Virtual World: Close Combat Mage

“That jerk; he’s really quick on the uptake!” Deep Waters mumbled under his breath as he chased over. The two Thieves behind him were only momentarily stunned by the trap he had fired off. In fact, one of them was only hoodwinked and was not even ensnared. As for the other man, his leg that got trapped was already freed from it. Evidently, the duration of the trap for Deep Waters’ Snare Shot did not last very long.

Several steps inside the jungle, Deep Waters spotted Young Master Han leaning hard against a tree. He dove behind another tree as he whispered, “They’re here.”

“There are only two of them; can’t you take care of them?” Young Master Han asked. It was natural for a Priest like him to have difficulty contending with others, but Deep Waters was considered as one of the Five Unyielding Experts. Even if he lost a level after Gu Fei had slain him, others would deride him if he could not even take care of two Thieves.

“It’s not just two!” Deep Waters explained.

“Who are they?” Young Master Han asked.

“F*ck. How would I know? They’re obviously after you!” Deep Waters exclaimed.

“Isn’t this your backyard?”

“I don’t recognize them. Haven’t seen them before as well,” Deep Waters replied.

“Have they caught up yet?”

“Of course!” Deep Waters suddenly turned and circled round the other direction as he fired two arrows with Double Shot.

“D*MM*T!” A voice from within the jungle growled. It clearly belonged to a man who had gotten struck by the arrows. Deep Waters ducked behind the tree once more as he quickly peeked out from the other side and took another shot. Not a curse was heard this time. Deep Waters leaned close to the tree as his ears pricked to pick up any sound but did not hear even a footstep.

At the moment, both parties were rather close to one another. The jungle floor was filled with detritus, so it was not easy for anyone to walk through it without making a sound. It was obvious that the enemies had stopped moving for now.

Young Master Han gestured for Deep Waters to provide him intel on the number of enemies that they were facing.

Deep Waters lifted four fingers. He had caught sight of five players running into the jungle the moment he peeked out, but the two arrows he had fired off targeted only one player. Therefore, one of them was already taken care of. One thing he was certain was that the enemies had already noted his position and were most likely preparing to conduct a sneak attack on him.

Peep, the Hunter skill he had was specially used to counter Stealth. However, he could only sense the players when they were in Stealth. The enemies right now were not using Stealth and were instead just carefully closing in on him, so the skill was essentially useless.

Deep Waters made a quick gesture to Young Master Han and the latter nodded tacitly. Counting to three in his heart, Young Master Han suddenly revealed himself from behind the tree and used the Priest’s weak Holy Ball to attack one of the enemies.

Although no one would treat a Priest’s attack seriously, his sudden appearance nevertheless attracted everyone’s attention. Deep Waters took this chance to instantly bound out and hide himself behind another tree. The enemies did not know that their momentary shift of attention had been exploited by Deep Waters. Deep Waters had already changed his position by the time they turned to look at the tree he had been hiding before Young Master Han’s diversion.

The enemies’ eyes were not on Deep Waters’ new hiding spot. When he peeked his head out from behind the tree, he saw two players quickly heading over to where Young Master Han was, while the other two continued to close in on the position he had previously been hiding. Deep Waters unhesitatingly ducked out half his body with a drawn bow and fed Snipe to one of the two players creeping over to Young Master Han.

This unexpected arrow caused the four men to panic once more. They did not even consider that this attack was from the same player from before who had managed to change his position, but was instead convinced that it was from a third player who was also hidden in this jungle.

They subconsciously believed that if there was a third player, then there could possibly be a fourth, fifth, sixth... The four men no longer dared to act with undue consideration as they conscientiously gathered together.

Deep Waters took this chance to peek out and use Appraisal on the four players’ job class. The enemies were all Thieves. This made him feel more reassured, since he would at least be able to maintain his ranged superiority over them. He fired another shot when he revealed himself, yet the player he had shot with Snipe before was unfortunately no longer within his attack range, so Deep Waters could only choose another target. He even daringly ran out from his position after shooting. When he turned around to look, he saw the men closely taking note of his movement and searching for hiding spots themselves. They appeared to have no intention of actively chasing after him.

“Heh... Not falling for it, eh!” Deep Waters sighed. This act of hiding meant that they had given up the initiative to attack. Now that Deep Waters held the initiative, he boldly weaved about the trees and quickly circled around where those men were hiding.

Seeing his target looking all over, unaware of the danger looming next to him, Deep Waters could only sigh as he mercilessly fired off an arrow to finish off this player.

I’m afraid these guys aren’t from Linyin City... Deep Waters concluded in his mind. Linyin City’s players were experts when it came to jungle guerilla warfare, only death awaited anyone who would hide behind a tree and assume that they were safe.

As he was thinking of this, Deep Waters traversed through the jungle and was now behind another enemy. This time, however, just as he had fully drawn his bow and was about to fire, this man’s figure suddenly became transparent.

Stealth! Deep Waters thought as he hurriedly released his arrow. Once the enemy’s Stealth was broken, the man hurriedly turned around to find out who had ambushed him. Deep Waters decided against hiding as he fired off an arrow straight to the man’s head. It was too late for this man to evade this shot and he disappeared with an arrow stuck on his butt.

“Hey! Are you dead yet?” Deep Waters sent Young Master Han this message. They had already added each other as friends during their meeting in the tavern.

“I’m immortal,” Young Master Han replied.

“The enemies are now in Stealth mode,” Deep Waters warned him.

“Got it!” Young Master Han answered. In the next second, Deep Waters watched as Young Master Han dash out from his hiding spot, looking particularly unhurried in the eyes of an Agility-based job class. However, he knew that that was the maximum movement speed a Priest could do, and it was a speed that most Thieves in Stealth would have trouble catching up to.

“That’s so cunning.” Deep Waters sighed. Young Master Han’s action directly tapped into the weakness of the Thieves, as their movement speed while in Stealth was not good enough to catch up to anyone. Despite this, Deep Waters still had to give Young Master Han’s coordinates, “Run here!”

Young Master Han, who was weaving through the jungle, abruptly turned to run in the precise direction he had indicated. Deep Waters could not help but whisper, “Having a firm grasp of coordinates to this degree, why didn’t he offer to help that guy with the nonexistent sense of direction do ‘Bounty Mission’, instead?”

When the Thieves in Stealth saw the Priest fleeing, they immediately canceled their Stealth and changed it to Fleetfoot to give chase, yet they were still a distance away from Young Master Han. Deep Waters calmly sent him another message: “If you can’t reach the coordinates in time, I won’t save you even if you come running to hug my thigh1!”

Given Young Master Han’s ability to calculate precise distance and how coordinates intuitively came to him, he had long since realized the difficulty of reaching the coordinates Deep Waters had provided him with before those Thieves caught up to him, yet he remained unflustered in the least. He was a Priest, after all. Tossing a Heal or two on himself should be enough to sustain him through this short distance. With his superb skill control and his confidence with his Golden Ratio stat point distribution, any players intending to interrupt his spell-casting would face a similar level of difficulty as those players attempting to interrupt Gu Fei’s spell-casting.

By the time the Thieves caught up to Young Master Han at the position he had estimated that they would, he had already bestowed Heal on himself in preparation of their assault. Immediately turning his body round, Young Master Han waved toward Deep Waters’ direction. “Aren’t you attacking yet?”

The two Thieves reflexively turned their heads in the direction he had gestured to. Young Master Han actually casually caused them to look away once more with this act. As a result, that bit of damage he had been expecting to receive did not come and he was able to safely proceed to the coordinates Deep Waters had directed him to.

Deep Waters was of course going to strike, yet he did not do so immediately as he was looking forward to seeing Young Master Han take a little beating – a wish that seemed to more or less run in line with everyone who had met the latter.

This wish of his was somewhat fulfilled when two Thieves finally attacked Young Master Han when they managed to close in on him. Young Master Han did not dodge their attacks. Bestowing Heal on himself with exactitude, he bought time for himself as he stared at Deep Waters without saying a word or crying out for help.

Deep Waters did not say anything, either. Pulling his bow out as slowly as he could, he took an arrow out, nocked it on the bow, and drew the bow’s string back. Release!

If only the arrow would fly slow, as well! Deep Waters thought to himself.

The two Thieves gritted their teeth and kept up their attacks, thinking that their combined efforts would be enough to kill off the Priest. It should be an easy enough task. Afterward, they would deal with the Archer, deciding on whether to kill or hide from him. Unfortunately for them, Young Master Han’s Heal was perfectly bestowed each time, neither too late nor too soon, and he managed to maintain his HP with the greatest efficiency.

And just like that, the two Thieves eventually realized that it was their HP that had dropped to the red, while the Priest before them remained fine.

This was already Deep Waters purposely going easy on them. If he had been concentrating his firepower on just one of them, they would not even be in a situation where both players’ HP were in the red.

Knowing that they could not sustain this any longer, the two men quickly turned tail to run. They were hoping to recover their HP somewhere safe before deciding on their next step. However, this was when Deep Waters increased the pace of his attack and fired off Homing Projectile and Snipe on them.

That was how all the five Thieves who had delved into the jungle got killed off.

“Man, it’s such a shame. Why aren’t you dead?” Deep Waters kept his bow as he walked over.

“I’m just too skilled. I can’t die even if I want to. I feel really bad, too,” Young Master Han replied as he kept his staff.

“Who are those guys?” Deep Waters asked.

“I don’t recognize any of them,” Young Master Han answered.

“Why are they after you?” Deep Waters asked.

“I don’t know either.”

“They don’t seem to be players from Linyin City,” Deep Waters said.

“Are you sure?” Young Master Han asked.

“If they were from Linyin City, you would be dead already,” Deep Waters said, instead.

Young Master Han did not pay heed to that last comment as he muttered, “If they’re not from Linyin City but from somewhere near and a place I’ve visited, that only leaves Baishi City. Those people are from Baishi City... Hmm....”