"There is still another party?" Jack frowned. "Are they your friends?"
"Never met them before," John replied. "Got a recommendation from Tip here."
Tip was bewildered hearing his name mentioned. He hurriedly said, "I just happened to bump into them in one of the taverns in the city. The leader added me as a friend and said to contact him if I ever needed a service or help with quests."
"A mercenary group?" Bowler facepalmed. "Are you kidding me? You already have a group coming to help you, what are you blackmailing us for?
"Friend, please, it's cooperating, not blackmailing. You make it sound so bad," John said. "It's a level 20 Boss inside; you can't be too careful. The more the safer, ain't it?"
"How are you going to pay that mercenary party?"
"Well… I said we are only interested in completing the quest. Anything they find inside they can take," John smiled sheepishly.
"You… scoundrel!" Bowler stood up in anger. "Didn't you say the loot inside would be given to us?"
"Actually, friend, I said nothing of the sort. If you think back, I only said that we are only interested in clearing the quest," John defended. "I never said anything about the loot."
Jack now understood why the two men beside John had looked at him strangely when they talked about the loot.
"Let's just kill this asshole and hope the flower drops," Bowler suggested to Jack.
"Please calm yourself. I'm sure an agreement can be negotiated with the other party once they arrive," John interjected in his most persuasive tone.
"Who is this group that you've invited?" Jack asked.
John gave a nudge to Pointy Tip, who reluctantly spoke, "They call themselves Men of Solidarity."
"Wait, do you mean Warriors of Solidarity?" Bowler said.
"Um, no. Not that famous guild. You might consider them a cheap knock-off of that guild."
"What the… Couldn't you at least find someone more reliable? You had to go and find some famous guild wannabees?"
"Friend, it's not like we had many options," John said with exasperation.
"How good are they?" Jack asked Tip.
"I'm not sure, but they look strong. I mean, by real-world standards they would look strong. They are rough men. Like the Warriors of Solidarity, they only accept men into their gang. And they actually went further by only accepting men who use Fighter class. I'm not sure about the others, but when I met the leader two days ago, he was level 11."
"Not too impressive then," Bowler said.
"Friend, you are level 11 yourself," John commented sarcastically after using Inspect on him.
"I wasn't comparing the guy to myself! I was comparing him to my big bro here!" Bowler explained in annoyance.
John looked at Jack, "What is your level, may I ask? My Inspect skill keeps on failing on you."
"Fourteen," Jack tossed out nonchalantly. He didn't bother to conceal his level.
Tip and Trap opened their mouths wide upon hearing this. John however kept his indifferent face. He merely said, "That's impressive. That should be your bargaining chip when you negotiate with them for the loot then."
"How many of them will there be?" Jack asked.
John shrugged; he looked at Tip, who also shrugged.
"You told them about the level 20 boss?"
Tip scratched his head, looking sheepish and said, "Well… John here said there was no need to mention the level. Just to say we got a very very strong boss monster that we needed help with."
John shrugged, "Didn't want to scare them away before they arrived, right?"
"You are one sly meanie," Bowler quipped, disliking John more with every minute.
*
With nothing better to do, they decided to spend the night together.
At first, Jack thought about going into the cave for a recon. If it was possible for them to kill the boss without waiting for the other party to arrive, then there would be no need to negotiate about the loot distribution. But Peniel reminded him that even if the boss inside was only an Elite, it would still be difficult for him to win with the current team members. Unless he exposed all his trump cards, of course, including his dual-class and his sword's Overlimit skill. Jack thought that she had a good point, and, as he really didn't want to reveal everything, he decided to wait.
Jack kept the original night watch schedule, as if their three new friends were non-existent, because he did not trust them yet. John, upon hearing that they were not included in the night watch rotation, was completely fine with it; he went to sleep immediately without any concern. Bowler grumbled seeing his carefree attitude.
During the night, they were attacked two times. Once during Bowler's watch by the Silver Wolves, another during Jack's watch by Goblins. During those two attacks, Tip and Trap woke up to help repel the attacks. John, however, amazingly slept through both ordeals. Bowler had to fight the urge to kick him awake.
In the morning, Jack cooked a lot of meals as preparation for venturing into the cave. He made three servings of Chicken Soup for Bowler, Flame, and himself. The he made eight servings of Egg Fried Rice because the ingredients were cheaper and easier to find.
The Egg Fried Rice was for John and his two comrades and the people from Men of Solidarity. He didn't know how many members of that gang would be coming, so he just used up his spare ingredients and made five for them.
After he finished with the cooking, Jack took Bowler and Flame to go grind monsters for experience while waiting for Men of Solidarity to arrive. Before they left, he added John as his Friend, so he could notify Jack when the Men of Solidarity arrived.
They hunted for two hours before John made contact. During the hunt, they destroyed two packs of Silver Wolves and one pack of Goblins. When they returned to the place where they had camped the night before, they found a crowd waiting for them. There were eleven people in addition to John, Tip, and Trap.
As Tip had described, the Men of Solidarity were a rowdy-looking bunch, and all of them wore Fighter armor. John was speaking with one of them; a tall middle-aged man with a bulky frame. He wore full leather armor including a leather cap, an armor piece that Jack still lacked. When John saw Jack approaching, he smiled and called out.
"My friend, you have returned! Come, let me introduce you to this fine gentleman, this is The Man, leader of Men of Solidarity?"
"Who?" Jack asked, afraid that he had heard wrong.
"The Man, leader of Men of Solidarity," John repeated.
"Which man?"
John clasped the shoulder of the man with full leather armor beside him, "the man, T-H-E, space, M-A-N! His name is The Man."
Jack was dumbfounded; he inspected the man using his God-eye Monocle.
*
The Man (Fighter, level 12)
HP: 340
*
'There is, indeed, every kind of person in the world,' Jack thought. He nodded towards The Man.
"Nice to meet you."
"Can't say the same," The Man replied rudely. "I hear you are the fools that plan to steal our loot?"
"What do you mean steal?" Bowler said. "It is cooperation! So it is normal for the loot to be shared."
The Man laughed. His other members laughed as well, following their leader's example.
The Man looked at Bowler disdainfully, "You think you have the right to discuss cooperation with us? Look at you three. Didn't your school teacher teach you how to count? You think you can compare with eleven of us?"
He then turned to John, "Forget these three clowns! We will finish the quest ourselves. Show us the cave!"
All the other members of Men of Solidarity started to make noise.
"Yeah, what's the need for these three weaklings? We will defeat the Boss monster ourselves!"
"Take us to the cave!"
"Let's kill the Boss!!"
Jack looked at John and asked him, "Did you tell them yet that the Boss is level 20?"
The noise died down when they heard Jack's words.
Edited by OneFellSwoop
The Man looked at John, "What's he talking about?"
John replied calmly, "I was just about to get to that. We are going to take on a level 20 Boss."
"You f**king kidding me? That's an 8 level difference from us! Well, 9 levels if you consider the majority. You are asking us to go against that kind of monster? You made us waste our time coming all the way out here?!"
The Man pulled out his large mace in righteous anger.
"Calm down, calm down," John coaxed as he took several steps back and hid behind Jack. "With our numbers, it is not impossible to take down the Boss as long as we coordinate properly. I thought you Men of Solidarity are known to be fearless?"
"Fearless is different from suicidal, you maniac!" The Man took some steps forward, completely ignoring Jack, and swung the mace at John.
Jack drew his sword and blocked the mace mid-blow.
"Calm down," he said flatly.
The Man was shocked. His mace couldn't move an inch further; it was as though he had swung into a steel wall. His strength stat was the highest out of all of his team. He had fully allocated all his free attribute points to his strength. Yet, this person had blocked his blow without moving even a little from the impact. And he seemed to be at ease doing it.
"Who are you?" The Man asked.
"You can call me Storm Wind," Jack replied.
Hearing that, The Man's rage was somewhat diminished. He thought he might have heard that name somewhere before.
John came out of hiding and started wheedling again. "As you can see, Mr. Storm Wind here is another capable adventurer, just like you. With the two of you working together, even a level 20 Boss is as good as dead."
"Stop with your bullshit!" The Man hissed at John.
"Fine, fine," John didn't intend to poke at the big guy's temper and backed off.
The Man put his mace down and asked Jack, "What level are you?"
"Fourteen," Jack answered.
He could see that The Man's eye twitched when he heard that. His gang members also started to murmur.
"High level doesn't guarantee success. Furthermore, the boss is still six levels higher than you," The Man said.
"That's true," Jack replied, "but as this guy said, it is not impossible if we work together."
"Are you confident we can do this?"
"Not really, but I think we should try."
The Man pondered for a bit. He looked back at his gang members, and then returned his gaze to Jack. He then uttered, "Men of Solidarity have never been afraid of a difficult challenge! And we also respect people with real strength. You seem to be an okay fellow. If you are ready to challenge this boss, then we will not wuss out. But we still need to talk about the distribution of the loot! We are not going to go back empty-handed after taking such high risk!"
"What do you propose then?" Jack asked.
"If I may," John interjected.
The Man glared at him.
"Friend, don't shoot me down before I speak, okay? I really have something to say that might be useful." John said with exasperation.
"Fine, talk!" The Man uttered.
John smiled and then said, "I, at first, was going to let you folks find out for yourselves, but since you are so hung up about the loot, I guess I should let you all know now. In the room where I saw the Boss, I caught a glimpse of something that looked like a treasure chest. I'm pretty sure, if you folks have played VR RPG games before, you know what a treasure chest means. So here is my proposal; there are three groups here. My group is only after the quest completion. You two are after loot. So how about one group takes whatever the Boss drops and the other takes whatever is in the treasure chest. Is that fair enough for you folks?"
"Treasure chest, hmm?" The Man seemed to consider the proposal.
After some consideration, he then said to Jack, "Then we will take the treasure chest. What say you?"
Jack didn't answer carelessly; he asked Peniel instead, 'which is more profitable? The boss drops or the treasure chest?'
'Depends on what grade for both," Peniel answered. "Ask the scheming guy what color the treasure chest is.'
Jack turned to John, "Did you happen to see the color of the chest?"
"My attention was mostly occupied by the Boss, so I don't really pay attention," John said. "And it was also quite dark inside the cave, so forgive me if I couldn't determine the color of the chest."
After hearing this, Peniel said, 'Listening to him, I would say it was most probably the lowest grade bronze chest.'
'Why do you say that?' Jack asked.
'Because if it was any other grade - Silver, Gold, or the highest grade, Diamond - even with a glimpse, you could easily tell the color in a dark cave, as they would be quite bright.'
'I see… Why is the grade color the same as the grades used by Adventurers Association?'
'It's the other way around actually. The Associations copied the grades found on Treasure Chests. Anyway, if it's just a Bronze Chest, then take the Boss drops. Even if it is just an Elite Boss, the loot quality should be slightly higher, but the quantity will be less compared to treasure chest loot.'
'Just? Aren't we hoping that it is an Elite? If it's a Special Elite, we will be in trouble, right?'
'If it's a Special Elite, just tell everybody to pack and go home.' Peniel agreed.
Jack nodded, "Okay, we'll take the Boss drops."
The Man offered his hand for a shake. Jack extended his, which The Man shook vigorously.
"Now that the negotiation is done, shall we get the show on the road?" John asked them with a smile.
"Lead the way," The Man said.
"All right, but before that…" John made a few gestures. Not long after, both Jack's and The Man's group all received Party Invite notifications.
"If we are to cooperate together, it will be better if we are all in the same Party," John said.
"With you as the leader?" The Man scoffed.
"Just imagine me to be a puppet leader," John said. "The boss is, after all, for my quest. If I'm not the leader of the Party that kills it, I'm afraid the system won't acknowledge my quest as complete. Then all of this would have been a waste."
'Is that true?' Jack asked Peniel.
'Nah, he just made that up. He would clear the quest as long as he is in the party that kills the monsters in the cave. Even if another team joined in killing the monsters, his quest would still be considered as completed.'
"Fine! But my people only take orders from me." The Man accepted the Party invite.
Jack also accepted the invite.
They formed up and started for the cave. John took the lead, then came Men of Solidarity, while Jack's group walked at the back. They climbed up a significant distance to the higher part of the hill. The grassy fields with flower patches gave way to a rocky terrain that was then replaced by small woods filled with pine trees. In these woods they were attacked by a pack of Silver Wolves.
When the wolves attacked, John expertly retreated to the back, conveniently letting Men of Solidarity handle the wolves. They didn't seem to mind though; they looked like a bunch of battle crazed lunatics who relished combat. They yelled and laughed as they made short work of the wolves. Jack and the others didn't even bother to take out their weapons.
After killing all the wolves, The Man glanced back at Jack and said, "Impressed?"
Jack replied by simply giving him a thumbs up.
Edited by OneFellSwoop
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