Chapter 62: Emmy’s Test of Strength
Translator: Zenobys Editor: TheRealSeal
With the current race to gather more guild contribution, every member had their priority set to complete daily guild quest, competing with each other to accumulate more points! Zhang Yang had decreed that the first who reached level 20 will be added into the Marzerway’s Lair’s raiding party. And because of that decree, the guild atmosphere was most intense, with everyone wanting to get their hands on the set equipment!
Who would not want to join Zhang Yang to be one of the first few to raid the Hardcore dungeon and get their names on the “First Clear” Achievement Board? It would be the highest honor and dignity to have their names appear on the server announcements. With that colored announcement texts appearing in the server channel, completely dyed in red, it would be so exciting! Even if it was a step behind; if they could not get the “First Clear” Achievement, they could still get their hands on powerful equipment! Is that not the game’s own unspoken rule? To get powerful equipment to dominate the world?
Still, Level is not something anyone could just raise up anytime they want. To form a team of 20 players at Level 20 would take at least 3 to 4 days! All he could do is wait. Ever since 44 Bandits failed in his assassination attempt on Zhang Yang, he was never attacked by them anymore. However, Zhang Yang still adviced his friends to stay close to each other and reduced any lone activities. He did not want to give even a small chance for them to get killed.
The second day, after Zhang Yang and his merry little team of 5-man party raided the Marzerway’s Lair Front and Middle Wing dungeon, Zhang Yang brought them to a village called Antelope Village
“Noob tank! Why did you bring us here for?!” Drizzler finally cried out angrily.
Zhang Yang smiled provocatively. “Hah! And here I thought that you would actually keep quiet for a little while more!”
After yesterday’s friendly bet, Drizzler had a little quarrel with Zhang Yang and said that she would want to cut ties with him. This morning, when she logged in, the little kid remained silent and gave Zhang Yang the cold treatment. Even in the dungeon, she had not spoken a word to him. However, the little kid would always behave according to her age. She eventually forgot about her own oath.
Enraged, Drizzler shouted at Zhang Yang.
“You sly fox! I dare you to compete again today!”
“Sure! But I want to raise the stakes. The loser must pay 1,000 gold!”
Suddenly, her expression changed. She looked like she was in pain, as if there was a knife pierced into her belly. To her, receiving money was an absolute bliss; an orgasmic feeling. But if you asked her to give up her own money, she would resist until the end of time! She appeared to be reluctant and unwilling and finally, she bitterly said, “No money!”
“Didn’t you just get 8,000 gold this morning?” Zhang Yang quickly debunked her makeshift lie.
The 8,000 gold was obtained from the bet with The Dominators and Sky High. Since Zhang Yang and his team won the bet, they obtained 40,000 gold from both of the guild as their victory reward. They received their reward via the mail system and each one of them obtained 8,000 gold coins each.
“I-I’ve given them to cousin!” Drizzler quickly passed the baton to Little Snow, trying to avoid the situation and save herself.
“Ha! Haha!” Zhang Yang forced a laugh out. He too did not want to dwell to long in this topic.
“We are here to do a quest!”
“What quest?” said Fatty Han. He was actually in the middle of a “heated” conversation with the “service ladies” from Blaze City. Even though he left the guild not too long ago, he was unwilling to just forget about the girls there.
Zhang Yang purposely played with the party members and slowly, dramatically revealed the answer.
“It’s the….”
“…”
“It’s the main quest!”
“The main quest?!” All of them shouted in unison. “What’s the reward?”
Everyone knew that the main quest would reward them luxuriously, but up to now, there was no player who had ever completed a main quest. No one knew the reward! Even the game developers were clandestine with the release of the quest. They had made the quest to be very mysterious and hard to detect!
“A bunch of stuff!”
His vague statement immediately angered the party. Zhang Yang quickly raised his hands to surrender. Truthfully, he was not sure about the rewards himself. All he knew was that this quest was the [Invade the Spectres] main story quest.
If he had still remained quiet, he would be sure to further anger the team! He quickly squeezed his brain to think of anything to say.
“It should be Skill Points or Yellow-Gold equipment. I think there is also a chance to get super awesome AoE ultimate skill book!”
“OHH!! Let’s go!”
Everyone got excited and walked into the village together.
“Where is everybody?”
The party entered the village and walked around inside for a while. Besides the wind and houses, there was no one around, leaving a kind of lonely and creepy feeling. Little Snow shivered and had goosebumps. Unable to calm herself, Little Snow moved closer to Drizzler.
“Hm. The quest is to find out the source of this phenomena!”
While the team was trying their best to search for clues. Zhang Yang was trying his best to recall the memories of this place. It was a long time ago; he could not remember everything in detail. All he remembered was that the main story quest should have started in this village. He could not remember how to trigger it! After all, he would not have known that he needed to return to the past!
The entire party split up and searched high and low for clues. They searched every house, every well, and even in the underground basement and upstairs cellar. Yet they could not find anyone.
“Mr. Holmes! There isn’t anyone here, not a single shadow. Where and from whom do we receive the quest? Hmm?” Little Snow rolled her eyes. Even though her target was Zhang Yang, Fatty Han and Hundred Shots were both collateral victims, mesmerized by her.
Zhang Yang appeared to not to hear. He was frowning and thinking. After sometime, he looked up and said, “Did you say something? Mind repeating that?”
“You want me to repeat what I said? Ok! You’re a pig head!” Little Snow snarled.
“That’s right!” Zhang Yang had figured it out.
“Take off your clothes!”
Little Snow was stunned.
“Hey hey! We are not that close enough to be doing those things! Then again, even if I did have a thing for you, there are still p-people a-around…”
“Han Yin Xue! Behave yourself!” said Drizzler angrily.
Zhang Yang burst laughing for a moment and calm down.
“I’m so sorry! Haha! Let me rephrase that. Take off your equipment. We’re about to kill ourselves. If we removed all our equipment, we would save the equipment durability and repair fees!”
“And why would we need to kill ourselves?!”
“Because, the NPC that will give us the quest, is a ghost!”
“Pu…” Drizzler laughed and quickly stopped when she saw Zhang Yang was not joking about it.
“R-really?” said Drizzler.
“Yeah!” Zhang Yang quickly unequipped his gears. The good thing about ‘God’s Miracle’ was that under a complete “naked” status, a character would still have indestructible clothing, for modesty purposes. Men would have a pair of shorts while women would have their lingerie on.
Hundred Shots and Fatty Han followed and quickly “stripped” down to their short pants.
When all 3 of them were “naked”, they turned their sight on the girls, visually assaulting them.
Drizzler felt their stares and quickly covered her chest. “W-what are you guys up to?”
“Little brat. Relax!” Zhang Yang gestured with his hands.
“With a body like that, no guys who be interested in you. Not even in 10 years!” Zhang Yang sighed.
“EXCUUUSE ME!??” Drizzler burst with anger.
“What exactly did you mean when you said ‘With a body like that’ huh?! How could you look at this wonderful and slender body and say that no one in the entire world would be interested in this hot piece of ass?”
Little Snow quickly stepped in and pulled Drizzler close. “Hmph! You bet! We are not going to undress here! Hmph! Let’s get going then!”
“Er…fine? Let’s go to the forest there and let the monsters there kill us!”
Zhang Yang was the first one to get out of the village. The rest of the party followed closely behind.
Before Zhang Yang moved on, he turned and reminded Drizzler one last time.
“Little brat. If you get killed wearing all of your equipment, you’re going to be incurred the expensive repair fees!” said Zhang Yang provokingly.
As expected, both Drizzler and Little Snow cringed. However, they stood firm with their decision, for them, money comes after pride!
Outside the village, there were Level 20 monsters on the side of the pathway. All 5 of them rushed and triggered the monster’s hostility, allowing the monsters to attack them without resisting. After a while, 5 souls appeared at the village’s graveyard.
“Eh!? There is a girl up there!” In their phantom-like soul state, the 5 of them immediately spotted a ghostly little girl walking around the exit of the graveyard. On her head, there was a yellow colored exclamation mark.
[Emmy’s Soul] (Normal)
Level: 1
HP: 0/50
Zhang Yang quickly moved in and approached the girl.
“Little girl. Why are you alone here?”
“Big brother! I’m scared!” the girl replied quietly.
“Oh…little girl. Don’t be scared. Tell me, where are your parents? Where are the rest of the villagers?” Zhang Yang continue the conversation, hoping to trigger the quest.
“They…they’re all dead! Sob…sob…” Emmy started to cry but in the soul state, there were no tears.
Little Snow’s motherly instinct kicked in. She quickly approached and hugged the girl. “There, there. Don’t cry little girl!”
“Little girl, who killed your parents and the villagers!” Zhang Yang continued his attempt to trigger the quest.
Emmy sunk her head into Little Snow’s chest and buried in deeper.
“Emmy cannot tell you that! It’s too dangerous! You will die!”
“Don’t worry. We are soldiers from the White Jade Castle!” Zhang Yang said loudly.
“Really?” Emmy eyes glittered.
“Really!”
Emmy raised her head and looked at Zhang Yang suspiciously.
“You have to prove your strength! I will not let you die for nothing!”
‘Ding! Emmy has a quest for you: A Test of Strength. Will you accept it?’
After all of them accepted the quest, the exclamation mark on her head turned into a white question mark. A white question mark indicated the quest was still incomplete. Once the quest was completed, the white question mark will turn yellow.
After accepting the quest, the 5 of them quickly revived. Zhang Yang checked the quest description.
[A Test of Strength (1)] (Difficulty level: C)
Quest description: To prove your true strength, Emmy has asked you to collect 10 pieces of [Finger Bone]! The item can be collected from the monster, Pale Skeleton. These monsters should be located around the flatlands north of the village.
Progress: Collected Finger Bone 0/10
“Let’s go! To the Desolated Ghostly Flatlands!” Zhang Yang and the guys quickly put on their equipment and ate recovery items before they started their journey.
After ten minutes of walking, the party approached their destination. As they continued further, the atmosphere gradually changed. The green grass turned a sickly greyish color. The air around them become heavier and darker. The environment turned dull and their visibility dropped. All of them felt like they had been trapped in a caged filled with thick fog.
Within the mist, they could see skeletal monsters walking about.
‘Ding! You have entered the field: Desolated Ghostly Flatland!’
“This place gives me the creeps!” said Drizzler. Her frown was clearly visible despite the thick fog.
“Let’s get this going!” Zhang Yang said.
“These are normal monsters. They are not that hard to kill! Let’s split up! It’s no use sticking together. We are hunting for our own quest item.”
[Pale Skeleton] (Normal)
Level: 25
HP: 1,250
Everyone followed Zhang Yang’s advice and went their separate ways. Even though the monsters’ level were ahead of them, their equipment was strong enough to make killing fairly easy. The problem was not about the killing but the item drop rate. On average, the drop rate was at 5 monsters per [Bone Finger].
The party took almost 20 minutes to gather enough items. They returned to the village to complete the quest. However, they needed to die again in order to talk to Emmy.
The party completed the quest one after another, but Emmy remained unconvinced with their strength. She then issued another quest. Zhang Yang and his party had already anticipated a follow-up quest since the quest name carried a number in its name. They accepted the quest without any hassle and proceed on with it.
[A Test of Strength (2)] (Difficulty level: C)
Quest description: Emmy wants you to further prove your strength. Start by killing Weak Zombies! You can find this monster in the Desolated Ghostly Flatlands north of the village.
Progress: Killed Weak Zombies 0/20
“This is so troublesome! We have to die every time we submit the quest! Furthermore, the hunting field and the NPC is so far apart! Which dumb idiot designed this?!” Drizzler scolded on and on.
Zhang Yang snickered.
“If it wasn’t designed this way. Other players would have easily found this quest!”