180 Chapter 180 - The Wheat within the Mud (1/2)

Foe-herder steadily walked forward as his head became filled with covetous thoughts.

The covetous thoughts were not about the lady but the quest that she was doing. Is there really a quest here?Foe-herder had not heard anything about this before. We are both Warriors, so this quest might be beneficial to me as well, he continued to ponder on inside. Foe-herder felt that he should try to find out more about the quest here first. While successfully poaching Gu Fei would bolster his guild, successfully obtaining an important quest would bolster himself.

The choices were either to let his guild bask in potential glory or to let himself enjoy the limelight. Foe-herder did not even hesitate to choose the latter. ”Ahem!” he coughed to get the lady's attention when he got near her, ”Babe, what are you doing here?”

”Quest,” the lady replied. With people being bolder inside a game, male players striking up a conversation with female players was actually a common occurrence, so most ladies were already used to such a situation.

”Oh. What quest is this?” Foe-herder continued to ask nonchalantly.

”It's called 'The Wheat within the Mud',” the lady honestly replied.

Every quest had a unique name, and Foe-herder had never heard of such a quest before this lady mentioned it to him. Although the quest's name sounded very plain, determining a quest's quality by its name alone would be very foolish. It was like judging a book solely by its cover.

Foe-herder excitedly and carefully asked, ”How did you obtain it?”

”Just talk to the NPC here,” the lady answered as she began to knock on the door before her.

A hunchbacked old man, with eyes reflecting his years of accumulated experience, opened the door. The sight of the elderly man caused Foe-herder to feel emotional. Old men would often leave behind a valuable inheritance. The game designers seemed to agree with this train of thought as they would often create mysterious old men that would hand out certain secret quests. With the old man being hidden in such a secluded part of the city, it gave off the vibe that this was a hidden quest that would only get triggered when the players coincidentally knocked on his door.

”Young one, do me a favor. I've scattered some wheat over by the marketplace. Can you please help me find it? Remember, you must find the wheat within five minutes; otherwise, it will be taken by someone else,” was what the old man said as he handed the quest to the lady Warrior.

The lady swiftly left after this. Foe-herder wanted to approach the old man next, yet the old codger completely ignored him and merely closed the door.

Foe-herder hurriedly knocked on that door, worried that the quest would no longer be available since the lady had already gotten a hold of it.

The door opened and the old man appeared once more, gazing at Foe-herder and repeating his instruction to the lady before. Foe-herder promptly agreed to his request and the quest 'Wheat within the Mud' appeared on his quest log.

Nothing out of the ordinary could be gleaned from the quest description, which made Foe-herder quite suspicious of it as he headed to the marketplace.

The marketplace that the NPC was talking about was not one of the Peddlers' Streets that the players had established. Rather, it was the system-created marketplace where the NPC and player merchants gathered to sell products that the system had provided. The street was not as crowded or as boisterous as Peddlers' Streets, but quite a lot of players were still passing through it. Foe-herder searched the entire marketplace, yet he still came up with nothing. Could it be that the lady has already picked up all the wheat, which resulted into me being unable to find any? Foe-herder saw the lady leave just as he arrived at the marketplace.

Very soon, Foe-herder's five-minute deadline was up. A system prompt rang out and the quest was tagged as 'failure'.

”This quest isn't easy!” Foe-herder was visibly moved by this. At this moment in time, he saw the lady appear in the marketplace once more.

When she caught sight of Foe-herder, she smiled, ”Did you grab the quest, too?”

Foe-herder nodded his head.

”Did you manage to find the wheat, then?”

Foe-herder shook his head.

”He he!” A strange smile appeared on the lady's face as she unhurriedly told him, ”Gotta use your head a bit more!”

Foe-herder tried to carefully decipher what the lady meant, yet he was still at a loss.

A minute later, the lady asked him, ”Have you gotten it?”

Foe-herder shook his head to demonstrate his cluelessness.