Chapter 289 - Somber Drinking
It was just as Vast Lushness had said; Dusky Cloud and his lot were indeed men of their words. Gu Fei and company walked down the streets under the watchful gazes of Yueye City’s players, yet no one gave them a hard time.
Some players even looked familiar, as if they were among those who had closely pursued Sakurazaka Moony and his lot just moments ago, now walking no more than five meters apart from one another. Sakurazaka Moony was still on guard against these men, yet those players instead began chatting with them casually. “Are you guys logging off? Let’s go together!” someone even warmly invited.
“M*th*rf*ck*rs. What a bunch of d*ckw*ds.” Sakurazaka Moony and his gang did not know whether to cry or laugh at this absurd situation. They were totally drained from running all day and night, and those people pursuing them all this while were naturally not in a better shape. The Ten Guild Alliance might have been able to swap the players out easily, given how many members it had, yet some of the faces Sakurazaka Moony was currently seeing belonged to those men that had tenaciously been on their tail from start to finish.
Sakurazaka Moony’s team lost twenty members as a result of this, but the losses of the Ten Guild Alliance far surpassed that number. Most of them were killed off by Sakurazaka Moony and company’s occasional volley of arrows when they got ensnared by the traps.
“Let’s log off and rest up, then.” Sakurazaka Moony and the gang made a beeline for the spawn point.
“What about tonight’s mission?” Gu Fei asked, perplexed. All the mercenary groups were supposed to rendezvous with Traversing Four Seas in an hour to resume their journey toward the next in-game city. Was Sakurazaka Moony giving up on this mission just for his mercenary group to be able to rest up and sleep in reality?
“Drunk bro, didn’t you hear from your mercenary group leader? We are temporarily staying over in Yueye City tonight. Seems like they have an important matter to attend to over here before we can continue the expedition.”
“Is that so? What business is that?” Gu Fei asked.
“I don’t know about that. I’ve been on the run all this while; where would I find the time to meet with them?!” Sakurazaka Moony answered.
“Oh. I’ll see you guys later, then!” Gu Fei bid them goodbye with a wave of his hand. Why would he log off now when he just got online a while ago?
With that, this bunch of people continued to head toward the nearest spawn point. Gu Fei had seen plenty of players showing dissatisfied looks after getting PKed, yet these reprehensible men were unexpectedly very open-minded about such matters. A person’s character is just too complex! Gu Fei sighed to himself.
With this matter resolved, Gu Fei was just about to acquire himself a ‘Bounty Mission’ from the Bounty Assignment Hall when he was alerted by the system of a new message. It was from Sword Demon: “Dusky Cloud is treating us to a round of drinks and is specifically mentioning you. Mind coming over for a bit?”
That was quick! Gu Fei thought to himself. He reckoned Dusky Cloud would promptly contact Sword Demon to find out what was going on the moment he caught wind of Thousand Miles Drunk extricating Sakurazaka Moony and company from their predicament. After fighting side by side in that previous guild war in Yueye City, Dusky Cloud and Sword Demon had added each other as friends. Hearing that Sword Demon and his fellow mercenaries were in Yueye City once more, Dusky Cloud saw it fit to receive them properly as the de facto overlord of the city.
Sword Demon and War Without Wounds had a good impression of Dusky Cloud, so it was unlikely for them to reject his offer. Royal God Call and Brother Assist did not have a particular opinion about him, but since this was a treat, they had no reason to miss it. As for Young Master Han, the fact that he did not see eye to eye with Dusky Cloud only gave him more incentive to take up his offer. Gu Fei reckoned Young Master Han would make it a point to drink more than his fill just to hurt Dusky Cloud through his pockets.
Gu Fei originally did not wish to join in on the fun, but thinking that Dusky Cloud and his gang had only let off Vast Lushness, Sakurazaka Moony, and company on his account today, he could not tell for sure what tomorrow would bring. While half of The Great Hunting’s members managed to survive today, the Ten Guild Alliance might just hunt them down with greater ferocity than their hunt for the Past Deeds’ members if he did not respond to Dusky Cloud’s offer appropriately.
I better head over there and find out Dusky Cloud and the rest’s plan of action! Gu Fei told himself. Getting the location from Sword Demon, he made his way over to the tavern.
Yueye City did not have any player-operated tavern like Ray’s Bar in Yunduan City, so Dusky Cloud just chose the largest establishment in the heart of the city to hold the welcome party. Being the overlord that he was, all the tavern patrons vacated the premise once he entered the tavern. The system-designated tavern owner continued to conduct business as usual and attended to the remaining players, obviously not bothered by the sudden departure of a large bulk of customers.
When Gu Fei reached the tavern, the place was already jam-packed with people from the Ten Guild Alliance. He even saw the team leader that he had exchanged words with earlier occupying a table, along with a few others that had died by his sword moments ago. Every member of Young Master's Elite was indeed present, sitting around a few small tables that were dragged together to form a large one. Dusky Cloud and a few others, whom Gu Fei could currently not recall the names of but reckoned were also leaders of the Ten Guild Alliance, were sitting with Young Master’s Elite. The Ten Guild Alliance should at least have ten guild leaders as well, right?
The whole tavern grew quiet with Gu Fei’s arrival. Sword Demon and the rest raised their hands to greet him; Dusky Cloud demonstrated the nimbleness that a Thief possessed by reaching Gu Fei in a few quick steps. With a handshake and a pat on the back, Dusky Cloud showed his pleasure to Gu Fei’s presence, “You’re finally here, bro. Come; let’s take a seat.”
Gu Fei followed him to the table everyone was occupying, took off the piece of cloth covering his face, and sat on a seat. Dusky Cloud offered a glass of liquor to Gu Fei, who received it with a word of thanks.
The liquor he had received was the very best, noting that the others were also enjoying the same sort of liquor; their table was not treated any differently from the rest alcohol-wise. Young Master Han took this opportunity to drink as much as he could; Dusky Cloud did not seem to mind his behavior in the least, merely ordering a few more bottles for the table when he discovered how much the man was enjoying himself.
Gu Fei even saw Brother Assist lift his fingers while watching Young Master Han drink. He chuckled to himself as he realized that Brother Assist must have nothing better to do than to calculate how much money Young Master Han had drunk away in this sitting.
Honestly speaking, besides fighting a guild war together in Parallel World’s open beta days, not everyone on this table was familiar with Young Master’s Elite. Once Gu Fei sat down, Dusky Cloud and his brothers immediately expressed their admiration for Gu Fei’s fighting prowess and such.
Gu Fei felt obligated to humbly thank them for their kind words.
Dusky Cloud and his men might be uninhibitedly heroic when it came to PvPing, but speaking to strangers was evidently not their strong suit. They usually spoke bluntly with one another and their words were peppered with expletives every few sentences. They quickly hit it off among themselves upon realizing that they shared this common quirk.
Although some of these individuals held high positions, their way of speaking was all the same, so it was practically impossible to differentiate one man from another if anyone shut his or her eyes.
These leaders’ casual uncouthness was highly incompatible when they were meeting people for the first time. However, removing the expletives in their speech would just cause these men to be at a loss for words. When the formal introductions ended, not one person around the table spoke, creating a very awkward atmosphere.
This situation persisted for several minutes. Eventually, Dusky Cloud lifted his glass and stood up. “That’s Old Cloud for ya!” The other nine leaders were very excited, gazing at him rather expectantly.
“Ha! Cheers, everyone!” Dusky Cloud announced.
“F*ck*ng m*th*rf*ck*r, you’re so useless Old Cloud!” They did not expect for Dusky Cloud to stand up and spout such inconsequential nonsense, so they eyed him contemptuously.
Dusky Cloud was obviously feeling awkward himself. He did not know what else to say after downing the entire content of a whole glass. He had easily found a topic to discuss with Sword Demon thanks to the latter being an avid gamer like himself and sharing the same job class. Right now, Dusky Cloud could not find any possible topic to discuss with Gu Fei, and the only question he could come up with after thinking for a while was: “Miles bro, what type of games did you play before Parallel World?”
“I hardly played any games before,” Gu Fei admitted. If Silver Moon were in Dusky Cloud’s position right now, he would surely follow up that question with: “So you’re practically a newbie when it comes to playing MMO yet you’re already this good? What a genius!” He would then keep the conversation going by supplementing it with a whole batch of flattering words. As for this bunch of men, Gu Fei’s lack of any gaming history to speak of only served to widen the language barrier between them.
All drank their liquor by themselves as a result, while the host Dusky Cloud felt extremely embarrassed at how things had turned out. He regretted calling this bunch of useless idiots along for this; he should have brought those players that were great at livening up the atmosphere, instead! Dusky Cloud got pissed when he thought of this. Slapping the table, he said, “M*th*rf*ck*ng Celestial Pig, don’t you usually have a lot to say?! Why are you so quiet today?!”
Celestial Pig scratched his head for a bit. Looking at Gu Fei, he finally blurted out, “Didn’t you slay me before?!”
Dusky Cloud almost keeled over and fainted. I asked you to say something, yet you actually said something so acrimonious! Every inch of him really wished to drag the idiot out to the back and shoot him in the back of his head.
Unexpectedly, Gu Fei nodded his head in agreement. “I think I did. Were you together with No Smile at the time? Speaking of which, it’s been a long time since I last saw that guy.” He glanced at the men around him as he said this, but these men ‘coincidentally’ brought their glass to their mouths. They looked as if they were contented with just watching the show unfold.
“Oh, he isn’t around…” Dusky Cloud said, slightly embarrassed. No Smile was online, but Dusky Cloud did not call him over. Anyway, he was certain that No Smile would not willingly turn up even if he requested for the latter to be present.
No Smile had lost a total of ten levels when Gu Fei had hunted him down in the past. However, the number of experience points he had lost for those ten levels was equivalent to dropping from level 40 to level 39; it really was not much.
Despite this, the impact of Gu Fei’s action on No Smile had been huge. No Smile was still reluctant to offer his name when someone asked for it even to this day, just like how Fireball was. To those players who were aware of that past incident, No Smile’s name was synonymous with ‘loser’. No matter how formidable he became in the future, he would forever be that loser Thousand Miles Drunk had once dropped by ten levels.
No Smile’s hatred for Gu Fei was something that could not easily be reconciled. Even recalling the psychological damage Gu Fei had inflicted on him was painful for No Smile. This was precisely why Dusky Cloud felt awkward; being a good friend of No Smile’s, not only did he fail to avenge his humiliation, he was even currently sharing the same table and drinks with Gu Fei.
There was nothing he could do about this, though. While Dusky Cloud wanted to help No Smile slay Gu Fei, No Smile was not exactly well regarded by his friends. Out of the other nine guild leaders present, eight essentially did not care for his existence, while the moron Celestial Pig had no opinion of him either way. Just his previous question to Gu Fei moments ago showed his lack of tact.
Even Dusky Cloud himself could not understand how he had become such good friends with No Smile. Evidently, the impression these two players had of each other in the other MMOs they had played together in the past was entirely supplemented by their wishful thinking of each other. It was not so easy to hide the players’ real personality in this fully immersive environment, since Parallel World was a VRMMO that allowed them to come face to face with one another.
Now that Dusky Cloud had personally met No Smile in Yueye City, the thought of helping the latter constantly wavered.