36. Chests Will Always Have Surprises "Phew. Everyone on the streets is talking about us."
"Yes. Luckily, we can hide our party name. I wouldn"t be here alive otherwise."
CopperPlate was sprawled out like a corpse on the thick and fluffy carpet of the President"s Suite. Once in a while, he"d roll around in playful, goofy joy. "It"s so soft. Just as expected, the President"s Suite is a special existence," he said.
The tiny cat was staring at CopperPlate. He looked like he was having fun and the carpet was really comfortable. So, it mimicked CopperPlate and rolled around on the carpet. Hence, the first thing the new arrivals to the party gathering saw were a black ball of fur and a man with frazzled, scruffy red hair competing on just who could roll harder. Black lines descended down the onlookers" faces.
"Everyone"s here. I now declare the first loot-splitting meeting open." Pop. Crackle. Sizzle. I_Am_A_Poor_Man went to his Storage beforehand to organise it and grabbed a few of last year"s Christmas poppers along the way to perk up the atmosphere.
First were the equipment. Of course, the necklace XiaoYu was already wearing didn"t count. They sorted the equipment without additional stats out. The remaining equipment was then handed out according to jobs. Those with the same jobs will compare their current equipment. The person with the worse equipment got the first choice. After all that sorting, the last remaining item, a queen"s crown, laid before the crowd. Who should have it and why were all up for debate.
"Tsk. Just like that king"s crown. It"s pretty but its stats are just trash. It"s actually +2 Agility and +2 Intelligence."
"Right. Didn"t you guys say you found a crown while grinding once? How did you split the loot then?" Below_The_Moon recalled hearing about it from CopperPlate when they were travelling through the desert.
"Oh. Chrysanthemum sold it, then we split the money," CopperPlate replied.
"If all of you trust me, I can help you fetch the highest price possible for this crown," Chrysanthemum smiled. The Healers Alliance mainly comprised of female players. This queen"s crown might be even more popular than a king"s crown.
"Sure. We"ll leave it in your hands."
With all the important equipment handed out, the party"s att.i.tude to the leftover knick-knacks and Profession materials turned more relaxed. If someone needed it for their Profession or missions, they can grab it themselves. The unwanted items were thrown into the same pile as the stat-less equipment. Once all loot was split, they"ll sell the whole pile and split the money.
The money dropped from mobs were the simplest to deal with. Evenly split after one glance at the number listed in the small cat"s Inventory.
At last, there were the Queen Ant card and a Desert Scorpion card (Poison Resistance +5%. Type: Wrist.). These were the most troublesome questions. The latter, average mob card wasn"t that hard. It"s just a matter of patience and time. It didn"t have good stats either. The former card was an extremely rare card with stats one could only wish for. It"d be a pity to sell it off, but it"s hard to say just who should have it.
"I don"t need it. Pa.s.s!" Chrysanthemum said with a wave. She was only there to tag along. It was already way beyond her expectations to have earned so much experience and crystal coins, and she was so very satisfied and fulfilled spiritually.
"We don"t need it either. We don"t have any good clothing for it," CopperPlate waved his hand too. A boss card should be slotted into +10 equipment or higher. Only then would it not be wasted. It"d be blasphemy otherwise.
NonMeta silently nodded in agreement.
"Me too. I don"t want it either," XiaoYu hurriedly followed up with a shake of his head. He felt guilty enough for taking that necklace.
"Then we"ll put it into our guild"s war supplies. I"ll push our elite smiths to make a Fur Coat about +11. What do you think, Chief?" I_Am_A_Poor_Man turned to look at HereticKing. (A Fur Coat were a rather rare equipment with good defences and didn"t have any job restrictions. Unfortunately, it can only be produced from the cunning foxes of the barren snowy mountains.)
"Mn," HereticKing grunted in a.s.sent.
"Of course, you"re all welcome to borrow it whenever you need it. But you can"t have it for guild wars," I_Am_A_Poor_Man waggled his finger. That line was said towards the non-Heretic Demons guild members. "I, Poor_Man, formally announce the end of the first loot-splitting meeting. It"s awesome that everyone"s so friendly and compromising. Yay~" As he said so, he threw flower petals up in the air.
Black lines descended down everyone"s faces once more. Just where did he get so many of these useless toys from? The petals he threw were the rose petals from the Valentine"s Day event everyone spent their time gathering.
Still, it was indeed an occasion for celebration, especially since there were rare items. Stories of how the awkward situation of having too many hands and not enough loot caused a somewhat cooperative group to turn on each other in a brawl were everywhere in the forums. Of course, this might be because half of the party members were from Heretic Demons. They"ve got a good reputation and their chief said nothing the entire time, except for a small grunt. Naturally, there was nothing for everyone to fight over. They"d already received quite a lot of good loot.
"Then…as celebration, we"ll now proceed with the next event - the heart-throbbing, face-blushing chest opening ceremony."
"Right. We still have the chests the game rewarded us. I wonder what"s hiding in there."
After the server-wide announcement, everyone received a message from the game"s system. To reward the brave players who forged and paved a new way forward, the game gave them each a chest of random items. The chests were directly placed in the players" inventories, but they were busy rushing back to the capital then. If I_Am_A_Poor_Man hadn"t mentioned it, they"d have forgotten about it.
"Let"s go one by one. I"ll open first." CopperPlate instantly perked up and dug out his mysterious and purple-glowing chest. He clasped his hands in a prayer, gathered his courage and threw the chest lid open.
"Boing~"
"Aaah!"
"Mrrrow!"
Crash! Clatter! Thonk.
"Mrrrr…"
The above happened within mere seconds. Let us look back at it in slow-motion. First, a ghastly face popped out of the box. It"s the usual kind found in prank boxes. CopperPlate was caught unawares and shouted in fright. He threw the box away from him. Of all the places that box could go to, it unfortunately went flying at the tiny cat. Frightened to the point of all turning into a frazzled ball, it started running around the room. Finally, it ended with a b.u.mp on a table corner. Its head was all swollen and bruised. It hurts. Sobs.
XiaoYu"s heart ached and he carefully gathered the kitten up in his arms for a tender and thorough petting. The tiny cat had no health indicators. He didn"t know how badly hurt it actually was. All he could do was offer it snacks in an attempt to cheer it up. But this time, the pain was too much for it to bear. It completely ignored its favourite fish. Its teary form looked so pitiful that everyone"s eyes bore right into CopperPlate.
"Oops. I didn"t mean to. Little cat. Tiny, tiny lucky. Precious baby. Don"t cry." CopperPlate had just started recovering from shock when everyone started glaring at him. Under the numerous glares attempting to kill him, he ran over to coax and soothe the small cat. Unluckily for him, this precious little kitten ignored him.
"Give it to me," HereticKing said as he held a hand out to XiaoYu. A crying cat with its paws covering its head was handed over.
"Meow~" Mister, it hurts~
Bling!
HereticKing didn"t say a single word. He just took out a shiny and shimmering gold coin and started waving it before the small cat.
"Meow! Mrrow!" A gold coin!
As if it had just been injected with a stimulant, the tiny paws abandoned the small bruise on its head and changed its target to the coin in HereticKing"s hand.
Everyone, including XiaoYu, bitterly looked away. They don"t recognise this greedy cat.