Chapter 71: A Minor Difficulty

"Jeff, shift a little to the left; Warehouse is Crazy, move closer; one step to the right... enough, enough, any further right and you'll bump into me; Yangtze Delta, stay away, your hammer is practically poking my navel..." The voice of Red Wolf, the Dark Elf assassin, drifted out of the void.

"Jeff, stop pushing me," Yangtze Delta complained loudly.

"Warehouse is Crazy, you're stepping on my foot!" I whispered sharply.

"Fo Xiao, stop kicking my heels," the dwarf matron grumbled discontentedly.

"Ouch! Which idiot is poking my butt?" the human swordsman Fo Xiao shouted in resentment.

Under Red Wolf's direction, we were in complete disarray.

"I say, can you all just be quiet?" Red Wolf said, annoyed.

"You've got the nerve to talk," Yangtze Delta retorted, his head tilted toward empty air, speaking righteously. "Who exactly caused us to be in this difficult position where we can barely move? A certain thief who snuck in with us should have enough self-awareness."

"Shh, be careful, someone's coming!" Red Wolf suddenly warned.

Two young Elf maidens rounded the corner ahead, walking toward us while chatting and laughing. However, when they noticed our presence, their laughter stopped abruptly, expressions of surprise and timidity freezing on their faces.

What they saw were four thugs with hideous expressions and glaring eyes, fiddling with weapons and staring at passersby with fierce, cold, and malicious gazes. The four thugs stood in a loose, flattened diamond formation, hogging more than half of the already narrow path, slowly closing in on them with sinister grins.

Soon, one of the Elf girls carrying a bow tugged at her companion’s sleeve. The two girls lowered their heads and timidly turned onto another path, not daring to cast even a second glance at us.

Seeing their backs disappear, the four thugs let out a long sigh and returned to their bickering:

"Yangtze Delta is so ugly, he scared the two pretty sisters away," Warehouse is Crazy pointed at the fat face of the Half-Orc shadow thief and mocked him loudly.

"Nonsense! My physique is magnificent, my expression is kind, my gaze is gentle, and my smile is sexy. It was obviously you, you perverted cross-dressing hag, who scared them off. Look at your pathetic self. You were drooling so hard at the sight of beauties it’s a wonder you haven't popped a blood vessel, unless your short stature means the atmospheric pressure is just that high," Yangtze Delta retorted, refusing to be outdone.

"Alright, alright. Stop arguing. Determining which of you is uglier is no easy task..." Red Wolf’s eerie, mocking voice drifted through the air.

"Ungrateful wretch, who do you think we’re doing this for?" Facing the Dark Elf’s provocation, the dwarf priest and the half-orc shadow thief quickly formed a firm alliance, shouting in unison at the empty air.

It must be admitted that the "Night Hawk’s Windrider" set has an astonishing effect on enhancing an assassin’s stealth skills. Although the six guards at the gates of the Holy City of Fresshit were nearly ten levels higher than him, with the help of this professional set, the Dark Elf assassin Red Wolf still managed to slip through the gates right under their noses.

There was a tense interlude during his infiltration: just as he was about to fully enter the gate, a patrol of soldiers holding halberds walked toward him, heading out of the city. They happened to converge with us at the gate. The guilty Dark Elf was startled, fearing discovery, and quickly took a step to the right, leaving a sufficiently wide path for them. However, this movement pushed his distance from the last guard on the right past the safety limit.

The alert guard immediately sensed something, whipping his head around to stare suspiciously in the Dark Elf’s direction. Those falcon-like eyes seemed capable of piercing through the air and looking straight into one’s soul.

Red Wolf was caught off guard, looking as if he were paralyzed by the unexpected turn of events, frozen in a stare-down with the soldier. Just as his first infiltration plan was about to be nipped in the bud, I had a sudden flash of inspiration. I stood in front of the guard, blocking his line of sight:

"Sir, could you tell me where I can find the city’s alchemist? What about the blacksmith? The general store..." I waved the magic map in my hands vigorously, wishing I could plaster it right onto his head.

My method worked. The alert guard immediately abandoned his search for the intruder and dutifully pointed out the location of the alchemist on the map for me. By the time he looked up again toward the Dark Elf’s hiding spot, the illegal stowaway had long since vanished without a trace.

Despite the scare, sneaking through the gate was only the beginning of the Dark Elf’s theft plan. A new headache followed: how to move through the city.

Fresshit is one of the largest and most prosperous cities on the entire Falvey continent. Although it wasn't the peak time for "Void Travelers" to descend upon the continent, the streets were still busy with pedestrians. In crowded sections, minor collisions were inevitable.

For Red Wolf, an adventurer from a hostile faction, even the slightest physical contact would break his stealth status and expose him completely. Even if no one touched him, and even with his specialized stealth-boosting set, it was hard to guarantee that an exceptionally vigilant pedestrian wouldn't discover his tracks in the crowds. And once a Dark Elf’s presence was exposed in the main city of the Falvey Alliance, one could easily imagine how "warmly" the patriotic "angry youth" of the continent would receive him.

To protect Red Wolf’s tracks from being leaked, I, Yangtze Delta, Warehouse is Crazy, and Fo Xiao formed a diamond shape to surround him, preventing close contact with other pedestrians. When we encountered lone pedestrians in narrow sections, we would try our best to look fierce and overbearing, forcing them to take a detour whenever possible.

This sounds simple, but it was not an easy job. When an assassin is in stealth, his movement speed drops to one-third of his normal pace. Even with the professional set boosting stealth speed, Red Wolf was much slower than us. The person behind him would accidentally step on his heels if not careful. Furthermore, his stealth effect was ridiculously good; even though we knew he was in the middle, we would often lose track of him entirely—and if you can’t find his position, you can’t maintain distance.

Thus, we had to adjust our strides and speed according to the Dark Elf’s chaotic commands. Under his messy directions, the chaotic scene from earlier had been playing out on the streets repeatedly.

We escorted Red Wolf to the guild application office in Fresshit. It was a small, one-story building, unexpectedly dilapidated. A fence divided the narrow room in two. An elderly Gnome with wrinkles thick enough to crush a fly sat on a raised backrest chair with his feet dangling. He was squinting listlessly at the fence; he was the only "Guild Applicant Clerk" legally recognized by the entire Falvey Alliance.

Like many government offices on the continent, these agencies always arranged for elderly men and women to handle public affairs. Coincidentally, these staffers often shared common traits: low efficiency, short tempers, terrible service, and a penchant for lecturing you on bizarre, grand principles regarding national welfare, continental politics, and the global populace—things that had absolutely nothing to do with you.

Outside the building stood a bulletin board where every application for a new guild was posted, awaiting the signatures of its members. This board was so low it was soul-crushing. I practically had to bend my waist at a right angle to read the text on it.

It was said that the height of this board had been precisely measured by the Fresshit urban management department's experts to be the most "suitable" height, allowing citizens of all races—especially Gnomes and Dwarves—to sign their names easily. This rigorous administrative move was touted as a profound embodiment of "political civilization" and "humanistic care," receiving unanimous praise from the masses, and so on.

However, in my observation, while Gnomes and Dwarves could barely touch the bottom edge of the board, signing their names would require standing on tiptoes with great effort. And if a tall Tauren like Niu Baiwan wanted to clearly identify the text, he would likely have to lie flat on the ground.

Things are always like this: to provide "humanistic care" to everyone, the Alliance authorities would labor and take complex measures, only to end up making things incredibly inconvenient for everyone. For the Falvey Alliance government, such instances of "doing harm with good intentions" occurred so frequently that one had to wonder if the officials' primary job was to rack their brains to find ways to cause us trouble. I couldn't figure out how their genius brains held so many brilliant ideas, yet they could come up with such terrible ones—for instance, I certainly couldn't have thought of them.

I have always been curious: why couldn't they just put up two boards, one high and one low?

...

Like the small, broken guild application shack, the bulletin board was short and dilapidated, a frame made of scrap wood cobbled together in a very rough fashion. If you passed by without knowing any better, you would truly think it was a pile of trash left by some inconsiderate pedestrian. Only the two sturdy, sword-wielding soldiers standing straight beside it hinted at the legal authority and solemnity of this piece of junk wood. Like most guards in this city, these two were level-60 powerhouses.

If you saw two strong warriors standing guard with sharp blades and serious expressions over a pile of rotting wood that only reached their belts, the stark contrast made it hard to feel any genuine awe—personally, I found it hard not to feel a sense of genuine absurdity.

At this moment, the board bore the application for a new guild called "A Group of People Chatting and Gossiping About Messy Things When Bored," already featuring over a dozen signatures. A few people stood around the board; some were strangers, but most were our old acquaintances—assuming nothing went wrong, these people were all about to become our guild members.

With two high-level soldiers guarding it, Red Wolf had no way to approach the notice. We could only wave to the female mage Fei Yin, who was standing under the board counting heads, from afar, then found a quiet corner. The three of them shielded the Dark Elf assassin in the middle, while I walked briskly toward Fei Yin and the others.

"Fei Yin, how many people are there now?" I asked from a distance.

"Fifteen already!" Fei Yin looked spirited. She tilted her head to look behind me. Obviously, she couldn't see the stealthed Red Wolf, naturally seeing only me, Yangtze Delta, Warehouse is Crazy, and Fo Xiao.

"Adding you four, we’re only one short. That guy B-flat Minor Nocturne is so slow. He still hasn't brought anyone to sign up. If he delays the guild formation, I won't let him off easily..." Although the female mage gritted her teeth, her eyes were already flashing with the golden brilliance of gold coins.

I quickly explained to her, "Oh, that dwarf priest is B-flat Minor Nocturne. I brought Fo Xiao over."

"So that means Yangtze Delta didn't find anyone?" Hearing my words, Fei Yin excitedly inspected Yangtze Delta’s big belly, her face full of the greedy expression of someone wishing they could boil our fat half-orc shadow thief for money.

"Actually..." I had to continue explaining, "...besides Fo Xiao, we brought one more person, but he can't sign for the moment..."

I briefly introduced Red Wolf’s situation to Fei Yin, specifically warning her about the extreme danger of this master thief who couldn't keep his hands to himself. At first, I was worried she would oppose the Dark Elf joining due to the hostile faction, but soon I realized my worries were entirely superfluous...

"Is what you're saying true?" Fei Yin couldn't help but shriek, her face flushed red with excitement. "That guy’s theft level is that high? We must find a way to get him into the guild! God, level 40 theft, that’s a walking ATM! As long as he roams the streets every day, we’ll be rich!"

"But..." I pointed awkwardly at the two high-level warriors by the board, "...with them guarding it, he has no chance to get close enough to sign."

"This..." Fei Yin examined the two professional soldiers, who were armed to the teeth, and couldn't help but frown.

"Don't just stand there like idiots, come over and give me some ideas!" If she could consume other people's brainpower, she would never use her own—this had always been the life motto of our greedy ice-mage Miss Fei Yin, whether it came to money or brain cells. She only pondered the problem for a few seconds before habitually finding the simplest, most effortless way—let others do the headache-inducing work.

We explained the difficulties we were facing to our companions on the scene, hoping to get some suggestions. As expected, the vast majority were completely pessimistic about the Dark Elf joining—they didn't believe we had a way to harbor an assassin from a hostile faction in our own main city. Fortunately, those in our guild who liked to challenge worldly laws with their own brains were by no means a minority:

"Just let him approach the notice in stealth; he might not be discovered..." The speaker was a Gnome assassin named "Bright Corner."

It was clearly unrealistic to let the Dark Elf Red Wolf, who had barely snuck into Fresshit, risk his life to test the anti-stealth capabilities of high-level guards. So, Bright Corner volunteered to conduct an experiment. He activated his "Stealth" skill and approached the wooden board. The moment he placed the tip of his pen on the guild application notice, a gentle white light flashed, enveloping his entire body. The small Gnome assassin was immediately revealed.

We had all underestimated the simple board. Even though it looked like a pile of rotting wood—which, in reality, it was—it was, after all, the only place on the entire Falvey continent to post guild applications. It had been eternally imbued with holy magic, absolutely forbidding anyone from hiding their form.

Thus, Experiment 1 ended in failure without any suspense.

"Can I sign for him?" Niu Baiwan rushed over and started scribbling on the notice, but no matter how he wrote, the paper remained blank. Beyond the first signature, he couldn't leave a single extra mark.

"If... signing for someone else... were allowed... then why... did we... have to... recruit more people?" Watching Niu Baiwan bustle about until his face was red, the half-orc warlock Ding Ding Xiao Ge finally stuttered, "Couldn't we each... write two... names... and be done with it?"

"Damn it. You couldn't have reminded me sooner..." Niu Baiwan muttered sheepishly, stepping aside.

This stupid Experiment 2 couldn't even count as an experiment with any practical significance.

"I think our direction is wrong..." At this moment, the Elf marksman Xuan Ge Ya Yi stepped out from the crowd. His rational voice was refreshing. "...The Dark Elf can't sign because there are two high-level guards standing here. Everyone has been pondering how to get him close without being discovered, but I think we should fully utilize our subjective initiative. We shouldn't be constrained by empiricism or dogmatism. We should fully exercise innovative and reverse thinking, further liberate our minds, and seek truth from facts—we should think about how to get these two guards to leave."

Xuan Ge Ya Yi’s high-level speech greatly broadened our horizons and made our eyes light up. I looked at him with great anticipation:

"So, you have a way to lure these two guards away?"

"Well..." Xuan Ge Ya Yi smiled, nodding confidently. Under dozens of expectant gazes, he lived up to expectations by saying: "...Ah, actually, I don't have any way either..."

"If you don't have a way, why the hell are you spouting so much nonsense! Wasting everyone’s time!" Fei Yin immediately went into a rage. This slender mage slapped our great realist philosopher to the ground, and then, with the force of Mount Tai, proceeded to beat him into a pulp. The guild members, feeling their emotions toyed with by Xuan Ge Ya Yi, carried on the glorious tradition of "beating a dog in the water." Everyone found the twisted pleasure of ganging up on the frail Elf shooter. These Void Travelers gauged their strength perfectly, successfully beating the Elf shooter into a bruised mess without actually harming his life. The soldiers standing to the side watched this act of violence occurring right beside them with wide eyes, showing no intention of intervening.

Just as everyone was jubilant that their pent-up frustration had been vented, the long-haired Elf beast tamer Yan Zhen muttered impatiently:

"What a nuisance. If it really doesn't work, why don't we just kill these two guards?" Facing those intelligent humanoid creatures, this beautiful Elf girl had always been cold and ruthless.

The entire area suddenly went quiet.

Everyone looked at each other. Although no one said a word, the churning flames in their eyes clearly indicated their agreement with the suggestion. Finally, everyone turned their gaze to Fei Yin’s face. The ice-mage bit her lip, staring fixedly at the two guards, seemingly making a difficult decision.

"What’s there to think about? Just kill them first and we'll see! I’ll go first, you guys cover me!" Just as everyone was considering how to act, a small figure was already waving a short staff, shouting wildly. Without any combat plan, he charged forward alone.

In our guild, only one person would be so enthusiastic about violence, so thoughtlessly diving into battle: our dwarf priest, Long Bow Shoots the Sun. I was very sure that his fiery passion for battle came from the depths of his heart—but clearly, it hadn't passed through his brain.

Others immediately followed behind him, wanting to provide support for his violent attack. However, no one could keep up with Long Bow Shoots the Sun’s wild momentum. In the blink of an eye, when his nunchucks first struck the sword-wielding guard...

"Whoosh..." A cold, holy white light slashed down from the sky, like a thick bolt of lightning, as if it had split the sky and the earth in two.

After the white light, the guard stood tall, sword in hand, standing proudly.

Long Bow Shoots the Sun lay on the ground with his eyes rolled back, tongue hanging out, limbs splayed, a bright red wound on his forehead—a very pathetic death.

Could it be? Was this the legendary "one-hit kill"?!

Time seemed to have frozen. Everyone who had lunged forward with weapons stopped in their tracks at this moment, like statues petrified, staring blankly with wide eyes at the corpse of Long Bow Shoots the Sun.

I had drawn my longsword too, but I was too far away and hadn't been able to provide timely support to my devout dwarf friend during the fight.

For this, I felt extremely fortunate.

And I believe the vast majority of people present were thinking the same thing.

"Madman, do not challenge the majesty of the gods in a holy city!" The soldier sheathed his sword and looked at the small corpse of Long Bow Shoots the Sun with disdain.

Fei Yin glanced at the corpse of Long Bow Shoots the Sun, shook her head in disappointment, and turned around, asking as if nothing had happened:

"Who has any other ideas?"