431 Chapter 432 - What is this word? (1/2)

Over by Xiawu City's Hall of Mercenaries, Southern Lone Blade's seven-man squad was glancing through the available player-submitted missions, mainly focusing on those looking for help in PvP matter or larceny-related jobs.

Lucrative opportunities, like 'looting equipment off the Video Mage', were few and far between. Southern Lone Blade and his crew would often do odds and ends to earn small sums of money, but what was more important for them was the accumulation of a client base.

Southern Lone Blade's means of business started from these small jobs. By establishing a level of trust and contact with these clients, they would naturally think of hiring them again once a lucrative business opportunity appeared. Furthermore, he would add every client on his friends list through this back and forth of small businesses and would then carefully make records of every single transaction he had with them. This was essentially his leverage in maintaining a cordial relationship with the clients.

While his larceny and murder practice had indeed drawn the masses' hatred, nobody should forget that behind every transaction he made, there must surely be an employer that sought his service. He was nothing more than a dagger, and the person holding the hilt should not be forgiven for their part as well. He had sharpened his dagger to the point of it now being a double-edged knife, withholding his ability to take an eye for an eye. Every agreement with his employers acted as a reminder: I have leverage on you as well.

This was how Southern Lone Blade gradually expanded his business network. Furthermore, the method to contact him for business was extremely rudimental: private messaging. As for those clients who were already in his friends list, Southern Lone Blade had never once rejected their job requests, and this was because he already had leverage on those people. He was convinced that each of them could betray anyone, except for him.

These clients were his main source of income. But if he hoped for his business to prosper, it naturally meant that his client list would have to grow as much as possible. He had two methods to achieve this: first was for the major clients to introduce more customers to him, and second was essentially what he and his crew had been doing when he first started out – developing small customers into big clients before finally entering them into his friends list. This entire process was actually also a way for him to gain leverage.

Standing in the Hall of Mercenaries right now, Southern Lone Blade's squad was searching for customers that had the potential to become large clients. With how their business had originally started out and slowly developed through this method, they were of course experienced at judging the potential of their would-be customers. Those missions with vague descriptions were often not requested by guilds or groups but by individuals, instead. What was important here was pinpointing those who were rich; poor players just did not have the necessary funds to become Southern Lone Blade's clients.

The seven searched through the mission list, occasionally conversing with one another on the channel.

As a group, situations where the members would have separate opinion regarding client selection still happened from time to time. At the moment, out of the seven, Southern Lone Blade, Flame Singed Clothes, and Blackwater were keen on a particular customer who was searching for a particular equipment, while Glue and the other Priest had their eye on someone looking for help with a PK target. Paddy Scent Pastures and the Knight Unrivaled Lucky Star were leaning toward a request for aid in a normal quest with a bountiful reward.

Once they narrowed it down to these three targets, they noted their relevant information and then moved to leave. The seven did not directly accept the mission listed in the Hall of Mercenaries precisely because, as a non-mercenary group, they did not have permission to do so.

The fog remained as thick as ever. The seven stepped out of the Hall of Mercenaries and inhaled a deep breath of fresh air, as though they had just earned a new lease of life.

”Let's begin, then!” Southern Lone Blade took out the list of names that they had just jotted down and said, ”Blackwater, you and Flame will contact this Many Nectarinas; Paddy and I will locate this Limp Hands, and the rest of you three can find this… this… G*dd*mm*t, what is this word?”

”Ha ha ha! You're so uncultured!” Since they had finally escaped the hunt for their heads, each was feeling much more carefree and began to joke around with one another. Glue mocked Southern Lone Blade as he took the paper and had a look himself. His face turned green. Passing it along, the next person's face also turned green. Southern Lone Blade looked over to Flame Singed Clothes. ”Just what did you write?” That was the name Flame Singed Clothes had jotted down.

Flame Singed Clothes had no choice but to confess, ”I just copied the depicted character accordingly. It's a martian word; even I don't know what the word is.”

”What in the world is this word!” Blackwater raised the paper in the air and squinted, as if hoping the sunlight would give him the ability to understand it.

Finally, all seven shook their heads awkwardly. If none of them had any idea what word it was, then they had no means to enter it into their search field. Naturally, this meant they would be unable to find this player. Southern Lone Blade ended up stuffing that piece of paper back to Flame Singed Clothes. ”The three of you will search for Many Nectarinas; the two of you will find someone who can read this martian word.”

Before going their separate ways to contact their respective targets, the other two groups revelled in the misery of Flame Singed Clothes and Blackwater. It turned out that Many Nectarinas and Limp Hands had set their friends list to private – a very common occurrence all in all – so the two groups left for the mailbox. This left just Blackwater and Flame Singed Clothes clutching onto that piece of paper as they kept examining the word.

”Forget about recognizing the word, even if we do know it, how are we going to enter this character into the search field?” Flame Singed Clothes asked in frustration.

”How would I know.” Blackwater was miffed as well.

”Guess we gotta enquire and find out!” Flame Singed Clothes said.

”Look; there's a pretty lady over there.” Blackwater pointed toward a certain direction.

Aside from larceny, the seven-man squad was no different from the average gamer, and they had their interests as well. Given how plenty of players would partake in the courtship of the fairer sex, there was of course no lack of men with said interest among them.

Starting off from that pretty lady, Flame Singed Clothes and Blackwater started walking down the road and pitifully asked the passersby for assistance. In the end, not a player they met recognized the word on the paper; quite a lot of those people threw them looks of contempt and disdain to boot. The two bore with this slight for the sake of the job, gritting their teeth as they continued to search for further information behind the word.

They walked down a whole street, yet the two still had nothing to show for besides being parched from all the questioning.

”Let's head to a tavern and drink a round or two. There're more people congregated there, anyway, which makes it the perfect place to inquire further,” Blackwater suggested.

”That's true. Plus, I believe we need to find the right remedy to our problem. This word is far from common, so we need to ask people who are far from the mainstream. It wasn't really smart of you to ask that old coot you approached moments ago,” Flame Singed Clothes said.

”That old coot had no idea but pretended to be knowledgeable. Forget about recognizing the word, he even claimed that it is an Oracle Bone Script1,” Blackwater agreed.

”Can you even enter Oracle Bone Script characters in this game?” Flame Singed Clothes asked.

”I've got no idea.” Blackwater shook his head.

The two continued on their merry way as they chatted, asking players that could possibly know more along the way yet finding nothing new. They were about to reach the tavern; they had not met another player for quite a stretch prior, and the street they were currently on was empty. The two foreigners, who were not used to having such thick fog covering their surroundings, felt uneasy as they traveled.