337 Chapter 337: Loss (1/2)

”Richie! Hold on! I'm coming!”

Dong Fang Yue Chu was yelling as he sprinted toward me, but I was already gone, swept away by the howling blizzard and vanishing into the distance.

”Yue Chu! Stop!”

Lily managed to grab hold of him and yank him back before he could run through the Holy Barrier that Harrison had set up.

”But…! Richard, he…!”

”He's gone.” Theodore was staring at the blizzard dumbly, unable to believe what he had just witnessed. ”The blizzard took him.”

”Damn it!” Yue Chu slammed a fist against the ice. ”We've to go down and save him!”

”How?” Bu Fan asked bluntly. ”Do you know where the blizzard blew him off to? Are you going to jump into the blizzard and let it blow you away as well?”

”You…!” Yue Chu growled, but Craig and Cody held him back.

”Bu Fan has a point,” Cody said quietly. ”You'll only get sucked into the blizzard and blown off if you jump in now. Then we'll have to look for not just Richard but you too.”

”And we have no idea where Richard would be blown off to. The valley is so huge…it's possible he was blown to the Den of Dragons.” Craig sighed in frustration. ”As much as I hate to admit it, we'll only be walking to our deaths if we try to search the Den for Richard.”

”We'll have to contact the tournament staff and request them to send a request team.” Sheila was looking over the edge and staring bleakly at the rampaging blizzard.

”Actually…about that…”

While everyone was busily stopping Yue Chu and reasoning, Harrison had fallen into deep contemplation for a while now. He watched the blizzard for a few moments and then hardened his gaze.

”It's Richard we're talking about here. If anyone can survive, it'll be him. He's a lot more resourceful than we give him credit for.”

”That's true,” Theodore agreed. ”A year ago, no one would have thought it possible for him to rise to the top of our school. With summoning magic, no les.”

”And he has those nuke spells if things go south for him,” Yue Chu added, feeling a lot calmer now. Craig chuckled at that.

”Additionally…” Harrison was staring deep into the valley, as if he had noticed something. ”We probably don't even have to call in a rescue team.”

”Huh? Why not?” Pearl gaped at him. ”I don't care if our team has to forfeit the qualifiers! None of us do! It's meaningless if we lose a member!”

”No, that's not what I'm worried about. I would forfeit the qualifiers to call in a rescue squad, but I think someone is already en route to help him.” Harrison didn't take his gaze from the valley at all, his blue eyes seeming to pierce the thick, white veil of the howling blizzard. ”Do you remember the green-haired girl from before? Richard's, uh, friend?”

”More like his girlfriend,” Craig chuckled cheekily. That got a few laughs from the rest of the team, and the mood gradually lightened.

”Maybe,” Harrison conceded with a smile. ”Whoever she is, she has most likely gone after Richard. I think it's safe to leave him to her. If Richard does need rescuing, a skilled mercenary like her should be more than capable of pulling him out of the fire. The Silver Wolves wouldn't have recruited her otherwise, if she didn't have the ability.”

”That's true.” Lily nodded, feeling a lot more relieved. Everyone knew the reputation of the Silver Wolves, and were personally trained by our esteemed senior, Feng Hai. They were an almost legendary existence, almost on par with my dad.

”What if you're wrong, and Richie dies?” Yue Chu asked solemnly. A deadly silence hung in the air for a few seconds before Bu Fan – unexpectedly – broke it.

”Then I'll be the new main character.” Bu Fan folded his arms. ”And you'll get to read about how I get into university, become the new Demon King by defeating two hundred students with summoning magic, perform a few missions with Teacher Tang Yue, save the campus from scaly parasitic monsters that take human hosts during a concert, protect a gigantic snake god from evil politicians, switch my specialization from summoning magic back to fire magic and defeat the whole division of fire mage students.”

Everyone stared at him blankly.

”…huh?” was all Sheila managed to say.

”You're in the wrong story, mate,” Theodore finally managed to speak up.

”If that's what will happen, why don't you get everyone to read Versatile Mage instead?” Craig snapped, annoyed.

”That's my goal,” Bu Fan replied smugly. ”I'm trying to force readers away from this trash of a story and read Versatile Mage instead. It's so much better, and it's more worth it to spend your Spirit Stones on Verstaile Mage. A lot of readers are complaining about how rubbish this story is, and demanding that Webnovel stop making it premium. A few of them are also demanding that Webnovel takes down and deletes the story, and ban the writer from the site because they think he's the worst to have ever existed in history.”

”I'm…kind of lost now.” Cody was looking utterly confused.

”Go read the comments on the right, or the Discord server. You'll understand what I mean.”

Everyone exchanged glances, and then started to ignore Bu Fan from then on. No matter how much he gestured wildly toward the comments section or point them toward Discord, they didn't bother. They had more important things to do.

”Everyone, stay away from the edge. Keep a safe distance from the blizzard,” Harrison instructed. Having seen what happened to me, they obeyed. None of them wanted to be blown off like I was. And yeah, I was going to use first person perspective. Let's just say Yue Chu told me everything that had happened after I was blown off, and I was recording down in what was clearly my memoirs. No reason to break out of first person perspective just because I wasn't around. I was at least present in spirit, even if I wasn't physically.

Fortunately, Pearl didn't need to conjure her barrier. Before two hours were up, the blizzard exhausted itself to nothingness and abated. Or rather than abate, it blew over the team's position and traveled up the mountain, completely passing over them.

”Phew…”