HC: Pacifist | Ch. 199 - Energy Crisis

It had been a one-hour-long briefing where ColdHand went through different possible scenarios and ensured that the hunting party was as ready as possible for the decisive hunt ahead of them. Roth was no stranger to such briefings. They were a normal part of a professional gamer’s life. He had had his fair share of briefings back in his merc days.

What would follow now was drills and exercises to build some muscle memory into the party, but given the pedigree of the hunting party members, that wouldn’t take long. Everyone had just left the tent and was headed toward the chosen location to run the drills before teleporting away.

“I’m curious, how much did you pay for your place in the expedition?” asked Roth to his bodyguard. Even though Jaw-Long had defined 3 feet as a kill zone, no one came near the 30-foot mark.

“1k gold.”

Roth gulped. That wasn’t a small amount. “Was there an auction, or?”

“1k per seat. That was the deal.”

“And how many people did you bring?” Roth asked, looking around. He hadn’t yet pieced together who else from the reputed guild was here.

“Enough.” The old man habitually answered questions with as few words as possible. He seemed to Roth as the kind of man who believed that the fewer words one used, the more power one wielded.

“And how many are those?”

The man smirked, “One.”

The sentence was spoken without pretension or arrogance, just pure confidence. Just how powerful was this man? What kind of skills did he have? Before Roth could ask more questions, BlueFire headed their way.

“Permission to enter the 3-foot radius, Jaw-Long,” asked BlueFire politely.

The old man nodded, and BlueFire approached Roth. “Hello, ticket boy,” he said playfully.

Roth wondered why the remark had a softer edge than BlueFire’s usual snarky tone. “Hey, BlueFire. What’s up?”

“I’ve been getting some interesting messages from the party of ogrelords I sent to explore Antioch.”

Hearing this, Roth understood why he was acting so meekly. “Oh, right. How is it going? It’s a really cool place, isn’t it?” asked Roth happily. Jaw-Long, to the side, seemed to be looking elsewhere, but Roth was sure that he was listening into the conversation. After all, he’d been one of the players interested enough to call Roth and ask about this new world region.

“They’re having trouble making sense of the place. You don’t happen to have a map you could share with us? It would go a long way toward helping with exploration,” asked BlueFire politely.

“Of course. 5k gold.”

BlueFire choked, hearing this as if the words had fishbones that had gotten stuck in his throat, and even Jaw-Long couldn’t stop himself from quitting his little ‘I’m not looking at you’ act and throwing Roth a surprised look.

“5k? You’ve already milked us dry, Roth. I already paid 5k just for those,” he hesitated, sparing a look at Jaw-Long a few steps away, “consumables to enter the city.”

“Nonsense. Good old Jaw-Long here just told me you charged 1k for every seat in the hunt. On top of that, you’ll get half of the loot of the hive king. As I see it, you guys are swimming in money right now.”

BlueFire clenched his teeth. “1k. Final offer.”

“Sorry. No.”

He walked away from BlueFire, signaling he wouldn’t budge. Roth didn’t have anything to lose and everything to gain. On the other hand, he doubted that the team of explorers BlueFire had sent in could do much in Antioch without his help. How many people there knew telepathy and were on friendly terms with treeants?

If BlueFire didn’t take this opportunity, he would probably have to return to Roth and beg him to sell him more of the [Miniaturizing Honeydew] to let them enter the city again and have more time to explore. BlueFire was probably running all these calculations while taking Roth’s confidence into consideration.

“Fine. 3k and not a penny more.”

“You know what. Even though 5k would be a fair price, I don’t want to be greedy, BlueFire. You’ve got yourself a deal. I can be a reasonable man.”

BlueFire’s scowl told him he didn’t agree with Roth’s humble brag. Roth sent him the map he had previously prepared. He had taken some of the more valuable information out, such as the location of the queen’s chamber, the teleportation gate, and the vault, but it marked clearly where the Ogrelords could buy [Miniaturizing Honeydew].

“There you go,” Roth said, sending him a message with the map information.

“Thank you.”

BlueFire has transferred you 3000 gold.

“Pleasure to do business with you,” spoke Roth amicably.

BlueFire let out a resigned sigh and left.

“Hahaha. You tamed the old fox,” Jaw-Long laughed. “Guarding you is more fun than I thought.”

The usually quiet man made the longest sentence Roth had heard him say all day. Roth noted how the old man had called BlueFire an old fox. It was ironic because Jaw-Long fit the bill better than BlueFire did, but he was inclined to agree with him. BlueFire was indeed an old fox. He was a shrewd tactician. The overall respect he’d seen from other guild leaders toward him and his maturity in letting ColdHand lead the hunt only attested to this. He should be careful not to antagonize BlueFire too much, or it would come back to bite him.

Roth and his entourage kept walking until they reached a clearing that reminded him of the Palatial Clearing in the Green Woods. This one was slightly smaller. This hill and forest were so far from important landmarks that he couldn’t imagine anyone coming here and causing trouble. Even if they did, the Ogres had the whole area on lockdown, and it would take an army to come here and disturb them.

Roth studied the group of ninety-nine players standing in front of him. There were trees all around them, beyond the treeline was Ogre’s campaign tent, and even beyond that, there was the fishing town and the shimmering river under the afternoon sun.

Each leader addressed their team. They could maximize their firepower only when they knew the team’s strengths and weaknesses. Taking stock of players' skills and assigning roles beforehand could go a long way to ensuring a successful hunt. Given that this was a joint effort involving players from different guilds, ColdHand had asked each team leader to spend some time ensuring they got to know the soldiers under their command.

Despite Roth’s dilemma and doubts coming here, ColdHand had made it easy for him during the briefing. He had one simple job. “Stay away, and stay alive.” As a level thirty player, Roth was considered only a liability.

“Can you give me just a couple of minutes? I’ll be right back,” he asked Jaw-Long.

“Where are you going?” Jaw-Long asked.

“I need to use the bathroom.”

The old man’s eyebrow shot up. There was no need to use the bathroom in AstroTerra. Thank goodness, too. The game was already complicated enough without worrying about using the bathroom in the middle of a dungeon run.

Jaw-Long lagged behind as Roth disappeared into the trees. He looked for the most remarkable tree and settled with an old elm tree. It was lush and ancient. He might as well leave the Leafies foraging here while he was off hunting the Alien King. The Dark Abyss would be very dangerous. At least here, the Ogres would protect the area, and the Leafies could expand and grow faster.

Forage!

Looking left and right and ensuring no one had followed him, he activated the new pet skill that had been unlocked on the way here, dug a small hole in the ground with his hands, and buried the acorn. This should provide some safety for the treeants until they felt confident enough to explore their surroundings. He marked the coordinates on the map to collect his pet colony later.

In the few minutes that Roth had been gone, the ninety-nine players had entered battle formation and looked like a well-trained army.

MountainTop stood at the front of the formation as the party’s main tank. He would be the first one to enter the gateway. Whatever was on the other side, everyone unanimously agreed that it wouldn’t be able to one-shot MountainTop. Roth didn’t know what kind of skills the lizardman tank had, but for everyone to respect him this much meant he had to be one of the best tanks in the game.

Ogre and TurtleShell stood right behind him, ready to share the load of tanking the monster. A squad of rogues captained by Kerberos followed. The rogues would scatter as soon as the tanks went in to form a perimeter and scout the surroundings. In turn, that team was followed by the other warriors and various melee classes.

At the rear of the group were Griffin and her squad of medics, and last but not least, BlueFire and the DPS team. ColdHand conferenced with each team leader, ironing out the last details and plans for the hunt.

“I’m back,” said Roth to the old man. He was standing in the same place and in the same position as he had left him as if he were a statue.

The old man turned to him and asked, “Why did you bury that acorn?”

Had the old man followed him? Or did he have some sort of skill to keep tabs on him? “Isn’t it obvious? To plant a tree,” answered Roth sarcastically.

The old man kept studying him. His gaze unsettled him. He seemed to discern all of Roth’s secrets with a glance. All the while, Roth knew nothing about the man. He didn’t know his class or how powerful he was. When he’d tried to inspect him, he only got question marks. The impression he got from the man was the same as looking at the sky. He was boundless. He didn’t know how else to put it. He seemed to be unhindered by the limitations that other players had. Was this the type of player he had to surpass to get out of the pod? If so, he would be stuck in here for a very long time.

“Right. I understand. You have your secrets.”

Jaw-Long stood by Roth’s side, and Roth knew that no matter where he went, he’d be watching him like a hawk. At first, he had assumed that ColdHand just wanted to keep him safe. But he was beginning to realize that wasn’t the case.

ColdHand’s assignment to Jaw-Long told Roth that, even between these guilds, trust was little and fragile. ColdHand obviously feared spies or being double-crossed by someone inside the team. Another way of looking at it was that ColdHand mistrusted Roth. Had Roth been a double agent working for Loki, he could easily transport them to a kill box to be ambushed by Pegasus players.

To prevent Roth from doing anything against the party, he had left him under the watch of someone he was sure couldn’t be bought, Jaw-Long. ColdHand’s contingencies were for the best. He’d double-crossed many allies at Loki’s beckoning in the past. ColdHand was acting prudently with all these measures and countermeasures.

“Ticket boy,” called ColdHand. “Whenever you’re ready.”

Everyone was ready to go. Roth took a deep breath. It was time to get the show started. “OK. Here we go.”

Lion’s Breath!

You don’t have enough energy to use this skill.

Roth went pale white at the sight of this notification. He hurriedly checked his energy bar and found that he had 480 energy points. Wasn’t that enough to use this skill? Just how much energy was required to open this portal?! Roth went to the skill’s description and opened the details, and his heart almost stopped seeing the amount of energy needed.

“10,000?” he let out, stupefied by the ridiculous number.

“Ticket boy? Any problems?” asked ColdHand. He was already walking toward Roth, seeing how uncomfortable he looked.

“It’s fine! It’s fine.” How could Roth not have checked something as simple as this? Why would that stupid lion give him a legendary skill he couldn’t use? The maned idiot hadn’t even warned him about how much energy it required. He was under the eyes of the top game players, including his family’s landlords, who kept them safe in their private condo.

He couldn’t afford to overthink or hesitate here. He had to play some powerful cards to make this work.

Ch. 198 - Ticket Boy

INDEX

Ch. 200 - Energy Pool