NPC into Player: Let's Wreck This Game

Chapter 116: The Triflet Challenge

"What will he do then when I ruin his quest? Kill me in reality as well?" he sneered before finally receiving a message from Nara, a short one. "Where are you?" she said, and then he shared his location coordination to her in the reply, saying nothing else.

In less than five minutes he noticed the appearance of a team of fifty players coming to the tree line. "Wow, she really got herself quite busy," he commented while watching what they were going to do.

As they stood in front of the edge of the area, he spotted Nara from his far position. He just waved to her, and she spotted him.

During this half hour the area got crowded again with swarms of monsters. He could have helped them, yet he refrained from this. "Let's see what they can do," he said as he watched the small group of players move in an organized manner.

They seemed like they were used to playing together. "Such veterans, that's weird. I can't see any newbies here," he muttered as this was something unbelievable.

"Something seems not quite right here," he reached this conclusion quickly as he watched them engage with monsters. They weren't that cunning as him, yet they were capable.

They didn't aim to kill monsters, but they used the escape pattern these monsters had to make them run. All they had to do was to focus on one by one, while a group of fifteen shield bearers held the line for them; tanking them off any attacks.

This tactic seemed slow, but in less than ten minutes they managed to reach him unscathed. "Those players, damn they are strong!" This was his own evaluation of them. "Strange I never heard of Nara before," he muttered as he was pretty sure this group of veterans' existence here wasn't a coincidence at all.

"Anyway, they all belonged to me now," he laughed while waiting for them to pass the last group of monsters before reaching him.

"What do you think?" she said, with a soft smile and nervous tone that didn't match her expression.

"Great job, they seem strong and experienced. Are you friends?"

His straightforward notice and question startled them before she smiled in a much nervous way as she replied, "they are old friends of mine. Got problems with that?"

"Nah," he shrugged before adding, "the stronger the better. Now, tell me what made such a beauty be so nervous."

"It's Panty," she replied with a depressed tone and very dissatisfied face, "he announced that a bounty of twenty thousand gold coins equal to your kill."

"Twenty thousand gold coins?" even Bloom at this moment was baited into killing himself to get the prize. "How come he had all these coins so early in the game?" he asked after shaking off such funny thoughts.

"He comes from a wealthy family, has the support of a real authoritative and rich guy. The game opened the exchange market, and despite the price of a single gold coin soared to equal a thousand federal point, these things didn't prevent him from buying gold coins like crazy."

"Wow, he is rich indeed," Bloom commented as he generally was familiar with the federal point system in the world.

"The game put a cap on a single player purchase not to exceed twenty thousand gold coins, yet a backdoor existed."

One of the fresh faces spoke up. He was an assassin, well built and looked much older than the most here. "You mean by making other players do the purchase?" Bloom asked as he already got the simple trick here.

"He has a large group of followers from actual life. It's not strange he had all this support early in the game, and he has his eyes fixed upon you."

Bloom was feeling more doubt the more he heard her words. "If you asked me, then the whole thing looked suspicious. Why would such a person take the trouble to pay all this for just a single clash earlier?" he expressed his doubts over loud. 'I didn't yet steal his quest, right?' he smirked while thinking this to himself.

"This" the features of Nara changed to show him how troubled she was.

"There is some family dilemma between Nara and the one backing Panty from the shadows. They have marked you as a threat, and they won't accept anything to prevent them from winning this stupid contest."

"Jeffrey!" Nara shouted in a strange tone towards the assassin, who just shrugged his shoulders. "Between this arrogant Dockrey and the retard Terry, you deserve much better than any of them!"

"Jeffrey! Stop and say no more!!"

Between Jeffrey's words and Nara's shout, the mind of Bloom suddenly stirred up. "Sorry, you said Dockrey and Terry?" he asked, trying to know more about this topic.

"You must have heard of the Triflet challenge, don't you?"

"I swear if you don't hold your tongue right now I will kill you myself and make you lose a level!"

"S- Sorry, just replying to the dude."

Bloom knew he couldn't know more from him, yet he already had what he wanted. 'Triflet challenge, I just hope I didn't put myself into such a stupid love rivalry,' he thought to himself, clinging to the hope that the mentioned Terry here wasn't him.

"Sorry for that, but according to that arrogant Dockrey you are considered a threat to be eliminated. They won't stand at anything to get rid of you, so I suggest you take these gold coins and move away from this village. This conflict is something that I only should be burdened with."

Bloom glanced at her, then at the system notification telling him about receiving a thousand gold coins from her, and then sighed. "C'mon, do you think I took you under my wing to just be scared off and run away? You are my girl and I'm your team leader. Just have some trust in me."

"Whose girl are you referring to?" her tone was sharp, yet her face showed a tinge of softness. "I just told you very powerful and wealthy men are eyeing you. It's not an exaggeration if they decided to target you in actual life. You should run, you should hide, you should be scared. Standing here and acting heroic isn't something that can be considered wise or logic!"