Chapter 42 - Confusion! Heading to Green Forest Town! Border
In the Green Forest, Jiang Bai and Ickes were heading towards Green Forest Town.
However, Jiang Bai frowned along the way.
He kept feeling something strange around him while in the forest.
Ever since he entered the Green Forest, let alone the roars of various wild beasts, there wasn’t even the chirping of birds or insects. It was abnormally quiet.
Not only that, he hadn’t seen a single monster on the way.
“What’s going on? This shouldn’t be! How can there not be a single monster in the Green Forest?”
One had to know that there were countless monsters in the world of Sword and Magic. Especially since the Green Forest was the first dungeon for human players, there should be many monsters here.
However, the situation before his eyes was completely different from what he knew.
“Could it be that something changed because of me?”
It was quite possible!
Jiang Bai was deep in thought. He suddenly remembered that the same thing seemed to have happened in the novice village.
At that time, he didn’t pay too much attention to it because he was in a rush to complete the quest.
Now that he thought about it, after completing the village chief’s mission in the novice village, he didn’t seem to have seen even one wild boar in the bamboo forest.
The reason was most likely related to him.
What was the problem, though?
Jiang Bai kept replaying everything that had happened after he completed the mission from the village chief.
Other than offending Young Master Li, the only other thing he had done was change his class to become a Beastmaster and successfully summoned Ickes from the Familiar Encyclopedia.
“Eh… Could it be caused by summoning Ickes back then?” Thinking up to this point, Jiang Bai turned his head to look at the pitch-black figure.
He thought that the other party would know something, but Ickes looked at him with a puzzled expression, her eyes filled with confusion as well.
Was there something behind her?
Impossible. If something had appeared behind her, with her senses, she should have noticed it long ago.
Ickis then looked behind herself with a puzzled expression.
When Jiang Bai saw Ickes’ actions, a series of questions rose in his heart.
“Could it be that my guess is wrong?” Frowning, Jiang Bai decided to wait until he finished setting up his guild in Green Forest Town before he would go to the wild to investigate the reason.
Without stopping, he rushed straight towards Green Forest Town.
Not long after, Jiang Bai arrived at Green Forest Town.
It was a town that leaned against a mountain.
At a glance, there was a four to five-meter tall gate made entirely of bricks. The surrounding walls connected both sides of the high ground blocked the entrance of the town, forming a natural barrier that blocked anything or anyone from the Green Forest from entering the human kingdom.
Two soldiers were standing guard at the entrance. They wore silver armor and held reflective steel swords. Their eyes were bright and vigilant as they scanned their surroundings.
It was as if any movement in the surroundings would be detected by them.
The most important thing was that they had a silver tag on their heads!
Border Guard LV50
That’s right, level 50!
Border guards were the third transition class of the warrior class.
It was not an exaggeration to say that any of these border guards would be an invincible super boss for the current players.
The most ridiculous thing was that these border guards were all silver-grade NPC characters!
One had to know that the current players had at most only completed their first transition class after leaving the novice village. Their characters were only level 10.
To the current players, level 50 was a long way off.
If there were other players here, they would’ve been extremely shocked.
After all, level 50! Moreover, silver-grade NPCs at that.
Two level 50 silver-grade NPCs were guarding the gates of a town in such a remote region?
No matter how one looked at it, it was a waste!
After all, no matter how one looked at it, Green Forest Town was just a town in a border region.
Of course, this was the reaction of the average player.
Jiang Bai was naturally not surprised.
The Abu Haier Kingdom was surrounded by the Green Forest.
Being a forest that covered a wide area, the Green Forest naturally had a large number of demonic beasts and all sorts of monsters. High-level and powerful demonic beasts were everywhere. Although they would usually stay in their territories, there were exceptions.
If the high-level monsters were allowed to enter the territory of Moonlight City, it would cause a great human loss.
To prevent this from happening, the Abu Haier Kingdom sent these border guards to guard all the border towns of the kingdom, thus forming a huge protective circle to defend against the powerful monsters from the Green Forest.
Under normal circumstances, these border guards would not make a move rashly. Unless they were faced with major events such as a beast tide attack, or if there were players in town who maliciously attacked other players or even other NPCs, only then would they make different decisions based on the situation.
For example, when players attacked other players, everyone involved would be expelled. The expelled players would not be able to enter any human cities for 24 hours.
If players attacked NPC characters, the vast majority of them would kill the players straight away, though that depended on the players and NPCs’ factions as well.
Players would only become red names when they killed players. Killing an NPC character would only result in one being wanted. The wanted player would become enemies with the NPC’s faction. Once such a person was discovered, they would be attacked.
At the same time, as long as red-name players did not do the following actions above in town, even the border guards and Moonlight City’s soldiers would not make a move.
It could be said that in the world of Sword and Magic, as long as one did not provoke the NPC characters of a faction, even if one was already a mass murderer of players, one could still walk about freely in the town.
It was because of this that Jiang Bai did not fear that he would be killed and chose to go into hiding. Instead, he walked boldly towards the main gates of Green Forest Town.
As Jiang Bai gradually approached, the border guards at the main gates had long noticed his existence from afar.
They did not move at all. They simply stared at Jiang Bai.
Especially after their gazes swept over him for a few glances, they turned their gazes elsewhere.
When they saw Ickes behind Jiang Bai instead, their pupils contracted and their expressions changed.
Jiang Bai, who was far away, obviously did not notice this.
He continued to approach Green Forest Town.
Jiang Bai knew that the other party would not stop him, so he planned to just silently bring Ickes into Green Forest Town.
However, before he could enter the gates of Green Forest Town, the border guards who had been standing there like statues just now moved! They were originally standing at the main gates of Green Forest Town, but at this moment, they were taking the initiative to walk forward!
This scene caused Jiang Bai, who was walking toward them, to be shocked.
“The border guards actually moved?” He hurriedly turned his head to look behind him. Other than Ickes, who was still puzzled, Jiang Bai did not see any signs of demonic beasts or even a group of monsters come attacking.
Then why would the border guards move?
For a moment, Jiang Bai stopped in his tracks.
Looking at the border guards walking toward him, he could not help but hesitate.
Jiang Bai, who could not figure it out for a moment, decided to stay where he was. He wanted to see what the other party was up to!
After all, the border guards would not move for no reason. Moreover, it was now the early stages of the game, so the NPCs were still very restricted by the rules of the game. Perhaps he had triggered some hidden quest?
However, Jiang Bai was still vigilant in his heart.
If the situation was not right, he would pull Ickes and run away.
In his memory, he did not remember any quests that had anything to do with the border guards in the early stages of the game.
However, now that he had been reborn, everything was very different from before.
Jiang Bai planned to give it a try.
If something harmful to him did happen, at the very most, he could just choose not to join the human forces.
Either way, he had the Familiar Encyclopedia. When the time came, he could summon a large number of divine beasts to kill monsters, which would still allow him to quickly level up.
But if that really happened, then he would not be able to benefit in the later stages of the game.
Especially the City of the Gods!
There was an opportunity to become a God there!
If he was unable to establish a guild in the early stages of the game, the opportunity in the City of the Gods would have nothing to do with him.
It was because of this that Jiang Bai made his choice.
As Jiang Bai stopped, Ickes looked at him with confusion in her eyes.
After all, Jiang Bai’s actions along the way had been very strange. He even kept staring at her, which made her feel quite uncomfortable.
Now, he had just suddenly stopped and just stood there.
Ickes did not say anything and stood there and waited as well.
As for the two figures walking towards them in the distance, Ickes did not even look at them.
Not long after, the two border guards walked over and stopped in front of Jiang Bai and Ickes.
“As expected! These two border guards are here for me!” Jiang Bai thought to himself. He turned his head and asked the other party.
“My Lords, may I know why you are looking for me?”
The other party did not answer Jiang Bai’s question.
They simply stared at Jiang Bai for a long time before looking at Ickes, who was behind Jiang Bai. When their eyes met the latter’s, a hint of panic appeared on their faces.
It was obvious that they were frightened because they saw something.
“Oh my God, it really is…”
“What! Are you sure?!”
The border guard who met Ickes’ eyes had a look of shock on his face.
This made the other border guard beside him very surprised.
Their actions made Jiang Bai, who was at the side, confused.
What “really is”? What were they saying?
Just as Jiang Bai was confused by their words, one of the border guards suddenly spoke, “Hello, your name is… Maise the God? So you’re an adventurer!”
Adventurers were how NPCs addressed players.
At the same time, all NPCs knew the players as adventurers in the game.
“That’s right, I’m an adventurer. May I know why you’re looking for me?” Hearing the other party take the initiative to interact with him, Jiang Bai asked.
“I see that you’re a Beastmaster. I wonder if you have a contractual relationship with the person behind you?”
“That’s right. She’s my familiar.”
“!!!”
Hearing the other party’s question, Jiang Bai immediately replied.
His reply left the other two dumbfounded.
Earlier, the border guard didn’t mention the word “familiar”. Instead, he used the term “contractual relationship”, which showed that he was concerned about something.
When Jiang Bai said that Ickes was his familiar, the border guard even looked at Ickes.
However, Ickes didn’t react at all. She still had a cold and aloof attitude.
This made the two border guards very shocked.
Hearing the other party asking such a question, Jiang Bai considered the possibility of triggering the mission.
With this speculation in mind, he took the initiative to ask, “May I know what is the matter? Is there anything that you need my help with? That is if I can help you.”
As soon as he finished speaking, the eyes of the two border guards were filled with surprise once again.
For a moment, their expressions were one of shock, and even the way they looked at Jiang Bai and Ickes changed…
Their gazes became filled with reverence.
They looked at each other, and their eyes were filled with excitement as they spoke, “Respected adventurer, we do have a difficult matter that has been troubling us for a long time. If you can help us solve it, we are willing to give you a reward that is equivalent to the value of the trouble.”
Just as the other party finished speaking, the system notification sounded!