The Great Thief

Chapter 597: Tactics

Translator: Halcyon Translations Editor: Halcyon Translations

This was a fraud!

It was the first time that they were shocked by the shamelessness of players.

"Of course, you guys can choose to stay in the cage." Lu Li didn’t take a single step back; he was used to seeing these kind of people in real life.

"Alright. As long as you let us out, I’ll agree to any request. I’m Sergeant Brad," a human in the cage next door said before Weegli opened his mouth.

"But we don’t even..." Weegli objected quickly.

"Shut up, you dumb dwarf." Sergeant Brad was a handsome Warrior with a strong voice. "I can agree to your conditions, but you must help us defeat the enemies under us," he requested to Lu Li.

Lu Li turned around to look; the monsters had already refreshed.

There were also two bigger monsters at the back who looked like Bosses. These were the people who were trying to capture these mercenaries — Nekrum Gutchewer and Shadowpriest Sezz’ziz.

Azure Sea Breeze and the others were shocked by the sight; there was at least three to four hundred monsters before them.

"Looks like we’re going to have to revive in the city now," Hachi Chan sighed as if she was familiar with the situation. "Greed is truly not a good trait, Lu Li. If you had let them out earlier, maybe we would’ve already escaped by now."

Lu Li didn’t pay attention to the little girl. He used his keys to open the five cages and promised, "That’s our enemy also, Sergeant. I’ll accept your conditions; let us fight side by side."

Sergeant Brad walked out from the cage and glared at Lu Li, but he understood the importance of teamwork in times like this.

The five of them instantly changed gears. Lu Li didn’t lie about their items – they were still in their bags.

"Lu Li, why did you ask for twenty gold equips?" Azure Sea Breeze asked, unable to hold himself back any longer. This was a question that tossed around in everyone’s mind.

"Oh, it was just a random request," Lu Li answered.

"My goodness. Why did you ask for so many equips? None of these guys look like good people; they probably won’t give it to us in the end." Azure Sea Breeze wasn’t the brightest, but he could tell the difference between good and bad people.

"I want him to breach the conditions. That’s why I asked for twenty gold equips…"

"What?" Azure Sea Breeze was lost again.

"I asked for a crazy condition to upset Sergeant Brad," Lu Li explained. "Did you see the way he looked at me just then? Didn’t he look extremely mad?"

"Right." Everyone nodded their heads together.

"After we clear these monsters, these people will attempt to kill us. Promises mean nothing to mercenaries. They won’t be able to hold their anger and they’ll want to kill us, the players who saved them. The truth is, I want them to attack us. Otherwise, it would be hard for us to have a good reason to kill them when we’re so friendly with each other…" Lu Li explained in detail.

"Wow, you’re so crafty!" Azure Sea Breeze exclaimed as he looked at him in disgust.

If he let these mercenaries out immediately, they would part ways as soon as these monsters were killed.

Of course, if these mercenaries were killed during the battle, there wouldn’t be any after-story either.

Unless if you brought up a crazy condition that crossed some sort of line and caused Sergeant Brad to hate you, he wouldn’t attack you after you killed all the monsters.

By playing this way, players got to kill another Boss, a hidden Boss.

"Do you think we can clear all these monsters under us? Even if we can, will we still have the energy to kill these mercenaries?" Wandering asked as he looked at the monsters below.

All of this was only possible under the condition that they remained alive.

"Don’t just judge by the numbers – most of them are Sandfury Labourers and Sandfury Slaves. You’ll be able to wipe most of them with a few group spells. There’s less than one-tenth of them that are actually elite monsters. The ones you need to look out for are the Sandfury Cretin. We don’t need to be at the front either; just make sure they don’t die to these monsters," Lu Li said.

"Aren’t we being a little too mean?" It was hard for a young girl like Remnant Dream to understand the mentality behind this whole plot.

"It’s not as bad as you think – these are all monsters created by the dungeon. You’ll be able to see them every time you enter the dungeon, and none of them are good people. To put it nicely, they’re mercenaries, but they’re actually no different to bandits. And I’m not sure if you guys have noticed, but that Warlock with a hat on his head — that’s a Tauren." If someone else asked, Lu Li probably wouldn’t have bothered, but he thought he should be more patient with an underage girl.

It wasn’t that all members of the Horde were evil, but that their mercenary group had a messy structure and would most likely have lower moral standards.

"You guys sort out the left; we’ll sort out the right. Charge!" Sergeant Brad commanded as he drew his sword and dashed towards the monsters.

Their mercenary team consisted of Sergeant Brad, who was a Shield Warrior, Raven, a Thief, the Tauren Warlock Oro Eyegouge and a Dwarf Priest, Muerta. Weegli was only a guide; he didn’t really have any attack abilities and was only capable of burying mines.

The monsters didn’t all charge forward at once.

They split into groups of three, and about a hundred of them charged forward in the first wave. Five NPCs and ten players defended in a scattered formation. Under some subtle instruction from Lu Li, the players didn’t give the fight their full strength.

However, the mercenary group members had to fight with all that they had. They had finally tasted freedom, so there was no way that they would let themselves fall back into the hands of the Trolls.

The battle was intense – monsters were constantly killed and the five of them became wounded.

Lu Li and the others couldn’t let these five die in front of them, so in moments of danger, they would spare the time to help out.

However, it seemed as if the five mercenary members were avoiding the elites on purpose and leaving them for Lu Li’s team. They also wanted to reduce the strength of Lu Li and his comrades.

Unfortunately, they had no clue who they were messing with.

Players, or rather, adventurers, as the NPCs called them, had potions and never died. There was no way that they could out sustain real players.

Even if they did, there was still the mana bar of the healing class.

The first wave was quickly finished off by both parties.

The second wave approached and the numbers of the elites increased.

Now, they had to start casting spells. The Tauren Warlock used Rain of Fire, dealing significantly more damage than Sesame Rice Ball.

The Thieves had an arsenal of stun abilities, so their coordination worked out well.

Everyone had to use a little more energy in this wave, otherwise, the NPCs would definitely die.

Now, the third wave was advancing, along with the two Bosses — Nekrum Gutchewer and Shadowpriest Sezz’ziz.