Not far from Ed, [Zhongde], who was digging a pit, suddenly laughed.
[Do Some Farm Work]: "What are you laughing at?"
[Zhongde]: "I remembered something funny."
"Seriously, what are you laughing at?"
"Really want to know?"
"Yeah."
"Look at what we're doing, then look at your ID, and you'll get it."
The shovel in [Do Some Farm Work]'s hands paused. Realizing that what he was doing did indeed seem to count as farm work, he couldn't help laughing at himself too.
Just then, a human roar suddenly rang out from the distant battlefield.
The two looked back and saw that [Shit Appraisal Master], wielding two spears, had already charged close to the [Rat King].
Perhaps the overly realistic sight had inspired a little fear, or perhaps he wanted to intimidate the enemy with a primal roar. Of course, the likeliest explanation was simply a lack of experience. In any case, after closing in on the enemy, [Shit Appraisal Master] ultimately failed to keep quiet and began wildly swinging his two short spears while yelling.
"He's having quite a bit of fun."
[Do Some Farm Work] offered his assessment with a smile.
[Zhongde], however, seemed to remember something and turned to ask him:
"It's already the second day. When's that money coming through? I still remember our forty-sixty split."
Realization immediately dawned on [Do Some Farm Work]. He put a hand to his forehead and explained:
"I had so much fun yesterday that after logging out, I kept discussing the game's details and forgot all about it. How about this? I'll ask him after we log off today. Don't worry, he's not the sort who likes leaving debts unpaid."
[Zhongde] nodded, not particularly worried about it either. After all, everyone would be spending a long time together on the same server. In an environment where they were bound to keep running into one another, most people wouldn't stoop to something as demeaning as refusing to repay a debt.
With that thought, he took a deep breath, jumped into the pit, which was already somewhat deep, and began shoveling earth out one scoop at a time.
On the distant battlefield, a fierce battle was underway.
The two players responsible for luring the enemy would have gladly started pole dancing on the spot. As long as they could hold aggro, they were willing to do anything now.
Meanwhile, on the other side of the ball of flesh, [Good Times Don't Last] kept his body slightly hunched, maintaining a guarded stance as he continuously hunted the rats making up the ball.
Whenever a rat's tail lengthened another segment and its body lunged forward to bite, [Good Times Don't Last] immediately stabbed it to death, then watched for the next incoming rat. He was as terrifying as a cobra in a dense forest.
[Shit Appraisal Master], meanwhile, seemed to have descended completely into madness, hacking and stabbing at the rats like a berserker who had lost his mind.
Against an individual rat, his seven points of strength were no different from Mount Tai crashing down. At this moment, [Shit Appraisal Master] seemed to have turned this game built around teamwork into a hack-and-slash game like Dynasty Warriors, entering a state of pure, mindless enjoyment.
Unfortunately, Ed hadn't anticipated a reckless brute like this. Otherwise, when buying weapons before the closed beta began, he would have picked out some machetes or the like as spares.
While the four players on the battlefield were caught between agony and ecstasy, the Rat King they were playing for a fool seemed to fall into some confusion.
After the two humans wielding short spears behind it joined the battle, its previously unified thoughts split once again.
The rats closer to the two decoys still wanted to move forward and feed, while those at the back of the flesh ball eyed the intruders menacingly, wanting to deal with that cold warrior and that crazed berserker first.
This inevitably caused the entire Rat King to begin splitting apart, but the fact that it had only one core couldn't be changed. As a result, the entire flesh ball was stretched into an ellipsoid by the two sides, making it difficult to move forward at its previous high speed.
Though the rats had little intelligence, seeing that they couldn't accomplish what they wanted no matter what they did made them realize something, more or less.
Things would go wrong at this rate. Whether they dealt with those two enormous chunks of meat first or took out the attackers behind them first, they had to establish priorities, or they would surely die here today!
More than one rat noticed this problem, and the flesh ball soon grew noisy. Every rat squeaked with all its might, as though voicing its opinion.
The cacophony of squeaks slowly faded, replaced by the rapid contraction of the entire flesh ball.
After a brief disagreement, the rats reached a consensus once again-
Kill the two enemies who kept slaughtering their kind first!
[Howling Pothos] was the first to notice something was wrong. No matter how the two of them taunted it, baited it, or tossed out flesh and blood from their prey, the Rat King had lost interest in them.
This made their efforts to lure it while keeping just out of reach rather like making eyes at a blind man, rendering them utterly ridiculous.
"Watch out! We lost aggro!"
Seeing that nothing else could be done, [Howling Pothos] could only shout to relay the information to the two players fighting.
At this point, [Shit Appraisal Master] was drenched in blood, looking like some fiend that had crawled out of hell. None of that blood belonged to him, but it seemed to make him even more frenzied.
Even as the enormous flesh ball rolled toward him, he remained hopelessly engrossed in mowing down enemies. It was [Good Times Don't Last] beside him who first noticed something was wrong. Hearing his teammate's shout confirmed the situation, so he grabbed [Shit Appraisal Master], and the two began retreating rapidly.
"The pit's ready!"
[Zhongde]'s shout came from beside the Deadwood Vine tree hollow nearby. Hearing it, the two players holding aggro hurried toward the pit. The plan had reached its most critical stage, and everyone, Ed included, inevitably grew tense and flustered.
"Run! Run!"
This was [Do Some Farm Work]'s first time fighting a boss that demanded so much teamwork. Unsure what to shout, he could only stand on the slope and cheer the two on.
But this body's voice already had a rather ducklike rasp, and with how expressively he was shouting now, he actually gave Ed, who was watching nearby, the illusion of an army retreating in defeat with the enemy hot on its heels.
A few steps beside him was a deep pit with a radius of roughly a meter and a half and a depth of less than a meter. Its creators, [Zhongde] and [Do Some Farm Work], were both panting with exhaustion, and the Deadwood Vines on their shoulders looked sickly and drained as well.
Under everyone's eager gazes, the two players serving as the main attackers finally lured the Rat King over.
The two had deliberately chosen a route that went uphill first, then downhill. When the Rat King crested the slope and prepared to charge, what awaited it was the large pit, ready and waiting.
The rats at the very top of the flesh ball were the first to spot the problem ahead, but it would take time for the information to reach the rats moving below. Moreover, this stretch was a straight downhill slope. By the time the rats realized what was wrong, they could no longer brake!
With a dull thud and a cloud of dust, the bloated flesh ball that was the Rat King fell into the trap the players had painstakingly prepared.
"Goal!"
[Howling Pothos], who had hurried over from behind, shouted excitedly, while [Great Wei Boxing Champion] beside them quietly chimed in:
"Play with civic virtue, starting today... uh, okay, that meme's just too old."