It was only a little past noon, so he went to work on his hunting quests. He needed the coins and the souls, these hunting quests provide a good income for both.
He was working on the quests as storm Wind this time, so he could use his skills freely, except when he saw other players in the vicinity. When that happened, he would refrain from using his Mage skills. He could see some groups from both Death Associates and White Scarfs, they seemed to be minding their own businesses, despite occasional hostile glares between them. Jack chose to avoid them.
Despite alone, he actually managed to complete the hunting quests slightly faster. It was just a little bit over three hours when he finished the last quest of Grey Sabrecats. He walked to the edge of the woods towards the direction of the capital.
As he was about to come out of the woods, he noticed a group of blue dots on his radar. In the morning when he was still with Death Associates team, those people were also there, same as last night. Were they still waiting for something after spending the entire day at the same place yesterday? He didn’t expect there would be any players that are willing to waste their time away like that. He ignored them like before, but oddly, this time the blue dots came towards him.
He looked around him, perhaps whatever they were waiting for was around him? But he did not see anything nearby him on his radar. The blue dots were enclosing, he could see them coming already, there were six men. All of them were looking at him, that’s when he realized that he was the reason they were coming over. Jack stopped and waited for them to approach.
He scanned the six using his God-Eye monocle. Three of them were Fighters, two level 15 and one level 16. Another two were Rangers, both level 15, and the last one was a level 16 Magician. None of them had any guild tags under their name.
“You lost?” The lead level 16 Fighter said. The others came further and took position around him, they were encircling him.
“Not really,” Jack replied calmly. “You people had any need from me?”
The lead Fighter grinned, seemingly amused by Jack’s effort to act calm. He said, “as a matter of fact, yes, we have a need from you. We need what you have in your inventory.”
“What I have? Are you guys robbing me?” Jack asked with a flat tone.
“Robbing is too barbaric, don’t you think? I would prefer to say it as you helping fellow players in need. Of course, you may refuse. We can’t take your items anyway even if we kill you, but then you will lose everything. Since we are civilized people, we prefer to settle matters without any bloodshed. We get all your coins and stuff, you keep your levels. What do you say? Isn’t that a sweet proposition?”
The way the guy said it truly showed how he enjoyed his speech. He must think himself an elegant robber with some eloquence. Jack couldn’t help but smile at the guy’s attempt, which promptly caused the guy to frown.
“What are you smiling at? Do you not understand your situation?” He asked.
“Oh, I understand perfectly,” Jack said. “You guys are some robber wannabes who can’t do any honest work even in a game world.”
“This one has a sharp tongue, let’s just waste him, I don’t think he has many valuables anyway,” the mage said.
“Yeah, we kept on getting squirmy victims who just surrendered after some threat. We are lacking some exercises. Let’s just bury this f**ker, we have enough profits already anyway,” another fighter chimed in.
“We are competing with the other teams, any profit will be valuable,” the lead fighter said, then looked back at Jack, “so are you resisting? As you can see, my people are itching already.”
Competing? Jack thought about what the guy had just said. He said to the lead fighter with a smile, “there is one thing I don’t understand. I can just take some stuff out and tell you that that’s all I have. How do you know I’m telling you the truth?”
“That’s easy. You give us permission to peek inside your inventory, and also permission to take all the stuff inside.”
“We can do that?” Jack was surprised to learn this feature.
“You are not going to do that, only us. So please cooperate, no one wants this to get messy. I can’t hold my people back any longer if you are still being stubborn.”
“oh, but you don’t need to hold them back at all, I also need some exercises.”
The supposed robbers looked at each other. Was this guy for real? Couldn’t he see he was outnumbered? Or he thought himself to be an overpowered hero from some wuxia novels? The lead Fighter’s face turned dark, he always preferred his victims to cooperate willingly. He was a businessman, not a savage. In real life, he ran a business, but in this weird world, he was reduced to a mere robber. He was already in bad mood, thinking about how he was forced into this nonsense place. He always thought that games were just wasting time in real life, but here he was, getting stuck in this God-forsaken world.
“Fine then, if you want to die, then die. Get him, boys!” He shouted.
“Have been waiting for it,” one of the rangers said as he jumped forward, daggers in both hands.
The others also moved forward, except the lead Fighter and the Magician. They didn’t think there was any need for them to step in.
The Ranger who had acted first was the first to arrive before Jack. He used Swift Stab at Jack’s neck. Jack swayed a bit and the dagger hit empty air. His black sword then came out with an upward slash. The swift attack caused 102 damage to the hot-blooded Ranger.
That one slash did not only take away a huge chunk of the Ranger’s life, but also his courage. His face turned pale immediately upon seeing how much HP he lost. His legs instinctively jumped back, trying to put away as much distance as possible against the guy in front of him.
The other three of his comrades who rushed to Jack as well, halted after seeing the slash just as they were about to reach Jack. Jack did not let the opportunity go to waste. He turned as they were stunned and used Swing to hit the three of them at the same time. Each of them lost around 130 HP from the skill.
“Shit! An expert!” The mage blurted out. He couldn’t afford to stand aside anymore and immediately cast Mana Bullet. The lead Fighter on the other hand seemed lost and not sure about what to do.
Jack could see the Mana Bullet came approaching clearly. He slashed at the white ball and cut it into two. His normal slash had more power than the Magician’s Mana Bullet, so he didn’t receive any damage after destroying the spell with his attack.
He then dashed towards the Ranger that had jumped back. The ranger didn’t expect Jack could move that fast, the guy was even faster than him. Before he could react, Jack kicked at his legs, disrupting his balance, and send another slash. The ranger was in critical condition already.
Jack then left him behind and ran to the magician who had just cast Energy Bolts, five magic bolts came between him and the magician. Jack equipped his round shield since he couldn’t expose his magic staff. He used his round shield to block one bolt, then slashed another using his sword. The other three bolts were ignored by him as they stabbed onto his armor.
Each bolt did not deal more than 20 damage, they were mosquito bites to Jack. He sent two rapid slashes once he was in range, putting the magician under low HP which he could take out with one more slash, but he didn’t deliver the final blow. He kicked the Magician over to where the Ranger was. Jack’s strength was much higher than him, so he was sent flying from the kick despite suffering no damage from the kick.
