Virtual World: Close Combat Mage

Chapter 631: Chapter 631 – Dying Left and Right

Translator: Exodus Tales Editor: Exodus Tales

Gu Fei’s ‘I can kill you’ solution would work; when the game revived a player, they would revive them at the last spawn point the player had registered their account. Gu Xian got displaced to Baishi City the moment he logged on, so logically speaking, his account should not be registered in this city still. Therefore, his death would naturally send him back to Xiawu City.

Gu Xian furrowed his brows as he calculated. “I’ll indeed be able to get back like that, but that also means losing a level, and I won’t be where I forcefully logged out; it’s just not worthwhile to me.”

“You care for something like losing a level? Don’t you often forcefully log out?” Gu Fei asked.

“You don’t seem to have experience in this, huh? I have not met a situation where I would directly lose my level after forcefully logging off before, and the most I would lose was experience, but more often, I would find myself losing equipment,” Gu Xian said.

“Wouldn’t you lose money as well?” Gu Fei asked.

“You can keep that in the bank.” Gu Xian scoffed. Thinking of something, he asked, “Oh, yeah. I heard you say that you’ve struck it rich?”

“Yeah. I started a workshop and developed the efficient monster grinding routines.” Gu Fei gestured with a punch and kick.

Gu Xian was a kung fu practitioner, so he immediately understood what was going on with the efficient monster grinding routines. In truth, even if Gu Fei did not make an effort to develop the efficient monster grinding routines, other kung fu practitioners like them would naturally develop this sort of efficient fighting style in the process of grinding on these AI monsters. It was just that they would not intentionally summarize it in the manner he did.

“No wonder there were many people recently asking me if I know that efficient monster grinding routine. So you’re the one behind all that,” Gu Xian said.

“Why would anyone ask you?” Gu Fei asked.

“Your big bro here is also a renowned kung fu master in Xiawu City.” Gu Xian smirked.

“Tsk!” Gu Fei expressed his disdain to this by clicking his tongue. He would never consider Gu Xian as a kung fu practitioner in his heart. It was only that online VRMMOs had become a medium in which the man could demonstrate what he knew. In real life, all Gu Xian had going for him at most was the unsatisfied fantasy of being one in his mind, since he no longer had the physical condition necessary to utilize kung fu.

As the two chatted idly by the door, the ex-soldiers vacillated between fighting them or not. Sounds of jeers from the crowd started. Meanwhile, Broken Water Arrow anxiously messaged Ye Xiaowu, asking him what would happen if they could not pay for damages, and the consequences if they insisted on leaving. Plus, with over a dozen of them here, how would the final bill be settled? Would the 3000-odd tab be split among them all, or would just one person be burdened with it?

Ye Xiaowu was still feeling despondent from having died by Gu Xian’s hands again! Meanwhile, the particular design that Broken Water Arrow was inquiring after was rather complicated, and even Ye Xiaowu had trouble giving a clear account for it. When designing this particular aspect of the game, the standing solution was to simply designate everything inside the tavern as indestructible, such that it could not be damaged or moved by anyone and anything, or to set taverns as safe zones so as to spare them the trouble of everything.

However, because the game began promoting itself as a fully immersive environment for players to experience, their big boss decided against such shoddy handling of the minute details in the day to day. As such, public places, like a tavern, where players would frequent must be similar to real life. Things ought to be movable and destructible.

Then, a problem arose; how would they deal with players flipping or even destroying the furniture? Should they treat it like the rubbish monsters had in the grinding maps, restoring the place completely to how it was at intervals?

That was when their boss’s capitalistic nature reared its ugly head. “Damages of course must be paid! Set up a compensation system.” It was unknown just how much designing had to be done in order to accomplish this one statement from the boss. He did not really care, anyway. The boss was there to create problems, and then it would be up to the employees to solve them.

Honestly speaking, creating such a system for this was easy; the real difficulty came with creating a system that the players would find acceptable. Thus, when it was first created, the game designers were all uneasy about how it would be received, but after these rules were revealed during the beta test, there was hardly any huge reaction regarding this from the player-base. It was as if the players considered the rule of ‘once broken, considered sold’ commonly seen in the real world to be very reasonable.

Seeing the players held this mentality, the designers were thus emboldened and became all the more audacious, and it finally created the rule which delegated the role of enforcing this compensation collection to the system. Of course, to maintain a semblance of realism, this enforcement was essentially the system directly deducting the needed sum from their players’ pockets, as well as symbolically sending out guards to educate these players of this bad behavior. If it was not enough, it would sternly inform the player that he or she owed money, and all the coins they collect would automatically be confiscated until the debt was settled.

It was a very harsh rule, and the designers were once more hesitant about its reception, wondering to themselves if such a forceful hand would just push these players with debts to the breaking point and simply stop playing the game altogether. Ultimately, reality proved that the designers themselves had habitually underestimated the players’ intelligence! Since they knew the taverns had such a rule and knew that the system would penalize them monetarily with absolutely no leeway, who would care to make a fuss in the taverns for any small matter if they could help it? In certain cities out there, challenging others to a PK fight in a tavern was now seen as a manner of challenging the other person’s wealth, instead. If someone dared to break a table, the opposing party would break two, which then cause the original person to break three tables. This sort of people were also the kind to have a clear understanding of the consequences of their actions before making their move, so they were more than willing to deal with the amount they ended up being penalized for, and they would probably head out to the forums after leaving to brag, “I was feeling lousy today, so I broke ten tables at the system-operated tavern at one go.” Which would then result in the ensuing replies: “Original poster has plenty of money to indulge!”

In the end, the players were kept under control by this rule, yet it was the reinforcement that the chief designer, Ye Xiaowu, brought in that had gotten themselves in trouble because of it.

Ye Xiaowu could more or less understand the situation. Broken Water Arrow’s lot wished to head out to fight with Thousand Miles Drunk and that newcomer, but the problem was that they might not even have the chance to fight if they were to leave as the NPC guards would surely arrive and force them to pay up if they took one foot out of the door. If they wanted to have a safe environment for the fight, they must first pay up for all the damages they had cost first.

Ye Xiaowu stewed in his regret! Had he known how much trouble this would give them, he would not have chosen to strike in the tavern! He had honestly never thought they would end up turning the entire tavern upside down just by making their move; he thought that they would at most just flip a few tables and be done with the deed.

“The Priest was sending the money they need here; don’t you kill him if he comes back.” Gu Fei just happened to be instructing Gu Xian of this at the moment!

“Aren’t you rich? Just lend them the coins and help settle the compensation for them first. I fully intend to give him a good leg work-out today.” Gu Xian was resolute.

“They’re unwilling to borrow from me! Can’t you wait till he hands over the money before you kill him?” Gu Fei asked.

“That works, too.” Gu Xian nodded.

Broken Water Arrow and the others were chagrined when they heard the two men deciding their fates, blissfully ignorant to everything and everyone around them. Even though the soldiers in them understood the saying, ‘Strategically scorn the enemy, but tactically attach importance to them’, hearing the two so blatantly disregard them like this was truly upsetting. Someone even pulled out his crossbow and fired at the two men, who both ducked back out the establishment. Another thought to give chase, but Broken Water Arrow stopped the man. They were not afraid of being penalized, but they could not afford to mess things up if they headed out and caused the system guards to be sent their way.

Ye Xiaowu easily made his way back to the tavern soon enough. This time, he did not directly head right over but searched around once he reached the corner of the street. In the end, he saw those two martial arts practitioners fighting right by the front door of the tavern.

“Internal strife?” Ye Xiaowu was delighted as he quickly got closer. There was plenty of spectators surrounding the tavern right now, and the two men had drawn quite a lot of attention with their fighting. However, Gu Fei and Gu Xian were still able to catch Ye Xiaowu sneaking his way over.

“He’s back,” Gu Fei said to Gu Xian.

“I saw him, but I think he looks pretty happy?” Gu Xian said even as his fist came careening over.

“I don’t know!” Gu Fei dodged the attack and counter-attacked with a kick.

“Could it be that I wasn’t vicious enough with my attack?” Gu Xian asked.

“No, you were vicious enough already,” Gu Fei hurriedly assured. Gu Xian’s unprincipled kung fu was already a lot more ruthless than any kung fu practitioners he knew. Real kung fu practitioners like him could not let go of those deeply rooted misgivings toward those deadly moves even if they were in a game, as it was a matter of convention. Gu Fei was already pretty good with his flexible mindset, while someone as simple as Eternal Dominion still needed reminding before he got enlightened, and yet he still showed hesitation after he broke his opponent’s arm.

“I’ll go ask him.” Gu Xian feinted a punch before he disengaged from the sparring session, stepping right before Ye Xiaowu to block the man. Ye Xiaowu was keeping an eye on the two men even though he was trying to slip past along the wall and into the tavern. He assumed that, with how focused these two men were fighting, they would not notice his presence, but who would have known that one of them would abruptly come over and step in his path to obstruct him from pushing onward with a palm on the wall?

Ye Xiaowu knew even having ten of him would not be enough to get anywhere, so he swiftly patted his Windchaser’s Emblem, utilizing the teleportation he had prepared in advance to escape.

“F*ck!” Gu Xian was stunned. He was just about to open his mouth and say something!

“See what you’ve done; you scared him off!” Gu Fei was exasperated. He reckoned Fleeting Smile must have teleported himself to the Bounty Assignment Hall, and that location was far from the tavern. Since he was a mere Priest with a less than stellar movement speed, it would take even more time for the man to get back here.

“I didn’t even say a thing!” Gu Xian was crestfallen.

Gu Fei sighed. “I’ll just give him prior notice. He must be thinking that you’d beat him up again.” He despondently pulled up his friends list and sent Ye Xiaowu a message. “Don’t be afraid. We’re not gonna kill you. Old Broken and the rest are waiting for you to send the money over; it seems that they can’t leave without paying the fee for breaking the furniture inside the tavern.” Gu Fei did not really study the game in detail, but he was a man who abided by the rules. Furthermore, he never lacked for coins in this game, so he would always pay up however much the proprietor quoted even if he did get into a lot of trouble, never did it cross his mind to run away without paying.

Ye Xiaowu was really on the verge of tears at this point; the white light from teleporting over to the Bounty Assignment Hall had yet to dissipate, when a black blur appeared before him, and he found himself sent back to the Priest Academy. Ye Xiaowu was momentarily stunned by what had transpired. When he finally reacted, he felt like vomiting blood. In the next moment, Cool Apple sent a message, gleefully shouting in all his excitement. “Ha ha ha ha ha! Thousand Miles Drunk has finally been killed by my blade!”

Ye Xiaowu was really having great difficulties finding his words right now. He had been the one who positioned Cool Apple in the Bounty Assignment Hall to ambush Thousand Miles Drunk because he had made the deduction that Gu Fei was someone with a Windchaser’s Emblem as well, and would very likely teleport if the situation turned dire. Assuming that he would not have a full HP in such a situation, there was a good chance for the Stealthed Cool Apple to insta-kill him with a stab of his dagger.

What sort of player was Cool Apple? He was a murderous fiend who had accumulated over a thousand PK points throughout his time in Parallel World. Would he sympathize with the level for any players out there? That was why he had made the decision to strike the moment he saw the white light appear. He did not care who it was; he would kill the person first and ask questions later. Still, thinking that the opponent was Thousand Miles Drunk, Cool Apple did not dare to be careless in any sense of the word. He was absolutely focused on this task and decisively unleashed all his attacks to get a clean kill.

In the end, it was not Gu Fei who first used his Windchaser’s Emblem to teleport over but Ye Xiaowu, instead. Cool Apple’s skill was not exaggerated, so the moment he saw the white light appear, he dexterously reacted and executed all his moves in one quick breath. Thus, that white light was followed by another white light, and Ye Xiaowu was killed by Cool Apple before his figure even fully formed from the teleportation. The latter did not check to see if he was truly Thousand Miles Drunk or not. Since few owned Windchaser’s Emblems, and although Cool Apple decided to kill anyone who appeared to teleport in with that white light, he actually felt that Thousand Miles Drunk was most likely the only candidate that would teleport over at this time, so he immediately boasted about his kill to Ye Xiaowu once the deed was done.

“Hey, man, the one you just then killed is me!” Ye Xiaowu was morose right about now!

“You? What did you teleport over here for? Are you trying to add to the chaos?” Cool Apple, who was celebrating, got very blue when he saw this message. Being the murderous fiend that he was, he did not feel a shred of responsibility for killing Ye Xiaowu. What he cared about was that this kill was not actually Thousand Miles Drunk, and that he had been celebrating for nothing.

“You should strike only after you make certain who you’re targeting!” Ye Xiaowu hissed.

“Make certain for f*ck. This is Thousand Miles Drunk we’re talking about; how will I have the chance to kill him if I take the time to ascertain it’s him? What nonsense!” Cool Apple was extremely dissatisfied. He was not someone who really had the air of an expert – the sort that would feel a sense of achievement as long as he could kill whomever he had set his sights on. He was completely dissimilar from a good-to-honest expert like Sword Demon, who was pursuing technique and skill to emerge victorious over his opponents.

“Inform me if you’re teleporting over next time,” Cool Apple said.

Ye Xiaowu, who had been mistakenly killed, still had to take the blame for this mishap; he was so demoralized that he was banging his head against the wall by now. This was when Gu Fei’s message arrived, explaining to him that Gu Xian was not looking to kill him but was merely trying to receive him...

That day, a little Priest in his level 30s was seen standing at the Priest Academy’s entrance for a whole five minutes, not moving in the least even in the face of the windy breeze, wholly stupefied.

Gu Fei was waiting until he got annoyed as well. Helpless, he walked back into the tavern, shrugging toward Broken Water Arrow and the others as he said, “So, he arrived, but the moment he saw the two of us approach him, he got spooked and teleported himself away. Help me tell him that we don’t intend to kill him first,” Gu Fei said this as seriously as how he was as a person; ‘kill him first’ essentially meant that they held the right to kill him after.

The spectators surrounding them started whistling. Aside from spectating, jeering was one of their great abilities which could perhaps be the voice of the people. As the racket intensified, someone could already be heard yelling, “Are you fighting or not?!”

“Everyone, settle down!” Gu Fei was still in the mood to explain. “Because there’s been a little accident, you will all have to wait a little longer.” With that, he asked the natives of Baishi City. “How long will it take to walk from the Bounty Assignment Hall to this tavern if we’re talking about a Priest?” Gu Fei was still unaware that Ye Xiaowu had been sent back to the Priest Academy!

In the time it took for Ye Xiaowu to go back and forth like this, the two Warriors and the Fighter Mountain Breaker Axe had all already made their way back after dying. The two Warriors felt discontented after becoming the victim of Gu Fei’s sneak attack and died, but when they heard about the situation, they too followed the team’s arrangement. Meanwhile, Mountain Breaker Axe had truly gotten a little scared after all the fighting. This resolute combatant who disregarded life and death on the battlefield was actually horrified, all because the opponent he had gone up against possessed the shockingly disruptive power of true kung fu. A normal person would not have any qualifications to experience this sort of fear because they simply could not understand that feeling of uselessness despite giving their all when going up against a real expert. The average player would just be insta-killed, so why would they even feel any sense of helplessness?

“Let’s continue sparring!” Gu Fei dragged Gu Xian out. He realized that his cousin was actually a very decent sparring partner in this game.

“I’m not going to. It’s so pointless,” Gu Xian said.

“What do you mean?” Gu Fei asked.

“You’re the only one who is so passionate toward kung fu, okay? I’m only using kung fu in this game here to bully others. If you’re willing to randomly let me beat you, then I won’t mind sparring with you,” Gu Xian said.

Although Gu Xian was a monster in Parallel World, Gu Fei had also begun acclimatizing to the game and was not as rigid as Eternal Dominion. No matter how much of a genius Gu Xian was, he too had difficulties handling Gu Fei’s 20 years of training. Besides, Gu Fei was no ordinary person. If Gu Xian scored 100 points in terms of his prowess, Gu Fei would be 95 points; but adding in the hard work of either man, 0 points for Gu Xian’s against Gu Fei’s 100 points meant Gu Xian was still 100 points while Gu Fei had a total of 195 points. This was the difference in real life. Even though Parallel World’s dependence on stats helped Gu Xian bridge this gap, physically speaking, the 20 years of training Gu Fei had was not just the muscles he honed, but the other aspects which the game could not simulate.

As a result, even if the game helped supplement Gu Xian dozens of points, he was still unable to surpass Gu Fei. Furthermore, because Gu Fei’s job class was Mage, his lack of Strength reduced his total score, which made the gap between the two all the closer. If the two were of the same job class and stats distribution, then Gu Xian would still be bullied by Gu Fei.

“If you wanna spar so much, go find those guys to fight with. There’re so many of them there!” Gu Xian pointed over to the ex-soldiers.

“Haven’t we already arranged that? When that guy comes back, we can begin our practice,” Gu Fei said.

These ex-soldiers were all dejected hearing all this! By Gu Xian’s words, they were no more than people to be bullied, while Gu Fei claimed that they were for practice. These two should just go to hell!

Sniper God slapped a table and was about to say a word or two when Broken Water Arrow’s expression suddenly changed. “Why are you killed again?”

“Who died?” everyone asked in astonishment.

“Who else could it be?” Broken Water Arrow did not answer them directly.

“Fleeting Smile? What happened? Can he still make it here?” Gu Fei was more concerned than anyone present.

Everyone could not help but be speechless.

—————————-

Ye Xiaowu’s death this time around was not by Cool Apple’s hand. After he collected his emotions at the Priest Academy, the man was ready to make his way out to White Foam Tavern again. In the end, before he even walked to the end of the street outside the Priest Academy, an arrow came flying out of nowhere and insta-killed him in one shot.

Four times! In no more than 40 minutes, Ye Xiaowu had already died four times. Even No Smile had not been so wretched and miserable back in the day. No Smile’s loss of ten levels had only come at the hands of Gu Fei chasing him around for an entire night, earning him the nickname ‘A Night of Ten Losses’. If Ye Xiaowu continued at this rate, he firmly believed that he would break No Smile’s record as the fastest to lose his levels in Parallel World, and there was no telling what sort of nickname he would be associated with.

I’m being watched! This was the thought running through Ye Xiaowu’s mind when he respawned in the courtyard of the Priest Academy for the fourth time. He momentarily had no idea who could be targeting him. He was merely a little priest in his 30s, and his stat point distribution was split in the golden ratio the experts went with. He even added a portion of his points to Agility, and there was only a handful of players that could insta-kill him like this.

Even as Ye Xiaowu sent this bad news over to Broken Water Arrow, he was taking the chance to observe his surroundings standing by the doorway of the Priest Academy. He was certain that there was someone keeping an eye on him, which was why he would be killed after taking a few steps out from the safe zone.

Who could it be?

The area outside a designated safe zone would always be bustling, and it was a location which would see heavy foot traffic every day from players, no fewer than the people anyone would find on a busy street that players specifically used to peddle their wares. In such a place with such a heavy flow of human traffic, Ye Xiaowu was having a hard time uncovering just who his stalker was from what little of the road he could see. At the end of the day, he was just someone a little more familiar with the game’s design.