of PK was completely a whole different beast that was far from conventional; players depended on their own gaming experience to try and predict him, but that would be as useless as howling at the moon. Being able to correctly judge what he would be doing was no more than a blind guess.

In just these few steps, Gu Fei had easily darted right to the front of everyone. The cooldown for his Twin Incineration happened to have finished as well, and he insta-killed with a swift rotation as he dashed out from the encirclement.

Another look at his PK Value and Gu Fei saw it was now 17 points. In the meantime, he had also realized what the enemy was intending to do. It would be rather troublesome if he were to end up facing layers and layers of obstacles blocking his advancement, he would still have to first evade them all for now.

While Gu Fei needed to escape, he still needed to say what was on his mind. As he continued to retreat and slay another player along the way, he shouted at the remaining players who were still attempting to surround him in their encirclement, “Players from The Black Hand Syndicate ought to be careful,” before running off. The players behind him froze, but they very quickly continued their chase. There were players who had already been called over prior, and they were blocking the street entrance. Gu Fei spotted these men and noticed that they were no more than just a squad. Without utterly a word, he brandished his sword and carved out an arc of fire now that the cooldown for his Twin Incineration was complete. These players could clearly see this attack flash out and all of them wanted to dodge it, but there was simply no way a normal player would be capable of evading Gu Fei’s swordsmanship. No matter what sort of unusual position these players tried to contort themselves to, each and every one of them found themselves facing the sharp end of Thousand Miles Drunk’s sword without fail. A batch of white light appeared, throwing the squad into a disorganized frenzy. By the time they recovered their senses, Gu Fei had already broken through their cordon and was sprinting off into the distance.

All of them bellowed and tried to give chase, but of course, none of them were able to catch up. Gu Fei’s forceful breaking this time round had allowed him to extricate himself from the wide net set for him, and they now had to start from scratch once more.

Furthermore, what Gu Fei had said was also spread out to the others, and the players from The Black Hand Syndicate all felt their heart skip a beat when they heard about it. They subconsciously checked the cloths on their faces were still secure and their emblems were safely stored away in their dimensional pockets, while even Black Index Finger himself was quietly praying deep down. Actually, the reason they wore cloth to obscure their faces and hide their guild emblem was precisely to prevent such a situation. Black Index Finger and the other old gaming veterans had already expected it to be a matter of time before their identity would be uncovered given just how many players they had involved in this operation. However, who would be the first to be targeted for attack? There was simply no way for anyone to have known this. But spending some time ruminating over this, it was obvious that a large guild like theirs would be a core component to the plan, so it made sense that the chance of becoming the first to be targeted was much higher. Presently, everyone was not wearing their guild emblems and had their faces covered; it would not be that easy for the enemy to identify them as the target.

This could be said to be the hidden precaution that was borne from the worst case scenario, and no one had thought that this scheme of theirs would actually lead to their current state. They had originally thought that they would be able to force a huge portion of the players to leave Extremely Heaven Defying when they surrounded them all out in the wilderness, and they would leverage on their numerical superiority to deal with those who remained. Once the experts with high PK Value like Thousand Miles Drunk lost all their levels and equipment, they would of course be easily taken care of when they respawned. Not a single one of them had imagined that Thousand Miles Drunk would actually think to treat the Jail as a temporary shelter and send all those people there to avoid this outcome, while he managed to escape right after by his lonesome and begin to mount his counterattack. At the moment, Black Index Finger was actually quite glad that he had not been negligent and had at least taken precautions against such a scenario. Now that his guild had turned into Thousand Miles Drunk’s first target, he would at least have to sift through the thousands of players to pick out the players from The Black Hand Syndicate, right?

———————————————-

After Gu Fei escaped the encirclement, he ran right over to the Bounty Assignment Hall, even taking the time to avoid all the city guards he might stumble across while making his way to his destination. Since his PK Value was over 20 points, the city guards had already started their hunt to apprehend him. He was running along when he suddenly received a message. Pulling out, he saw that it was from Young Master Han, who was asking him, “What’s your PK Value?”

“23.” Gu Fei did a quick glance and answered.

“Are you about to clear them?” Young Master Han asked.

“Yeah, otherwise it would be very inconvenient. I’ll have to keep my PK Value clear as I hunt them all,” Gu Fei sighed.

“Do you really think the enemy would not have an ambush waiting for you over by the Bounty Assignment Hall?” Young Master Han asked.

Gu Fei was startled for a moment. There was of course no ambush when he first got away from the encirclement outside the city, but the situation has since changed. Everyone was of course privy to the rule regarding players who held 30 PK points or higher and had also guessed that he would most definitely need to clear his PK Value because of how inconvenient it would be the moment he goes past that threshold. Of course, Gu Fei could also use his Bounty License to pick up Bounty Missions, but that was in conjunction with the search feature that came with his License; The missions that were listed out over by the Bounty Assignment Hall would not be able to transmit to his Bounty License this way. Without knowing a player’s IGN, there was no way for Gu Fei to pick up missions via the Bounty License, which was why he still had to run to the Bounty Assignment Hall right now.

There was most certainly going to be an ambush there, players who were camping out the venue as they waited for him to appear by his own volition. Indubitably, they would be of such numbers that would let them surround and kill him, so there was no way he could travel out to the Bounty Assignment Hall.

“This is troublesome,” Gu Fei was feeling rather uneasy.

“Head over to a mailbox. I’ve mailed something to you,” Young Master Han said.

“What is it?” Gu Fei was puzzled.

“You’ll know when you retrieve it.”

Gu Fei had no idea just what was going on with Young Master Han, but seeing as there was simply no way for him to break into the Bounty Assignment Hall no matter what he tried, all he could do was follow his suggestion. As he sprinted over to a mailbox by the nearest city gate, he discovered that Young Master Han had indeed sent him something and it looked like it was a teleportation scroll that had its coordinates written on it.

“Is this a teleportation scroll that would send me to the Bounty Assignment Hall?” Gu Fei was skeptical. “What use would this be? They are sure to have players both inside and outside the place lying in wait for me.”

“Want to have a wager with me for a bit?” Young Master Han asked.

“Just what do you have up your sleeves this time?” Young Master Han was confused.

“Use it and you’ll find out,” Young Master Han said.

The man’s detestable habit had reared its head once again, and he was refusing to lay out the truth behind the plan he had concocted. However, Gu Fei had no choice but to trust in Young Master Han’s judgment right now, immediately unfurling the scroll to activate the teleportation formation that materialized, sending him away in a flash of light.

Gu Fei had his sword ready in front of him. Even though he knew that there might not be any use to do so since the other party would most likely begin bombarding the moment they saw the bright flash of light that would appear at the destination. In fact, there might even be a chance that he would not catch a glimpse of these people before he died, yet none of these scenarios actually happened. It was all quiet in the Bounty Assignment Hall.

Gu Fei was nonplussed, but he did not care to think too much about it first as he quickly made his way over to the console and picked up the Bounty Missions. His special perk of being able to pick up more than one mission at any given time worked this way as well, and Gu Fei saw that there were really quite a few players with high PK Value on the leaderboard. He was not doing these Bounties for his personal enjoyment right now, but purely to cleanse himself of his PK points. Gu Fei calculated out the exact number of targets and their respective PK Value for this as another message from Young Master Han came in, “Don’t forget to set a few more scrolls of your own. You’ll probably be back here quite a few times, yeah?”

“I’ve got my Windchaser’s Emblem!” Gu Fei reminded.

“That wouldn’t matter,” Young Master Han corrected.

“Hey you, just what exactly did you do?” Gu Fei asked.

“You’ll understand once you step outside,” Young Master Han replied.

Gu Fei had his doubts. Could he have cleared out all the ambushers? But in that case, why even bother going through all that secrecy with using a teleportation scroll? Gu Fei was pondering over this conundrum as he pushed the door open, and immediately froze.

The Bounty Assignment Hall was the one place that Gu Fei was the most familiar with, so of course he would be familiar with how the area looked as well. But what greeted his eyes right now was not the scene of Yunduan City which he was very familiar with. The answer was as clear as day; Gu Fei had actually teleported to another city’s Bounty Assignment Hall.

“D*mn you!” Gu Fei finally understood what plan had Young Master Han come up with this time.

“What, did they actually set up ambushers in other cities as well?” Young Master Han asked.

“You’re ruthless!” Gu Fei said.

“That’s why I told you to make a few more scrolls. It’ll come in handy,” Young Master Han advised.

“I don’t really have many left on me now. Where did you get the one I used anyway?” Gu Fei asked.

“I asked someone from Yueye City to make it. I’m currently contacting people to buy scrolls from. I’ll be sure to hand them over to you shortly,” Gu Fei was a hitman who did not require healing, which was why Young Master Han had begun to fill the role as the hitman’s support instead.

“So I’m at Yueye City,” Gu Fei did feel that the scene he was looking at seemed somewhat familiar.

“It doesn’t matter which city you’re in, as long as it isn’t Yunduan City, you can return back and do what you want to do after you’ve cleared your PK Value there. Hand some coins over, we’re going to need a huge amount of scrolls,” Young Master Han said.

“Got it,” Gu Fei answered as he started on his Bounty Mission journey in Yueye City.

—————————————–

Over by the Bounty Assignment Hall in Yunduan City, it was just as Young Master Han had expected; there were layers after layers of players waiting to ambush their target inside the venue. Actually, this was a one-time tactical placement they were doing. Hunting Thousand Miles Drunk was actually not an easy task to do; because Thousand Miles Drunk had a high movement speed, this one advantage that he had over a good majority of the players made him a very irritating target. Players like Black Index Finger completely have no hope of hunting him down even though he was very much looking forward to Thousand Miles Drunk hunting down people in retaliation, only to find himself a victim of the ambush the moment he hurried over to the Bounty Assignment Hall in hopes of clearing what PK points he had earned.

After calculating the number of players they had lost on their side, the guilds already had a grasp of Thousand Miles Drunk’s PK Value at this point, instructing and charging the players to be ready to ambush him by the Bounty Assignment Hall, as well as the players they had assigned to camp out the Mage Academy to continue to add players to their ranks, waiting for the good news to arrive.

In the end, those players who had picked up Thousand Miles Drunk’s Bounty Mission saw the latest coordinates updated and ran to the side of the street to vomit blood in unison.

Nobody was familiar with every single set of coordinates across Parallel World, but when they saw the huge jump in Thousand Miles Drunk’s numbers, it was evident the man had skipped town and was now in a different city.

“We can’t afford to continue on such a hunt like this!” The players were all in tears.