Chapter 27 The Disappearance of the Werewolves

The werewolves were gone?

It was broad daylight, and the werewolf villagers should have been standing by the side of the road like ordinary villagers, enhancing the game atmosphere. Gu Fei had started to point them out to Brother You, but couldn't find them. He thought that maybe the werewolves he remembered were just off-duty today, but June Rain's records were meticulous. After walking past three in a row without seeing one, Gu Fei started to recall things, and he realized that there did seem to be fewer villagers on the road today.

"Come this way!" Gu Fei led the way, with June Rain and Brother You following closely behind. They arrived in front of a certain house in the village.

June Rain looked down at her notebook and announced, "Wei He, werewolf!"

Gu Fei nodded. Although he didn't know the man's name, this was where the tall werewolf who had given him the Dark Night Flowing Light Sword lived, and he was clearly the leader of the werewolves in this village. Thinking this, Gu Fei reached out and pushed open the door.

"Ah, you have to knock on the door! What if the rude NPC gets angry and doesn't give us the quest..." June Rain panicked, but quickly saw that the room was empty.

"Let me see your notebook," Gu Fei said to June Rain.

Taking June Rain's notebook, the three of them broke into three more werewolf homes, but they were all empty.

Brother You walked around the room, wiped the table, and said, "There's no dust yet, it doesn't look like they've been gone for long."

"You're so smart!" June Rain praised Brother You.

"Let's go ask the village chief!" June Rain suggested after praising Brother You.

"Hey, they're about to walk away, do we need to keep asking around here for the werewolves' whereabouts?" Brother You said.

"Do you think the werewolves' disappearance might be related to the Across the World's quest?" Gu Fei said.

"How could there be any connection?" Brother You asked, then muttered to himself, "It's not like the werewolves are going to attack, is it? That's too exaggerated, werewolves are level 70 monsters! How many werewolves are there in this village?"

June Rain immediately lowered her head and started counting one, two, three, four in her notebook.

"No need to count," Gu Fei interrupted her. "Let's go ask the village chief."

They found the old village chief of Nightlight Village. Unexpectedly, the village chief recognized Gu Fei and called him a "warrior." Gu Fei had thought that once his quest was over, he would be like an ordinary player in Nightglory Month, but he didn't expect to still have this special treatment.

This was the kind of thing that only Gu Fei would make a fuss about. Someone like June Rain, who frequently did quests, was very used to this. Those non-repeatable quests would indeed change the NPC's attitude towards you after completion. If they were the same as before, then it must be a failed quest and you had to start over...

"Village chief," Gu Fei greeted, then said the names recorded in Little Rain's notebook, asking about their whereabouts.

"Oh, them. The weather is very good today, so they went hunting," the village chief replied.

"Hunting, where did they go hunting?" Gu Fei pressed.

"In the forest? North of the village? Or in the mountains? I don't know," the village chief said.

"Do they often hunt?" Gu Fei asked again.

The village chief shook his head.

"See, it's very abnormal," Gu Fei said to Brother You.

"The north of the village, that's the direction we're heading," Brother You was also a little moved. "Go after them quickly, this is serious, level 70 monsters!"

"Send a message!" Gu Fei said as he followed them out.

The three of them left the village chief's house and headed north along the main road. Before long, they saw the team ahead stop moving forward. Most of the players were suspicious and discussing what had happened.

The three core figures of Across the World—Oathless Sword, Reflected Flowing Years, and Wind Walker—were already waiting for them here. As soon as they saw them arrive, they immediately went to greet them, mainly greeting Brother You: "Brother You, what's going on with the werewolves here?"

Brother You had passed the message to Young Master Han, who then told Reflected Flowing Years in their guild leader's team. The news spread, and now everyone was talking about it.

"Ask him!" Brother You pushed Gu Fei forward.

Reflected Flowing Years didn't look happy. He really didn't want to deal with Gu Fei. Wind Walker was also a little awkward on the side, not knowing how to treat Gu Fei. In the end, only Oathless Sword could speak: "Thousand Miles, what's the matter with the werewolves you mentioned?"

"I did a quest here a while ago," Gu Fei said. "Half of the villagers in this Nightlight Village are actually werewolves. They live with humans and don't want to expose their identities. But when I came to this village this time, I found that all these werewolf villagers were gone. We already asked around, and they haven't been gone for long, just today. The village chief said they went hunting, which they've never done before. The place where they went hunting is likely to be due north of this village."

"Due north, that's the direction we're heading," Oathless Sword exchanged glances with the other two.

"You mean, the werewolves might attack us?" Reflected Flowing Years, as the strategist of Across the World, still had to speak.

"Just guessing," Gu Fei noticed that Reflected Flowing Years didn't look too happy to see him, and he despised the man's pettiness. They had only lost one match in the competition! So many people had lost to the Young Master's elite team, but he hadn't seen anyone act like this. That's what Gu Fei thought.

Reflected Flowing Years cast a deep glance back at Nightlight Village, which was already behind them. "This village isn't big. If half of them are werewolves, that's probably only about a hundred people. Although werewolves are level 70 monsters, we have thousands of players here. Ten against one, it shouldn't be too dangerous, right?"

"You can grind other monsters to death with numbers, but probably not werewolves," Gu Fei said.

"Oh?" Reflected Flowing Years glanced at him sideways.

"Werewolves are very fast and can regenerate," Gu Fei said.

There was no need to explain in detail. Everyone here was an expert, and they understood what those two points meant as soon as they heard them. Fast speed meant that players might not be able to attack them. And self-healing meant that if the attack wasn't high enough and there wasn't any continuity, it would be the same as not attacking at all.

Werewolves were indeed a problem worth paying close attention to, but Reflected Flowing Years had just been sarcastic with Gu Fei, so he couldn't immediately change his attitude. After a cold snort, Oathless Sword stepped forward to smooth things over: "Brother Thousand Miles, what do you think we should do?"

"What do I think? I don't think anything. I'm just telling you that there are werewolves ahead. It's up to you to decide what to do!" Gu Fei said.

Oathless Sword chuckled and quickly said, "Brother Thousand Miles, don't mind my brother's attitude. He's like that to everyone."

Gu Fei didn't know whether to laugh or cry. "I don't mind. I really don't think anything. I just happened to notice that the werewolves were all gone and thought it might be related to your quest, so I stopped you to let you know and be prepared."

"Just like that?" Oathless Sword was stunned.

"What else?" Gu Fei spread his hands.

"Oh, then Brother Thousand Miles, you can rest for a while. We'll go discuss it," Oathless Sword said.

"Go, go!" Gu Fei waved his hand, looking like he was the boss and Oathless Sword was just a small soldier.

The team stopped by the side of the road. The news that there might be a hundred or so werewolves ahead had been told to everyone. And the fact that werewolves were fast and could automatically recover made it clear that even if they could win by fighting head-on, the casualties would be terrible. They had to come up with other, more appropriate solutions. The heads of Across the World and the guild leaders of the various mercenary groups were now sitting around in a clearing in the woods by the side of the road, holding a meeting.

In addition to the werewolf problem, there was also some gossip spreading in the team: "Did you know? That Thousand Miles Drunk is actually from Moonlit City. He did quests in that Nightlight Village a long time ago!"

"Oh, oh... no wonder he doesn't blink when he kills people. He's from Moonlit City!"

"I heard he was chased and killed in Moonlit City again yesterday!"

"Oh, he offended someone here and couldn't stay any longer!"

"Probably."

……

The meeting went on for fifteen minutes, but they still hadn't come up with a result. The players who weren't responsible for managing things couldn't stand it anymore and shouted in unison: "Leaders, if we're going to discuss things, shouldn't we go back to the city first? Once we've come up with a solution, we can set off again tomorrow, right?"

A certain guild leader at the meeting was immediately inspired by this voice: "Hey, that's actually a good idea! Let's go back to the city first. When we see that everyone is back in the village, that means the werewolves are all in the village. Then we can set off again, how about that?"

"Why don't you just say we should take a detour?"

"Who knows where the werewolves are? If we detour, can we definitely avoid them?"

"That's right, where are the werewolves exactly?"

"What if the werewolves really just went out hunting for fun? Aren't we being a little too paranoid?"

As they spoke, everyone's eyes turned to Oathless Sword.

"This..." Oathless Sword hesitated for a moment, then looked at Young Master Han. "Guild Leader Han!" He addressed Young Master Han in this way: "The werewolf information was provided by your elite team. How about you take the trouble to scout ahead and confirm the werewolves' location and intentions?"

Young Master Han's expression twitched. Finding out the werewolves' location was fine, but finding out the werewolves' intentions? These were just a bunch of combat NPCs, he had never heard of being able to communicate with these kinds of NPCs.

However, Oathless Sword's words had already been spoken, so Young Master Han didn't back down. He nodded and said, "Deposit."