Chapter 365 - Bullying the Minority with the Majority
A continuous stream of players ran down the city"s main street to the harbor, arriving at the beach according to their respective movement speed. When the two fastest Thieves first arrived, they did not make a beeline for Gu Fei. Instead, after exchanging a quick glance with the six men, they boldly activated their Stealth right before his eyes.
Using Stealth was rather effective in this case; Gu Fei was currently in a busy bar by the beach and his circ.u.mstances essentially commanded everyone"s attention. Therefore, plenty of people had their eyes on them as they drank. Gu Fei could sense all the players looking at him, so determining where the two Thieves in Stealth were hiding would not be easy at all.
However, despite being in Stealth, these people still did not dare to do anything to him. As such, he calmly continued watching as more and more people arrived at his and Young Master Han"s location. Upon closer inspection, he realized that the people making their way over were the very same people that he had seen at the Bounty a.s.signment Hall; it seemed this was everyone else on the opposing side!
Even Young Master Han felt disappointed at the sight at the paltry number of foes and shook his head. “Are they all the backups you guys have?”
The enemies laughed coldly. “Don"t tell me you guys want more? Stay here and sit longer, and you"ll probably get your wish.”
Young Master Han warmly smiled at them. “Then, we"ll really stay here longer!”
“Hmph! Sit tight and wait for your death, then!” Although the man said this, he was actually feeling anxious inside. They were rather unsettled at the resolve the two men showed.
About then many players sitting at the open-air bar stood up one by one and left the premises. This entire scene gave Gu Fei and the six men a fright. Gu Fei, for his part, thought that the enemies had secretly hidden a lot of manpower and was about to flagrantly flout the rules in the area. The six men, meanwhile, felt worried that this was a ploy the two men had cooked up and received quite the scare when many players stood up in unison.
However, when both parties glanced at one another, they quickly realized that the other party was as clueless as they were. It became apparent that these men"s actions were not something that either side had arranged. At the same time, the players who had stood up all headed in one direction.
The six Linshui City players quickly figured out what was going on upon seeing this, and could not help but laugh. Gu Fei was still puzzled about all this, but he soon also realized what was happening.
It turned out that a s.h.i.+p had just docked by the harbor, and these people were looking to board it to head to their grinding map. They were probably pa.s.sing the time in the bar upon arriving early at the harbor. Actually, the success of the open-air bars could not just be attributed to the great seaside scenery, but also to existence of the harbor.
Gu Fei"s palpitating heart relaxed, but when he saw the six men not only easing up but also showing excitement, he immediately thought it a little strange. Turning his head over to Young Master Han, he discovered the latter"s extremely contented expression.
The s.h.i.+p drew nearer to the harbor with every pa.s.sing second. It was a ferry, but of a larger size, much larger than the dhow that he had s.n.a.t.c.hed from the guards before. He did not know if a ferry should logically be that big, but the system was never one for logic to begin with. The ferry was here to service the players, anyway, so it naturally made sense that it was better for everyone if it was bigger. If it could only ferry a hundred players over, then those from Linshui City would surely revolt, as that was barely enough to fulfill the transportation needs of the city!
The s.h.i.+p slowed down as it reached its berth. When the broad and long wooden plank set down, a host of players surged forth and made their way down the beach. Gu Fei felt as if he were watching a war film the moment he saw how packed the ensing crowd was.
Having been ferried about for such a long time, Linshui City"s players had already learned to let the pa.s.sengers alight before they they boarded ferry. The players in the game would randomly pick a spot to sit down once they got on board anyway, so no one fought for seats and everyone maintained orderliness throughout the whole process.
The crowd that had disembarked quickly scattered on the beach. Players who had acquired valuable items during their grinding headed to the right, where the trading zone was located; those who had managed to make new friends during their grinding proceeded to the open-air bars to share a drink or two together. The entire beach burst into activity once more as plenty of merchants that sold equipment or liquor began started soliciting the potential customers; even those players squatting at their campfires and grilling fishes began to yell words filled with descriptors unique to the game. “Top-quality grilled fish with a proficiency of 3000; a rod for only four and a half gold coins; what a cheap deal!”
“Ah, mine was more expensive!” he lamented. He had bought each rod for five gold coins, and the chef only had a proficiency of 2700.
After most of the hubbub had died down, everyone got their seats. Gu Fei soon realized that more players were staring at the two of them from inside and outside the bar.
“Gentlemen, I believe that you are satisfied now!” the six chuckled in delight. Their friends had apparently been grinding. It was too bad that Linshui City"s players could not call to their friends when they were off grinding levels, as they had to wait for the ferries to get them from place to place. As such, another bunch of helpers had appeared with the s.h.i.+p"s arrival from a level 40 grinding map.
Looking around, Gu Fei saw that the size of this group was not more than a level 5 mercenary group with a hundred men; fleeing from these men with his Blink skill should not be difficult. And if he could not shake them loose, he would just slaughter his way out. Although getting rid of a 30 PK value was really troublesome, he found it really awkward not to give these people face and reciprocate after they had gone through all this effort just to kill him.
Gu Fei"s expression was calm as he thought of this, yet he was actually feeling elated inside at the possibility of being forced into a fight. Gu Fei had limited himself to stay below a 30 PK value, but of course he was rather bothered by this limit. To break this limit he had given himself, he had to have a sufficient reason for doing so.
Young Master Han, who had actually been looking at the new enemies had arrived, nodded his head approvingly, “That"s quite a lot!”
“How is it? Are you satisfied?” the man goaded.
“Honestly, not really,” Young Master Han said as he slowly got up. “In any case, I"m a very considerate person; you guys are trying to bully the minority with the majority, right? I"ll leave you guys extremely satisfied.”
He then raised his arm and waved.
Everyone turned to look in the direction he had waved at.
A large group of players could be seen disembarking from a s.h.i.+p in that direction. They did not get on to the main road, head off into the city, make their way to the trading zone, grab a drink at the open-air bar or even begin feasting on grilled fish; these men looked to be pondering on what they should do next.
It was rare to see a large number of players hesitate on what to do once they got off the ferry, as they would usually go over their next steps a hundred and eighty times while aboard the s.h.i.+p.
Gu Fei, who had also glanced at this group of players, realized that he was familiar with many of them.
They were players from Yunduan City!
These people began to move in the direction the two were situated at. Weaving through the stalls scattered about with their staggering numbers was quite difficult, so they could only amble forward slowly.
Nonetheless, it was still obvious that they were heading toward Gu Fei and Young Master Han"s current location.
The six men"s mouths gaped wider and wider. Those comrades who had come to help them deal with Young Master Han and Gu Fei seemed to have just been splashed with cold water with the way their mouths were hanging open.
“Did they call for all those people?” some asked on the mercenary channel.
“That"s impossible! The two are not from Linshui City, so how could they have the clout to gather this many people?” someone refuted. Noting the size of the mob, it was at least a level 5 guild.
“Could it be that they are acquaintances of a boss in Linshui City?” someone theorized.
“B*llsh*t! Someone would have come to their aid long ago if that were the case.” Only the most powerful guilds in Linshui City were able to set up stalls in this gold mine beside the harbor. If the two were affiliated with a large guild, they would naturally open up a bar over here as well! After all, there were not that many level 5 guilds in every city!
These men had discovered a few things about the two so far, and one of those was that the two were foreigners and did not have any strong backer in Linshui City. That was why they were brave enough to surround the two in one of the busiest locations in the city and were unwilling to believe that their targets actually had the capacity to mobilize such a large number of players to their cause.
“Could they be faking it?” Someone still held onto such a hopeless wish. By this point, the head of the ma.s.s of players had already made his way over and was waving back toward Young Master Han in a wanton manner.
“You guys aren"t leaving yet?” Young Master Han asked emotionlessly as he stared at the six men who were rooted to the spot.
The six men looked at one another. They had come to accost the two so brazenly, and would now be beating a hasty retreat; was this not just too humiliating? Many players had also been watching them all this while, yet....
While prideful players would consider the loss of levels to be negligible over the loss of face, practical players like them would consider the loss of levels to be more important than the loss of face or potential benefits.
Besides, they had the old adage, "wise men will not pick a fight when the odds are against them" as an excuse. Typing this on the mercenary channel, they all departed despondently from the area.
“Discouraging enemies from engaging is highest form of warfare1, get it?” he told Gu Fei.
“How boring.” Gu Fei felt a tinge of regret at having to keep his rule of not breaking through the 30 PK value.
Only after Oathless Sword reached their table did he realize that Gu Fei was present as well. He immediately expressed his delight, “Brother Miles is here as well! That"s wonderful!”
Gu Fei was privately astonished. He had been busy with the matter involving the NPC guards, so quite some time had pa.s.sed since he had any form of contact with Oathless Sword. When did he start treating me with sincerity? When did Young Master Han win the mental tussle?, he wondered.
He regarded the crowd of players once more. Sword Demon, Royal G.o.d Call, and many others had also made their way over to them. All of them were around level 40, so it was only natural for them to be onboard the same s.h.i.+p heading to this location. Given how everyone was meeting up at the same time to continue the expedition, they would naturally end up on the same time slot. This was not at all a coincidence and was instead an inevitability!
“So how is everything, Boss Oathless? Is everyone present?” Young Master Han asked Oathless Sword.
“More or less. Since everyone is already online and in this city, we don"t need to rush. The few missing ones should be making their way over to the harbor as we speak; there"s no way for us to miss our s.h.i.+p. Everyone should just rest here for a bit!” Oathless Sword shouted this last part to everyone present.
Chapter Notes:[1] a psychological warfare idea that is broached in Sun Tzu"s Art of War.