Chapter 78: Buried Treasure (1/2)

The excitement in Lancaster City changed nothing in Grey Fjord Port, many miles away.

Now that she understood the significance of Warty Tidal Flat to the frogmen tribe, Princess Leah abandoned her plans to lay an ambush for their enemies there. After some discussion with the leaders of the various player parties, they decided to attack from the woods about two kilometers away from the cliffs. According to Edward, who’d infiltrated the Society of the Secret Eye to provide information on where they were gathered, unless the enemy forces purposely extended their route by another fifteen or sixteen kilometers to go around the woods, they would definitely be passing through there.

The scouts they’d sent to spy on the Secret Eye’s camps had been discovered by the enemy, and immediately slain. Things were really getting exciting now.

Currently, the players still lacked the ability to exchange instant messages over long distances, but party leaders were able to monitor the status of their teammates. When those scouts fell afoul of the enemy sortie, they used a code that had been arranged ahead of time, applying a certain series of buffs upon themselves in a specific order. With this rudimentary coded message, they were able to inform their team leaders—a dozen kilometers away—that the enemy was on the move.

In response to this alert, the players leapt into action.

Transportation methods in this setting were generally unimpressive. Ordinary people travelling in such weather should only be able to move at a crawl. At best, they could maybe get some sleds, and somehow find some Huskies to pull them through the snow. The warrior-type classes were unable to use magic to summon up any mounts, but they could run at the speed of bullet trains, and easily surpass the speed of sound. Inclement weather meant nothing to them.

The members of the Society of the Secret Eye couldn’t come anywhere close to such superhuman feats. Even Black Whip, the mightiest among them, was only comparable to a player at Level 40 or so. Without any high-level divine gifts, he probably couldn’t even go toe-to-toe with a high priest of the Rotten Bones. All things considered, the very fastest he could go was only at about the speed of a horse-drawn chariot.

Moving out immediately upon receiving that signal from the scouts, the players were easily able to find good ambush positions, and lay in wait to catch the Secret Eye troops by surprise.

Xi Wei himself granted all the participating players a limited-time consumable item, Eggnog: Even if they had to lie in the freezing snow for half the day, one mouthful of that Eggnog and they’d be back on their feet at full strength, untouched by the cold!

Besides that, perhaps inspired by the players’ astounding abilities, the normally sedate frogmen had become alive with energy, positively swarming from the nest to assist the players with their ambush on the Society of the Secret Eye!

Even the frogman elder had produced some long, crooked staff from a corner of his great conch shell of a home, and came following after them along with Croakatoa. In his own words, this ambush would do little to help their situation, but he would come along anyway, and support his fellow frogmen with combat buffs.

This meant there was no one in the frogmen village at the moment.

To the frogmen, this would be a last, desperate stand. Removing themselves from their homes meant distancing themselves from distractions. Whatever might happen to those empty houses was of no concern to them now. They’d left nothing of value behind besides some salted fish.

It wasn’t as though the Society of the Secret Eye was after their material goods. Their only interest was in the land. Even if they somehow got around the ambush and occupied the village, it wouldn’t serve any purpose. It was hard to imagine that they’d go to so much trouble for something that would gain them no merit.

However, this presented a delightful opportunity for Xi Wei.

Descending to the mortal world straight away, he strolled through the frogmen village.

Truth be told, the players had already turned over the soil three feet deep, all throughout the village. Not even a metal detector would find you any treasures here—besides the salted fish.