Chapter 203 - Mission accomplished!
With the situation in the bar restored to a state of normality, all the leaders began to privately collect their thoughts. Many of them promptly tried adding Drifting as a friend and expectedly received the [Player Drifting is currently not accepting any friend request.] system prompt. Those who were sitting near Drifting even started to strike a conversation with him.
Of course, with how War Without Wounds had greeted Gu Fei earlier and how Gu Fei had exchanged furtive glances with Brother Assist, the others could not shake off the feeling that these people actually knew one another. Still, it was true that their payment of 100 gold coins was well worth it if they could get to know the number one Mage in Parallel World, Drifting. Now that the crowd had calmed down and recalled the purpose of their visit, they realized that the important thing to do now was to interact with Drifting before anyone else had the chance to do so. All the other matters could take a back seat.
Despite Drifting becoming the focal point of this conference, he oddly remained unresponsive. Suddenly, he raised his hand with his five fingers upright and waved it toward Young Master Han and Brother Assist, as if he was greeting them.
Brother Assist was momentarily stunned by his action. It seemed that Drifting was willing to act his part in this charade and was even reassuring them. What a great guy! Brother Assist felt immensely touched and he quickly waved his hand back at Drifting. However, Drifting completely ignored him.
Next to Brother Assist, Young Master Han raised his hand as well and waved it slightly, his three fingers at attention.
Almost immediately, Drifting retracted his thumb with only his four fingers remaining upright.
In response, Young Master Han retracted his ring finger and left his forefinger and middle finger upright.
Drifting handily retracted three fingers, left just his forefinger up, and wagged it toward Young Master Han before putting his hand down.
All the players saw Drifting waving his hand to greet the two event organizers, but none of them noticed Young Master Han sneakily answering back. Only Brother Assist, who was right beside Young Master Han, witnessed their whole exchange. When the two finished their finger gesturing, Brother Assist asked, “What was that all about?”
Young Master Han began to explain, “He asked for 5000 gold coins, and I rebutted with 3000 gold coins.”
Brother Assist began to piece everything together, “So when he asked for 4000 gold coins, you gave him the price of 2000 gold coins?”
Young Master Han nodded his head.
“Then… He voluntarily dropped his price to only 1000 gold coins?” Brother Assist could not understand this part.
“That finger movement means that we will discuss this matter after this,” Young Master Han corrected.
“Do you guys know each other?” Brother Assist asked. It was hard to imagine two perfect strangers being able to successfully communicate with each other using their fingers alone.
“No, we don’t. This is just a matter of IQ,” Young Master Han said matter-of-factly, leaving Brother Assist quite dejected.
After all their finger gesturing, Drifting was now gamely playing his role. He even took the initiative to stand up before anyone could discern the true nature of his relationship with Young Master’s Elite and addressed the crowd, “This is my first time in Yunduan City, so I hope that everyone here will take good care of me from here onward.”
“Of course! That is to be expected!” all the leaders eagerly agreed to his request. Everyone present was rather prominent in Yunduan City, but that was still nothing compared to Drifting, whose name was well-known throughout Parallel World. If an unknown player was the Insta-kill Mage, all these leaders could still dream of successfully headhunting him. But since the Insta-kill Mage turned out to be such a huge character, at least half of them understood that their chances of recruiting Drifting were slim and nearly zero. Only Oathless Sword, the guild leader of Traversing Four Seas, which was the largest guild in Yunduan City, was extremely happy at this turn of events. He believed that out of all the leaders present in the conference, he had the best chance at recruiting Drifting.
As an experienced gamer that was often in the limelight, Drifting was able to easily handle the attention of all these influential figures and to casually socialize with them. But despite Drifting’s excellent social skills, mingling with everyone was still not possible for him, and this resulted into quite a few people being left high and dry. All the present leaders were distinguished by their own right, so none of them could stand being disregarded by anyone, even someone as popular as Drifting.
These people were of course feeling unhappy at having spent 100 gold coins without managing to acquaint themselves with the number one Mage, but they were not so unreasonable that they would blame this outcome on Young Master’s Elite. But Silver Moon could see just how frustrating they were feeling inside, and he was currently scheming on causing everyone to get mad at Young Master’s Elite once more.
Silver Moon had attempted to sabotage the ‘meet and greet’ event by getting everyone to view Young Master’s Elite as a common enemy earlier, and in the end it was the many leaders who were treating one another as enemies instead since they were all competing to get close to Drifting. When his plan had fallen through, Silver Moon had gone back to quietly observing the situation. Seeing the few disregarded leaders’ desire to vent their frustration on someone, he knew that he had found another opportunity to create trouble for Young Master’s Elite and hurriedly cleared his throat, “Ahem. I say, there’s no doubt that Drifting is the number one Mage—”
“Number one, my foot!” Royal God Call indignantly interjected.
“Mhm-mhm. I know that Royal bro was also very glorious back then…” Silver Moon threw a half-hearted flattery at Royal God Call. He tried to divert everyone’s attention from Drifting by pointing directly at Gu Fei and saying, “I don’t know what this guy’s intentions are, but he was making a scene just now by claiming to do a ‘Bounty Mission’. Somehow, I got the feeling that he is well acquainted with you all based on the interactions you lot were having just now!”
The way Gu Fei suddenly barged into the bar and how the rest of Young Master’s Elite greeted him earlier were very suspicious, and Silver Moon kindly reminded the dissatisfied leaders of this fact, so that they could have a valid reason to vent their built-up resentment toward these few ‘event organizers’.
Given that a few of the present leaders had pretty terrible personalities to begin with, Silver Moon easily succeeded at enticing them. They immediately latched on to his words and once more pointed accusing fingers at Brother Assist and friends, “That’s right! We demand an explanation for this matter. Just what is going on here?! That Mage clearly talked to you guys when he came in, so how come you all claim to not know who he is?”
Brother Assist did not know how to answer the person’s question, and it was the expressionless Young Master Han who replied, “When did talking equate to knowing each other? You’re talking to me right now, but do you know who I am?”
The person was briefly taken aback by this statement. Since the man he had instigated proved to be a weak hand, the clever Silver Moon felt the need to give him a helping hand, “Don’t play word games with us; do you think we’re stupid?”
Young Master Han merely snorted at his words, showing a defiant look on his face.
Silver Moon was glad that Young Master Han was so intransigent; at this rate, the situation would reach a point where words would be meaningless and a fight would break out, which was exactly what Silver Moon was hoping for. Thus, he became more fervent at inciting the crowd, “If you don’t explain this matter properly, we would not be convinced that we have spent 100 gold coins appropriately!”
The leaders who had been unable to talk with Drifting nodded their heads maliciously as they stared at Young Master Han and the gang with malevolent eyes.
Gu Fei, who had been staying quiet all this while, finally said, “I don’t know what you guys are yapping about, but haven’t I told you all already? I’m here on a ‘Bounty Mission’!”
“Oh, yeah? Who is your bounty target, then?” Silver Moon challenged. Since he was aware of Gu Fei’s identity and had been observing the latter all this while, Silver Moon figured that the matter at hand was not as simple as it seemed.
However, Silver Moon made a miscalculation. He wanted to use the misunderstanding to start a huge fight that could not be resolved by mere words. While he correctly judged that Young Master’s Elite was on the weak side when matched up against these influential leaders, he did not account for Gu Fei being bold enough to make the first move.
Gu Fei already disliked Silver Moon, and now that the latter was trying to incite everyone present into fighting, he was more than happy to start a fight on the spot. When Silver Moon gleefully inquired about his bounty target, Gu Fei simply answered, “You!” He then stepped on to a bench and leaped over the table, slashing the sword in his hand across Silver Moon’s face.
“Twin Incineration! Incinerate!” Gu Fei chanted, causing even the leaders chatting with Drifting to turn their heads over and look.
All they saw was a fiery slash enveloping a dark shadow before brushing past Silver Moon’s face. This one stroke of Gu Fei was truly vicious. Although Silver Moon did not get insta-killed, a straight cut was left across his face.
Gu Fei gave it a look as he sighed, “The bottom part is a bit crooked; looks like my hand isn’t steady enough. Sigh… Seems like the weight of this sword isn’t very handy!”
Silver Moon was so shocked that he pointed at Gu Fei and repeatedly said, “You… You… You… You…” What he wanted to say was, “How dare you strike at me just like that!” But since Gu Fei had already executed his move, what was the point of saying that? This was what the adage ‘When a scholar meets a soldier’ meant. Silver Moon was a ‘scholar’ who was using his gift of the gab to breed discord among the people, yet his chance encounter with the ‘soldier’ Gu Fei who merely used brute strength to resolve any issue became his downfall.
Silver Moon did not get insta-killed by Gu Fei as his equipment provided him with high magic defense, but the attack was still powerful enough to drop his HP into the red. Thankfully, his two companions quickly flanked his sides. Although they reacted half a beat slower to Gu Fei, the two readily slashed at Gu Fei’s face to give it a cut of their own.
“‘Bounty Mission’! Please leave if you’re not involved!” Gu Fei shouted this as he retreated to dodge the two’s incoming attacks.
The two men were of course not frightened off by Gu Fei’s words and even positioned themselves right before Silver Moon to protect him.
Silver Moon knew that this was useless, as Gu Fei had another fearsome skill in hand. Knowing that he was no match for the deadly Gu Fei even with his two companions, he immediately bolted toward the bar entrance as he continued to provoke Gu Fei, “What are you doing?! Are you trying to silence me?!” Silver Moon was trying to incite the present leaders into aiding him.
But even though he had spoken these words quickly, Gu Fei’s words were still faster, “Translocation! Blink!”
By the time Silver Moon finished his words, Gu Fei had already teleported himself right before Silver Moon.
The blurry image of a moving sword and a fiery glow streaking through the air killed Silver Moon there and then.
“Mission accomplished!” Gu Fei exclaimed in satisfaction, as the entire bar descended into silence once more.