Chapter 034: Who Was Humming?

The Legend of the Mage – No Pop-up Ads

Bored, Lin Jia absentmindedly zapped monsters with Lightning, carefully targeting the ones frantically pacing outside the human wall formed by Boss, Fourth, and Ribs. The long period of intense concentration was wearing him out. If not for the formidable multi-threaded micromanagement skills he’d honed back in his StarCraft days, keeping a lock on a single erratically moving monster amidst the dense horde would have been nearly impossible.

In the world of Legend, monsters operated on an “aggro” system. Once attacked by a player, a monster would focus exclusively on its aggressor, relentlessly pursuing them and ignoring all others until the player evaded for long enough, or escaped far enough, for the monster to lose interest and seek a new target.

Many players, over time, learned to exploit such mechanics. Lin Jia, for instance, had discovered during battles that as long as Boss and the others didn’t attack, the monsters wouldn’t harm them as they stood in front of him, and, by extension, couldn’t touch Lin Jia either. But if a monster did attack the human wall, Lin Jia would immediately zap it with Lightning, drawing its aggro back onto himself. The monster would then shuffle back and forth outside the wall, desperately trying to find a gap to reach him.

When a large group of monsters was drawn in, those closest to Boss and the others would often be pressed so tightly by their comrades that they couldn’t move at all. Lin Jia would then zap each of these immobilized monsters with Lightning, drawing their aggro to himself. Effectively neutralized, they became an extra barrier outside the human wall. At this point, Lin Jia could safely focus on picking off the ones at the periphery, eliminating them one by one.

“Grumble, grumble! Grumble, grumble!”

Lin Jia frowned, eyes glued to the screen, fingers flying between F1 and the mouse.

“Grrrrrumble! Grrrrrumble!”

“Can’t you two be quiet for a second? If you want to stand there and chat, fine! But do you have to hum as well? It’s driving me insane!” Mindlessly repeating the same motions, blasting monsters with Lightning, Lin Jia was starting to feel dizzy, parched, weak-limbed, and his bladder was fit to burst. He’d had it with the leisurely Boss and Fourth, standing around chatting while he sweated through the grind. Not only did they ignore the efforts of the working man, they even had to make weird noises to further agitate him—were they begging for a beating?

He threw down the mouse and leapt up in fury, only to find Boss happily chatting in-game with someone through private messages, headphones on, completely oblivious to Lin Jia’s anger. Fourth, bored out of his mind, had already quit the game and was browsing through pictures of enticing women online. When Lin Jia jumped up to protest, Fourth merely blinked and wiped the drool from his chin, staring at Lin Jia in confusion.

You couldn’t really blame him. His little Warrior had nothing to do but stand around as a loyal meat shield, switching out with Boss from time to time to haul junk gear back for sale, then lugging back a load of super mana potions for Lin Jia. Each trip took at least half an hour. Boss’s job, besides luring in swarms of monsters, was just to keep the meat shields healed. Who knew who she was so engrossed in chatting with?

Lin Jia couldn’t help but feel sorry for himself—he was like a downtrodden peasant, and these two parasites were the heartless landlords, living off the sweat of his brow.

“Who was humming?” Boss and Fourth looked blankly at him—just then, all three of their stomachs erupted in thunderous, echoing grumbles. The three of them stared at each other in stunned silence, then burst into raucous laughter.

After a long bout of laughter, Fourth wiped tears from his eyes and said, “Haha… Oh man! I’m dying! No wonder I’m so hungry—look what time it is!” It was already past one in the afternoon. No wonder the bellies of these growing young wolves were rumbling so fiercely. At least Lin Jia had managed a bowl of hot dry noodles that morning, but Boss and Fourth had rushed out without any breakfast at all.

“Why don’t we go grab something to eat? Second, finish them off first! We’re about to get chewed to pieces here!” Boss frantically spammed Heal on herself and Fourth, since Lin Jia’s pause in attacks had sent the monsters swarming in, biting down with a vengeance.

Lin Jia quickly sat back down and finished off the remaining monsters, then glanced at his nearly empty supply of potions. “Should we head back to the safe zone? Logging out here is dangerous, and I’m almost out of supplies anyway.”

Boss looked at the bag full of loot, then nodded. “Yeah, let’s just AFK in the safe zone. We’ll go fry up a couple of dishes, grab a few cold beers.”

“Sounds good!” In the summer heat, a couple of icy beers was pure bliss. Without another word, the three of them each pressed for a recall, returned to the safe zone, pushed away their keyboards, and headed for the door.

As soon as the door opened, a wave of heat rolled in, nearly knocking them out. The sudden shift from icy cold to blistering heat was enough to make anyone curse—their fronts felt like they’d been scorched, Lin Jia was sure his facial hair was singed, while cold sweat broke out along his spine.

Some heartless soul had evidently opened the stairwell window, and with every booth door tightly shut and a plastic sheet hanging at the main entrance, it was no wonder the place was so stifling not even flies would dare linger.

The abrupt temperature change made Lin Jia’s already aching bladder clench. He squeezed his legs together and shouted, “Wait up! I need to open the floodgates!” Then he dashed for the bathroom in the stairwell.

Fourth, hearing this, shivered and yelled, “Second! Flood prevention is everyone’s duty! Don’t lock the door—let me go first!”

“Damn it!” Watching the two scoundrels jostle and squeeze into the only stall in the internet café, Boss shouted in exasperation, “Hurry up, you two! Don’t you know ladies first?” A loud crash came from inside—who knew which of them had fallen. Boss grumbled, “Serves you right,” but could only pace anxiously outside. The café had crammed in as many computers as it could, making the bathroom a single-person affair, unisex to boot.

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(Trouble: Hahaha! I’ve finally squeezed into the top ten of the new books ranking! When those old-timers ahead of me drop off the list, I’ll be king of the hill! Brothers, lend a hand—one of these days I’ll throw in some crazy plot twists just for you!

Dammit! Dammit! Dammit!

PS: I just realized there are fifteen spots on the new books list now… Click the ‘Have Some Fun’ button below and let me explode with joy!)

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