666 Chapter 666 - The First Wave of Investigative Assaul (1/2)
Most players were nothing more than civilians, and nobody had even dreamed about commanding all 170,000 of them to fight in such a large scale battlefield. Forget players, even if someone were to randomly select officers from the armed forces, how many of them would have taken command of so many people before? An entire corp would roughly have somewhere around 60,000 soldiers; 170,000 would mean there were almost three entire corps of troops! Just how were they going to fight this war? Anyone would be left dumbfounded when facing such a question in an MMO.
Oathless Sword had snatched such an undeserved title and knew how it was akin to him having a tiger by its tail. He could, of course, ask for everyone to discuss the matter together, but this discussion would no doubt require teamwork. But if everyone were to choose to not contribute a thing, would he not have to make the decision himself, since he was in charge? This was just a game if he failed to come up with any ideas, there was no way he could not coerce them to do so with the threat of death.
”Well… Let us first get a clear idea of the tactics that the system is employing before we come up with a targeted solution…” Oathless Sword saw that they were waiting for him to speak, and knew keeping mum was not the way to go either. He quickly waffled for a bit, before turning to regard Youthful Reflection once he finished. Youthful Reflection usually had plenty of ideas, but the responsibility of commanding 170,000 players was not something he dared to bear. He could also tell that this was a venomous move being played on Brave Surge's part. By pushing Oathless Sword into such a position, he would have to coordinate 170,000 players to battle and that was surely something no one could achieve. This most likely meant Oathless Sword would end up as the one making all the decisions, right? But how much of the battle would Oathless Sword be even able to understand on his own? The ultimate idea that he would come up with would most likely be no different to having come up with would not be any better than what the rest could up with. Thus, when the players execute the plan, and everything fell apart, who would end up being the target for all their resentment and grievances? It would naturally be the overall commander Oathless Sword. And if everyone showed their disdain toward the guild leader, how much better would the guild fare? The failure Oathless Sword demonstrated in this operation would surely cause the image of Traversing Four Seas to plummet as a result!
Youthful Reflection had quite a good understanding of this, but he could not come up with any stratagem to counter this eventuality. Just as Oathless Sword had begun to speak, Brave Surge interrupted, ”It is just as you've said, guild leader Oathless. You're a great leader who had managed to secure Traversing Four Seas as the number one guild in Yunduan City. Isn't going up against something as simple as the system just child's play to you?”
Some of the more understanding guild leaders shook their heads when they heard this, thinking to themselves that he had gone too far by saying so. If the system was child's play, they would not have been so thoroughly beaten in that first wave before. Conversely, those who were more inconsiderate could already tell that Brave Surge was beginning to set up the bonfire for the eventual burning, as they looked forward to the debacle with gleeful schadenfreude.
Oathless Sword had no choice but to admit that he was at a loss for what to do; Would he not just be causing more trouble for himself if he chose to stubbornly hold onto his pride? Thus, he simply replied, ”We're all smart people here, and we have 170,000 comrades for this assault now. We are all gamers by blood, who among us cand take command of such a huge force like this? If you really want me to come up with a plan, I'll admit that I have none either. So we should all pitch in for the discussion!”
With Oathless Sword saying this, anybody could understand that he was admitting his inability to take command for this operation in a certain sense. Of course, there was no way he could explicitly say this. The situation he was rather eagerly looking forward to was where everyone would understand where he was coming from, so they would all come together and offering ideas in earnest, hoping that he would still be the overall in charge when they were assigning manpower, coordinating and scheduling the work.
Oathless Sword was being rather optimistic, but why would the others let him take such a huge advantage of them because of this? Brave Surge laughed, ”Guild leader Oathless is being too humble, too courteous. If you're gonna be so courteous, I'll just take over!”
”Then you may go ahead!” Oathless Sword thought Brave Surge was trying to undermine him further, so he tried to flip the script on him.
In the end, Brave Surge nodded, ”Fine, I'll take over now!”
”Ah….” Oathless Sword was stunned. Why was Brave Surge taking this hot potato so willingly? It probably meant that he already had such intentions to begin with, but he still pushed the position over to Oathless Sword. Now that he appeared to be eagerly taking the position back, it was apparent he was just looking to peel Oathless Sword's face!
I've given you the chance, but since you can't do it, I'll take over! Not only did Brave Surge managed to make himself look good, but he had also even taken the position of the overall commander, essentially killing two birds with one stone.
Oathless Sword glanced over to Youthful Reflection in his astonishment, receiving a private message from Youthful Reflection in return, ”This guy... Could he have a plan in mind?”
Oathless Sword suddenly reacted, ”M*th*rf*ck*r, could that rascal have gotten a hold of some quest that was critical to this event?”
Youthful Reflection felt that was a reasonable presumption when he heard this. These two men firmly believed that there was no gamer out there that could take command of a force that numbered 170,000. The only plausible reason Brave Surge had so confidently stepped up to the plate must be because he had gotten hold of some essential quest that was pivotal in deciding the outcome of this City War event. From the simple actions and the oath that the NPC had cried out from the start of this war, this assault on the city seemed to be part of a set of guild quests on a grander scale. So it was not impossible for someone to have gotten the underlying implication through the minute details.
”What about the men we've sent? Has any of those we've tasked with searching for quests gotten any leads?” Oathless Sword hurriedly asked.
”Nope. Everyone is still searching NPCs in the designated spawn points in the various camps. Most of what they had gotten are quests dealing with the supplementation of logistics or food and nourishment, none of which seem critical to the actual assault,” Youthful Reflection said.
”Brave Surge had started from the west, send some men over there to investigate,” Oathless Sword ordered.Find authorized novels in Webnovel，faster updates, better experience，Please click for visiting.
”I'll personally bring these men over!” Youthful Reflection volunteered.
”That's fine too,” Oathless Sword nodded.
Youthful Reflection quietly departed from Oathless Sword's side. He was not the guild leader, so nobody cared what he was doing. Now that Brave Surge had taken over as the new overall commander, this circle of guild leaders were currently gathered to hear him speak.
”Ladies and gentlemen. Since we're set to be working together, we cannot be without a unified command. But because we are not a guild, and Parallel World does not have any public channel that we can use to communicate, I suggest we guild leaders first form a party together, then we use the party channel to exchange news and information. Afterward, each of us could use our guild channels to disseminate the instructions to our guildmates. All in favor?”
Everyone praised Brave Surge's brilliant idea when they heard it. He had only just taken over, yet had already offered such a reliable solution to their communication issue, and quite a good number of men even casually threw a look of disdain toward Oathless Sword. Oathless Sword was in tears; what sort of brilliant idea was this!? This was a method they had come up with when they were on that expedition for his guild quest long ago, and back then, he had used this same method to take charge of the various mercenary leaders in a single party. There were quite a few mercenary leaders that had participated in that before that were here right now, but there was no reason for them to suddenly quip 'Traversing Four Seas had used this method before', so Oathless Sword had no choice but to suffer this injustice.
”Alright. Next, I think we need to gain a deeper understanding of what we are up against. We were defeated too quickly over by the west gate, so we were completely unable to grasp any sort of information regarding the system or those NPCs. How did you guys fare on your end?” Brave Surge asked.
”The same!” the players from the north gate answered. It was better if none of them mentioned how they had already been petrified into inaction from that first large rock crashing down onto the battlefield.
The people from the west gate were actually aware of this even if none of them had said a word; it was not as if they did not see what happened. At the moment, Brave Surge said, ”That is why I say we need to organize a group to conduct an investigative assault. We need to at least understand what the system has going up against us, as well as how they would be attacking, etc.”
”Yes yes, that makes sense,” Everyone nodded.
Oathless Sword once more felt maligned. Just what sort of useless idea was this? Brave Surge had not even mentioned how he was going to command the 170,000 players in the attack.
Brave Surge continued, ”Carouse will take up this task of sounding them out! Everyone can take a break for now.”
All the guild leaders were moved. What does it mean to sound out the enemy? It was no more than a suicide mission to probe and test the system's response. Even though everybody knew that there were no penalties for death in this event, which was the reason why Brave Surge had been so magnanimous as to volunteer for the job, it was still an act of suicide, so why else would anyone protest against this? Of course, Oathless Sword would not be contented with letting Brave Surge steal all the limelight to himself, so he leaped out and declared, ”Traversing Four Seas won't be resting either, we'll go as well!”
”I like that attitude,” Brave Surge chuckled. He was well aware of Oathless Sword's intentions, but he did not say a word about it.
The other three large guilds were also level 6, but they were no match to the two guilds in terms of the quality of the guild members, which was why none of them made a sound as Oathless Sword and Brave Surge engaged in their brinkmanship.
”Guild leader Oathless, shall we work together and rush them together?” Brave Surge happily asked Oathless Sword.