The elementary fire mage didn’t wear an anti-poison mask today, so she finally got a clear look at his appearance.
It was obvious that he had recognized her as well.
Their gazes clashed coldly in midair before each shifted away. Due to the other players present, neither made any rash moves.
“Customer, what would you like to eat? We have the village’s best-selling wine!”
Under the boss lady’s surprised gaze, Mu Shan stingily ordered only a serving of plain oatmeal porridge, costing 1 gold coin.
She didn’t order wine or any other drinks.
The tavern also served black bread and “upgraded oatmeal porridge,” which was just plain oatmeal with added chunks of meat, bread crumbs, salt, onions, garlic, and bits of greens.
But Mu Shan didn’t want to challenge her taste buds. Medieval Western commoners wouldn’t have any decent cuisine anyway.
The porridge had been cooked long ago. The boss lady boldly ladled a large bowl and brought it over, sprinkling a pinch of decorative green parsley on the thick, sticky surface.
Aside from being healthy and hot, the porridge had no other merits.
Mu Shan lowered her head to drink the porridge while unobtrusively observing the seven players in the tavern. They must come here often; the boss lady chatted with them without any awkwardness.
Four of the seven were obvious foreigners. Three had typical Western looks—tall and burly—and sat together drinking and eating meat. They were the main source of the tavern’s noise.
Their IDs and professions were 【Norman Nov·Builder】, 【Richard·Courier】, and 【David·Financial Advisor】.
To be honest, Mu Shan couldn’t distinguish between white men’s faces at all.
All three had big beards, pale skin, curly light hair, and were middle-aged men. Their outfits were all similar: black T-shirts, camouflage jackets, and tactical vests.
Fortunately, the IDs floating above their heads couldn’t be faked.
The remaining foreigner seemed Japanese. His ID was Anbu Chuanliang, with the profession 【Thousand-Mile Eye】—the owner of the No. 3 safe house she had passed by along the river earlier.
He looked over forty, short and skinny, sitting alone in the corner eating a grilled fish with homemade twig chopsticks.
He ate very meticulously, picking out every single fishbone, as if he were in some Japanese restaurant.
The other three should be Chinese. Besides the elementary fire mage who held a grudge against Mu Shan, there was a burly, bear-like man whose ID was 【Yu Da·Mushroom Power】.
He sat at the bar with his head buried in his food. He never lifted his head once, leaving only the black buzz-cut back of his scalp visible. His table already had at least a dozen empty plates piled up, and the boss lady was mainly busy serving him.
The last one was the only female player present, also the nearest to her safe house—No. 4 position, 【Xia Xueqin·Weather Forecaster】.
She looked twenty-four or twenty-five, but unlike her artistic name, this girl had dyed pink hair and a row of shiny silver stud earrings on her ears.
She wore ripped jeans and a black tank top. Her exposed arms and shoulders had evenly toned muscles, and her skin was covered in large tattoos of leaves and birds of paradise.
Catching her scrutinizing gaze, Xia Xueqin lazily lifted her eyelids and slowly pulled a mint cigarette from her pocket, sticking it in her mouth but not lighting it.
Mu Shan held her porridge bowl with both hands, but her heart wasn’t as calm as she appeared.
Tower defense was a cooperative game.
Assuming there were over ten people in this instance, just these seven players in the tavern—excluding Huang Hongbo—not a single one of the remaining six gave off a 【friendly】 vibe that would let her approach and try forming a team.
A worse guess was that some of them were his accomplices, the ones who had stolen kills and murdered before. That would make her situation even more dire.
She swallowed a mouthful of the rough porridge, missing the old hand and the Office Rookie for the twentieth time.
“Clang—” came the sharp crash of bowls and plates.
The white man named David abruptly shoved his chair back and stood up.
His face was flushed red, reeking of heavy alcohol as he bellowed loudly, “Boss lady, boss lady, where are you?!”
“I want to order! I’ve got plenty of gold coins!!”
Hearing the commotion, the boss lady scurried into the kitchen without showing her face.
His two tablemates laughed heartlessly, mocking his overconfidence in his drunken fit.
David’s face turned pig-liver purple. He slammed his big hands “bang bang” on the table, shook his head, and staggered squinting toward the kitchen.
But he was too drunk to walk straight. He “accidentally” smashed the ceramic vase on the table and the knives and forks on the counter. Soon, fragments littered the floor with “clang clang” sounds.
The other players all showed annoyed expressions, including his two drinking buddies.
David’s unfocused eyes swept over the faces of the others in the tavern, and he said neurotically, “This damn village, untouched wasteland. Yours truly risks his life protecting them, but can’t even find edible beef. God!”
“Every day it’s oatmeal, bread, oatmeal, bread. Aaaah, I’m going crazy!”
“Urp… I want to leave this instance. I’ve had enough!”
David clutched his head and muttered neurotically, “And that No. 1 position, the madman who only knows how to look for his childhood sweetheart every day. God! I learned the word ‘childhood sweetheart’ from you guys. Who knows if that girl is even alive!”
The tavern fell silent in an instant, everyone showing varied expressions.
The player called Norman Nov threw an empty cup at his back and cursed, “Hey, you’re drunk. Shut up!”
David smashed his fist on the wooden table with a massive “bang,” spitting out a string of English curses.
“I’m not drunk! I’m perfectly sober! You’re all scared of him, but I’m not! He’s just a fully modified lunatic who can never leave the instance, just like those transparent things in the Blank Zone!”
Norman Nov and Richard went to pull him back, and the three tangled into a mess.
Mu Shan suddenly grew a bit curious about the No. 1 position player he called a madman.
David shoved the other two white men away, then suddenly turned back and locked eyes with Mu Shan.
He seemed to finally notice this new face and walked straight over. “Bang”—he slapped a hand on her table, his fat lips parting to spew foul breath.
“Young girl, you’re the new No. 5 position? The system replacement was quick!”
“Oh, my god, you don’t know yet, do you? The previous No. 5 died horribly. He was eaten alive by a swarm of bugs until nothing was left—not even bones. You wouldn’t want to end up like him. Your tender skin and flesh aren’t even enough for the bugs to take a bite, hahaha…!”
There was no reasoning with a drunk. Mu Shan stood to pay and leave, but a hand suddenly pressed her shoulder. She flung it off fiercely and glared at him angrily.
David burst into laughter.
“What a feisty little girl! Let me tell you a secret…” His expression turned vicious and malicious. “An ant as weak as you—I could crush you with one hand. The instance you came to is hell!”
Mu Shan frowned, silently enduring the oncoming stench of alcohol.
She actually hadn’t paid attention to what the man was saying. Her focus was more on the other players.
David kept blabbering threats: “You don’t get it. If it weren’t for me and No. 12 player holding back the first wave of bugs, you downstream folks wouldn’t have a chance to survive…”
The other players’ attention was drawn to him, but just as Mu Shan guessed—they merely watched. The white drunk’s provocation could test her strength, which was exactly what they wanted to see.
Xia Xueqin leaned against the wall with the cigarette in her mouth, looking at David like he was an idiot.
Yu Da kept his face buried in his bowl from start to finish, deaf to the world.
Anbu Chuanliang glanced at them but quickly averted his eyes, acting like a total coward.
Richard and Norman Nov were David’s friends; they kept drinking, completely ignoring the little girl tangled up with their buddy. Their laughter was deafening.
This was the normal state of players.
Only Huang Hongbo sat up straight, staring intently this way with keen interest, even somewhat expectant of her fate.
“Stinking bug, puny ant-like weakling, burp. You Asians are so short. Are you even an adult, little girl? Maybe you could join me and…”
Before the white man finished, Mu Shan abruptly drew her Viking Battle Axe.
With a swing of her hand, the sharp axe blade grazed his collar and stopped at his neck.
“Don’t move.” She lowered her voice. “My hand shakes.”
The sudden change happened fast.
The instant she counterattacked, a “crash” of tables and chairs being shoved sounded. Almost everyone in the tavern stood up.
Except for Yu Da, who kept eating with his head down, the rest all drew weapons and pointed them at each other.
Mu Shan counted: four weapons aimed right at her.
Norman Nov raised the knife in his hand. “What, wanna fight?” Richard beside him coldly drew a long-barreled hunting rifle.
Huang Hongbo grinned and tossed the lighter in his hand.
Anbu Chuanliang symbolically drew a dagger, switching targets several times before finally aiming it at her.
The atmosphere turned tense in a flash.
With players fighting, the NPC boss lady as a commoner didn’t dare show her face.
In the absolute silence, only Mu Shan knew she was bluffing.
But in this environment, making a move became unavoidable.
As a replacement player, if she acted meek and swallowed her pride, Huang Hongbo and the three white men would only get worse. Besides, the tavern was in the NPC village—a public space and key mission spot. This was a cooperative instance, so while the other three might act, it was unlikely.
As Mu Shan racked her brains for a way to de-escalate, the tavern’s door curtain was lifted again.
The newcomer hadn’t appeared yet, but the sound of flowing sand reached their ears first.
“Shh-shh—”
Like fine sand slowly pouring down from a tall desert dune, forming an unremarkable sinkhole on flat ground and swallowing a person whole.
Where did sand come from in the forest? But she was certain she hadn’t misheard—it was quicksand.
“Shh-shh—”
As the person entered, the tavern’s tense atmosphere shattered.
Mu Shan keenly noticed the drastic shift in everyone’s attitudes. Anbu Chuanliang and the two white men instantly put away their weapons and obediently sat back down.
Huang Hongbo curled his lip in disappointment.
Yu Da… he suddenly stopped eating, wiped his mouth, and moved his pile of empty plates and bowls to the corner of the bar.
He had actually given up the widest spot.
What kind of person could make their attitudes change so abruptly?
…Was it the legendary No. 1 position?
Mu Shan turned to look at the person entering the tavern.
He was a young man, very tall and solidly built, with sun-darkened skin approaching honey tone, and arms covered in scars big and small.
His eyes seemed injured, wrapped in a circle of white bandages. He wore a black beast-ear mask of unknown material on his head, revealing messy black hair at the back and a sharply defined jawline.
His outfit was odd: a worn, tattered black T-shirt with a golden cobra armband on his muscular arm. His hands were empty, carrying nothing.
Mu Shan looked up at the system ID bar floating above his head.
The next moment, she thought her eyes were playing tricks.
【Elite Player 7771
ID: He Yuncong
Profession: Dream Faller】
Mu Shan’s breathing stopped, her whole body freezing as if paused.