Reign of the Hunters

Chapter 71 It’s A Small World

Ye Ci took a step forward and heard a “click.” She immediately froze, and knew that she had messed up…

It was a very familiar feeling.

The feeling of a spring being compressed. The feeling of metal parts grinding together. Ye Ci immediately realised what it was.

A landmine .

In Fate, players who had learned Engineering could build and create different types of firearms including bombs, land mines, hand grenades or even high explosives. But how could there be a player made landmine in this map? The only possibility was that…

It was done by an NPC.

Ye Ci sighed. She was too careless. She knew that there was a Master Rogue and an Gnome Scholar who was a Great Engineer, but she had forgotten about them.

The only thing Ye Ci could do was to avoid as much damage as possible as she lifted her leg away from the landmine .

An NPC-made landmine was on an entirely different level from a player’s. Especially for someone as ingenious as La’ Pito, the landmine s that he created would definitely bring devastating effects. Ye Ci crouched slowly, and took a deep breath, trying to calm herself down. She did not want to die for the first time in Fate because of her own careless mistake.

Ye Ci looked around, trying to look for an object with a similar weight as her body. She might be able to place it on the landmine and then she’d be free. Ye Ci could not find any pieces of rock after studying her surrounding, but instead found danger approaching from behind.

The “danger” approached her at a very high speed. By the time Ye Ci had noticed, his presence was already behind her.

It was a Rogue.

Before the Rogue could bury his dagger into Ye Ci’s back, she leaned to the side and dodged the attack.

She turned her head and saw her assailant. The person looked quite familiar, as if she had seen him somewhere. He wore a badge on his chest that had a different color from Ye Ci’s badge. She immediately knew that the person was from the North-West Continents Alliance.

It was not very favorable conditions for Ye Ci to PK another player. She could not move, and was unable to use her ranged weapons. This meant that she had lost a huge chunk of her damage-dealing capabilities. Aside from that, with the area full of landmine s, summoning Ol’ Three was not a smart move. It might step on other landmine s buried nearby and trigger chain explosions.

Just as Ye Ci was pondering of different ways to deal with the Rogue, she heard another “click.” The Rogue immediately stopped moving. His eyes that were visible through his face mask showing his expression that said, “D*mmit, why am I so unlucky?”

Heh! Lady Luck is on my side, thought Ye Ci. Even if she was still in harm’s way, somebody else was here to suffer alongside her. She let out a smirk, “This is why you don’t hit a person who’s down. Look at you, Karma sure is a b*tch.”

The North-West Rogue’s anger rose after being taunted by Ye Ci. He glared at the Huntress not 3 yards away from him. His expression immediately changed as he exclaimed, “Oh my god! You again!”

Ye Ci felt odd. Judging from his tone, she must’ve known him from somewhere? Ye Ci stared at the Rogue for a few seconds and chuckled, “Oh, it’s you.”

They had fought in the Desolate Lands before, and Ye Ci had ended up defeating him and spawn camping him a few times. To think that Ye Ci would run into him again in such a place, it was really a small world.

The two stared at each other. They could not do anything at all. The slightest of movements could possibly trigger the landmine s detonation. However, they could also not just continue staring at each other.

Ye Ci drew out her Venomous Scorpion Stinger and pointed it at the Rogue, “What are you, a player from the North-West, doing in the Eastern Continent?”

The Rogue snorted, he was very unhappy to meet Ye Ci, “I’m doing some quests, of course! Who cares about this goddamned piece of dirt if not for a quest?” He then glared at Ye Ci, “Are you some sort of mercenary? I keep running into you.”

They were both considered experts, but under such circumstances, they could only trash talk each other. Both of them insulted each other’s continent for quite some time, but the topic of their conversation eventually strayed back to the problem at hand. The Rogue, “I’m a gentleman, I’ll take you out once I’m safely away from these landmines.”

Ye Ci sneered at him, “If you have the skills, kill me now. You’re just all talk.”

The Rogue glared at Ye Ci, and sighed, “This landmine packs a punch. I’ve already died once.”

Ye Ci naturally knew of the landmine’s killing power. One of them almost killed her back when she was a lvl 85 Sorceress. Both of them were lvl 20. Ye Ci thought for a moment and said, “Do you have a short sword?”

“Of course.”

Ye Ci crouched down and said, “We’ll slide our swords underneath the sole of each other’s feet, and press it on the mine’s trigger mechanism. We’ll jump off simultaneously.”

With Ye Ci’s idea as the only solution, the Rogue had to agree. He crouched down as well and drew his short sword and inserted it at the sole of Ye Ci’s foot.

The leg that was stepping the mine could not let go before the sword could be safely placed on the trigger mechanism, or the land mine would detonate. This was why the entire thing sounded simple, but was not easy to pull off.

After much effort, the two managed to secure the the trigger mechanisms of each other’s feet.

“Put your back into it! Don’t let go, or we’re dead.” The Rogue was very worried at Ye Ci’s strength, but he was met by Ye Ci’s icy glare, and he decided to drop the matter and said, “I’ll count to three, and we’ll jump off together.”

“Ok.”

Seeing that Ye Ci had already agreed to it, the Rogue began to slowly count down. Ye Ci took a deep breath. She calmly analysed her surroundings, and immediately found a safe landing spot after she jumped off while coming up with strategies on how to defeat the Rogue.

She was not trying to throw stones at somebody who fell down. They were from opposing factions after all. Although they’re working together, their sincerity was thin as paper, and no one could change that.. The game was just like society in real world, although there were some who were above the law, there was still a bottom line that nobody would want to cross.

Ye Ci secretly locked onto the Rogue so that she could launch her attacks on him in the shortest time possible.

Of course, the Rogue did the same.

“One… Two… Three…” Ye Ci immediately sprang up like a coiled spring towards the safe spot that she had found earlier. Two gigantic explosions followed, showering the place with shrapnel and dirt. Although Ye Ci had a high Perception, she was unable to dodge all of the shrapnel. She was hit midair and her health dropped rapidly.

The moment Ye Ci landed on the rock, she immediately laid down on top of it, narrowly being missed by a few pieces of shrapnel. Even then, she had lost a huge chunk of her hitpoints. She immediately chugged down a Large Health Potion and managed to survive.

Even after the explosion had subsided, dust still filled the air. The thick dust meant that Ye Ci’s visibility had dropped, and she was unable to pinpoint the Rogue’s location.

However, since she had locked onto the Rogue beforehand, she was able to know the Rogue’s general direction.

He was on a rock at Ye Ci’s 8 o’clock direction, 43 yards away. The rock that he was on was of similar height to the one Ye Ci was standing on. She had no advantage over him, but she was not at a disadvantage either.

There was a breeze blowing in the area, and 43 yards was a rather long distance’; the arrows might be blown off course by the breeze. Ye Ci drew out Liepi’s Hasty Crossbow, measured the wind speed, and fired an arrow at the Rogue.

The Rogue had also fired an arrow at Ye Ci. Ye Ci immediately knew that she was under attack when she heard the screeching sound of the arrow. She judged the trajectory of the arrow by its noise, and rolled to the side. The arrow landed on the spot where Ye Ci had just been lying.

In battles with low visibility, Perception and both side’s awareness to their surrounding played an important role.

As ranged classes, Rogue and Hunters have very similar stats. They have high Agility, high Perception and also a high Balance. In a fight where both were on equal footing, combat experience was the deciding factor.

Ye Ci of course, had much more experience than the Rogue. Although he was skillful, it had only been 4 months since Fate was launched. His skills would be no match to Ye Ci’s 10 years worth of experience.

That was why, before long, he made his first mistake.