Reign of the Hunters

Chapter 127 Land of Dau’er

The grappling hook firmly latched onto the side of the ship with a clank. Ye Ci pulled on the hemp rope in her hands a few times, and determined that the rope was taut enough. She then climbed onto the rope, intending to cross the water just like that. Hanging from the rope, she spoke to Finley who remained on the shore: “Hurry up and get on, we’ll cross together.”

“No! Finley will absolutely not do something so dangerous.” This NPC chose an excellent time to be stubborn and rejected Ye Ci shrilly. Ye Ci peered down. No wonder he would cry out, the height from the rope to the water was considerably far. Anyone with acrophobia would feel dizzy, much less Finley who was afraid of both water and heights.

Alright then, for the sake of completing the quest as well as obtaining the remaining two chests, Ye Ci would be extremely patient, extremely loving and extremely kind as she made a compromise. Returning to shore once again, she squatted down and patted her shoulders. Finley did not dawdle and immediately got on.

Goddamn, Finley did not have a large build, but he certainly was not light. As Ye Ci carried Finley on her shoulders, she immediately received a notification: “You are over-encumbered, movement speed will be decreased by 30%.”

As expected, when she moved her footwork has slowed down significantly. Fortunately, it was fine even if they proceeded slowly. Methodically getting back onto the rope, she slowly inched along the rope. Looking from afar, she looked just like an insect that continued to crawl forward. However, midway across the rope, Finley gave a loud cry: “Aiya, my arms are tired.”

And then, Ye Ci looked on with wide eyes as Finley simply just let go and fell into the water below with a splash.

“Quest Failed. Please receive the quest once more and try again.” The system notification immediately sounded out in declaration of Ye Ci’s hilarious waste of effort.

Ye Ci was stunned. She promptly let go of the rope and fell into the water. Finley was no longer in the water, but had already returned to his home. What the hell was this?

Ye Ci swam ashore and sprinted towards Finley’s house. This time she did not have to go through all of the earlier nonsense. Instead, she immediately went to find Finley and walked out with him after accepting the quest. There were no monsters encountered along the way, so they reached the shore extremely quickly.

Tying the hemp rope to the grappling hook and fastening it to the side of the ship once more, Ye Ci found a thinner rope which she used to securely tie Finley onto her back before getting on the rope. This time however, Ye Ci only had her luck to blame, she had made her way past the halfway mark when the spot where the grappling hook was fastened to had loosened. Ye Ci and Finley, who was tied to her back, fell into the water with a splash once more. Another quest failure.

Having experienced two quest failures, when Ye Ci stepped onto the harbour, she inspected every single detail carefully. From the tight knot, all the way to making sure that Finley didn’t pull a fast one on her. Only after everything had been thoroughly checked did she get on the rope once more. After an arduous journey, she finally made it across onto the deck of the ship. Sailors were bustling about on the deck. Upon seeing Ye Ci’s arrival, everyone promptly stopped whatever they were doing and came forward to greet her fully armed.

Now that Finley was on her back and Ye Ci was unable to release him in time, her movement speed was pitifully slow. She had no choice but to summon Ol’ Four and use it to shield herself from the flurry of kicks and punches from the oncoming sailors. Ye Ci on the other hand, had no choice but to stand behind Ol’ Four and become a standing turret. Fortunately, Ye Ci was sticking close to the side of the ship. In this situation, at least her back was safe from enemy attacks and she only needed to deal with the sailors before her in a frontal battle.

The sailors on the deck were just small fry. Although they had both high HP and attack, with a Legendary grade beast like Ol’ Four blocking their way they were still unable to put up much of a fight. Legendary grade creatures really were on a different level when compared to your usual Elite class monsters.

Ye Ci suddenly realized that she had done the right thing by choosing to invest her Talent Points into Pet Mastery. If she had distributed fewer Talent Points into Pet Mastery, even a Legendary grade creature may not be able to withstand the onslaught of so many Elite monsters.

She opened the Talent Menu and placed her remaining 7 Talent Points into Talents related to Pet Mastery. Thick Hide, Dexterity, Lacerate, Bleed and Ferocity. These were all Pet Mastery Talents, and if she upgraded them, Ol’ Four’s attacks would become even more overpowered. Ye Ci’s abilities in Archery could be adjusted via her skills and equipment, but Ol’ Four did not have such benefits, so she had no choice but to rely on her Talent Points. It was fortunate that she had obtained more Talent Points than others, or else she wouldn’t be able to upgrade them as much.

...

It didn’t take long for the mobs to fall under Ol’ Four’s feet. Extremely pleased with itself, It wagged its enormous tail while acting coy towards Ye Ci in exchange for the roasted quails that it loved so much. Ye Ci took out a few more quails and tossed them at Ol’ Four. She raised her hand to feel Ol’ Four’s scaly skin and sighed. Ol’ Four, you’re really not suited for acting cute. In fact, your attempts at acting cute are actually very frightening.

After Ol’ Four had had its meal, its loyalty to Ye Ci rose again by 2 points. Now, she only needed 8 more to reach 100 points. As its loyalty rose, the more submissive it would become to Ye Ci. At present, it rarely refused Ye Ci’s order to enter a battle.

Releasing Finley, the trio used the stairs on the deck to enter the ship. Upon entering, they were surrounded by mobs once again. This time, however, was way easier since Finley was available to heal them. The room furthest to the right was the captain’s room, and it was where the treasure chest was held. However, the monster that guarded the chest was ferocious. Alas, as the monster did not have any overpowered skills and was alone, a BOSS like this would still end up being killed in the end.

It didn’t take long before the monster collapsed onto the ground, dead. After looting several gold coins from the body, Ye Ci rubbed her hands as she opened the chest behind the corpse.

The chest only had three items: one of them was the Gale Necklace while the remaining two were all quest items. Ye Ci was somewhat depressed, was her luck really that bad?

It was fortunate that the Gale Necklace was a Purple accessory, it only had two attributes, but it was extremely useful to Ye Ci.

Gale Necklace

Purple Accessory

Movement Speed increase +15%

Attack speed increases by 1 second.

Between the two attributes, Ye Ci was more amazed by the latter. Amongst all the equipment that increased a player’s attack speed, the best one she knew of only increased it by 0.7 seconds. This equipment was actually able to improve it by a full second, that was too overpowered! In Fate, a player’s attack speed dictated one’s attack frequency, and attack frequency would directly affect one’s total damage output.

Take two-handed weapons and a dagger for example. The attack speed for two-handed weapons was 3.0 seconds on average, while the dagger’s attack speed was about 1.5 seconds. That meant that a dagger would be able to attack twice in the same amount of time it took for a two-handed weapon to make a single attack. To make up for this, the damage caused by a two-handed weapon was at least 50% higher than a dagger’s damage. With this necklace, the attack speed for two handed weapons would be improved from 3.0 seconds to 2.0 seconds. The user’s attack frequency would be increased and their total damage output would be incomparable to before.

The weapons that Ye Ci used were mainly daggers, short swords as well as a crossbow for ranged attacks. The attack speed for these weapons were around 1.5 to 2.5 seconds on average. Now that she had equipped this necklace, Ye Ci couldn’t help but feel excitement at the thought of the amount of damage she would be able to dish out. Although for the crossbow, her increase in attack speed also meant that she would end up using more crossbow bolts, Ye Ci did not worry too much about it. After all, she was one of the few Hunter classes that was capable of being self-sufficient.

After equipping the Gale Necklace, Ye Ci then scrutinized the two quest items that remained.

The first one was a letter that was written by Felix. It was a long letter and Ye Ci couldn’t be bothered to read it in its entirety and skipped right to the end. The quest details were written there. Bring this letter back to the king of Champion City.

A delivery quest, Ye Ci didn’t mind that too much and placed the letter inside her backpack. It was only when she picked up the other quest item that she started to get excited once again.

What kind of situation did the phrase “travelling far and wide in search of something, yet finding it effortlessly” describe?

It was probably describing the item that was in her hands.

A Fragment of Dau’er’s Map.

Those words were written on the piece of parchment in her hands. Aside from a few strange squiggly lines that were illustrated on the parchment, nothing else could be gleaned from it. If Ye Ci wished to find out what was drawn on it, she’d probably have to find the remaining fragments of the map to do so.

Ever since she received this quest that was related to the Elf King Dau’er from Natasha, she has never seen anything like this. Half a year had passed since then, so long that even Ye Ci had forgotten about the quest. To think that she would find one piece of the map today, it reignited Ye Ci’s determination after jogging her memory about the quest.

The land where Dau’er, the Elf King, had sealed his soul...

Just thinking about it filled her with boundless excitement.

With jubilation in her heart, Ye Ci carried Finley back across the sea and returned to the harbour via her grappling hook. Ye Ci retrieved her grappling hook and carried Finley on her back once more as they headed for the massive statue by the harbor together.

The statue was a sculpture of a human. It held a longsword in its hands, which was stabbed into the ground. The statue looked into the far distance with a decisive expression on its face. Fully armored with a cape, his hair and cape were wildly flying as though blown by the wind. In a nutshell, this statue was extremely well-sculpted.

However, this could be said to be a tough challenge for Ye Ci. First of all, her grappling hook did not have that long of a reach, so she could only climb up an inch at a time. Secondly, Finley was really annoying, he kept raving about how scary it was on her back, causing Ye Ci to have a massive headache.

In the end, she roared at Finley, threatening to silence him once and for all with a single stab before he finally quieted down. The only question left was how was she going to find a foothold to make her way up the smooth statue walls.

Ye Ci missed her previous life for just a split second. It was a time when Master Engineers were aplenty, she could have just bought a small plane and flown straight over, how wonderful would that have been...