CH 5

In another room on a similar channel.

Red Alert: “Bro, don’t think too much.”

When Lin Xiao saw this sentence, he couldn’t help but feel that it was a bit familiar and couldn’t remember where he saw it. He buried himself lazily in his chair, repeating what he said just now: “I’ll give you ‘Sophia’s Blade’ but everything else belongs to me.”

Red Alert: “Don’t think too much, okay! Although this instance1 is a bit outdated, you must be dreaming if you believe only two people can clear it. You need to wake up!”

Lin Xiao continued persuading: “I’ll give you ‘Sophia’s Blade’ but everything else belongs to me.”

Red Alert: “…You… are you using ctrl + c plus ctrl + v !!!”2 

Lin Xiao uttered a few more words this time: “No. I’ll give you ‘Sophia’s Blade’ but everything else belongs to me.”

Red Alert: “…”

He felt a little depressed. Previously, because he’d accidentally destroyed his Sophia’s Blade, he had to come back to replace it. Unfortunately, this instance was so outdated that those who were noobs had long become experts. After setting up the game, he waited by himself for an entire day although he did not come alone. The moment he was about to give up and exit, an instance came that required two people to clear.

Although it was not rare for two or three people to win quickly, it was only on the premise that there was a healer3 and a powerful MT4. However, as a weak assassin himself, how could he cooperate with a weak Ghost Priest who couldn’t heal? Double speed instance clear? Speed ​​your sister! Isn’t it faster to be killed by the boss?

Red Alert: “Fine, you are in charge! I’ll go to the guild5 to find a healer, then we will start immediately!”

Lin Xiao was also a bit speechless about this man’s weird tenacity. He could only compromise: “Okay. It’s only a pity there will be another person to share the equipment with.”

Red Alert’s mouth twitched, fighting the urge to kick the other person out of the party. Despite his frustration, after finally finding someone willing to partner with him and not fight over resources, he didn’t have the energy to wait for another. 　

Fearing that his highness would leave after being impatient, he went away and quickly found a female Cleric6 from his faction who agreed to help. As soon as he was back, he looked up and happened to see Lin Xiao asking: “What guild are you from? Are you sure the person you are calling is reliable?”

Hey, where did you get the idea of wanting only two people to clear an instance? When Red Alert glanced at the chat in the channel, he almost coughed up a mouthful of blood: “I’m from the powerful Black Dawn, a giant guild, where else would you find someone more reliable!!!”

Lin Xiao squinted his eyes at the multiple flashy exclamation marks on the screen puzzled. Why is everyone so easily angered these days? 

However, was it actually Black Dawn?

He didn’t expect that such a random confrontation would cause him to inadvertently collide with Black Rose’s direct guild. Wasn’t this the legendary pie falling from the sky into one’s lap.

The corners of his mouth slightly curved, and there was a smile hidden in the depths of his eyes while looking at the screen: “Very Good.”

When he saw these two words, Red Alert suddenly felt the hairs on his body standing on end. As soon as the female Cleric entered the room, without thinking, he greeted her anxiously: “Sister Clear, are you ready? Get ready, get ready!”

Lin Xiao: “Brother, wait. It doesn’t seem right to make a move on a woman just after meeting for the first time?” 7　　

Red Alert: “… W-what, this is the help I called.”

Lin Xiao asked: “Oh, ah, do we need to turn on voice chats?”

Red Alert jumped and responded within seconds: “Low level instance! No need!”

Lin Xiao didn’t mind. He prefered not to speak.

Everyone entered the room and began the preparation phase while Red Alert as the raid leader initiated the instance. Not long after, three avatars appeared at the spawn point.

Almost at that exact moment, Red Alert pulled sister Clear into a voice chat alone.

Clear Sky said, “What are you doing? Why not pull him into the voice chat as well?”

Red Alert’s tone became melancholic, “Well, it’s not easy to talk to him. You don’t know how bad this Ghost Priest is!”

Clear Sky looked at Lin Xiao’s equipment and agreed. “He must be pretty bad if his equipment values only 3200. Is he a trumpet8?”

Red Alert: “The greatest!”

Clear Sky: “What do you mean?”

Red Alert simply said, “If you hadn’t come, he’d have pulled me to clear the level with just the two of us!”

Clear Sky: “He’s crazy!”

Was the Ghost Priest crazy? Red Alert didn’t know, but what he knew was that he nearly went crazy under Lin Xiao’s mental torture. In order to prevent the other party from knowing that he had secretly turned on the voice chat, he typed in the team and urged: “Let’s hurry up!”

Lin Xiao stood in place and asked very carefully: “There is an additional person, how will the rewards be divided?”

“…” Red Alert became speechless. Looks like this person is treating the rewards in this low leveled instance as precious treasures. 

It was reasonable to assume that the rewards given in this wild dungeon would be randomly allotted. In any case, he’d already stated that he didn’t need other things so it wouldn’t be good if he were to go back on his words. As for Clear Sky, as the newest member of the team, they shouldn’t make demands. However, as a female whose existence in groups were that of moon and stars, it wouldn’t be right as a man to claim anything. 

Red Alert didn’t respond, instead Clear Sky replied: “I want the Green Eagle Scepter, the rest belongs to you.”

Lin Xiao gave a simple “Oh”, without any additional expressions.　

Of course, Red Alert knew what Clear Sky was thinking. The only valuable items in this small dungeon were the ‘Sophia Blade’ and the ‘Green Eagle Scepter’. The girl obviously wasn’t in need of broken, low leveled equipment. She clearly just didn’t want to give it to a random passerby. 　　

Lin Xiao didn’t disapprove so Red Alert thought he was just being ignorant. Nevertheless, since it was somebody from his side who had the advantage in the distribution, he naturally wouldn’t say a word about it. 　

Lin Xiao followed behind slowly, and looked at the cleric Clear Sky in front, wondering about her role in this instance. Judging based on appearance, it could easily be inferred that her equipment had a damage output of  about 6300. She obviously wasn’t needed for this instance. Initially, he didn’t mind what equipment he received, as long as he could get the ‘Green Eagle Scepter’ today. I’ll have to rely on my own abilities in this case.

In this day and age, this instance was really too simple. There were five bosses9. With the MT up front dealing with one, the others were weak so that easily took care of four.

Red Alert looked at the output statistics section, and felt a headache coming on. He finally couldn’t hold back on speaking, “Dude, the last boss is not as simple as the others. For that attack, you have to give it your all!”

Once again, Lin Xiao indifferently responded with “Oh”.

Clear Sky couldn’t help feeling annoyed and began using the private voice channel. “Why do I get the feeling that we may not get 5 kills? Is the Ghost Priest here as a joke? Look at his DPS stats10. We are simply carrying him lying down!11. He will receive equipment in the end, isn’t the treatment he’s getting like that of the person in charge? Am I so idle as to work for others?” 　　

Red Alert felt cold sweat rush over his body as he began comforting her, “Well, at least he can deal some damage right, it’s better than nothing. When the boss arrives, your priority should be keeping me safe. After all, this dungeon has only two valuable equipment and in the end they will both belong to us. Give him all the other garbage, consider it as us doing a good deed for the day.”

Clear Sky thought of how the rewards were distributed and made no further complaints.

After receiving confirmation from the team to begin, Red Alert released a throwing dart12 towards one of the monsters that was stationed the furthest.

This boss was obviously much stronger than the other monsters upfront. Although as an assassin, Red Alert had many stealth and covert skills, it was a weak class after all. Even if it was hit slightly, almost half of its HP would be lost.

Clear Sky restored his blood while Lin Xiao manipulated Adorable Ghost to cover his retreat. In spite of this, the boss was already in a frenzied state all over the field and because of this, no skills could be cast. The opponent was long gone from the Ghost Priest’s chanting range due to Red Alert. Lin Xiao couldn’t help but say, “You need to be a professional in order to pull13 monsters.”

Clear Sky had long ago been annoyed to death by this low leveled player. Seeing that he still had time to complain, she couldn’t help but scold: “Before you talk about others, take a look at yourself first. Having these kinds of DPS stats, even I as a healer can do more damage than you!”

Lin Xiao didn’t deny it, instead replying very seriously: “Indeed, if you killed a Cleric, the efficiency should be much faster.”

Clear Sky was stunned by his words and became furious.

As soon as she lost focus, Red Alert’s health bar began to drain quickly; he had his character run towards her while crying out desperately in the voice channel, “Milk! Milk! Big sister, I need milk!”14

Red Alert had already made the boss angry and without realising, was luring the boss in his direction. 

Lin Xiao moved closer and suddenly entered the attack range of the monster.

Seeing that the boss started to send attacks in his direction, he took several sidesteps to avoid them, however the Cleric loli15 next to him did not respond in time and had half her health bar drained away.

Clear Sky hurriedly tried to find something to increase the power of the spell she was preparing. Yet before she could complete the chant, a black beam suddenly struck her, completely emptying the last half of the blood strip.

Looking at the computer screen that became dark after her defeat, she couldn’t help but swear, “Fuck!”

On the Map Channel, Lin Xiao helplessly typed: “I said it before, pulling monsters is a professional’s job. Isn’t that why you were killed?” 

“…” Clear Sky simply remained lying on the ground unable to refute, she immediately withdrew from the game in anger. “I’m done!”

After the only healer in the team left, Red Alert didn’t continue to struggle and was finally killed by the boss. All attention shifted to Lin Xiao’s ghost priest.

The group was about to be destroyed. Red Alert couldn’t help feeling bitter. Seeing that Clear Sky even left the voice channel, he prepared to leave in frustration as well. He took a look around and saw the little ghost priest hopping up and down trying to dodge the boss’s attacks. Looking at them play hide and seek, he decided to speak in the team channel. “Brother, just give up. Let’s go out and start a new game.”

Lin Shao was still busy with the monster, yet he still had time to speak, “Can you find other ways to heal so we can continue?”

Red Alert: “…”

Initially, it was only a guess, which even if it was, he couldn’t help but feel shocked by the voice that came from the private voice channel between him and Clear Sky. 　　

He couldn’t help but doubt life.

He became even more depressed. He started paying attention to the interactions between the little loli wearing the red hood and the monster. The boss suddenly rushed forward for a few steps, but before he could advance, its body was struck and sent flying between two large trees, no longer moving.

Excuse me? 16

Red Alert watched as Adorable Ghost took a few steps back casually. After removing his avatar out of the attacking range of the boss, he sat up in front of himself and felt that this person was a little too strong. “This is too much!”

Lin Xiao casually repeated his original words. “Look how easy it is for two people to clear the level.”

Red Alert was even more depressed and didn’t want to respond, “With your skills, couldn’t you take care of this boss alone?”

Lin Xiao: “First of all, at least two people are needed to open the dungeon. Secondly, my computer is too old to open the game in separate tabs, otherwise I’d play by myself. Moreover, I don’t have any equipment to give enough attacking power so two person’s DPS is better than one, and time is precious.”　　

It all made sense, but Red Alert was speechless! He immediately burst into tears. It turned out that he was being delusional all along. This person only regarded him as a freelance worker from the start!

After Lin Xiao restored his health bar, he stood from a distance and began casting spells, throwing various attacks in succession. The damage dealt was too low so it took about five minutes before the final boss began to slowly die. This was grinding in the truest sense.17

The equipment fell, the ‘Sophia’s Blade’ that Red Alert really wanted was dropped.

If he knew that the ‘Green Eagle Scepter’ wouldn’t come out, he wouldn’t have wasted time guiding the monster to kill the Cleric. Such a pity. He casually tossed the blade to Red Alert then collected the remaining equipment and soon his empty inventory became full. 

When he exited the dungeon, he of course received a friend request from Red Alert. He smiled to himself as he clicked [APPROVE].

T/n

Plat: LX is really professional when pulling monsters. Pfft! (^‿^｡)

Clear Sky: I’m done!!!

Red Alert:  

Instance – an instance is a special area, typically a dungeon, that generates a new copy of the location for each group, or for a certain number of players, that enters the area.

Ctrl+C Ctrl+V – Asking if Lin Xiao is copy and pasting his responses.

Healer – Anyone who can provide HP treatment during a fight. Many healers have the ability to resurrect characters if necessary. This is normally a Cleric or Doctor.

MT –  short for main-tank, the main tank role used to take damage.

Guild – A group of players with formal recognition within the game world.

Cleric – The Cleric is a character class in dungeons. The cleric is primarily a healer, but is also very capable when fighting. 

‘ 情妹妹 ’ was used by Red Alert which sounded a bit more intimate. It literally means Sister Passion, whereas he meant to use ‘ 晴妹妹 ’ which is Sister Clear.

Trumpet – as mentioned in previous chapters, it means to boast. So Clear Sky is asking if LX is a boaster?

Boss – In games, a boss is a significant computer-controlled enemy. A fight with a boss character is commonly referred to as a boss battle or boss fight.  Bosses take strategy and special knowledge to defeat, such as how to attack weak points, ‘pulling’ or how to avoid specific attacks.

DPS – ‘Damage per second’ done by a skill or weapon.

‘Carrying him’ – One person puts in the work while another does nothing.

Throwing dart – One of the Assassin class weapons. 

Pull – In gaming this usually means to attract a monster’s attention. Sort of like luring. Plat: Sticks out leggy, come over here liddle monster. *wink wink*

Milk – Asking for someone to heal them/restore HP and MP.

Loli – Popularized in Japan, a word for a young girl often used in manga, anime, and light novels. Also a term in reference to Vladimir Nabokov’s novel, Lolita.  

Excuse me – This was asked in English.

Repeatedly adventuring in an area or n this case repeatedly throwing attacks for an extended period of time for the purpose of gaining experience and leveling up.