Free Web NovelChapter 473: The Impregnable Fortress and Cheche’s Great Adventure
“Why hasn’t Brother Stick’s side fallen yet? How can they be so resilient? I’ve been waiting until the flowers have wilted.”
On the west side of Plague Town, the student party had also completed their conquest of the undead positions outside the town. With the artillery support of the Goldflower people, achieving this wasn’t as difficult as imagined.
But now an awkward situation had emerged.
Because Quick Joy Stick’s team was still attempting to clear the dungeon, the young lady needed to maintain spirit energy countermeasures on that side, which directly resulted in the student party being unable to start attacking the western area even though they had obtained dungeon entry qualifications, due to the spirit energy barrier’s existence.
There was only one young lady, and her inability to be in multiple places at once meant the three defensive lines could only be dealt with in turns.
“Brother Stick’s side has only been in the dungeon for 3 hours, we still have 3 hours before it’s our turn, let’s wait patiently and take the time to clear the remaining undead from the positions.”
Teacher Yang was actually very anxious at this moment.
The ghost grimoire his son needed was right before his eyes, but he couldn’t enter the town. However, this man who had experienced life’s ups and downs indeed had good composure, allowing him to still maintain a calm mindset.
He said to the others beside him:
“I just looked at the ‘Weaken Spirit Energy’ quest content published by Young Lady Femis, this is clearly the development team’s supplement to the current rotation challenge system.
According to the young lady, all three spirit energy nodes in the swamp are currently controlled by the gnolls, which is why their mage towers’ defensive positions are almost impregnable.
If we can take back the two nodes far from Plague Town, this mage tower won’t be able to sustain the defensive barrier covering the entire town.
This is clearly hinting to us that if we can capture the other two spirit energy nodes, perhaps we can unlock unrestricted access to the entire dungeon.”
“But those two locations are poles apart from Plague Town, they’re almost all outside our current exploration zone, and there’s no way to move quickly through the swamp, just getting there on foot alone would take 2 to 3 days.”
Teacher Li shook his head and said:
“If we choose to go capture those two areas guarded by gnolls now, it’s equivalent to giving up on clearing the dungeon, and no one wants to voluntarily give up their right to enter the dungeon.
Even though most people know clearly that even if they enter the dungeon, they’re unlikely to get any drops.
But it’s about participating.
You can’t force them to leave here to contribute to the bigger picture, right?”
“So this is the biggest weakness of the player community.”
Teacher Yang looked at the players around who were cheering and shouting excitedly, shaking his head he said:
“Brave but lacking management, unable to use forced methods to assign tasks, everything is fine when the situation is good, but once the situation becomes critical it causes chaos.”
“We’ll go.”
A voice sounded behind Teacher Yang, making him turn back in surprise to see Old Qin with his replica Mosin-Nagant and his four young art student team members.
Old Qin laughed and winked saying:
“I heard your complaints just now, Teacher Yang, if everyone heard what you said, people would definitely say you’re being arrogant again.
It’s best to say less of such unity-destroying words.”
“But I wasn’t wrong, that’s just how it is, am I not allowed to say it?”
Old Yang waved his hand dismissively and said:
“But is your team sure about leaving Plague Town to occupy the spirit energy nodes? Not only is that side far from the main battlefield, but with gnoll sorcerers stationed there the danger level is probably not low either.
The cost and benefit of this matter are completely disproportionate, no wonder others are unwilling to accept this side quest.”
“If we don’t accept it, can we stay here and get qualifications to enter the dungeon?”
Sweet Potato Wine standing beside Old Qin put his hands on his hips and said with a pout:
“Even if veteran players open spots for newcomers, anyone with a bit of self-awareness about their abilities should know that mixing in would just be a burden to others.
This isn’t like a regular game where you can carry 39 people, the pressure of real combat doesn’t allow for slackers to coast along.
Right now there are only 10 days left of player free exploration time for the ‘Swamp Shadow’ event, if we can’t take it down in 10 days then NPCs will have to step in.
It’s like setting a military order for an assault campaign.
Under this pressure, the player guilds on the three battle lines absolutely won’t take boss runs just to mess around, which means we newcomers can only watch the excitement and waste time staying here.
We might as well take the chance to farm some reputation with the three support factions, I see many of their items for sale are quite overpowered.”
“Yo, clear-headed thinking there, Brother Sweet Potato.”
Ah Yuen flew past nearby flapping his wings and laughing while waving to Sweet Potato Wine saying:
“I’m busy right now, can’t chat with you, after logging off I’ll treat you to barbecue, remember to bring those girls from your department too.
The twin sisters you said you’d introduce to me last time we went singing! I remember that.”
“Your sister! They got boyfriends this week, get in line, maybe next month will be your turn.”
Sweet Potato grinned and said goodbye to Ah Yuen, clearly good friends in real life.
But Sweet Potato Wine’s words just now indeed revealed the current situation, making several new players who heard the conversation thoughtful.
Old Qin didn’t say anything more, he quickly discussed action plans with the Shadow Trail Sect, then after resupplying he led his four art student disciples toward the location marked as spirit energy node number one.
Worth mentioning is that when they left, more than a dozen new players also requested to go with them.
They were straightforward about it, saying following Old Qin would probably give them better chances of survival in the swamp.
And soon, similar news came from the northern battle line, where the “Loyalty Anthem” guild who mixed with Brother Stick voluntarily took on the exploration and occupation of spirit energy node number two.
This made the young lady feel relieved as well.
Though she appeared confident, in reality even with her current spirit energy power, achieving spirit energy countermeasures against the sorcerer towers was quite strained.
Once or twice was fine, but performing such operations multiple times over several days would quickly tire her out. However, once players captured the other two nodes, the young lady’s pressure would be reduced significantly.
Time passed minute by minute.
Two hours later in the early morning, shocking news arrived – Joy Stick’s team had successfully killed the gatekeeper of the northern battle line, successfully advancing the players’ steps to the foot of the mage tower.
However, their heavy losses over the past 5 hours left them unable to push deeper, so they very proactively chose to end their first clearing attempt.
When that undead, gnoll and vampire hybrid monster’s corpse was carried out from Plague Town, the entire northern battle line erupted.
Not only were players shouting and yelling, even the Thorn Clan NPCs gave applause and cheers to the brave ones.
The Winter Wolf Legion representatives who were invited to witness this battle showed surprise on their faces.
It was clear these arrogant northerners absolutely didn’t believe the Transians could crack this heavily defended gnoll fortress by themselves. Winter Wolf General Baldwin had even prepared to personally lead Winter Wolf warriors to take Plague Town after Transia admitted defeat.
However now it seemed the northerners had indeed underestimated Transia’s warriors.
“Ah, Brother Stick took first blood! This is crazy! They’re only one step away from the Hall of Fame position now, the pressure has shifted to our side.”
Seeing the young lady appear flapping her wings at the western battle line position, Leading Pigeon said to others who were prepared to enter the dungeon with a pained expression:
“If we can’t defeat the gatekeeper, won’t this wave be totally humiliating?”
“Now it’s not just about losing face or not, my dear pigeon.”
Ah Yuen sighed and said:
“You can tell from the young lady’s face that she’s already very tired, I estimate after this countermeasure ends she’ll need to rest for a while before starting the second round of attempts.
And we only have 10 days left.
Do you think at the current progress, with limited attempt chances, can we handle taking over Plague Town? I think it’s unlikely!
And very very unlikely.
Even if all three battle lines pass the gatekeeper, there are still two mage towers to fight. Tch tch, just thinking about it is painful.”
“So, what do you mean?”
Invincible Tyrannosaurus Cheche exchanged glances with his other dormitory brothers, he leaned in and asked quietly:
“You mean, implement the backup plan?”
“Mm!”
Ah Yuen narrowed his eyes, looking at the path into Plague Town slowly opening before them under the young lady’s spellcasting, he said:
“Let’s see how strong our side’s gatekeeper is first, but we must be prepared, whether this attempt succeeds or not, immediately activate the ‘backup plan’!
Next time it’s our turn to clear, we’ll try to take down this annoying dungeon in one go, we still have time left for attempts, so we need to try to make it foolproof.
I’ve stayed in this swamp so long I’m almost getting PTSD.
I really don’t like this muddy place.
What about you all?
What do you say?”
Ah Yuen looked toward the leaders of the other two guilds on the same battle line, Teacher Li and Lan both expressed agreement after discussing briefly with their companions.
Obviously in their view, at the current situation the hope of taking the entire town within 10 days wasn’t great. Even though players weren’t afraid of death, the 3-day delay from each death meant they actually didn’t have much trial and error cost. In this situation, to achieve a quick victory, they could only take an unorthodox approach.
“Come on, let’s see who our side’s gatekeeper is first, maybe it’s another old acquaintance.”
Miaomiao Shark called out, being the first to fly into the spirit energy barrier opening before them flapping her wings, others following in succession.
Heavy shield bearer Niuniu at the very back kissed his fingers with the grass ring, then put on his helmet and picked up his flail and shield, entering the raid instance amid teasing from his three good friends.
But unexpectedly, they charged all the way to just a few hundred meters from the sorcerer tower without seeing any enemies.
“What kind of weird design is this again? How come there’s not a single monster?”
Cheche flying in the air screamed:
“Did we trigger a bug? Or did we get lucky and skip a round?”
“Skip my ass! Look at the ground! Fuck!”
The trickster of the Eight Demon Elite Group, Water Demon Basha covered his eyes in despair, he shouted:
“Don’t go forward!
There are at least 100 evil magic traps on this road to the mage tower! We’ll have to disarm them one by one, triggering even one would be game over.
At my current level, I don’t know what kind of monsters these traps will summon when activated, but trust me, I really don’t want to try.
Don’t advance in the air either!
These high-level traps’ detection trigger is all-terrain, once activated they’ll trigger in the air too.”
“So our side’s gatekeeper battle mode is position warfare?”
Leading Pigeon lamented, cursing in the air:
“This development team is really getting better at creating novel content, what are we waiting for brothers? Disarm! Spirit mages and thieves all go disarm traps, steady!
Better 10 minutes slow than 1 second hasty.”
As he spoke, he was the first to descend to start disarming traps.
But Leading Pigeon was after all a Blood Inquisitor, he really wasn’t skilled at this kind of evil magic domain traps, he messed up right on the first magic formation.
The price of mixing up two rune exchange positions was purple spirit energy shooting up to the sky, then under everyone’s dumbfounded gaze, a bone-constructed, awe-inspiring gate of the dead appeared before them with a boom.
In the cold breath of the netherworld, a skeleton death guard wielding a soul-reaping scythe floated out, followed by four phantom guards swaggering like shadow demons.
“I’ve seen this thing! The final boss in the Rat King Doomsday dungeon was this! And that was a weakened one, this one before us looks completely intact!”
Shrimp Catcher grabbed two hand axes and shouted:
“This is a silver-rank monster right? So breaking one trap summons one silver-rank monster? Damn it, how long will it take to disarm them all?
Forget 10 days, even with a month we might not be able to disarm them all!
The damn development team is good at messing with people’s minds.”
“But thinking the other way around, this is indeed a monster farming paradise as long as you have the ability to handle it, breaking and summoning one after another would definitely let the clearers earn a fortune.
The materials dropped by these high-level monsters fetch high prices from Lady Tris, taking down twenty would make us filthy rich.”
Ah Yuen drew his dual blades, saying regretfully:
“Ah, what a pity, we don’t have that much time now, otherwise this place would really be worth farming properly. We’ll hold off this monster, Cheche, you take people and retreat.
Start executing the backup plan now!
Head over to the swamp forbidden zone immediately, we’ll catch up soon.”
“Alright!”
————————
The western battle line’s attempt was declared failed after half an hour.
But no one mocked the student party for it, on the contrary, everyone on the forums including the spoiler party expressed “condolences” and comfort to them.
This luck was just too bad.
A road filled with dangerous spirit energy traps even made the young lady exclaim it was ridiculous, when Murphy screenshot that road’s situation and sent it to Tris, the Blood Vulture Grand Duchess made a judgment as a Spirit Sovereign:
“Even if I went there, it would take several days to safely remove all the evil magic and death traps, your little players are still very basic in their precise use of spirit energy, they can’t guarantee not activating other dangerous things connected together when removing traps.
The sorcerer who laid these traps is skilled, they were laid with a holistic thinking across the entire trap field.
I estimate there’s a dedicated spirit energy core in the mage tower managing these traps, the best way now is to give up this route and attack the town from the other two directions!
Turn off all traps after entering the mage tower.”
Tris reminded:
“Anyway don’t let them try randomly, the undead in Plague Town are troublesome enough, if more netherworld creatures are summoned, that swamp will be completely unusable.
Material world undead and netherworld undead are two completely different concepts in terms of destructive power.”
“Don’t worry, my little players have already chosen rational abandonment, though I guess they might have other plans.”
Murphy was flying high in the air at this moment, following the student party from afar as they flew along a strange route toward the swamp’s eastern forbidden zone.
While hiding his presence, he chatted with Tris like they were on a long phone call:
“They’re heading to the swamp forbidden zone.
If I haven’t guessed wrong, these guys are planning to lure the swamp giant snake to attack Plague Town, I have to say, this is quite a vicious but also quite useful method.
I just don’t know what method they plan to use to achieve this extremely dangerous ‘driving wolves and chasing tigers’?”
“I think they can give up.”
Tris said in a spiritless tone:
“As far as I know, Ningkinanka never leaves their forbidden zone habitat, perhaps due to some pre-era binding forces.
During the previous four Black Plagues at their worst, Ningkinanka was never seen coming out from the forbidden zone, even King Gnawbone’s death was because he actively entered the swamp restricted area.
It was practically like going to die.
So, if your players are planning to lure the giant snake, they’ll likely get a very disappointing result.”
“I estimate they know this point themselves.”
Murphy watched the students gathered together whispering.
He planned to get closer to eavesdrop, so he said to Tris:
“Since they still choose to execute this plan, why not give them some confidence? I’ll keep in constant contact with you about things here, not saying more now, I want to enjoy their wisdom and strategies that burst forth when facing danger and pressure from a first-person perspective.
I think they’ll definitely pull off some moves that’ll leave me dumbfounded.”
After speaking, Murphy cut off communications with a laugh, concealing his form in the shadows and quietly approaching the student party who were gathered in a circle discussing plans below.
He had just gotten close when he heard Leading Pigeon say:
“Let’s draw lots!
Whoever draws the short one has to go scout around, must find Ningkinanka’s lair, best if we can steal something these giant snakes absolutely won’t give up.
If there are snake eggs that would be perfect.”
“F**k, you’re really evil!”
“Ha, if you weren’t evil why did you come here? Why don’t we go back and slowly disarm those traps? Are you confident you can handle it? I’m certainly not!
We represent the dignity of students as a group in the game! Now we can’t retreat no matter what.
Come come come, draw lots draw lots.”
Leading Pigeon took out a bunch of broken tree branches, letting the young vampires gathered around each draw one, Ah Yuen looked at the short stick in his hand and scratched his head saying:
“Does mine count as long or short?”
“Are you stupid, take it out and compare with others and you’ll know if it’s long or short!”
“Shit! We’re drawing life and death lots, don’t make dirty jokes okay.”
“Hehe, now you’re being shy, didn’t we play like this too when we were assigned to the same dorm? Even said whoever’s longest would be dorm head.
In the end Brother Pigeon stupidly refused to strip, clearly treating brothers like outsiders.”
“I was afraid of crushing your confidence, everyone drawn? Come on, show them brothers, let’s see who’s shortest! Ha, Cheche’s shortest! Tsk tsk tsk.”
“Bull! I’ll strip right now, let’s all compare! F**k, I’m clearly the longest okay?”
Lord Murphy hiding on the side watched these students laughing lewdly with wide eyes, as well as Cheche who was preparing to strip but was held down by other brothers telling him not to humiliate himself.
He couldn’t help but pat his face in the shadows, looking utterly shocked.
Damn, are young people nowadays all so wild?
Even the way they choose dorm heads is so uniquely creative… he really couldn’t keep up with the times.
But you guys behave yourselves!
This isn’t an 18+ game!
Really, compared to Meow King, you “Little Disciples of Slaanesh” are more qualified to be called “Big Bird Spin Spin Spin”.
