Virtual World: Close Combat Mage

Chapter 179 - Foe-herder’s Offensive Maneuvers

Matters related to Gu Fei continued to happen in-game as he went offline.

Even after Brave Surge was sent to prison by Gu Fei, he did not change his mind about recruiting the latter. Since imprisonment in Parallel World meant total isolation, he was temporarily unable to contact any of his people. Fortunately, Brave Surge was quick-witted enough to go offline. In reality, he was able to contact his buddies that had witnessed his PvP with Gu Fei.

Brave Surge felt gratified when he learned that his companions had asked for Gu Fei’s IGN. He then instructed them to wait for his release from prison before telling their other comrades of this information.

His PvP with Gu Fei only reinforced his desire to recruit the latter and began to think of ways to entice Gu Fei into his guild while serving time in prison.

Meanwhile, Foe-herder, the guild leader of Cloud Herder, remained oblivious to the fact that he had just missed out on meeting Gu Fei by clearing off all his PK points. He only went online in the late afternoon after he had fully rested in reality. At this time of the day, the scenery in-game was vastly different from when it was the wee hours in the morning or the dead of night.

When Foe-herder got online, he promptly received a message from his female spies: All their applications to join Amethyst Rebirth had been rejected. Apparently, people could only join Amethyst Rebirth with the referral of someone already in the guild and any players randomly asking to join it would be rejected.

Foe-herder felt stunned. Among the many criteria that the different guilds had set up before they would accept someone as their own, Amethyst Rebirth’s criterion was actually the most difficult. This sort of guild would never be huge and would not have any big goals, but its members would always have excellent relationship with one another. Infiltrating such a guild was possible, but it would take time. After all, one would need to befriend and gain the trust of certain members of Amethyst Rebirth before having the chance to join the guild. He was unsure of how long that would take, so Foe-herder decisively canceled the plan to infiltrate Amethyst Rebirth and prepared to use the currency ploy he had prepared instead.

Opening up his friends list, he saw that Brave Surge was currently offline. I wonder how things are on his end, Foe-herder thought to himself. He tried sending him a message, yet he only got this notification from the system: [Player Brave Surge is not in a serviceable area.]

From experience, Foe-herder immediately deduced what this message meant and his heart was filled with elation. Brave Surge must have been sent to prison! It seemed that he had luckily obtained a head start in their headhunting war.

As such, Foe-herder became calmer and grew more confident in assigning the online members a task each relating to the matter at hand. He then confidently headed toward one of the city gates.

It was at this moment that his system notification sounded for a new mail: “Have you managed to acquire more information regarding that particular someone? Feel free to send me a message any time if you need anything.”

Foe-herder saw that this short message was sent not too long after he had logged off. The sender’s name was Xi Xiaotian. There was even an emoticon beaming brightly at him right next to the sender’s name.

“It’s her…” Looking at the emoticon, he immediately recalled the beautiful lady who had offered to provide him and Brave Surge information about the OP Mage for the price of 1000 gold coins. He laughed coldly and casually deleted the message. “1000 gold coins? Why don’t you steal that amount of money, instead?! I doubt that I won’t be able to tempt any of the Amethyst Rebirth’s ladies into opening their mouths at a lower price,” Foe-herder was confident in the currency ploy he had in motion.

Shortly afterward, members of Cloud Herder Guild could be seen all over Yunduan City. While they did not know Gu Fei’s appearance, they were still familiar with the appearances of a few ladies of Amethyst Rebirth. It was an all-female guild after all, so most people would of course pay attention to those who belonged to that guild, not to mention that Cloud Herder had just clashed with Amethyst Rebirth during the guild versus guild tournament yesterday. The Cloud Herder’s players only failed to find any of the ladies last night because they went offline after the match. Now that daytime had arrived, it did not take long for Foe-herder to receive a few reports of the locations of several Amethyst Rebirth ladies.

“Just keep an eye on the ladies. I’ll interact with each of them personally,” Foe-herder commanded.

The closest targets were currently on their way toward Foe-herder’s location at the city’s east gate, so he hurriedly adjusted his armor and struck a dashing pose. In no time at all, four ladies of Amethyst Rebirth entered his line of sight. A Thief on Stealth of Cloud Herder was following the ladies not too far behind. Naturally, Foe-herder could not see this Thief and only received a message from him: “The four ladies have arrived.”

Foe-herder waited until the four ladies were closer to him before clearing his throat, “Ladies.”

The four ladies halted their footsteps as they turned their heads to his direction.

Foe-herder amiably smiled at them, “I’d like to find out something from you.”

“What is it?” the ladies genially asked.

“Are you members of Amethyst Rebirth?”

The four ladies nodded their heads.

“Does your guild have a male player?” he asked while feigning ignorance.

The four ladies nodded their heads once more.

“What is his name?” Foe-herder tried his best to pretend that his question was random. Last night’s plan was to directly ask the Amethyst Rebirth’s ladies first and for the currency ploy to only be enacted next if directly questioning the ladies proved to be futile.

The four ladies immediately became alert, “Who are you?” Their alertness was something that they had cultivated over time due to the male players approaching them to ask for their fellow female guildmates’ names. None of the ladies wanted to be pestered by random individuals, so they would never give their fellow guildmates’ names to suspicious players. Despite Gu Fei being a male player, the ladies already had the habit of probing for the asker’s intention first before giving out anything.

“I’m Foe-herder,” Foe-herder replied.

Just the name of the Warrior ranked sixth on the leaderboard would garner quite the attention of players even in other in-game cities, yet the four ladies who were from the same city as him merely looked at one another in confusion, “Who is he?”

“I’m the guild leader of Cloud Herder. We fought with you girls yesterday,” Foe-herder informed them, feeling depressed. Not recognizing him at a glance was fine, yet for the ladies to actually not even know his name, was he that unremarkable of a player?

“Oh! You’re from that silly guild with five hundred men that only sent out fifty men for the guild versus guild tournament, right?” one of the ladies asked.

“Hey! Don’t say such things!” another lady admonished her as she surreptitiously glanced at Foe-herder.

He felt so embarrassed, but since it was the truth, he could not retort back. As for the move being silly… Since Cloud Herder lost the match, what else could it be?

Foe-herder coughed and tried to change the subject, “I wanna ask the name of your guild’s male Mage.”

“Ah! I remember you,” another lady suddenly cried out, adding, “You asked us the same question after we finished our fight yesterday.”

Foe-herder nodded his head, “Yes!”

“Sis Xiaowu said to not tell you of our male player’s name. Scram! We’re leaving!” The four ladies then hurried off.

“Ah…” Foe-herder’s hand was already reaching into his dimensional pocket for his money pouch to begin his currency ploy, but he ended up staying quiet as he released his hold of the coin purse.

Foe-herder refrained from using that ploy, as he realized that there were four ladies present. If he were to tempt them with money, he would have to satisfy all four. The four together would turn the 100 gold coins into 25 gold coins each. If one of them asked for 100 gold coins, he would likely have to pay each of them that much.

Why be hung up on this one group? With that thought in mind, Foe-herder asked for the location of the next target.

“One lady is here at Peddlers’ Street 3. She has a stall set up!” someone reported to Foe-herder.

Quickly making his way over to Peddlers’ Street 3, Foe-herder was then approached by his guild member stationed there and was directed to where the stall was.

Foe-herder gave the lady a once over. She was a Fighter. Her hands were hugging her knees as she squatted on the ground. The stall before her had many useless items, yet she eagerly awaited the customers to arrive.

“Seems like someone who is in need of money,” Foe-herder smilingly said as he confidently walked toward the direction of her stall and was about to carry out his ploy.

...A few minutes later, a commotion suddenly brewed in Peddlers’ Street 3 and Foe-herder could be seen squeezing his way out of the crowd with his hands covering the back of his head for protection. Several items sailed through the air and bounced off of his armor, as the female Fighter waved her fists and loudly cursed him, “Trying to poach our guild member?! You even dare to bribe me with gold coins! You better run, you scoundrel!”

Foe-herder fled from Peddlers’ Street 3 with a flustered look on his face. The Cloud Herder’s member that was responsible for tailing this target also ran out, fixing Foe-herder a confused gaze, “Guild Leader, why did you flee from her?”

“Many people are nearby, so doing this sort of thing here is difficult!” Foe-herder replied as he sweated. The lady got angry once he revealed his intention to bribe her. Getting shouted at in one of the busiest streets in Yunduan City for trying to bribe a lady, he could not help but feel immense shame and anger.

“Peddlers’ Streets and taverns; let’s avoid those places with many eyewitnesses,” Foe-herder announced on the guild channel after this incident.

“There ain’t many people here!” someone immediately suggested a target in one of the less traveled by streets of Yunduan City. Foe-herder rushed over there while asking, “What is she doing there?”

“Seems like she’s repeating a quest,” the member reported.

“What quest is there in that place?” Foe-herder asked, perplexed.

“I don't know,” The member was equally clueless on this front. “Could it be a hidden quest? She has been repeating this quest here for quite some time now.”

“Is that so?!” Foe-herder excitedly hurried over to the said street.

Two guild members showed their heads from the corner of a wall upon his arrival and pointed toward a certain direction: “We’ve been counting and she’ll be in that spot once every seven minutes. It’s been six minutes since she last showed herself, so she should be here soon.” Just as they said this, a lady appeared at the opposite end of the street and noisily made her way toward the location that the two men had just indicated.

“I’m going,” Seeing that the lady was a fellow Warrior, Foe-herder immediately felt a sense of closeness toward her. He arranged his armor presentably and noisily made his way toward the location as well.