CH 10

The display on the computer screen did not have a chance to return back to normal. Within the brief 10 seconds before the effects of the ‘Blind’ debuff came to an end, the Tomahawk Warrior’s health had already been completely emptied.

[System] First Blood!

Happy Thoughts was struggling to break himself out, yet he suddenly realized that the party member beside him was lying flat on the ground for an unknown reason. With a blank expression, he asked “How did you die so quickly?”

What caused him to feel even more bewildered was that, as the Combat Warrior, he should be the squishier1 one out of the two of them. At the same time, after they had been hit with ‘Ten Thousand Ghost Void’, the one that the opponent wanted to target should have been him. On the contrary, why had he killed off the Tomahawk Warrior instead? That Ghost Priest they were facing really did not play according to convention!

Broken Sky stared blankly at the revival cooldown displayed on the screen. In the midst of his disbelief, he pulled himself together with difficulty. He tugged at the corners of his mouth and said, “This is hard to describe. I have this sour feeling from being wiped, anyone who has experienced it would know…”

Broken Sky was a person who rarely spoke discouraging words. This gave Happy Thoughts an ominous premonition. Subconsciously, he had already maneuvered his character to retreat backwards. Yet, by that time, it was already too late. 

A flower of ice bloomed on his body, pinning down his movements. A conspicuous Little Red Riding Hood was visible on the screen. The staff in her hands flashed with a red light, and the grey black shadow of a skeleton appeared at the top of the Combat Warrior’s head…

…　　

Red Alert was chasing after the priest enthusiastically. Seeing that there was no escape route in the front, he immediately used a ‘Stealth’ skill. Using ‘Ghost Sprint’, he dashed towards the girl who had no place to run, silently approaching her until she was in front of him. As he was preparing to use his ‘Assassination’ skill, he suddenly caught a glimpse of the system notification of a kill on his screen.

Still, the priest who was still alive before him made it difficult for him to react. It was only after thinking back that he recalled the Ghost Priest that they had unleashed upon them, and he asked suspiciously in the voice chat, “Adorable Ghost…you, killed that enemy?”

Lin Xiao heard this and replied, “En.”　　

Red Alert felt like he still could not completely process what had happened. It should be known that Broken Sky and Happy Thoughts could be considered to be top-ranked experts in the guild. Yet, they had actually been killed in a 2v1 setting? How could it be!

His loss of focus caused some delay in his approach, and he had yet to use his skills. When the duration of his ‘Stealth’ skill had ended, he suddenly appeared in front of Love Affair in such an “upright” manner.

The girl was obviously frightened. After freezing there for a second, she anxiously sprinted to escape. Only then did Red Alert react. When such an arrow had already been nocked onto the bow, how could he drop the ball at such a critical moment? Seeing that such a rare opportunity was about to slip away, he hurriedly leapt after the girl and pounced at her.

With his ultimate move ‘Sacrificial Strike’, he took her life, successfully clearing out Love Affair’s health bar.

[System] Second Blood!

[System] Third Blood!2

[System] Victory!

The system sent out these three notifications in succession. Seeing the word ‘Victory’ displayed on the screen, this time it was not just Red Alert, even Empty Spring stared at it in disbelief for a long time. It was unusually silent in the voice chat.

The scene of Red Alert using ‘Sacrificial Strike’ to take Love Affair’s life using his own just now was still fresh in their minds. However, this also meant that not counting the ‘First Blood’ taken by Adorable Ghost, they had only gained 2 points from winning the battle. Yet, the system was now displaying the word ‘Victory’. That meant that just now, within those few seconds after the first kill, the third kill had been swiftly completed.

In other words, the cute little shota3 who had still been playing peek-a-boo up to the Fourth Division was now able to achieve complete victory in a 2v1 setting, even if his opponents were experts.

In a daze, Red Alert vaguely recalled that previously, this person seemed to have said that he was playing as a damage dealer…at that time he, cough cough, seemed to have clearly expressed his disdain.

The unusually solemn silence in the voice channel was still ongoing, with no signs of stopping.

After leaving the arena map, Lin Xiao waited in the arena lobby4 for a long time, yet there were still no signs of the invitation that he was waiting for. Thus, he opened his mouth and asked, “It’s only just 1 o’clock. What, are we not continuing?”

“No, we’ll continue, continue!” Red Alert finally came to his senses after hearing this sentence. Lifting the corners of his mouth, he said, “You completely eliminated the other side in a 1v2, you’re really good, brother. So you were actually an expert?”

Lin Xiao chuckled and was not humble. “I have always been one.”　　

“…” Originally, Red Alert had been full of praises, but after hearing this abrupt sentence, he no longer wanted to talk about it. He silently sent a party request over and re-entered the matching queue.

Amidst the peace and quiet, he received a friends-only chat message from Empty Spring, “Where did you find this Ghost Priest from? There aren’t many people in the guild who can take on Broken Sky’s group in a one-on-one and defeat them. Yet, he actually managed a 1v2?”

Red Alert was also in a complicated mood. “How would I know where he came from! Do you know how I’m feeling right now? It’s like I picked up a stray cat from the roadside and brought it back home to raise it with care. Then one day, the neighbor’s dog ran over to bully the cat, and just as I was getting ready to help it, it suddenly transformed into a Siberian tiger…”

Empty Spring paused, and couldn’t help praising, “I will no longer say that you are uncultured. This comparison, such imagery!”

For the later battles, it felt like they had mostly passed with the voice chat being completely silent. 

Ever since Lin Xiao stopped sitting on the sidelines, the 3v3 group battles seemed to be completely one-sided. Nothing that they encountered was left alive, not even an inch of grass. And just like this, they were directly promoted to the Third Division without any obstacles. When the light of dawn began seeping into the room, they had finally completed all of the items in their power-leveling to do list.

As a whole, Lin Xiao was very satisfied with the equipment he had gained tonight. Although it wasn’t the equipment he had originally planned for, in the end, he had found suitable equipment to fill up the three missing parts of his equipment. Even the quality of his equipment had only risen, and did not drop. The most basic equipment that he needed to play through the ranking ladder alone in the future could now be considered to be officially completed.

As he casually began to tinker with his newly gained equipment, the other 2 people in the party went offline. Not long after, Red Alert came online as shown in his friends list. Almost immediately after, he sent over a message. “Brother Adorable Ghost, would you like to consider joining our guild? Black Dawn, we are strong and prestigious, and we do not let just any old person into the guild!”

Lin Xiao’s motions of cultivating his equipment halted upon seeing this message. The corners of his lips lifted into a smile.　　

Oh, so what he had waited for had come.

He tapped on his keyboard and, as if he had said it without putting in any thought, replied, “Sure. ^_^~”

At the time Red Alert saw this message, the long paragraph of words that he had come up with after much thought had only been entered halfway. The fingers that were hovering above his keyboard stiffened in place, and it felt as if his entire body had gone numb.

This motherf**ker5, he didn’t go according to script!　

He had envisioned that the hidden experts who were unaffiliated and wandered about alone would always have their own idiosyncrasies. They might even be stubborn in doing things their own way for areas that were unique to themselves. When sending the guild invite, he had already been prepared to give his all to persuade him to join. But in the end, the other party had actually agreed so directly, causing him to choke back his words.

After a long time, he finally forced out a reply. “Wait till the guild leader is online. I will look for him. At that time, we will bring you into the guild.”

“Alright. I will go to sleep first.” Having said this, Adorable Ghost’s avatar on the list also went dark.

Lin Xiao went to bed in a good mood. Red Alert stared at his computer in a daze. He was still processing what he had experienced tonight, and the emotional fluctuations were so strong that he could not calm down for a long time.

He had done power-leveling so many times, and it had never been as relaxed as it was today. If it could be said that they had carried the other person to victory6 before the Fourth Division, then after the Fourth Division, it was undoubtedly the other person who had carried him to victory. However, this wasn’t a 1v1 singles match, but a team match! 1v2, and in the Fourth Division even? If he hadn’t experienced it personally, he wouldn’t even have dared to think of it!

He sat in a daze before his screen just like that, until his guild leader finally came online at 8.30am. Red Alert quickly sent a private message. “Guild Leader, I ran into a very capable Ghost Priest, and I want to invite him to join our guild!”

As the manager of the club’s guild department, the character that Ye Chen used was the guild leader to Black Dawn, ‘Black Night’. After receiving the message, he very quickly replied, “A very capable Ghost Priest? Is he even more capable than Chongchong?”

Because of the previous club leader, Old Ghost, there were many Ghost Priest players within the ranks of the Black Dawn guild that fell within the umbrella of the Black Rose club. The full name of the ‘Chongchong’ mentioned here was ‘Bloody Light’7. He was the number one Ghost Priest out of all the non-professional players in the guild. He had already reached the Second Division for the single players’ ranking ladder, and was just a step away from breaking into the First Division. Even professional players who were in the Third Division and above would be overwhelmed by his skills.

He had originally said this casually. Understandably, Ye Chen had never thought that it would be possible to randomly find an expert of Bloody Light’s level outside of the guild. However, after tossing out this topic, he waited for ages without receiving a reply. Surprised, he asked, “Could it be that it’s hard to tell?”

Red Alert hesitated. “…Indeed, it’s hard to tell.”

Although such an evaluation might not necessarily be objective or accurate, since he could make Red Alert unsure of whether his level was above or below that of Bloody Light, it was evident that even if the other party was unable to reach the level of a professional player, he could at the very least be considered to be a bonafide expert within the game.

Ye Chen couldn’t help but feel somewhat curious and asked, “What stage has this person reached on the ladders?”

While speaking about this, Red Alert couldn’t help but to reveal a pained expression. With a very heavy tone, he replied, “It should be…the Tenth Division?”

In front of his screen, Ye Chen, who had taken a sip of tea, spat it out in an undignified manner, causing the other people in the guild department’s office to glance in his direction frequently. He immediately coughed a few times in succession, before heaving out with great difficulty, “An expert in the Tenth Division! Have you been brainwashed by that video that has been going viral lately?”

“I have not…” Red Alert had just typed in these words to prove his innocence, when the hands that he had placed on top of his keyboard suddenly paused in that position. Mentally, he felt that Adorable Ghost’s figure was slowly overlapping more and more with the silhouette in that video, and he was immediately struck by inspiration. He immediately deleted his words and typed in a new line of words. “It really seems to be the Ghost Priest that was in that video!”

A shota wearing a Little Red Riding Hood costume and long boots. A Ghost Priest in the Tenth Division. This was practically all the signs of the main character of that video…Red Alert had good foresight, how had he not associated all this with the person he had seen before him!

________________

The author has something to say:

Recently, many little angels have been concerned about the question of whether there will be BL for all characters. Old Vinegar will clearly give an answer here (author is referring to herself, as her ID is Green Plum Vinegar):

This story has multiple CPs. There are many pairs of CPs, and among them, it is true that quite a few are BL. However, there are also a few that are BG, and not all of them are BL! There might also be a hidden yuri couple (GL). (Is that wrong?)

It is as above! While I’m at it, I’ll also express that in about 2 or 3 chapters, we will be able to see Her Majesty the Queen8, please keep reading! ^_^~

Squishier characters = those who are easier to kill as they have less health and defense.

For the gamers, this part might sound a bit strange to you, but this part was written in English in the raws. The equivalent for us would be double/triple kill.

Most people already should know this, but shota are young boys, typically cute ones.

For the non-gamers, an arena lobby is the place where players wait to be matched up to their opponents in a PVP battle. This process is typically also known as a “queue”.

Previous TL-er left it untranslated as “nima”, but since it’s a curse word, I translated it as such since it’s funnier like this. Let me know which you prefer!

Literally, let the other person lie down and still be able to win.

His full name is 血光重重 (xuě guāng chóng chóng), and his nickname is 重重 (chóng chóng).

We all know who this is ^_^~