764 Chapter 764 - Beam Array (1/2)
Gu Fei was considered quite fastidious. Since he could not teleport back underground, the moment he got out of the tunnel, he took out another scroll and made note of the coordinates outside before sprinting his way back to Yunduan City.
Even though Gu Fei was questing in an irregular manner, that did not mean that he was unclear as to how to go about doing quests in the correct manner. Sometimes, it was merely due to his aversion of the process being troublesome which was why he often left a trail of bloodshed by carving his own way with his own methods. The freedom that existed in Parallel World meant that it allowed players to run wild. It was merely that he had simply too much freedom after using the magical air bubble to dive down to this highly suspicious location. Even if there were not any city assaulters that ended up causing trouble for him while he was down there, Gu Fei felt it was impossible for him to deduce the necessary clues he needed from that place.
He had first sent a message out to Xi Xiaotian and the others, getting them to look for Courtney and inquire after further information since they were outside. However, Courtney herself had not participated in the project, and she had already shared whatever information she could have offered by this point. Meanwhile, the other two NPCs that were directly involved with the project, Guillermo and Angus, had both already been killed, and there was no way to get the dead to speak.
What could he do during such times?” The answer was actually very simple. The quest was originally offered by the Vigilante Corps, so returning back to them and relaying what he had learned from his investigated thus far might net him some new directives. It was unfortunate that there was no way for Gu Fei to delegate this task to anyone else, so he must make the trip personally. That was when he had wanted to teleport out, failing to do so due to the restriction the system had in place for that location. It was only after Gu Fei realized that those players were actually able to enter the place did he add two and two together and deduced there must have been a different route he could take.
Gu Fei returned back to the city and made a beeline for the City Hall, approaching the Vigilante Captain. The NPC would forever be sitting right behind that desk in the Vigilante Chambers, waiting for Gu Fei's return with great dedication. Naturally, Gu Fei did not waste time with pleasantries or the like, quickly regurgitating everything he had learned thus far. The captain's eyes darted over to a corner, and when Gu Fei followed its gaze, he saw that its eyes were resting on that self-proclaimed Great Mage, old man Austin, who had once more appeared in a corner of the chamber.
”Great Mage!” Gu Fei had previously been rather disdainful toward the old man, a self-proclaimed scholar that apparently did not know any magic of its own. However, it had appeared from out of nowhere and was now inside the Vigilante Chambers once more. It was highly likely that this person would be relevant to his quest, and he reckoned it was this NPC who would end up giving him a very huge hint about what he ought to do to progress the quest.
The old man Austin coughed twice, his eyes looking at Gu Fei with great pleasure, ”You've finally located Yunduan City's water storage and drainage project.”
Gu Fei nodded, ”Is there anything strange about that place?”
Austin began to elaborate in its slow and detailed orientated manner, explaining the role of the project, which was actually no different from what Broken Water Arrow had gone into detail previously. Of course, Gu Fei had not heard him talk about it back then, and now he could only patiently listen to the nonsense the NPC was spewing. What Broken Water Arrow had summarized was the key content that Ye Xiaowu had picked out for emphasis, but the NPC was being very verbose with its explanation, immediately starting from the magic plague that came into existence years ago in Yunduan City, talking and talking until it finally touched on how the water storage and drainage hub was actually storing all the wastewater that would be treated before it got released. The reason why it was installed beneath the lake was because the magical plane it existed on required a huge amount of water as its medium.
”In other words, that frightening transformation that happened to Angus was because, during the construction of the project, he had accidentally soiled himself with that magic wastewater?” This was a plot that the city assaulters had no knowledge of, but when Gu Fei heard all this, that had actually given him the answer to the mystery.
”Poor thing, may he rest in peace,” It was unknown if Austin actually knew Angus, but all it did was say such a line and did not make any cross sign across his chest, so it was unknown what god it was praying to at this point.
”So what should I be doing right now?” Gu Fei asked.
”Thousand Miles Drunk, it is now the time to retaliate! We'll utilize the water project to deal a strong blow to these rebels!” The Vigilante Captain had blurted out with great confidence at this point.
The moment Gu Fei heard the Vigilante Captain say such important sounding words, he quickly abandoned the old man and ran back over to the desk.
”Follow me!” the Vigilante Captain left his desk and opened the doors leading out of the chamber. The NPC guards in the room had also finished getting into their formation and followed right after. Gu Fei did not bother cutting in line with these NPCs. He did, however, turn back, and saw that the Great Mage Austin seemed to be following everyone out as well.
Gu Fei followed the NPCs down to the end of a corridor down on the first floor. Pushing open the double doors, Gu Fei spied the sign hanging above the door that read ”War Assembly”. The Vigilante Captain and his entourage made a grand entrance, with Gu Fei following right behind. In front of him was a large military sand table, and when Gu Fei casually eyed it and realized it was a sand table map of Yunduan City.
”Are you done with the terrain layout yet?” The Vigilante Captain was still speaking in that crisp and commanding tone of his.
”Right away,” an NPC replied.
”Hey, not bad. You guys know how to do something like this huh?” Gu Fei chuckled. Incidentally, there were three players who were sweating profusely as they worked, and they had habitually ignored the conversation going on between the two NPCs. However, when they suddenly heard the very life-like voice of another player asking a question, the three had involuntarily lifted their heads.
Drifting, Left Hand of Love and Right Hand of Cool, the three of them had all rolled their sleeves up high, sand and dirt streaked across their faces and arms, making them look particularly haggardly when mixed with their sweat. The moment they saw Gu Fei happily standing beside an NPC who was inspecting their work with great enthusiasm, they could not help but feel extremely unhappy. Drifting threw a ball of sand right at Gu Fei without another word, which Gu Fei dodged with deft ease. The NPC standing beside the three players actually got angry, ”How can you show such disrespect to an esteemed member of the Vigilante Corps!?”
”HAHAHAHAHA!” Gu Fei was roaring with laughter. The trio were all extremely gloomy. They were all affiliated with a Faction, yet when it seemed like in terms of their standing, Gu Fei was seen to be esteemed, but what about them? Wayfarer's Society sounded rather romantic, but they were no more than the lowliest manual workers inside the government!
”You guys better hurry up, we've got an urgent use for that!” Gu Fei sternly said to irritate the three.
”Huh?” Drifting cautiously glanced over, wondering if Gu Fei was being solemn or was that sentence uttered in mock seriousness just to bait them.
”I'm not kidding around here. We're about to make preparations to do battle. If we succeed, we may very well directly defeat the assaulting forces,” Gu Fei said.
”Is that so?” The three were thrilled, quickly hastening to finish their work even as they said to Gu Fei, ”We're almost done.”
”Is this your quest?” Gu Fei asked.
”That's right!” Drifting confirmed.
”Could the system have already expected me to complete my mission, and made such preparations beforehand?” Gu Fei was astonished.
”Can you not be so shameless? Our quest is of course our own, who even said anything about it being used in service for you? Isn't creating a military sand table model in the War Assembly a very common affair?” Drifting said.
”You're right, you're right. Quick finish up your work,” Gu Fei urged.
Sure as what Drifting had said, the sand table was only lacking just a bit of touching up and now that the three were already practiced with the task, they very quickly completed their mission when all of them sped up together. Gu Fei gazed at the very true to life model of Yunduan City on the map and asked the three men, ”Who pinched this? It's so life-like!”
”Pinch? Do you think we're molding with plasticine?” Drifting extended his hand and lifted the city with a pinch, while Left hand of Love had also demonstrated how he was able to lift the entire Yunduan Lake up.
”So you guys were actually making a jigsaw puzzle!” Gu Fei laughed. He could tell that these props were actually provided by the system.
”Most of it is!” Aside from forming the jigsaw portions, the three had to engage in some handicrafts that were made on the spot, but they had very quickly finished them. Drifting reported to the NPC that previously berated them, and it nodded before bowing his head toward the Vigilante Captain and made his report. Drifting once more felt disgruntled. He was truly low on the rung!
”All the idle personnel may leave!” The Vigilante Captain decreed.
Gu Fei was chortling once again as he pointed to the trio, ”idle personnel.”
”D*mm*t, we're just not going to leave. What are you going to do about it?” The three of them were angered at their loss of human rights in this instance.
It was as if the NPCs understood what the three had said as the Vigilante guards that had come along each pulled out their weapon and got ready for combat. The three no longer dared to say a word now that the system was baring its fangs, so they quickly departed. The doors to the War Assembly slammed shut as the Vigilante Captain began to speak to Gu Fei over that sand table, gesturing and relaying instructions.
Gu Fei immediately panicked when he heard it speak, ”You better not be pulling my leg here! Give me coordinates; do you have coordinates?”
In the end, the Vigilante Captain simply ignored everything Gu Fei was saying, continuing to talk like it had not even been interrupted. Fortunately, before it was done with saying its piece, it raised its hand and stuck a little flag on the position that he had just mentioned. Gu Fei's eyes sharpened and immediately saw that a set of coordinates was written on the flag, but he did not dare to confiscate the item, so he decided to send out a message of it there and then.
”What?” The person who received the message was none other than Sword Demon.