Penny had expected to see anxiety over gains and losses on Chen Xu's face, but all she got was a perfunctory smile. He even hit her with a scan.
[The scan target is a Chosen. The target is under protection. You have obtained incomplete information.] -------- Chosen: Penny Burns Race: Naamah · mixed-blood succubus Main class: none Subclass: streamer Lv.5 (max), lecturer Lv.? Attributes: constitution 3, strength 3, reflexes 2, soul quality ?, spirit 2, willpower ? Talent: ? Specialty: introductory illusion Skills: Charm, Deception Lv.1 Rank: mortal tier middle stage With three sentences, I made a man spend two hundred points on me. I am a female lecturer skilled at making men spend money on me, with a thorough understanding of human nature. --------
"You scanned me?"
Penny frowned, assuming Chen Xu was testing her strength. "Do you understand the gap between us now? You still have a chance."
She let it slide, because under normal circumstances, a Lv.2 ant could not possibly scan anything about her.
Succubi were naturally unable to resist highly attractive men. Although she looked down on the weak... she did indeed want to toss Chen Xu a few benefits.
"I'm afraid I can't help." Chen Xu maintained his polite smile, picked up his sickle, and headed toward the village.
Behind him, Penny's face flushed red. On her local star system's network, she was a top streamer with ten billion followers;
even after entering the battlefield, she had always considered herself an elite among the Chosen, just like Sethis. She had never expected some reckless rookie to reject her!
It took every scrap of reason she had left to swallow the words "You ungrateful bastard" before they escaped. Her voice turned icy as she warned him:
"Scanning people without permission is extremely offensive. Watch yourself. Don't offend someone you shouldn't!"
This woman wanted to have it both ways... she was probably trying to provoke me on purpose.
Bait me into talking back to a veteran Chosen, then use that as an excuse to teach the rookie a lesson?
I, Long Aotian... would endure it. But since when had my brain learned to think around corners?
Was this thanks to [Deception] Lv.1?
Chen Xu smacked his lips, feeling all sorts of cold or disdainful gazes stabbing into his back.
This felt awfully familiar. Surely they weren't going to pull that ostracism routine on me?
At the entrance to White Orchard, a wooden board stood outside the tavern.
It carried requests from all over White Orchard. Even the Nilfgaard garrison posted announcements here.
If there was anywhere likely to offer quests, the White Orchard notice board was not to be missed:
"Witcher wanted" & "Grain purchasing"
A bounty was offered for the griffin rampaging throughout White Orchard. Four villagers and a Nilfgaard squad had already been attacked; the reward was 240 crowns.
Any household with surplus grain could sell it to the Nilfgaard garrison at two copper coins per jin; anyone hoarding large quantities of grain would receive fifteen lashes. Informants would receive five crowns. -Nilfgaard garrison commander
"A handcart"
I made this wheelbarrow myself and only repainted it last year. You can use it to carry grain or wheel your children around for fun. I'm asking for just ten jin of wheat. Please, someone kind, take it off my hands. My Sasha is starving to death. -Noby
"Stop your loutish behavior"
I swear! Whoever pisses in my yard again can kiss his offending equipment goodbye! -Willis
Most of the remaining notices were nonsense and complaints. Only the griffin and grain purchasing could trigger quests.
Neither option was realistic for Chen Xu. [Hunt the griffin] rewarded 300 experience and 240 points, but a special note in red read: [Difficult quest. Extremely dangerous. Recommended for a party of mortal tier high stage participants.]
The grain purchasing went without saying. He would be thanking heaven if he could avoid those ten lashes five days from now.
Sethis and Penny, who had followed him over, brightened instead. They had already found another sucker to replace Chen Xu and were free for the rest of the day. They thought they could try taking down this griffin.
"A whole squad of Nilfgaard soldiers went down. Are you two trying to die?"
Chen Xu was not so childish that he saw everything in black and white. Seeing what they were thinking, he could not help offering a warning.
His mother had taught him to be kind to others when he was new somewhere; besides, their deaths would bring him no benefit whatsoever.
Unfortunately, they simply turned away to make preparations without even giving him a proper look.
There went my compulsion again. I just couldn't help myself when I saw idiots. Chen Xu smiled self-mockingly. Good advice could not save someone determined to die. He would respect their fate.
After walking around the village, he followed his [Identity memories] to the dilapidated thatched hut assigned to him.
He rummaged through everything and found a dry chunk of coarse bread in the kitchen cupboard, along with a dust-covered bottle of homemade pepper vodka.
With the bread between his teeth, he wandered over to a wooden cottage noticeably shorter than the other houses;
a furnace and anvil stood in the yard, where a slightly aged, heavily bearded dwarf was hammering a lump of iron with a focused expression.
Chen Xu held out the bottle he had already wiped clean:
"Master Willis, I'd like to learn smithing from you."
This was White Orchard's only blacksmith, the same Willis who had posted the notice threatening that anyone who pissed in his yard would never leave.
"Can't you see I'm working?"
The gray-bearded dwarf wiped the sweat off his forehead and impatiently pushed the bottle back:
"What's gotten into everyone today? Let me repeat myself: I don't teach outsiders my craft, so forget it."
Heipi happened to pass by just then, also carrying a bottle of liquor, though he had already chugged a third of it himself.
Seeing Chen Xu rebuffed, he was unstinting with his mockery:
"So here you are, my friend! You had a quest ready and waiting but wouldn't do it. Did you think quests were that easy to find? Ha!"
After dispersing, the Chosen had turned White Orchard upside down. Nearly every NPC in the village had been harassed; any quests would have been discovered long ago.
Seeing a trace of mortification on Chen Xu's face made Heipi even more pleased with his decision to work with the elites;
he tipped his head back for another swig, bared his conspicuously white teeth, and staggered away;
he intended to tell the others about this as a joke.
Chen Xu sighed in feigned disappointment. Without pestering the dwarf, he simply set the bottle beside the quenching barrel and turned to leave;
the dwarf opened his mouth. Though somewhat softened, he ultimately focused on his smithing hammer for the sake of some peace and quiet.
Back in his own rundown thatched hut, Chen Xu tried to take a nap;
"Nei nei ge nei nei nei ge nei ge nei nei..." With nobody around, the corners of his mouth finally curled upward.
When asking a favor, sincerity mattered. That was his father's formula for dealing with people;
Willis had accepted the liquor, so the matter was already one-third settled.
Just because the old dwarf needed nothing now did not mean he would need nothing later:
In the original game, a drunk named Napp burned down Willis's house one night, and the player could accept a quest from him to catch the arsonist.
His cottage was still intact now. The opportunity was right before him.
That afternoon, Chen Xu again showed up without putting in any effort. Everyone thought he really was a pampered young master, and a trace of contempt joined their cold looks.
Sethis picked up two daggers somewhere and plunged into the woods with Penny. They killed a few wolves and came running back covered in blood.
They sold the wolves' hides and flesh for a few crowns, then confidently announced that they had found the local hunter;
he was willing to take them near the griffin's nest the following morning.
That evening's regular Chosen meeting was held in Penny's hut; the pair publicly declared that they would share twenty percent of the quest proceeds with Heipi and their other "partner."
After saying this, they stared at Chen Xu with studied casualness.
How childish. Chen Xu chuckled. He suspected that, if they had not wanted to see his regretful expression, those two idiots would never even have sent Heipi to notify him about the meeting.
Night washed over the land, and sleepiness embraced the workers, but Chen Xu kept his ears pricked for sounds outside his window.
The bucket was ready. If a fire really broke out, he had to ensure he was the first to reach the scene.
"Ah-fire... help..."
An unknown amount of time passed before the drowsy Chen Xu heard a faint cry for help. He immediately grabbed his bucket and rushed outside;
sure enough, the dwarf's cottage had become an enormous torch. Wearing nothing but underpants, Willis was stamping his feet in the yard:
"Put out the fire! You lot!"
Most people had yet to react. Besides, White Orchard was formerly Temerian territory, now occupied by Nilfgaard;
Willis had long since been ostracized by the villagers for working for the invaders.
So even those capable of helping merely watched coldly.
Only Chen Xu rushed over with a bucket, his clothes in disarray. But it was a drop in the ocean. Once the coal used to melt ore caught fire, thick smoke drove both Chen Xu and the dwarf straight out of the yard.
The flames spread extremely fast. Even the roof beams burned through, and the entire roof collapsed.
The Nilfgaard soldiers who arrived after hearing the news were equally helpless. They could only hold tightly to the old dwarf, who wanted to rush into the blaze;
this fire had left him with almost nothing.
"Cough! Cough!" Chen Xu rescued a set of half-dry clothes from the clothesline and handed them to him, tears streaming from the smoke.
"Thank you..." Willis's gaze was complicated. In all of White Orchard, only this young man who wanted to learn smithing from him had come to help.
Yes, the dwarf still remembered the fellow who had come asking to learn that afternoon;
if not for the bottle of pepper vodka he had given him, he would not have been so sluggish tonight, only noticing the fire once it was practically singeing his eyebrows.
"Master Willis, I'm afraid the house is beyond saving. Come stay at my place tonight."
Chen Xu wanted to secure the NPC resources first, but the commotion was too great, and the other Chosen had also been alerted.
The dwarf nodded mechanically. They were about to leave when Sethis pushed through the crowd and stopped them:
"Hello, do you need any help?"
He did not even know the dwarf's name. He simply wanted to muscle in.
Penny's approach was even more outrageous. She quietly undid two buttons on her top, exposing her twin mountains, and said in a cloying voice:
"Sir-my place is closer. Staying with me would be more convenient!"
An eerie gleam flashed through her alluring pink eyes. Willis's gaze instantly lost focus, and he actually stepped toward her.
What ability was that? Chen Xu was shocked. [Charm], the skill my last scan revealed?
It actually had supernatural effects?
Just as he was about to do something to interrupt the casting, that pink gaze turned on him.
His senses were deceived, and he instantly felt his blood surge.
His brain automatically secreted phenylethylamine. The slutty Penny now looked charming and adorable to him, her magnificent figure, soul-stealing eyes, and other assets magnified without limit, concealing the other flaws in her appearance.
As the subsequent dopamine rush took hold, in the blink of an eye, the person whose arm she held was no longer the old dwarf, but him?
Her soft, warm, fragrant body leaned against him. Chen Xu wanted to slap her twice, but his hands disgracefully refused to muster any strength.
[Penny Burns has used [Charm] on you. Willpower check: willpower is 0. Critical resistance failure! You are under her control for 15 seconds. Each instance of damage allows another check.]
"Smack!"
He slapped himself across the face with all his strength. Outside the illusion, the Nilfgaard soldiers and the Chosen stared at him in astonishment.
[Willpower is 0. Check failed. Remaining control duration: 14 seconds.]
Fuck! With zero willpower, did that mean no check could possibly free me?
Fifteen seconds. Calling him completely under her control was no exaggeration.
Chen Xu had no choice but to stop resisting. Willis, however, stopped after two steps, shaking his head;
he had clearly seen something of the world. Pointing at Penny, he cried out in horror:
"A witch?"
The Nilfgaard soldiers maintaining order reacted extremely quickly, surrounding Penny and demanding harshly:
"Are you using magic to control someone's mind?"
Penny hurriedly dispersed the pink glow in her eyes, but no amount of explaining could clear her now.
Sethis looked as though he were staring at an imbecile. He had no time for his useless teammate and focused his attention on the dwarf:
"May I ask how the fire started? If someone set it deliberately... don't you think the person who reached the scene fastest is more suspicious?"
His implication was clear. Chen Xu, whose illusion had ended early, could not help rolling his eyes.
This guy hurt others without benefiting himself. At the start, he had said everyone had the same status and would most likely belong to the same faction in the future, and I had actually believed him a little.
Still, an open falling-out was fine. Better an outright villain than a hypocrite.
"I only came because I heard someone calling for help. I didn't even have time to dress properly." Seeing Willis waver a little, Chen Xu pointed at the straw sandals he had deliberately put on the wrong feet and loudly protested his innocence.
One good turn deserved another. He pointed right at Sethis's nose and cast suspicion on him:
"He's with that woman who knows magic. Everyone saw them!"
The two had indeed been together throughout the day, and had even run out of the same cottage that night. Apparently, they had further cemented their alliance after the meeting.
Willis stopped trusting the others altogether and immediately asked the Nilfgaard soldiers to take the two clowns away.
"I have nothing to do with her!" Sethis repeatedly explained, until a soldier slapped him on the forehead:
"Behave yourself! No elf is any good!"
The strongest [Commoner]'s features twisted together. He glared at Chen Xu as though looking at a dead man:
"You'd better know what you're doing."