Virtual World: Close Combat Mage

Chapter 114 - Controlled Exposure

When Gu Fei got July’s “Alright, come over!” reply, he was immediately at a loss.

Thinking back to the attitude that the Amethyst Rebirth’s ladies had shown him the first time they met and Luo Luo’s earlier comment about the way the ladies viewed him differently from the other male players, Gu Fei thought for sure that July would reject his request. Right now, not only did July not reject his request, she also readily agreed to it.

Did she wrongly assume that I’m introducing another lady to the guild? Gu Fei realized the possibility of that, so he quickly sent her another message to clarify, “They’re men!”

Unexpectedly, July replied much faster than before, “That’s fine. We’re still at Ray’s Bar!”

She must be drunk, Gu Fei thought to himself. At the same time, he realized that he could shirk taking responsibility for this issue. Since the other party had no issue with meeting the two men, then he was merely someone who introduced two groups of friends to each other, so it was not like he was in the wrong for bringing men to meet those from Amethyst Rebirth.

With that, Gu Fei got up and looked at War Without Wounds and Royal God Call that had the look of expectation written all over their faces, “Let’s go!”

“Where to?” they asked.

“To the room next door for you guys to meet the ladies!” Gu Fei answered.

“Oh, yes!” both exclaimed in elation. They only wanted to get their names; they did not expect to have their first intimate contact with the ladies this soon, instead.

“You sure do things efficiently, Miles. I really admire that about you,” War Without Wounds beamed, as if he had not just called Gu Fei a ‘goody-goody’ a short while ago.

“Thanks,” Gu Fei bitterly laugh as he brought the two into the next room.

“Wishing to meet and actually meeting; to think we’re just several steps away from one another!” Royal God Call sighed as he tried to sound sophisticated. Gu Fei stopped himself from sending a roundhouse kick on Royal God Call’s mouth.

Gu Fei lifted the curtain and beckoned the two inside the room. After exchanging introductions between the two parties, the atmosphere became really harmonious within the room. Gu Fei looked at the four ladies and saw that their eyes were clear, not looking the least bit drunk. He really could not make sense of this.

Royal God Call began hitting on the ladies. He pointed at Luo Luo first and said, “I’ve met you before!” He then addressed Ice Glaze and Lie Lie next, “I’ve also met you two before, right?”

The three ladies smiled and nodded their heads. War Without Wounds coughed loudly when he saw Royal God Call steal the first move, taking up three out of the four ladies.

Meanwhile, Gu Fei’s heart thumped at this moment. Royal God Call’s mention of ‘meeting before’ made him realize something: Lie Lie and Ice Glaze saw Young Master Han and the other three men deal with Nightmare of Death by the north gate’s mailbox earlier. Gu Fei now knew why these ladies were more than willing to agree to his request. It was because of that earlier encounter! Just as he was about to warn the two men about this via a message, July unexpectedly cut to the chase, “Are you two from Young Master’s Elite mercenary group?”

I knew it! Gu Fei called out inside him. He failed to remind the two in time, as Royal God Call very quickly replied, “I can tell you girls, but you gotta keep it a secret!”

F*ck! Isn’t that as good as admitting to it? Gu Fei felt depressed. July solemnly promised, “Don’t worry; you guys were such a big help back then. We’re only curious, so we’re asking. I assure you we won’t tell it to anyone else.”

As Royal God Call heard this, he nodded his head with equal severity, “We’re indeed part of Young Master’s Elite.”

At this moment, the four no longer looked at Gu Fei the same way as before. July’s eyes told Gu Fei: “How’s that? Can’t lie your way out of this now, right?” With this reveal, she recalled Gu Fei’s antics from before and naturally realized that those were done to hide the truth.

Of course, Gu Fei was feeling very uncomfortable right now. Just as he was about to say something to take control of the situation, Royal God Call very quickly added, “We both are, but Miles isn’t.”

“Ah?!” everyone expressed in shock.

Royal God Call displayed a look of disdain on his face, “He wants to join Young Master’s Elite, but he has yet to pass the test. You guys should know how bullishly strong our Mage is. Miles just couldn’t match up.”

“So who’s that Mage, then?” July asked carefully.

Royal God Call shook his head, “We can tell you about everyone but the Mage. He’s got a lot of enemies, so telling anyone his name will only invite trouble. Sorry about that,” Royal God Call’s gaze showed his decisiveness on this matter.

Gu Fei was thoroughly shocked by this. He never thought that Royal God Call would actually help him at such a critical moment. The four ladies immediately looked despondent. Just as Gu Fei had thought, the ladies were more interested in him, the Close Combat Mage, than anyone else in the mercenary group.

“So who are the others?” Luo Luo asked.

“There’s Sword Demon, Brother Assist, and Young Master Han. You girls probably haven’t heard the ‘Young Master Han’ IGN before; how about ‘Drinking Addict’?” Royal God Call asked.

“Ah!” July and Luo Luo exclaimed.

“So these are the members that made up Young Master’s Elite. They indeed live up to their names,” July sighed deeply.

“Sis July?” Ice Glaze was not an experienced gamer, so she was somewhat puzzled by all this.

“The five IGNs in their mercenary group are players that left quite the mark in the online gaming world. It’s truly hard to believe that they’ve actually banded together. Calling them ‘elite’ is an understatement; they should be considered as one-in-ten-thousand experts of the online gaming community,” July explained emphatically.

“You praise us too much,” Royal God Call and War Without Wounds could barely conceal their grins.

In actual fact, they barely heard such flattering words after joining Young Master’s Elite mercenary group, being side by side with equal experts and all. The even worse fact was that the most prominent and powerful member in the six-man group was actually a nobody like Gu Fei. This had made the five forget their identities as first-rate experts. Sometimes, experts like them needed their ego to be massaged with praises and applauses to at least build up their self-confidence.

“Alright, you ladies have fun chatting with this gaming elite pair. I’ll take my leave now,” Gu Fei said placidly.

“Go ahead. Grind well and fight for your chance to join our group,” Royal God Call encouraged.

War Without Wounds nodded his head, “Level doesn’t mean everything, especially in games like Parallel World that are difficult to level up. We can only depend on luck for equipment, but skill must be gruelingly trained using our own efforts.”

“That’s true,” the girls cheered.

“You beasts,” Gu Fei muttered to himself. Leaving the four ladies and two men, he headed to the room next door. Young Master Han and Brother Assist were still inside!

“What’s the matter? How many ladies did you introduce those two?” the two asked, chuckling.

“Four,” Gu Fei answered.

Young Master Han shook his head and sighed, “Our identities are about to be exposed, then.”

“We’re already exposed,” Gu Fei corrected.

“And your identity is still kept in the dark, right?” Young Master Han smirked.

“How did you know?” Gu Fei asked, surprised.

Young Master Han smiled, “Those two are there to chase skirts, so why would they willingly let you steal their thunder? If they admitted that you’re a member of Young Master’s Elite, those ladies would know that you’re Fugitive 27149. I’ve already said before that you’re the only one the ladies are truly interested in. Rest assured; those two won’t reveal your identity even if it means dying. Even if you go back there and shout that you’re actually Fugitive 27149, they’ll still think of ways to convince the ladies that you’re not.”

“D*mn!” Gu Fei was dumbfounded. He hated himself for not having the brains to realize the real intention of that rascal Royal God Call. He thought that Royal God Call was doing his utmost to protect his identity, only to find out now that his action was for something deplorable.

“Ha ha ha! Putting down the people around him to elevate his status—that’s a common skirt-chasing technique in online games. Since you’re gone, I’m 80% sure that those two have turned to mocking each other now. Just wait and watch!” Brother Assist remarked.

Gu Fei was amazed. Just as Brother Assist had predicted, Royal God Call and War Without Wounds began to ridicule each other ever since that day. Their verbal mockery would start every time they met, spreading to the mercenary channel for all to see. As for the private conversation between the two, that was filled with even more insults that were beyond counting.

Whenever the rest of the group got tired of grinding every day, they would simply pull out the mercenary channel and read the chat logs of both verbally beating down each other to entertain themselves. Gu Fei did not care about all this, but Brother Assist addressed this matter to him seriously, “You can’t see it like that. These two are experts; their verbal fights ain’t just talk. An example is yesterday’s passage when they exchanged disdainful remarks with each other. It’s like a match between a Mage and a Warrior on paper, which contained plenty of techniques used by Mages and Warriors. Remember when War Without Wounds said something about using the network delay to turn five hits into six? Even I’ve never heard of that before.”

Besides this, the two began to loiter around the street that Amethyst Rebirth’s guild house was situated. Its distance from Ray’s Bar was relatively close. Whenever the other four of Young Master’s Elite mercenary group left the bar after resting there, they would countless times see Royal God Call and War Without Wounds walking up and down the street while giving each other verbal lashing. After asking a bit, they found out that the two had intended to create a ‘coincidental meet-up’ scenario with the Amethyst Rebirth’s ladies on that lane.

The two did not wish to be outdone by the other in their skirt-chasing; thus, they spent copious amounts of time doing such inane things, causing their rankings on the experience leaderboard to gradually drop with each passing day. War Without Wounds was no longer the number one on the Warrior leaderboard, while Royal God Call was already outside the top 20 spots on the Archer leaderboard.

“Lust is the heart of troubles!” the other four could not help but sigh.

Gu Fei spent these few days rather monotonously. He had been hoping that someone would come to pick a fight with him, yet his days passed by in such peace that he bristled with anger.

He had originally thought that his accumulated 12 PK points would act as a tantalizing bait, yet not one soul came to find him at all. Ever since the game’s first day of open beta, the players began to have a good understanding of the various quests and mission designs in Parallel World. The purpose of ‘Bounty Mission’ was more or less to erase PK value. Therefore, it was not profitable for players to depend on this sort of missions to earn money or gain levels. This was because the risks involved for such missions were high while the rewards were average at best; it was truly a bad trade-off. As for erasing PK value, most players only had 1 or 2 PK points. Thus, there was no need to hunt someone with a PK value of 12 points like Gu Fei.

Losing 1 PK point every two hours, Gu Fei’s 12 PK points were cleared off just like that, which caused him to feel very sad, as he had just lost some great opportunities to engage in PvPs.

Besides that, Nightmare of Death and gang did not actually look for him after what had happened. Gu Fei remembered how the gang members had shown interest in his Moonlit Nightfalls, yet they did not even make a move on it. This was something Gu Fei could not fathom.

As such days passed by one by one, Gu Fei found it difficult to tolerate the monotony after getting addicted to PvP. He would even take a stroll down the streets in his hopes to bump into a chance for him to become belligerent. Unfortunately for him, Yunduan City’s atmosphere was one of peace; Gu Fei even entertained the thought of returning to Yueye City.

At the same time, just as what Brother Assist had said before, the game’s official release was about to happen.