Virtual World: Close Combat Mage - Chapter 24

Chapter 24: Amethyst Reborn

“Come out now! Outside the Guild Building!” July’s second message arrived.

Gu Fei sighed and pushed his way through the crowd. Although he didn’t like to admit it, he had been set up by Xi Xiaotian again. He couldn’t yet fully evaluate the situation, but it sure wasn’t a good feeling to be tricked.

After going out of the building, Gu Fei immediately found the people who were looking for him.

A group of girls were gathered at the east corner of the building. As soon as Gu Fei appeared, a finger pointed at him. It was the girl who was addressed as “Cat Cat” by Xi Xiaotian. “That’s him!” she cried out.

The girls turned and locked their eyes on Gu Fei.

Gu Fei quickly counted his opponents. Six people, this was a number he could probably deal with in a fight, so he kept his cool.

The six girls walked towards Gu Fei, all keeping their gaze on him, It should have been an honour to attract as many as six girls’ attention at once, but it instead made Gu Fei’s hands become a bit clammy. He wasn’t good with these kinds of situations.

There were many players passing by, and they all looked at Gu Fei with envy. After observing the girls’ faces and finding that there were beauties amongst them, the players grew even more jealous.

As the male players drooled, the girls arrived in front of Gu Fei.

“Are you Thousand Miles Drunk?” a petite short-haired girl who stood in the middle of the girls asked.

Gu Fei nodded. He already felt closer to this short-haired girl. Of course, it wasn’t due to any weird thoughts, but because of her equipment. He could tell from one look that the girl belonged to the Fighter class. That was the class Gu Fei dreamed of yet didn’t manage to choose. Through his time playing, he had discovered that there were very few who chose to be a fighter in the game. Apparently, many players who had chosen this class felt unwell after experiencing the many spins and somersaults that came with the class’s skills, so most of those who started the game later on avoided choosing the Fighter class. Thus now, with such a rare fighter player standing before him, how could Gu Fei not be excited? He assumed that anyone who chose to be a fighter would also be a Kung Fu-lover like him.

“I’m July.” The short-haired girl introduced herself.

“Hi,” Gu Fei greeted her.

“I’m the guild leader of Amethyst Reborn.”

“I can tell from the looks of it,” said Gu Fei.

“Now can you please tell us why you ended up in our guild?” July gave him a cold look.

“That… I too was confused at first, but I think I understand now. I need her to help me explain,” Gu Fei gestured at Cat Cat.

July looked at Cat Cat and Cat Cat looked at Gu Fei.

“Xi Xiaotian told me that you needed one more person for your guild, and needed me to join you,” said Gu Fei.

“We have strict regulations regarding accepting members, so we are short of members,” said July.

Gu Fei nodded as he thought about the nineteen “Female”s in the guild panel, “I can tell.” He then turned his gaze to Cat Cat, “What did Xi Xiaotian tell you?”

Cat Cat stared at him, “She said she had promised to join her friend’s guild so she couldn’t join us, and she said that friend was you.”

“So she told you that she was going to plead with me, and you thanked me when she brought me back to see you because you thought that I had agreed to let her join you, am I right?”

Cat Cat nodded.

“Yet I had thought that Xi Xiaotian was helping her talk me into joining your guild, and that’s why Cat Cat thanked me. So everything is clear now. It’s all a misunderstanding, but that misunderstanding was designed on purpose,” Gu Fei explained to the girls.

“Damn Xiaotian!” July stomped her foot.

“She then excused Cat Cat so that Cat Cat wouldn’t know the person who responded to your guild is me. As for how the application got through, I have absolutely no idea about it,” said Gu Fei.

July sighed. “Well, there isn’t a restriction to who can respond to a guild before it is formed. We usually keep the ‘Respond’ option closed and only turn it on when we have suitable members so that no outsiders sneak in.”

“I see,” Gu Fei sighed as well.

The other girls grumbled about Xi Xiaotian, but they didn’t look like they really hated her, which was incomprehensible to Gu Fei. The girls huddled up and started mumbling amongst themselves, gradually moving a distance from Gu Fei. Seems like this is none of my business anymore, Gu Fei thought. Since it was already quite late, Gu Fei hurried to the nearest Safe Area and logged off.

The girls continued to discuss for a while until they finally came to a consensus.

“Hey, um… eh? Where is he?” July turned to talk to Gu Fei, but found that he had disappeared.

“Where did he go?” July muttered and looked at her friends list. Thousand Miles Drunk was declared as offline.

“What the? What kind of person does that? Walking off when we’re not even done!” July fumed. The girls in turn started grumbling about Gu Fei.

“Achoo!” Gu Fei sneezed profusely as he practised Kung Fu at the balcony. Who’s talking about me behind my back? He wondered.

The moment he got online the next day, Gu Fei was bombarded by July’s messages. A string of seven “Where’re you”s appeared as Gu Fei rushed to open his messages. Seemed like she loved the number seven.

“What?” Gu Fei replied.

“What’s wrong with you? We weren’t done talking yesterday and you just disappeared!” July complained.

“What else do we have to talk about?”

“We’ll meet and talk,” July answered.

“Where?”

“Come over to Charlot Street No. b17!”

Though Cloud City was not as big as a city in real life, it was huge in comparison to taking just a few steps to walk from the north side to the south side of a city in normal online games. This online city was so big that it even needed to name its streets. There were lots of apartments on these streets, and excluding those which were owned by the system, most were up for sale.

It was probably a new shop opened by someone, thought Gu Fei to himself as he walked towards Charlot Street.

The players’ levels were what determined the economic market in the game. As more and more players marched past the barrier of level 30, industries such as manufacturing and agriculture began to grow at an amazing speed. Most players would choose to walk the streets with their goods for sale, but there were also some rich people who set up shops after buying real estate from the system. Thus there appeared house numbers in addition to street names.

b17! b17! Gu Fei chanted the number as he searched for the door.

It was an apartment that didn’t have a normal sign like the other shops. In the place of the shop sign, it had a strange-looking diamond-shaped thing that glowed with faint purple light. Gu Fei was unsure if he had found the right place, so he chose to try knocking.

The door was opened after a short while and Gu Fei saw July. There were a few other girls, some of them he had met the day before.

Gu Fei sat down after following July into the room. The rest of the girls were examining Gu Fei from head to toe, all with different expressions on their faces. Gu Fei’s presence stuck out like a sore thumb. He could tell that most of them were hostile towards him with very few trying to hide their distaste for him. And the most awkward thing was that none of them looked like they welcomed him. Even July’s expression was full of reluctance.

“Let’s get it over and done with!” Gu Fei decided to speak up. He could tell that no one wanted him here and he would also like to leave as soon as possible.

July looked hesitant. She opened her mouth to say something, but stopped herself.

“Just shoot,” Gu Fei smiled.

“Um… First of all, thank you for helping us meet the quota for the guild,” said July.

Gu Fei knew that this opening was obviously not what July really wanted to say, so he just nodded lightly and waited for July to continue.

“But I’m sure you can tell what requirements we have for our members from our composition…”

Gu Fei understood July’s request immediately. He was truly happy about that and quickly answered, “I know what you mean. It’s alright, I’ll quit now!”

Gu Fei brought up the guild panel and was about to perform the steps when he was stopped by July’s shout of “Don’t!”

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