“Oh… it’s Atobe-sama.” Feng Bujue turned to the sound and saw Atobe-sama and Ming Zi as well as two more players with them. Feng Bujue had not seen them before, but none of the players’ IGNs were hidden at the market. With one glance at the two names, ’A name is so hard to find’, or Qu Ming, and ’A hard find, one’s name’, or Zhen Nan, Feng Bujue knew that they were from the same gang.
For a group like them whose relationship was so apparent just from their IGNs, they were obviously friends in real life and not acquaintances who had just met each other in game.
From the looks of it, it was Atobe-sama’s IGN that stood out from the rest.
“Tsk tsk… Stop right there, don’t act like we’re friends,” Atobe said. “Don’t you remember how much you scammed us in the previous scenario?”
“Oh, why would you say that?” Feng Bujue asked.
“Acting dumb is it? You told us to focus on training our marksmanship at the gun store, but it did not take long for a super powerful monster to appear and one-shot us almost instantly,” Atobe complained.
“Then, have you levelled up your marksmanship to E?” Feng Bujue retorted.
“Hmm… Well, we have,” Atobe replied.
“Then, case closed. The goal has been completed. Your marksmanship improved from N/A to E, and you gained some equipment. So, you died; I never promised that you would survive until the end, did I?” Feng Bujue turned the question back. “Furthermore… why did you expect me to carry you to the end of the scenario? I’m not a professional player paid to help other players train their level.”
“Well, the man has a point,” Ming Zi said.
“What point‽” Atobe roared, but he could not come up with anything to counter. At the time, he and Ming Zi had been completely dumbfounded by Feng Bujue’s demeanor and chose to listen to his orders, so they could not really blame him for what happened. “But never mind, I am not as narrow-minded as that. Furthermore, we did receive some EXP when the scenario was cleared, so I shall forgive you.”
“Boo!” The three behind Atobe mocked him in unison.
“Whose side are you guys on anyway?” Atobe grumbled in annoyance. The poor man was quite unlucky. He was the boss of a gaming studio, but he only had three employees, and none of them respected his authority as the boss.
How could one discern the relationship between bros? Mainly, they were close to each other when they could mock each other easily but would never be offended. If the two were always polite and cautious around each other, one could only say that they were mere acquaintances.
“Huh? All four of you are wearing a uniform, and it comes with a logo—how did you do that?” Feng Bujue asked. When he saw the four, he noticed that they were wearing the same apparel. Now that the market was open, the company had pushed out many different outfits to allow the player to have more freedom to choose their personalized apparel. For someone like Feng Bujue who was still wearing the default black T-shirt and jeans, they were either open beta players who had not cleared many scenarios or closed beta players who happened to splurge their Game Coins on other things.
The four before him were dressed in sports attire. They had white long-sleeved shirts with a heavy emphasis on the color blue. The two sleeves and, starting from the left shoulder, one third of the shirt was blue in color. The pants were black, loose sports slacks. Well… they were Hyotei, what would you expect?
On their right shoulders, there was a special logo where the word ’Hyotei’ was written vertically. Floating above the name was a faded blue symbol of an iced rose. This was the latest feature provided by the game, an extension of the ’guild’ system. The guild leader could design a guild logo, and then it would show up on all the clothes of the guild members. Based on the style of the Apparel, the system would select the most suitable spot for the logo to appear, and since the four from Hyotei had uniform apparel, the logo appeared on the right shoulder for all of them.
“That would be the symbol of our studio,” Atobe-sama said proudly. “I designed it myself!”
“Just to clarify, I personally don’t think this logo look that cool,” Qu Ming interjected. His facial features could be called handsome, but weirdly enough, he was sporting an afro.
“By the way, it was Atobe who forced us to wear this apparel as well,” Zhen Nan added. This brother made himself look more handsome in game, but like his friend, he was sporting a weird hairstyle, a Mohawk to be specific.
Of the four weirdos, other than Atobe-sama, who was relatively normal, the other three were respectively, Ming Zi, bald; Qu Ming, afro; Zhen Nan, Mohawk. In reality, all three of them had typical crew cuts in real life, and they would never use crazy hairstyles like these in real life, so they thought of having a little fun in-game.
“Indeed… This logo does look quite feminine. I feel bad for you,” Feng Bujue said in a pitiable tone. “Thankfully, you manage to stand out with these amazing hairstyles…”
“Hey, who said the logo is feminine‽ It is obviously very handsome, sharp, and graceful!” Atobe exclaimed.
“Brother…” Feng Bujue placed his arm around the youth’s shoulder. “This is as feminine as a floral case filled with lemon buttercream…”
Atobe pushed him away. “I don’t think I can understand your simile…”
“Sigh… Mr. Feng, you see, he just refuses to listen to us,” Ming Zi added weakly from the back, which Qu Ming and Zhen Nan confirmed.
“So damn stubborn…”
“I think the guild name should just be changed to Hyotei Money Boys Club…”
“What are you guys grumbling about‽” Atobe roared. “I’m the guild leader, remember?”
Because his voice was slightly loud this time, a virtual guard immediately materialized next to them. The guard had a humanoid shape, about 1.9 meters tall with no skin but a complete metallic skeleton. It looked like the robot from Terminator. He was wearing a black uniform with “Security” printed in huge letters on the back. If there was any commotion in a public area, like a gang fight or something like that, the virtual guard would show up to maintain the order and peace.
“Is there any problem here?” The guard’s voice was set up to be a robotic tone that had no emotions, but actually, they had incredibly high intelligence, so they normally would not rely on brute force but reason unless it was absolutely necessary.
“There’s no problem—we’re just chatting,” Feng Bujue replied. The guard nodded, looked at them, and turned to leave.
“Looks like I’ll need to return to the log-in lobby to skim over the complete open beta game manual again.” Feng Bujue looked at the retreating guard and smiled.
“Anyway, we’re not going to stay to talk nonsense with you anymore lest this group of people finds more opportunities to sell me out,” Atobe told him. “In the near future… when we, Hyotei, make a name for ourselves, this logo will naturally become the symbol of power. Ha ha ha…”
He had his arms on his waist and laughed. He waved at his friends. “Let’s go…”
Before leaving, he turned back to say, “Mr. Feng, we’ll definitely meet again. If you ask me for a signature in the future, I’ll be kind enough to let you cut the queue. Ha ha ha…”
Feng Bujue’s lips twitched, and he laughed drily. “Good… goodbye…”