Translator: Henyee Translations Editor: Henyee Translations
The four of them arrived at the Gray Sand tavern first, and it was not long before Betta joined them.
The Gray Sand tavern in the early morning was quite empty and seemed very quiet.
The five of them sat around a black, circular wooden table and introduced themselves to each other. Then, Roland said, “This game is different from the ones we’ve played before, so we can’t apply our past experiences to it. However, we can still try the classic wedge formation, after all, none of us have experience with dungeons in this game”
He turned his gaze to Jett and said, “You may have a strong combat ability, but don’t rush into battle when you get into the dungeon. Just follow us and observe, save your strength as much as possible, and help us with support magic at crucial moments.”
Jett nodded. “All right, I’ll follow your lead.”
Roland turned his gaze toward Hawk and Link. “You are both warriors. Tanking and main damage output will fall to you guys. But it’s better to divide in two, one at the front of the line, and the other at the rear.”
Hawk said in response, “I’ll be at the front. I just happened to have learned a shield specialty.”
Link laughed and said, “I’m a greatsword warrior, I’ll just stay in the back.”
Roland looked toward Betta. “You’re a hybrid class. I won’t restrict your position—do as you see fit according to the battle situation.”
Betta nodded.
Roland looked around at the group and said, “We’re just talking in theoreticals now. As to exactly what to do, in reality, we’ll still have to raid the dungeon once to know. The NPCs in this game are dead smart, so I think the kind of slow advancement we see in other games won’t work.”
Everyone felt that Roland made a good point.
Jett said coolly, “You’re the mage. You should be the smartest amongst us, so you should be in charge for now.”
His meaning was quite clear. It was to listen to Roland first, and if Roland couldn’t command well, then have another person take command.
This was nothing new. If one wasn’t competent, then they’d be replaced—it was just that simple in games. And honestly, Roland didn’t really want to command people outside of F6. F6 members trusted and tolerated each other. Even if one of them made mistakes, the others would comfort and help make up for them instead of being angry.
It was difficult to say for outsiders. If not acquainted, who would tolerate your mistakes?
As they spoke, breakfast was served.
Honey bread, boiled mutton with a rank smell, fresh vegetables… and fruit wine.
It was very inconsistent with their tastes, but it couldn’t be helped and they could only put up with it.
Meanwhile, inside the castle, Bard woke up, and under the care of the maidservants in the castle, he got dressed, showered, and went downstairs to the hall.
Many people were already sitting at the long dining table. His own companions were all there, and each of them looked quite lethargic. It may be assumed that they must have contributed a lot of “foodstuff” last night.
When nobles held banquets, they wished for this to a great degree.
John sat at the head of the table, and an upper-class woman and a young girl sat next to him.
He recognized those two people, John’s mother and sister. They were quite good-looking.
In last night’s banquet, the two of them didn’t show up. Generally speaking, in those kinds of chaotic welcome parties, the female members of the host’s family wouldn’t show up.
After Bard said good morning to the three of them, he sat down and ate breakfast.
Compared to what Roland had, the breakfast style here was about the same, except with fresh milk and some exquisite cake.
But even with these seemingly simple items, these dozen people consumed the worth of at least a hundred commoners’ living expenses for ten days in one meal. For the majority of commoners, it would be quite satisfying just to fill their bellies with brown bread.
After breakfast, Bard said he was going for a stroll in the city, so he left the castle with his companions for the time being.
A dozen of them loitered on the streets, and wherever they went, people would make way—they completely appeared to be evil local tyrants.
After walking for a while, the group dispersed into multiple groups and went off to find their own entertainment.
Meanwhile, Bard and the other young noble mage walked to a tavern and booked a room for a private discussion.
“Last night, John told me some very interesting things.”
Bard paraphrased to the young man opposite him what he had heard the night before, and then said, “How much of what John said do you think is true?”
“It’s all true. There is no need to lie to us since all of these things can be confirmed with a simple investigation.” The young man sneered. “However, his intentions are impure. He seems to be pitting us against Roland and the other Golden Sons—this is quite interesting. The waters in the Capital are ten times deeper than the waters here, and we’ve lived in a hubrous way up till now. Does he really think we’re all fools?”
“Then what are your thoughts?” Bard reclined in his chair, took a sip of wine, and asked, “How do you want to get to Roland?”
“Continue to act harshly. We’re the sons of great nobles and the people of the headquarters, we have no need to yield to him.” The young man laughed mischievously and said, “But remember, we fight without breaking—we can have a bad relationship, but we can’t be mortal enemies. I wonder why John would want to pit us against the Golden Sons. I think there is something to be gained in this.”
Bard sneered. “I also think so.”
At this moment, Roland’s five-people party departed.
Betta shared the quest with the others, and then the five of them followed the quest’s instructions to leave the city, heading north of the suburbs, passing through mountains—overcoming all sorts of obstacles on the way—and entering a valley surrounded by mountains, where they finally found the entrance to the tomb.
The entrance was completely covered with dense weeds.
If not for the system notification, they would not have believed this place was the entrance.
Even so, it took Hawk and Link nearly ten minutes to clear the weeds near the entrance with their long swords.
In the darkness, a considerably deep entrance presented itself to the five of them.
They looked at each other and immediately arranged themselves into an array. Hawk led the way with his shield in hand, Betta followed second, Roland and Jett were third, and Link, according to the plan, came last.
The moment the five of them entered the cave, they stopped.
They all simultaneously received a system notification: Dungeon quest detected, would you like to unlock the dungeon?
They looked at each other and then immediately clicked Confirm.
After they confirmed, the surrounding space suddenly distorted, the sun whooshed below the mountains, the moon rose, and the stars shone brightly in the sky.
Day and night switched places in a matter of seconds.
“A forced plot environment?”
Roland muttered to himself.
Hawk took out a torch from his Backpack and was about to light it up, but Roland was one step faster—four bright light balls appeared out of thin air, suspended around them, brightly illuminating the vicinity.
“How truly convenient.” Hawk stored his torch and exclaimed in admiration, and then he asked Jett, “Can priests do that?”
“Illumination is the most basic of spells, it has no attack power.” Jett shrugged. “This evaluation alone made us completely abandon it. Priests have limited spell slots. Only mages will learn such things—they don’t have limited spell slots.”
Betta interrupted them at this moment. “I reckon that there aren’t many people amongst mages who’d want to learn it. They aren’t like us warlocks and priests who can learn a spell with a ding. They have to analyze magic models on their own. It’s quite a waste of time. Brother Roland is a rare case.”
“There are now fewer and fewer mages.” Hawk sighed. “About half of the mages in our guild forum have already deleted their accounts and started anew. There are many who are still barely holding on. They say that this class is really boring, calculating data and conducting experiments all day. I suppose the game’s developing team deliberately used this method to limit the number of mages.”
Upon hearing this, Roland was also somewhat disappointed. He then sent a light ball into the cave and said coolly, “Let’s go through the dungeon first and talk about other things later.”
Hawk nodded, took out his longsword and shield from his Backpack, and then walked forward carefully at the front.
