Chapter 183 - He that runs fastest gets the ring.

Foe-herder had suffered many hards.h.i.+ps to get the IGN 'Thousand Miles Drunk'. Just this afternoon alone, he had experienced being disdained by over fifty Amethyst Rebirth ladies – a matter that any man would find heartbreaking. 

At his wit's end, Foe-herder finally emailed Xi Xiaotian to discuss the matter at hand. Nonetheless, no sane person would purchase a name at the high price of 1000 gold coins. Foe-herder decided that if the lady still insisted on the price of 1000 gold coins for just a name, he would slay her where she stood.

In the end, Foe-herder was rather satisfied when Xi Xiaotian said that she would not only provide the Mage's name but also set up a face-to-face meeting between them.

Both parties made their way to the tavern by the central plaza once they had come to an agreement on the payment. Along the way, Foe-herder was wondering how he could test the Mage's capabilities as the possibility existed of Xi Xiaotian teaming up with a random Mage to trick him. But when he saw that the Mage who had showed up was Gu Fei, he immediately felt a.s.sured. 

Foe-herder recognized Gu Fei as the Mage who had crossed swords with him before at the mercenary PvP tournament. Although Gu Fei's job that day was to run and hide, Foe-herder could tell that he was a skilled player. He quite believed that he was the Mage that he had been looking for.

As Foe-herder thought of this, he noticed Gu Fei's expression turning dark as he fixed Xi Xiaotian a vicious glare.

“Bro, take a seat!” Foe-herder feebly offered.

Gu Fei sat down.

“Let's add each other as friends!” Foe-herder requested. Laying the groundwork was important in building a solid foundation, as Foe-herder knew that Gu Fei would not defect over to his guild just because he asked him to. But as long as they added each other as friends, he would have the means to contact Gu Fei and slowly persuade the latter into joining his guild. That alone was worth spending this large amount of money.

“What for?” Gu Fei asked Foe-herder. After hearing from the ladies about Foe-herder's deplorable actions, Gu Fei no longer viewed him in a favorable light. He knew very well of Foe- herder's intention, so he planned to reject him outright.

“Oh, it's nothing serious… I just wanna be friends with you, bro,” Foe-herder decided to proceed with his recruitment plan slowly. Why would a player agree to switch guilds for no good reason? Therefore, it was better for him to add Gu Fei as a friend first while he thought of ways to entice the latter into joining his guild. 

Foe-herder had calculated his every move, yet Gu Fei unexpectedly denied his request, “I don't want to!”

“Why… Why not?” Foe-herder asked, perplexed.

“Uhh… I don't like your name,” Gu Fei replied.

The reason he gave was very childish, yet Foe-herder could not find a way around it, leaving him speechless for a moment.

“We're leaving!” Gu Fei stood up and dragged Xi Xiaotian along with him.

“Huh?” Xi Xiaotian was at a loss as Gu Fei continued to drag her toward the tavern's doorway.

“Sigh…” Foe-herder finally realized what was happening and quickly got up to chase after the two. 

Xi Xiaotian kept pace with Gu Fei as she looked backward to address Foe-herder, “Hey!” To those not privy to the situation, she and Foe-herder appeared to be a pair of lovers that was being forcefully separated by the evil Gu Fei. “You haven't paid me fully, so I'll contact you later.” These words of hers effectively broke that illusion.

Gu Fei and Xi Xiaotian finally exited the tavern. Foe-herder tried to chase after them, but he was soon left in the dust. 

With Gu Fei being a full-Agility Mage and Xi Xiaotian being a full-Agility Archer, Foe-herder could only helplessly watch them became distant blurs.

Only when Foe-herder was no longer in sight that Gu Fei stopped rus.h.i.+ng forward. Xi Xiaotian was nonplussed, “What's with you?”

“How much did you charge for this meet-up between me and Foe-herder?” Gu Fei asked.

“Umm... 400 gold coins, to be exact. I originally wanted 1000 gold coins, but all seem to be suffering from financial crisis nowadays, so they were grinding their teeth in anger and refused to do business with me when I asked for that kind of payment. In the end, we agreed on 400 gold coins. I have yet to collect the total fee since he only gave me a deposit of 100 gold coins just then, so I am still missing 300 gold coins… Oh, and the remaining 300 gold coins are meant for you, you know! But since we've ditched him, I bet he is thinking twice about giving us the rest of the payment... Since I'm such a nice lady, I'll just split the 100 gold coins I've gotten from him with you!” With that, Xi Xiaotian took out her coin purse from her dimensional pocket. Dangling it before Gu Fei, Xi Xiaotian made it look as if she was about to pour all its contents, “Reach out your hand!”

Gu Fei wanted to spit out the anger welling up in him, yet he could not bring himself to do so and only shake his head, “No, thanks.”

“Why not?” Xi Xiaotian asked.

Gu Fei took a deep breath, “Next time you think of a scheme to get rich quickly, please do it without involving me.” He then walked away. 

Xi Xiaotian stood on one spot for quite a while before coming back to her senses and quickly running after Gu Fei. It was at this moment that an arrow on Snipe whistled through the air from a side alley.

Xi Xiaotian's reaction speed was good and she managed to dodge that arrow. A shout of “Over here!” made Gu Fei look backward, only to see a bunch of players surrounding Xi Xiaotian.

Gu Fei was about to pull out his sword from his dimensional pocket when he heard the surrounding players say, “You're a swindler!” Pausing, he eased his grip on the sword hilt inside his dimensional pocket.

“Who swindled whom?!” Xi Xiaotian tried to defend herself from the accusation, but the group of men was clearly not here to listen to her explanation, and they proceeded to bombard her with their attacks.

Xi Xiaotian tried to slip through a gap among them, yet she was hurtled back into the encirclement by a Warrior's Cyclone. With only a sliver of HP, the two Mages' spells promptly turned Xi Xiaotian into a beam of white light.

“Let's head to the Archer Range next!” some men shouted as they moved to run toward the said direction. Gu Fei spotted a few familiar faces among them and exclaimed, “Are you guys from Cloud Herder?”

The men regarded Gu Fei with suspicion as one of them nodded his head, “Yup!”

“How did that woman just now swindle you guys?” Gu Fei asked.

“Who are you?” The men suspiciously asked Gu Fei as they exchanged glances with one another.

“I've also been cheated by her before.” This statement of Gu Fei held some truth.

“We actually don't know how, but our guild leader said that she had swindled us,” someone among the men replied. The rest disregarded Gu Fei and rushed toward the Archer Range.

Waiting for a bit, he also headed to the Archer Range using a different path.

Along the way, he saw quite a few players making their way toward the same direction. Quite a few familiar faces that he had seen during yesterday's match clued him to the fact that they were all members of Cloud Herder Guild.

Gu Fei was faster than the average players, yet quite a few players were already gathered at the Archer Range when he arrived.

The place he and Xi Xiaotian had just been was not far from the Archer Range. Nonetheless, only one thing would explain why Gu Fei with his fast movement speed arrived later than so many others: this was a premeditated hunt.

This ambush of theirs is ridiculous! Who would be foolish enough to leave the safe zone if they're openly blocking the entrance like that?! The experienced fighter Gu Fei muttered to himself as he looked at the sight in front of the Archer Range and eavesdropped on the Cloud Herder men's conversation.

“Where is she?” someone shouted.

“I don't know. I haven't seen her at all,” someone answered, clearly at a loss himself.

Many entered the safe zone and searched the place, yet they saw no traces of her.

“She must have logged off!” someone guessed.

Gu Fei opened up his friends list and glanced at it. Indeed, Xi Xiaotian's name was darkened on the display. It seemed that she knew how to deal with people trying to take revenge on her and promptly logged off after getting killed once. This caused the ambushers outside to doubt if she had been sent here in the first place.

It was truly disappointing to discover that their target had logged off despite making many preparations to hunt her. Whoever experienced this would only feel helpless inside, as this was not a problem that could be resolved in-game.

The Cloud Herder's players were about to leave the area dispiritedly when someone shouted, “Guild Leader is here!”

Everyone turned toward a certain direction. Gu Fei, who was wedged among them, stretched his neck out to have a look toward that direction as well. Indeed, Foe-herder and several other guildmates were striding over. “Where is she?” Foe-herder immediately asked once he was close enough to his men at the Archer Range.

“She logged off,” everyone reported to him regrettably.

Foe-herder checked his friends list and saw that this was really the case. “F*ck!” he cursed.

“Guild Leader, what exactly happened?” some of them were clueless as to what had prompted their guild leader to order this manhunt.

“That woman colluded with another Mage to pose as the man we are looking for!” Foe-herder replied.

“I'm sure some of you have seen that fake Mage before. It's that Mage of Young Master's Elite, the one whom we've fought in the mercenary PvP tournament!” Foe-herder explained further.

Gu Fei quickly lowered his head in the crowd. Only a few members of Cloud Herder could actually identify him, as not many of them had fought with him directly. They might even have an easier time recognizing the back of Gu Fei instead of his face since his back was what they could see when they were chasing after him during their PvP match.

Each of them immediately condemned the swindling duo openly. Gu Fei could not stand being accused like that and promptly squeezed his way out of the crowd, saying, “Excuse me. Isn't this just a misunderstanding?”