Chapter 168 The Four Little Soldiers

The Cloud End City guard was exactly the same as the guards in the Misty City, a bunch of miscellaneous soldiers with a somewhat presentable captain. In this supposed critical moment of the city war, they were still acting like they mattered in their office! As soon as Gu Fei entered, the captain stood up: "Thousand Miles Drunk, you've arrived!"

In the game, an NPC taking the initiative to speak to you was already a quest indicator. After all, there were countless NPCs big and small inside and outside the city. It would be too much trouble to have players actively go up and ask each one, "Hello, do you need help?" So, for most quests, when a player passed by an NPC, the NPC would take the initiative to strike up a conversation. Players familiar with the situation would immediately know: there's something here.

However, for daily quests or wanted quests, NPCs generally didn't offer this service. The fact that this guard captain took the initiative to speak seemed to be a special setting during the city war. Thinking this, Gu Fei quickly went over, continuing the NPC's line of conversation, "I'm here, I'm here."

"Cloud End City is under attack by a group of rioters. As a member of the guard, you should pick up your weapon and defend your home!" The Cloud End City guard captain said earnestly.

Gu Fei was stunned. It seemed his alignment mystery was about to be revealed. So, the guard was a major faction. But he had led the riots in Misty City and killed the captain of the guard there. How should that be accounted for? Did the fact that he wasn't the one who dealt the final blow mean it didn't count against him? The rules for monster attribution in Parallel World didn't seem to work that way! Whoever started the fight, the damage dealt during the fight, and the final blow were all considered. Gu Fei should definitely be primarily responsible for killing Giordano.

But there was no point in worrying about it now. Clearly, the guard still didn't consider Gu Fei an outsider. Gu Fei quickly expressed his willingness to obey the organization and defend his home. The Cloud End City guard captain gladly gave him a task: "A group of rioters has kidnapped Gilkino, the master of civil engineering in Cloud End City, intending to use his talent to undermine the city's defenses. Now, the city's guards are stretched thin, so the rescue mission must be entrusted to the guard. Thousand Miles Drunk, go, stop their plot, and rescue Gilkino!"

Gu Fei understood from the NPC's words that the guard and the city guards weren't part of the same system. And this task was asking him to stop the rioters. Weren't the rioters all players? Fighting with people was endlessly fun! Gu Fei liked PvP, so he readily accepted.

"According to scouts, Gilkino is currently being held here. Go, take people and rescue him!" the captain said.

"Take people?" Gu Fei was bewildered. There were only three people in the city, him, Jian Gui, and Xiao Lei. Who was he supposed to take? While he was agreeing and pondering this, the captain had already delivered his closing remarks: "Good luck!"

There was no need to be polite with an NPC, so Gu Fei didn't say goodbye and went out the door. Unexpectedly, he heard footsteps behind him. He turned back and saw that the four miscellaneous soldiers who had been in the guard's office were now following him out the door.

Gu Fei didn't pay much attention at first, but after going downstairs and leaving the parliament hall, he realized that the four soldiers were still following him. Gu Fei was puzzled: "What are you doing following me?"

"Rescuing Gilkino!" The four soldiers saluted Gu Fei and replied respectfully.

So, he really had people to take! He was actually assigned four NPCs. What was the deal? Pets? Gu Fei didn't know much about the game, so he pitifully mistook the four soldiers for pets.

But these pets didn't make Gu Fei happy at all. Instead, he felt that having these four soldiers as helpers increased the difficulty of the task. In Gu Fei's opinion, the players outside the city didn't know he was the enemy, so he could walk among them openly. But now, with four system guards following him, wouldn't he become the target of public criticism? But then he thought again, with four soldiers, most people shouldn't suspect that they were with him! When the time came, he would just walk into the crowd, and let the players attack them as they pleased. He'd let these four guys live or die on their own!

It was a good thing these four soldiers were just mindless system NPCs. If they were real people, they would be furious to know Gu Fei's thoughts. They hadn't even started risking their lives for him yet, and he had already decided to abandon them.

After leaving the parliament hall, Gu Fei sent a message to Jian Gui: "I got a task. What's going on outside? Has the fighting started?"

"Not yet. What task did you get?" Jian Gui asked.

"Rescuing someone, and they even sent me helpers," Gu Fei said.

"What helpers?" Jian Gui asked.

"Four soldiers!" Gu Fei said.

"There's such a thing? Come take a look." It was common for the system to send an NPC to follow a player, like the quest chain that Across the Seas had gotten. Those were escort missions! But Jian Gui had never heard of sending NPCs to help players fight, and sending four at that.

The two met in the city, and the four guards followed Gu Fei every step of the way. When Gu Fei stopped to talk to Jian Gui, the four stood behind him in a square, standing upright and orderly.

"These four? Hey, this is new. I've never heard of it before," Jian Gui walked forward, curiously examining the NPCs. The NPCs had no psychological reaction and didn't mind Jian Gui's examination at all.

"I have to hurry. My task is timed!" After Gu Fei received the task, a countdown appeared in the task list, a total of two hours. The map in Parallel World was too large, and normally, the game took a lot of time just to travel, so two hours wasn't a long time for a task.

"Where are you going to rescue people?" Jian Gui asked.

The captain's service was very attentive, giving coordinates and a map. The map wasn't very clear, but the coordinates were more important. Gu Fei said the coordinates, and Jian Gui calculated that it was a bit of a distance. He nodded quickly: "We have to hurry. I'll go with you!" Jian Gui didn't have any chance to find Baijiahei, so he had nothing to do.

"Is the north gate still the same, an empty space with no one moving?" Gu Fei asked.

"Yeah!"

"We can't go out that way! It's too conspicuous. We have to go to the other three gates and take a look," Gu Fei said.

"According to these coordinates, the west gate should be the closest. Let's go out through the west gate and see!" Jian Gui suggested.

The two walked towards the west gate, and Jian Gui continued to marvel at the four guard buddies along the way.

"I wonder how strong these four guys are," Jian Gui said.

"Let's test them," Gu Fei said.

"How do we test them?" Jian Gui asked.

Gu Fei pointed at Jian Gui: "Attack!"

The four soldiers were really obedient, immediately drawing their swords and attacking Jian Gui. Gu Fei laughed from the side: "You try it."

Gu Fei's sudden action caught Jian Gui off guard, and he hurriedly dodged two attacks and shouted, "How am I supposed to try it! What if I accidentally kill them?"

"Kill them, kill them. They're a burden anyway. It's a good opportunity to see if you've improved in the last few days," Gu Fei said.

Hearing this, Jian Gui perked up. He had been fighting monsters according to Gu Fei's teachings these past few days, and he was finding it increasingly easy. Using these methods to fight monsters and level up might not be as efficient, but Jian Gui had become keenly aware of the huge changes it would bring in PvP. Moreover, the inefficiency of leveling up was only because he wasn't skilled enough yet. If he could reach Gu Fei's level, the efficiency would definitely be amazing. Jian Gui could see the foundation of the efficient leveling method, couldn't he?

But although Jian Gui was motivated, he was currently focused on one-on-one lessons. Every additional opponent would increase the difficulty exponentially. Jian Gui had bravely pulled two monsters to practice, and almost lost his life in the process. After practicing hard for a few more days, he was planning to pull two more for practice. But today, he was directly facing four.

The four soldiers also attacked and defended with order. The four still stood in a square, but they surrounded Jian Gui in the middle. Four swords struck down from four angles. Jian Gui had already done his best to dodge, dodging three swords, but he was hit by the fourth. Jian Gui was also becoming more and more clear as he practiced. He knew that with his current skill level, it was too difficult to deal with these four using this method.

But he couldn't give up after just one move, could he? Jian Gui's tenacity kicked in, and he gritted his teeth and tried to persevere. Gu Fei understood even better than him. After two rounds, he had basically predicted the situation. He waved his hand: "Stop attacking."

The four soldiers immediately sheathed their swords and stopped. Jian Gui looked over blankly. Gu Fei said, "You can't kill them. We still have a task to do. Hurry up."

Jian Gui was quite ashamed. The skills of system NPCs were basically the same. When talking about their strength, people usually looked at them in terms of data. For example, attack power, speed, health, defense, and whether they had any special powerful skills. Although Jian Gui had only lasted two rounds, he had taken two hits. After looking at the damage, he said, "The attack power is pretty average, the speed isn't fast either, and I don't know about the health and defense... But based on the attack power and speed, they're probably at the level of ordinary monsters!"

"Yeah, otherwise, would the system send you four Misty Shadow Assassins?" Gu Fei said.

"Speaking of which, I went to the Thief's Guild today. Because of the alignment, I learned that there's a secret area in the Thief's Guild, which is the territory of the Assassin's League. There are assassins of all kinds of NPCs there. There was one that looked a lot like a Misty Shadow Assassin," Jian Gui said.

"That can't be the one who writes diaries, right?" Gu Fei said.

"That... that one is probably lost in Misty City again!" Jian Gui laughed.

The two were already out of the west gate as they talked. The west gate wasn't like the north gate. Swordless Oath and Against the Tide were gathering their guilds, some willing to join forces and be unified, while others wanted to maintain their sovereignty. Most of those who didn't want to go were small and medium-sized guilds. Because everyone knew very well that even if big guilds joined forces, they would still have status and sovereignty. But after the weaker guilds went, they could only take orders and carry shoes. Many people didn't like this feeling and preferred to play around in their own small way.

These players had a relaxed attitude and weren't a minority. At this time, they were fighting fiercely in front of the west gate. Died? So what if they died? They didn't lose anything. They would come out of the resurrection point, repair their equipment, and come back! These leisurely players indirectly formed the plan that Swordless Oath and his group had come up with at the cost of constant deaths: one row fell, and another row went up, competing with the system.

And in the process of constant fighting, they had seen all kinds of tactics, such as stone attacks and hidden assassins! When Gu Fei and Jian Gui left the west gate, the players here rushed to almost the bottom of the city wall again, triggering a charge from the guards under the wall. Without unified command or unified planning, these players didn't know if their repeated charges had shaken the system's defense. In short, they didn't retreat, and they had fun in one death and rise after another.

Although they didn't have a formal alliance formed through negotiations, they had established a comradeship-like revolutionary friendship in such battles. When they saw a player next to them being attacked, they would actively help if they could. Afterwards, they would smile at each other, without having to worry about who the other person was, let alone calculate whether the other person had stolen their guild's points.

Compared to the north gate, they sacrificed more tragically, but they fought very happily. Because for them, whether they lived or died, it was fun.

"Hey, it's lively here!" Gu Fei exclaimed.

"Yeah! The north gate looks like someone is issuing orders and controlling the players' attacks. Although it's chaotic here, it makes people happy to watch," Jian Gui said.

"It's not easy to fight like this," Gu Fei said.

"Where should we sneak past?" Jian Gui calculated the direction while checking the coordinates.

"Never mind, let's just charge through the crowd! If someone attacks these four guys, we'll pretend we don't know them," Gu Fei said.

"Why?" Jian Gui asked.

"These four guys will expose our identities! They're a burden anyway," Gu Fei said.

"That's too wasteful." Jian Gui liked to experience the fun of the game. It was rare to have four NPCs following his orders, so he was reluctant to sacrifice them casually. He thought for a moment and said, "Do you think we can disguise them?"

"How do we disguise them?"

"You see, system soldiers are actually recognized as NPCs at a glance, mainly because their clothes are too NPC-like, very orthodox. If we mess up their equipment and dress them up differently, I don't think people will recognize them as NPCs at a glance," Jian Gui said.

"Can it be done?" Gu Fei was doubtful.

"Tell them to take off their equipment and see if they listen," Jian Gui said.

Gu Fei immediately ordered: "Remove your armor!"

The four soldiers obediently took off their armor from head to toe, wearing close-fitting underwear.

"It actually works!" Gu Fei was surprised. "Quick, give them whatever equipment you have!"

"Wait a moment!" Jian Gui ran away quickly. The city gate was very close to the warehouse, and Jian Gui had a lot of inventory in the warehouse. It wasn't a problem to dress up four people. This wasn't arming them, but disguising them. They could leave accessories empty and not care about them.

The four soldiers followed Gu Fei's instructions and put on the equipment that Jian Gui brought. Sure enough, they didn't look like NPCs anymore. At first glance, they looked like two thieves, a warrior, and a priest, very much like players.

"NPCs don't know how to use good equipment!" Jian Gui muttered at this time, going to pick up the equipment that the soldiers had taken off, while carefully watching them, worried that they wouldn't let him touch their equipment.

As a result, the soldiers didn't pay attention to Jian Gui at all. Jian Gui picked up the soldiers' armor and was excited: "Damn, it's a set!!! A five-piece set!!!"

The system soldiers were wearing a green set, helmet, armor, belt, boots, and gauntlets. The four rows of additional activated attributes were exciting enough. No player had so many pieces of a set yet! Jian Gui was excited, but suddenly saw a line of words on the equipment: Task items, cannot be equipped.

"Damn!" This was really disappointing. Gu Fei also came over to take a look, and Jian Gui put the equipment back.

"Put the equipment away," Gu Fei tried to give an order.

The soldiers were really smart, even knowing how to use the pocket function on player equipment, putting their armor into their pockets.

"That's about it. I think we can really get away with it like this. Let's go!!" Gu Fei said.

The two and the four soldiers rushed out of the city gate together and quickly mixed into the fierce competition between the players and the system guards. At this time, the guards under the city were fighting hand-to-hand with the players, and the catapults on the city had stopped. The mages didn't use area spells either, and observed the situation with the archers to perform spot shots.

Everything was as Gu Fei expected. The system guards treated them as partners and didn't attack them at all. And in the eyes of the players, they were also comrades, so naturally they wouldn't make things difficult for them. Some players saw these six guys running backwards in completely opposite directions and thought they were being chased strongly, so they jumped out to cover their retreat. As a result, there was nothing, and they watched the six people cross the battlefield without stopping.

Since this battlefield was completely unorganized and spontaneous, no one cared that these six people were running backwards. The greatest spirit of this battle was: do whatever you want. Including running to the leveling area to level up when they didn't want to fight anymore.

Gu Fei, Jian Gui, and the four soldiers ran away from the battlefield in one breath. After this run, Jian Gui came to another conclusion: "These four guys aren't slow!!!"

Gu Fei and Jian Gui were both players with outstanding movement speed, but these four soldiers were all warrior types, yet they had this movement speed. The system was just unreasonable like this.

"It's possible that it's specifically to match my movement speed, otherwise, would I have to match their movement? That would become an escort mission," Gu Fei said.

"That makes sense." Jian Gui nodded, checked the coordinates again, and pointed ahead: "It's over there, almost there."

"I think this might be similar to a two-way task. Some players here should have received a task to use this engineer to attack the city, and now my task is to disrupt their task."

"Yeah, let's approach carefully now!" Jian Gui suggested.

"What are we afraid of? They definitely won't guess that we're actually opponents," Gu Fei said.

"Uh, then why don't we cover our faces, otherwise, we'll be exposed this time," Jian Gui's vision was very long-term.

"You're quite insidious!" Gu Fei exclaimed.

Jian Gui was sincere: "Boss, my task hasn't been completed yet!"

So he was thinking about this! Gu Fei smiled, and then adopted this suggestion, taking the mask and covering his face. Thinking that the team should have a unified style, he waved to the four guards: "Cover your faces."

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Four NPC soldiers appeared in this chapter. Cough, the lion asked for a big price, claiming that four extras would be given to the four brothers in the dormitory. Four soldiers, take them, don't be polite!