“Well, I wish you luck to regroup with your guildmates in Vacharest as soon as possible,” Jack said, trying to end their conversation.
But William had another issue to discuss, “Wait! Brother Storm Wind, if you can spare a bit more time. I would like to ask how you have managed to cross country to Verremor.”
“I did?”
“Everyone already knows that your guild has Orc members. The same case as for our guild in Vacharest, we won’t be able to join them if neither of our members crossed countries and physically arrived. We can’t add them as friends as well because there is a distance limit for sending Friend requests. We can’t send it via long-range communication, hence we can’t invite them into our guild. How do you do it with the Orc members?”
Jack smiled and replied, “we have our way.” Returning William’s words to him.
Radiant Phoebe’s expression was colorful due to Jack’s response but she kept quiet. William’s face remained smiling. “I guess I deserve that,” he said. “I do hope we can build a better relationship in the future.”
“I do hope so as well,” Jack replied. “If you will excuse me.”
William didn’t stop him this time, so Jack left the two.
When Jack was out of earshot, Radiant Phoebe asked, “Are we going to let him treat us lightly like that?”
“To be respected requires strength. He has that at the moment. We can afford to be haughty in the past because of the strength of our guild. If we want to return to our glory, we need to reclaim our past strength. Reunite all our members. When that time comes, perhaps then we will show him what it means to disrespect Saint Edge.”
Before Jack entered Amy’s Bakery, he took this week 38 gold coins profit from Ellie’s restaurant. Entering Amy’s Bakery, he was awarded 25 gold coins profit. Not enough to cover the expense he had spent on Healer’s Society, but at least it’s something.
He spent the night chatting with Amy and Samantha before having an early rest. He did not forget to train his mana sensing before sleeping. Nowadays, he had always spared one hour before sleeping to meditate. His mana sensing was still a far cry from his grandfather’s level, who could detect movements that caused no damage. Without attaining that level of expertise, he could forget about learning mana manipulation.
The next morning after waking up, he also spared one hour to train Formless Flowing Sword style and Eight Diagram Illusory Steps, with the emphasis on the latter, because he was still not proficient enough to use this martial art in a real fight.
When he came out of Amy’s Bakery, Samuel was already there standing by.
“Have you been waiting long?” Jack asked.
“Long enough,” he replied.
“Excellent! Let’s go,” Jack said.
Samuel was not sure if that was supposed to be mocking or what? He kept quiet and followed Jack.
Looking at the coordinates provided by Mason, it would be closer if they exited the capital from the East gate. On the way, Jack made some small talk with Samuel, asking him how he adjusted to his demotion to Knight Lieutenant. Samuel replied with an irritated tone that he never cared about ranks.
Jack didn’t mean to ridicule the veteran warrior, he was simply looking for a topic to talk about. The last time his Diplomacy skill had leveled up before his Influence skill. This time, it was still at Intermediate Apprentice while the latter had increased to Advanced Apprentice. He figured he should talk more with natives to level up this skill. He had expected it to level up last night when he talked a bunch with Amy and Samantha, but it remained the same till now.
Jack continued to try to talk of something with Samuel, but the guy was not a talkative partner. Or maybe Samuel still disliked him as to how he was during the expedition. So Jack gave up and just walked in peace.
When they arrived at East city gate, Jack summoned Pandora while Samuel called his steed, which was an uncommon grade. Samuel was rather astonished seeing Pandora. Even his steed felt rather intimidated by the aura and refused to stand near the Nightmare.
“You ready?” Jack asked Samuel, who nodded.
“Okay, let’s depart!” Jack declared and had Pandora run forward.
“Stop! Stop!” Jack heard Peniel shouting beside him.
“What’s wrong?”
“Do you expect an uncommon steed to be able to catch up to Pandora’s speed?”
Jack realized the problem and had Pandora stop. He looked back and saw Samuel in a distance struggling to catch up.
“Aw, hell…”
In the end, he could just have Pandora run with a trot to adjust to Samuel’s speed. Jack felt like grumbling. This Knight Lieutenant was sent to aid him, but why did it feel like this native was weighing him down instead?
After a while on the road, he approached Samuel, whose steed turned away when Pandora tried to approach. Helpless at the situation, Jack climbed down from Pandora and approached Samuel on foot. He had a brief talk with Samuel before they then galloped in different directions.
Jack continued alone with Pandora at a light walk.
The reason that Jack had sent Samuel away, was because he had noticed from his radar some blue dots were following him. If it was white dots that represented natives, he would have galloped away at full speed or stayed near Samuel. But if they were only players, he had no reason to worry.
It was normal to have many players roaming the vicinity of the capital, but this group of blue dots had constantly stayed behind him for a long while already. After he broke away with Samuel and went in another direction, these blue dots also changed direction and continued to follow him.
Samuel had protested at first when Jack asked him to move away. He pointed out that it was the prince’s order for him to protect Jack, he couldn’t walk away when enemies were coming. Jack told him that if he did not go, those outworlders behind won’t take action. He assured him not to worry because, amongst outworlders, he could be considered the strongest. Samuel jeered at Jack’s remark.
In the end, Jack managed to persuade the veteran warrior to leave him. Jack told him to wait for him at their destination, Blacksmith Circle.
‘Why haven’t they taken action yet?’ Jack thought. He had been walking by himself for a long while already, yet the blue dots simply continued to follow and not approach.
Jack decided to climb down from Pandora and see if that will make a difference. He unsummoned the Nightmare and then looked for some random monsters to kill, pretending to be grinding for exp.
‘Still not coming? Damn it! I don’t have all day,’ Jack complained inside after killing all the monsters in the immediate area.
“Why not just go over and ask them what they want?” Peniel suggested.
“Hm, you are right,” Jack said with a calm tone, but actually felt sheepish for having played pretend with his supposed pursuers. He should just go over from the start and beat the answers out of them.
As he was about to head over, a distant explosion sound was heard. Jack felt sudden danger but before he could react, he already felt an impact at the side of his head. He received a critical hit with 702 damages.
‘Gunshot!’ He exclaimed. Only a gunshot attack could render his mana sense ability redundant, because the attack would already hit the same time he sensed it.
Luckily this world followed game world rules, where a fatal hit didn’t always mean instant kill. Otherwise, he was already a dead man. He quickly took out his magic staff and cast Magic Shield in the direction where he had felt the impact from, and promptly rushed over. Another gunshot was heard as the bullet crashed into the shield. The shot was not strong enough to bypass his shield’s defense.
Jack looked at his radar, the blue dots that were following him had now changed to black, proving that this group was in the same party as the Gunner. They were currently rushing towards him. The black dot who was supposed to be the gunner was in a different direction, on top of a small hill not far away. ‘Why did they spread out like that?’ Jack thought.
There were a few other blue dots spread around. He didn’t pay attention to these other dots because it was common to have other players grinding monsters in the vicinity.
‘Eh? There was another black dot behind,’ Jack thought as he observed his radar. While he was pondering about this other black dot, another gunshot sound was heard, from behind! He was hit again in the back of his head and received another critical hit. But this one produced much less damage at 389 damages. Still, two hits already took away almost half his HP. He could not afford to suffer another critical hit.
“Peniel, heal!” Jack shouted.
“Heal your head! Do you forget already I lost my healing ability probably until tomorrow?” Peniel reminded.
“Shit!”
