Personally Welcoming Them

[ ] Pfft—

No, no, this was so damn embarrassing. How could I say something that embarrassing?

He had thought that, at a time like this, as the male protagonist, he should say something cool. Yet he had carelessly blurted out something so painfully chuuni.

The embarrassment felt like reading his middle-school edgy chuuni diary aloud in front of his university classmates. Yang Yu wanted nothing more than to find a crack in the ground and crawl into it.

Suppressing the turmoil in his heart and doing his best not to show his embarrassment, Yang Yu waited for Bai Jin's answer. However, Bai Jin simply hugged her staff and sat motionless in her chair.

Come on, miss, say something! If you keep quiet, I'll be the only embarrassed person here.

"Could accompanying you through your adventure be considered the payment I need to give?"

Bai Jin's sudden words delighted Yang Yu.

"You can think of it that way. Don't worry, I'll do my best to keep you safe. After all, you're my partner."

"Fine." Bai Jin swayed as she rose to her feet, then extended her hand and clasped Yang Yu's tightly. "I hope you won't break your promise."

Compared to Yang Yu's broad palm, Bai Jin's hand was exceptionally small. Perhaps because she had been ill for so long, it was frighteningly thin, nothing but skin and bone, and terribly pale. Yet it was warm, with a faint pulse, as though she were truly alive.

Bai Jin smiled. This smile was different from before, carrying something that came from deep within. It was sincere—and chilling.

"Hehehe, we're going on adventures everywhere? I'm really looking forward to it. What kinds of creatures will we see along the way? What kinds of people will we meet? There'll definitely be quite a few suitable for making potions, and they can also become test subjects for my curse magic."

She really had not changed at all.

Having settled Bai Jin, Yang Yu explained the entire story behind the mission. Rather than going through the auction house's official channels, they would infiltrate the research institute directly and take what they needed. Bai Jin was somewhat surprised and somewhat resistant, but when she heard that the Silver Orchid Merchant Guild might be colluding with another country, she relaxed and accepted it.

A Curse Mage having a stronger sense of justice than me? Yang Yu bluntly told her that she really was not suited to being a Curse Mage.

"That's everything about our mission. There's a certain degree of risk, so they want us to lie low in another city for a while after we complete it. At that point, our journey will officially begin. Bring everything you need. This weekend, we move. Everything follows my arrangements. Understand?"

"There were some parts I didn't understand just now. To complete the mission smoothly and get the medicine, could you explain the requirements and procedure again from the beginning?"

"That's not impossible. If you really can't remember it, just quietly follow behind me."

"Don't worry. I'm only being cautious, checking whether anything was missed."

Time passed bit by bit, and the day of the operation finally arrived.

At the Adventurers' Guild, Yang Yu met with Tella and selected the skills he wanted from the list of Skill Scrolls she had brought.

He had assumed the Giant Umbrella Merchant Guild was merely a small merchant guild that could not produce any particularly good Skill Scrolls. To his surprise, it had quite a few highly practical skills, making Yang Yu wish he could choose several more.

After weighing the pros and cons repeatedly, Yang Yu made his choice. "I'll take these two."

The first skill was called [Bronze Wall, Iron Rampart]. Once activated, it reduced damage taken by 20% for 20 seconds.

The second skill was called [Steel Body]. Once activated, it increased both defenses by 10% for 10 seconds while also raising maximum health by 20%.

With these two skills, Yang Yu's tankiness would increase significantly. At last, he would look a little like a defensive warrior.

Previously, he had focused on endurance and put his secondary points into speed. He was clearly a defensive warrior, yet he had forcibly turned himself into a tanky assassin. Still, a tank that relied on evasion to avoid damage was still a tank.

Unfortunately, Yang Yu did not know how long this state of affairs could last.

The game had only just begun. The monsters he had encountered were still basic, with nothing particularly absurd among them. He could deal with them easily through speed alone. But in the middle and later stages of the game, who knew what kinds of monsters would be waiting for him?

He had no confidence in dodging a dragon's wide-ranging, scorching dragon breath. If he encountered a boss that could bind him or greatly reduce his speed, then having excessively high speed but low attributes elsewhere would leave him thoroughly crippled.

So he still had to stay firmly on the defensive warrior path.

Yang Yu had chosen two skills, and he had done so as though it were perfectly natural. Tella was somewhat helpless. "You can only choose one skill."

"Don't worry. I'll definitely complete the mission better than you imagine. When the time comes, you'll surely give me another Skill Scroll."

Yang Yu smiled meaningfully, and Tella became even more convinced that the young man before her was no ordinary person.

Rare Skill Scrolls were extremely valuable. Even the Giant Umbrella Merchant Guild would not casually offer two of them as rewards. But if he could exceed the mission requirements, the guild certainly would not be stingy about using the opportunity to win him over.

Could he have personally obtained secret intelligence about the Silver Orchid Merchant Guild that no one else knew?

Haha—how could that be possible? No matter how outstanding a young man was, he could not easily investigate something that even the Giant Umbrella Merchant Guild had failed to uncover.

Silently dismissing the thought, Tella smiled. "If you really can complete the mission better than expected, giving you another one would not be impossible. Don't forget the delivery location. Once you get there, it would be best to confirm it and remember the route, just in case you get lost."

"Everything will go smoothly."

Yang Yu waved his hand, took Bai Jin into the carriage, and left Rhodes City.

The operation would take place in Chuanyang City. Starting from Rhodes Town, where there was an Adventurers' Guild, the journey would take less than half a day.

The Adventurers' Guild also often received commissions from Chuanyang City. They were either miscellaneous jobs to find various things or temporary missions to help maintain public order in the city.

Bai Jin had taken on such missions many times and was fairly familiar with the city, making her the perfect guide.

At noon, beneath the blazing sun, the two paid the overdue fees, passed through the checkpoint, and entered Chuanyang City. The bustling streets were packed with carriages and pedestrians, while shops of every size stood neatly arranged along the roads.

After parking the carriage and casually glancing at the place where they would hand over the mission, Yang Yu followed Bai Jin into an unnamed alley. There, a man wearing an orange-red mask had been waiting for them for quite some time.

His hair was pale, his fingers withered, and a long white beard could be faintly seen behind his mask.

"Does their merchant guild have no one else left?"

Yang Yu muttered quietly, surprised that an old man like this had come to meet them.

"I heard every word you just said." The old man's shoulders were hunched, and his voice carried neither joy nor anger as he casually asked, "Why would you say that?"

There was nothing he could do now that he had been heard. Yang Yu smiled, intending to say that they were being so disrespectful to the elderly by sending an old man like him out to work personally. But then he opened his panel and looked.

Holy shit, this was actually the merchant guild's president personally coming out to welcome them!

The moment they met, he had said their merchant guild had no one left, mocking it for being small. They would definitely drag him away and beat him until he could no longer take care of himself.

With no other choice, Yang Yu could only force himself to smile ambiguously and brush it off. "It's nothing. I just didn't expect the president of the Giant Umbrella Merchant Guild to personally come out and welcome us."