WTYTIAAN Chapter 174

Chapter 174

The next second, Merlin opened a space gate, the other side of which was pitch black, like a black hole accidentally opened.

Merlin quickly dived in, leaving Yan Yunqing with a sentence before leaving: “I’m going to find Isabel, don’t follow me, those below level 100 can’t handle it.”

In the blink of an eye, the space gate closed.

Yan Yunqing frowned.

He and Isabel didn’t share a curse of shared lifespan. He didn’t know what the situation was on Isabel’s side, but seeing Merlin so nervous, things probably weren’t optimistic over there.

However, he couldn’t follow. He couldn’t use the space gate Merlin used, and he didn’t know Isabel’s specific location, so he couldn’t find her even if he wanted to.

Yan Yunqing was a little irritable. He took a sip of the tea Merlin had just given him to suppress the anxiety in his heart. He opened the panel and flipped through it a few times, paying attention to his NPC friend panel from time to time.

This panel could roughly show the other party’s current state, which made Yan Yunqing feel a little more at ease.

Yan Yunqing waited for about ten minutes and sent Merlin a message asking about the situation.

More than half an hour passed before Merlin vaguely replied that everything was fine, and then there was no news.

Yan Yunqing:?

Although he wasn’t sure what had happened, since Merlin said it was fine, then it should be fine, right?

Yan Yunqing was helpless and could only wait for them to come back and ask clearly.

He stood up, pulled up his hood again, and his face was once again hidden in the shadows.

Although the discussion with Merlin hadn’t come to a conclusion, he was obviously not suitable to stay here any longer. If he stayed any longer, the players outside wouldn’t know what they would imagine.

Yan Yunqing unconsciously pulled at his hood, opened the wooden door, and met the gazes of countless eyes.

Yan Yunqing:?

Yan Yunqing:…

Yan Yunqing really wanted to close the door and calm down, but under the gaze of countless players, he could only leave like a ‘normal’ NPC, without revealing too many strange reactions.

After all, since the appearance of the skyTiānjiàng zhě – those who descended from the sky, the thinking of the people in this world had undergone some small changes in some aspects. To put it simply: “It’s normal for the sky Surrender to do anything strange.”

It was as if the people of another world had been uniformly brainwashed… No, more accurately, it was as if a virus or program had been implanted.

If Yan Yunqing showed an abnormal attitude towards the players, although other NPCs wouldn’t notice, the idle players would definitely get to the bottom of it, and then do some strange things to him.

Like pulling down his pants.

Yan Yunqing thought calmly, bypassing the players blocking him with an unchanged expression. However, his frosty attitude was completely covered by the hood, and the players couldn’t see his ‘indifference’ and ‘aloofness’ at all.

They came up again trying to start the so-called hidden mission.

This time it was even more excessive, several players surrounded him.

“Sir, do you need any help?” The female player [Emei Mountain Monkey], with a petite and cute appearance that didn’t match her name, rushed to the front, looking at him with bright eyes.

Another male player [If There Is No Light In The World] who was next to her also opened his mouth and said, “Yes, do you have any letters to send, or did you lose anything that you need us to help you find?”

The otherworldly people who initially came to play the role of novice village NPCs weren’t used to the style of the sky Surrender helping everywhere. Now, after nearly a month, they had completely gotten used to the ‘enthusiasm’ of the sky Surrender, and had automatically evolved into ‘giant babies’ who could solve any small matter by randomly grabbing a sky Surrender on the street.

From the players’ perspective, when they first entered Homecoming, the game’s mission system wasn’t perfect enough, and they couldn’t get any missions no matter how they poked these NPCs. But now the mission system was gradually being perfected, and they could get missions without poking these NPCs!

Of course, there were also some special NPCs who were more ‘reserved’ and required players to take the initiative to ask in order to receive a mission.

The mysterious man in front of him had become a ‘reserved’ NPC in the eyes of the players.

Yan Yunqing was entangled, and for a moment he was in a dilemma. Suddenly, a flash of inspiration came to him. Based on the novels he had read about transmigrating into games and disguising as NPCs, he thought of a brilliant idea.

He made a hesitant posture. Of course, because of the existence of the concealment magic robe, even if his facial expressions were rich and his performance was delicate, these players couldn’t see it.

So Yan Yunqing sighed, that sigh was very contrived, and made Yan Yunqing himself couldn’t help but get goosebumps. However, the players didn’t notice anything wrong. After all, in their view, the performances of all NPCs were similar.

Hearing this sigh, the players were excited. This really looked like a mission was about to be issued!

So some players quickly squeezed in front of Yan Yunqing and asked enthusiastically: “You look troubled, did you encounter something?”

The corners of Yan Yunqing’s mouth, hidden under the hood, slightly raised. He cleared his throat imperceptibly, “Actually, I am a traveling merchant. I recently traveled here and heard that there is a very skilled craftsman in the blacksmith shop here. I want to ask him to make a batch of weapons for me.”

“Of course, as a merchant, I can’t easily hand over such a large order to a blacksmith I don’t know. I first custom-made a long sword in the blacksmith shop.” Yan Yunqing gave himself a reason for going to see Merlin just now, “The blacksmith accepted my order and just gave me a good quality long sword. I am very satisfied.”

[Emei Mountain Monkey] listened very carefully, and was a little puzzled when she heard this, “Then why are you sighing?”

Yan Yunqing paused, “It’s because I’m too satisfied—”

“And then I placed a very large order with this blacksmith. I can guarantee that this amount definitely exceeds the old man’s imagination, but he refused me!” Yan Yunqing’s voice was tinged with a bit of anger, “He actually used insufficient production capacity to prevaricate me. His blacksmith shop clearly has so many apprentices! This greedy blacksmith must want to take the opportunity to make me increase the price of the order!”

The players looked at each other, whispering.

“Huh, blacksmith? Are you talking about Buck?”

“Idiot, he said that the blacksmith just rejected him. Mason was the one who took him in just now, right?”

“Ah… Mason is really a blacksmith in the blacksmith shop? I always thought he was the blacksmith shop owner’s brother. He’s drunk all day long, and I haven’t seen any weapons made by him in the shop, right?”

“No, there are some, but there are really few, and they are all some very basic white weapons. No one buys them. It feels like a loss to spend the money you worked so hard to earn from doing missions to buy a white weapon that doesn’t give much bonus!”

“I often go to the blacksmith shop to look at weapons. I can only say that Mason makes really few weapons, and the bonus attributes are especially strange. Can you imagine what the bonus attribute of a wolf’s fang club is? It’s actually intelligence! What the hell, will the intelligence attribute give me extra damage?”

“Hey, maybe if you give it to yourself, you can become a child painlessly?”

“?”

“Mason ah… If it’s Mason, it seems understandable. With Mason’s three-days-fishing-two-days-drying-net blacksmithing state, maybe that weapon for the delivered order took a long time to make.”

Seeing that the players’ topic was getting further and further away, Yan Yunqing quickly spoke up to continue performing, controlling the players’ straying thoughts, “In short, I hope you can think of a way, whether it is to make that blacksmith accept my order, or to find a cheaper and more affordable blacksmith to cooperate with me—if you can help me complete this order, I will consider letting you buy my goods.”

Players:?

Before the players could understand, a mission prompt popped up in front of them.

[Help the mysterious traveling merchant complete his order]

Description: A mysterious man suddenly appeared in Rock Town (Romunike Newbie Village). He claims to be a merchant traveling in all directions. He came this time to place a large order with Mason, the most famous blacksmith in the Rock Town blacksmith shop. However, Mason rejected him. He is very distressed about this and asks you for help.

Mission Objectives:

1. Persuade the blacksmith Mason to accept the merchant’s order.

2. Assist the blacksmith Mason in collecting all the necessary materials.

3. Ensure that the order is completed within the specified time.

Mission Completion Time: 10 days

(Please note that the traveling merchant will only stay here for 10 days. If the mission is not completed within the time limit, it will be regarded as a mission failure and the traveling merchant will leave here.)

Mission Rewards:

[Copper Coins x10], [Experience x100]

(Note: After completing this mission, the traveling merchant’s favorability will increase, and players in the area can open the [Traveling Merchant’s Goods List] and gain purchase qualifications.)

[Traveling Merchant’s Goods List]: Randomly refresh items of different qualities, which the traveling merchant brought from different regions. There is a certain chance of refreshing rare and above items.

Players:???

Gold coins and experience aside for the moment, they were as small as giving alms to beggars, but what was that note?!

Several senior game players were excited. It turned out to be a real traveling merchant NPC! How did this game put up the new content without a sound?!

Putting aside everything else, just the fact that there was a certain chance of refreshing rare or above items was exciting.

Currently, the game had just been in internal testing for less than a month, and the highest level equipment in the hands of the players on the levelbǎng – ranking list was only green, which was exquisite quality items. But the rare items in the mission note were purple items, directly crossing two ranks compared to green items!

This mission had to be completed, and it could be completed by anyone, because the mission rewards were scarce, but the permission to open the traveling merchant’s goods list was open to players in an area.

However, several clever players had already noticed the “After completing this mission, the traveling merchant’s favorability increases” note in the remarks column. Although they didn’t know what the effect of increasing favorability was, it must have some hidden benefits to be specifically noted.

They had already decided that even if the mission rewards weren’t high, they would rush to complete this mission first!

“Speaking of which, have a lot of players from other newbie villages come to our newbie village recently? If they complete it, will this regional reward still count for us…?”

Someone in the crowd raised this question, and suddenly, the eyes of the players from Romunike Newbie Village and other regions’ newbie villages all became sharp.

That wouldn’t do!

In a few breaths, only two or three kittens were left in front of Yan Yunqing, who had been surrounded by players.

Yan Yunqing shut down his mission publishing panel with his merits and fame deeply hidden, and took a deep breath of fresh air.

Sure enough, if you want to attract players’ attention, you have to keep giving players missions.

As for the promised goods list, that wasn’t difficult. He had looked at his NPC panel, and the NPC panel did have this function. He could throw some unwanted garbage from his backpack into it, and maybe sell it to the players, and the players would have to be ‘grateful’ to him.

There were still a few players who wanted to try to get some other missions from him, but Yan Yunqing politely refused them: “If you are very free, please help me think about how to persuade that blacksmith to complete this order for me.”

When asked too much, Yan Yunqing simply used a uniform rhetoric to defeat the players’ enthusiasm.

“I need more rare items, maybe you know where to get them?”

“I really hope this year’s business is booming, and everyone comes to buy my goods.”

“I want money, I want a lot of money.”

“…”

And so on, successfully letting the last few players who wanted to pester Yan Yunqing leave.

Before leaving, Yan Yunqing also heard those players whispering.

“Don’t you think this NPC is not very smart?”

“Do you have that feeling too? Indeed, maybe it’s because the traveling merchant NPC is a special NPC, and it’s also a newly launched function, so it’s not as perfect as other NPCs.”

“That’s true.”

Yan Yunqing:…

What do you mean not very smart? Stop and explain clearly, where is he not smart enough?!

Yan Yunqing’s face looked constipated, as if he was walking on the road and was suddenly pointed at and called a fool, but his NPC setting didn’t allow him to argue with the players – he shouldn’t even understand what smart meant!

Yan Yunqing gritted his back teeth. Fortunately, he had a hood to cover it, otherwise the players would have paid attention to his unusual expression.

He stood in place for a while, sighed, Merlin hadn’t come back yet, and he had forgotten what he was originally going to do because he was interrupted by the players. He stared at his NPC panel for a while, and suddenly remembered that he still had a group of players waiting to be fed, who were diligently exploring the village that Isabel had led people to destroy.

He opened the panel of published missions, and it showed that the mission progress was about to be full. Yan Yunqing thought for a while and decided to go see this group of players, maybe they could bring him new surprises.

Yan Yunqing pulled up his hood and walked towards the outside of the village. The hem of his magic robe clearly didn’t move much, and his steps weren’t too big, but his movement speed was very fast, and he disappeared from the players’ sight in the blink of an eye.

“Is this NPC someone who likes to run around?”

“Never mind that traveling merchant NPC. Has anyone seen Mason the blacksmith? Why can’t I find him anywhere?”

“What? Go take a look at the tavern? Usually, if you can’t find him in the blacksmith shop, he must be in the tavern.”

“I’ve looked, but he’s not there. I almost dug up the tavern three feet deep, and was thrown out by the bartender inside, forbidden from entering the tavern again for three days!”

The players who received the mission from the mysterious traveling merchant looked at each other, and thousands of words converged into one sentence: “Have you seen Mason?”