730 Chapter 730 - The Place He Dies? (1/2)
”Look, it's that log cabin right ahead,” Gu Fei pointed toward their final destination to his three companions.
”Drunk bro, do you think there could be danger here?” Fireball was checking out their surroundings quite nervously.
”Of course there would be,” Gu Fei nodded with certainty. Skygazing Under the Tree had sent his men to disclose information about a potential ambush to him, very clearly notifying him that Colored Clouds had already sent men here. Furthermore, Young Master Han was currently hanging around with those people, and given his methods, why would he not completely utilize such an opportunity? Then there was Skygazing Under the Tree who was pretending to be a good samaritan. The man might have a small guild, but his ambition was sizeable to actually dare to compete with Carouse, Colored Clouds and other such large guilds. Who knew where that guild would be lying in wait around here, spying on him!?
”Little Willow, this place is dangerous. Quick, hold my hand,” Fireball instructed Will-low very seriously.
The three of them threw a side glance at the man in unison, with Will-low giggling, ”There's no need for that. I'm not afraid.”
”Is that so? But I'm very afraid. Give me some of your strength!” Fireball said.
”How about I give you a kick?” Gu Fei interjected. Fireball was really becoming more and more impudent right now.
”Are you courting death, you rascal!?” Svelte Dancer no longer cared to give him face any longer, wearing a serious expression when she asked him this question.
Fireball finally understood that he had overstepped his boundaries so he quickly tried to explain himself, ”No no no. I just saw that the atmosphere is a little tense, so I decided to diffuse the tension for everyone by cracking a few jokes. Since no one likes them, I won't do it the next time.”
Everyone took a deep breath. Fireball's shamelessness was beyond just the garden variety. It was really and truly… Shameless.
”Okay, let's get to it!” Gu Fei said.
”The reeds here are so tall, making it so convenient to hide ourselves in it. There's no telling just how many people are out there lying in wait for us,” Will-low gave her assessment of the situation.
”Who knows, maybe we are already surrounded on all sides,” Gu Fei said.
”It's hard to tell who's the enemy! Who knows if the players currently hiding in the tall grass and bushes right now are here to ambush us or are just couples being intimate with each other?” Fireball finally said something that was not complete nonsense.
”It's better to be safe than sorry, why don't you just use your spells and clear our way through? It's not like people would lose anything dying now anyway,” Svelte Dancer was actually quite the self-centered lady, and she was not particularly concerned with others she was unrelated to.
”That's no good!” At the end of the day, Gu Fei was unable to bring himself to do something like that.
”Ah!” Fireball suddenly cried out as he quickly turned around, ”Something got me!”
The others immediately spun around agilely as well. But there was nothing aside from the lush, well grown beds of tall reeds that grew everywhere around them. Fireball pointed to the back of his head and asked, ”Was I shot?”
”Nope,” the three replied.
”Then what hit me?” Fireball was very puzzled. He looked down and actually found something by his feet. Fireball picked up a balled up piece of paper from the ground, and realized that there was something wrapped within. Carefully examining it, he saw it was a chunk of rock, but simply could not see how this rock could be construed as a weapon that could be lethal in any sense.
”Might be someone who… got careless?” WIll-low suggested. They were in a place where passions and emotions ran high, so for couples to end up flirting with each other, throwing items at one another, it was quite possible that Fireball had been subjected to an accidental hit.
”Wait a minute, the paper in your hand…” Gu Fei realized that there was something more to it.
Fireball had been focusing entirely on the rock, so when he heard Gu Fei prompt him, he quickly took a look at the paper and saw that it was not just a blank piece of paper: There were clearly circles and crosses drawn on it, though it was hard to tell what it all signified. Fireball tried to look at it vertically and horizontally, but he could not make sense of it at all. He handed the paper over to Gu Fei as he said, ”Take a look.”
Gu Fei was also a little nonplussed after he examined the piece of paper, and Svelte Dancer was all the more clueless as well. However, it was Will-low who was the first to realize what she was looking at, pointing at the square box that had a series of numbers written in it that was drawn right inside a circle, ”Everyone, check this out. Doesn't this here look like the log cabin!? The numbers shown here are the coordinates.”
”Oh?” Everyone took note of their own coordinates before looking at the log cabin. Aside from a geographically challenged idiot like Royal God Call, the rest more or less could gauge the direction where the log cabin was situated and its coordinates more or less coincided with what was written down on that piece of paper.
”I understand it now. The markings of circles and crosses must be referring to the enemy's positioning up ahead! Look at this here, and then the side note here, FS3. This must mean that there are 3 Mages there, and this ZS4 here means 4 Warriors. DZ refers to a Thief, while MS are Priests and QS means Knights. All of them are using the short-hand form names for all the various job classes that the forums use,” Will-low finally deciphered the piece of paper that they had been given.
”D*mn, so this was actually an attempt to give us information about the road ahead. Just who could be such a kind soul?” Fireball was astonished.
”Skygazing Under the Tree?” Gu Fei took a guess. He could not think of anyone else that would think of such an idea.
”Perhaps it's falsified?” Will-low suggested.
”We'll know if it's really a fake once we give it a try. From our current position, there should be an ambush if we head out in this direction. But the job classes are not marked out, perhaps this means that this other party isn't too thorough in their investigation. I'll go take a look,” Gu Fei said.
”What about us?” The other three asked.
”You three can stay hidden over here first! Just from this makeshift map we were given, we can tell that there's quite a lot of ambushes in this spot right here. We can also utilize the tall reeds to go about our business quietly,” Gu Fei answered.
”Go on quickly then, Drunk bro!” Fireball nodded his head.
”I'm off,” Gu Fei lifted his sword and arched his back, keeping his body hidden inside the tall reeds as he made his way toward the location that he had chosen. Aside from the coordinates of the log cabin being written on the piece of paper, there were no other coordinates provided for any of the other locations depicted. After all, the paper was not too large, so not much could be drawn on it. Simply going by just the ambushes that were drawn, it was hard to tell if there could be a certain degree of error on how it was represented. Gu Fei could only vaguely judge where the direction of the ambush could be, though he was not exactly worried about accidentally stumbling into it even if there were three to five players lying in wait.
Fireball was very excited to stay behind and hold their ground. He had lost the chance of being alone, just one man and one woman, but he now had the opportunity to be one man and two women huddled within the tall reeds. Which man out here in Yunjiao Lakeside could boast something as magnificent as what I'm currently experiencing? Were it not for the fact that his messages would not get through, Fireball would have really wanted to reveal his present situation to the men from Forever in Flowers right now. However, because of the scare that he had gotten from before, Fireball did not dare to tease the ladies about this, and all he did was fantasize about it in his mind for the moment. In the end, he heard Svelte Dancer speak to Will-low, ”There's plenty of enemies out there, we should be more careful.”
”Yes, let's go into Stealth!” Will-low said.
Svelte Dancer nodded her head, and the two activated their Stealth, disappearing into thin air.
”Hey!” Fireball panicked the moment he saw that he was suddenly all alone.
”What are you crying out for? I'm right beside you,” Svelte Dancer's voice could be heard right next to him.
”Must you be in Stealth?” Fireball was in tears. At this rate, it was essentially no different from having no one around him even if there were one thousand ladies beside him!
”Safety first, don't whine,” Svelte Dancer reproached.
”But what about me?” Fireball asked.
”If you're so free, just dig out a hole and bury yourself in it!” Svelte Dancer snapped.
”Pfft…” The sound of a suppressed snicker could be heard from Will-low. Fireball was downcast, but he truly had nothing else to do, so he decided to lie down on the ground, ”fine. I'll go dig out a hole.”
Gu Fei was headed toward his target location, inching closer and closer with every step. He continued on until he felt like he had gone past the point of overshooting it.
No, there was apparently no ambush as depicted on the piece of paper that they had been given. However, Gu Fei did not have the talent that Young Master Han had when it came to reading maps and reflecting it through the in-game coordinates; he felt that there was a good chance that he might have veered off his destination without realizing, and that was why he changed a direction, and this time moved toward somewhere more concentrated. Gu Fei was convinced that even if he had strayed off a little this time, he would surely alert the ambushers when he passed by, which was why he began moving toward this direction.
He got nearer and nearer until he went past it further and further once more.
Gu Fei had completed yet another lap, yet he still saw no one. Deep in his heart, he felt that something was off. He was already very close to the log cabin, so even if the information was false, anyone who intended to ambush him should have noticed his presence by now. Why was there no movement in the least?
Gu Fei hurriedly contacted Svelte Dancer and the others, ”How are things on your end? Something is a little strange here.”