Having been killed so many times, Feng Huimin could tell that Shen Chi possessed a special item that absorbed all their equipment.
The losses this time were so terrifying that Feng Huimin felt a pang in her heart, because she was entitled to a cut of that equipment's value!
"Stop crying, it's fine. Go grab some gear from the guild and put it on. We'll resurrect the players in a bit—everyone's accounts still depend on you!"
Feng Huimin tried to console her.
The Holy Healing Angel could only sob as she went off to resurrect the players.
In truth, Feng Huimin wanted to cry too.
She didn't even dare calculate how much they had lost this round.
Not only that, with ten thousand players stripped of their equipment, she had to open the guild warehouse to replace gear for the players, or they wouldn't even be able to kill monsters.
The worst part was that their elite forces had suffered heavy losses, which meant they could no longer run the Hell difficulty dungeon.
This effectively meant that, after the server merge, their eleven days of progress had been wiped clean.
Moreover, this battle would trigger a chain reaction.
For example, the town defense battle nineteen days from now would fail!
At that point, their investment would become a mockery.
After being overwhelmed with problems, Feng Huimin was also being yelled at.
Wan Huanyu was throwing a tantrum.
"Didn't you say you studied their weaknesses? Made all those PPTs? So you're only good at making PPTs, huh?
When it comes to actual combat, you're useless—nothing worked, you didn't even scratch their surface!"
Feng Huimin hadn't expected things to turn out this way either, so this time she admitted her mistake directly.
"It's my fault. Because they were several major servers away, I overlooked their threat, and my intelligence gathering was insufficient."
Feng Huimin summarized: Plantman had grown stronger, and now had a new Charm Mushroom?
Not only that, but what surprised her most was Xie Lin.
Not only could he pinpoint the positions of hidden assassins with precision,
His control was terrifying as well.
He managed to predict and dodge every projectile-type skill.
In comparison, Shen Chi's mech was just a clumsy hunk of iron.
It was merely harder to crack.
If Xie Lin hadn't been able to break out of the encirclement and kill the healers, then let Chu Fu clean up the battlefield, and Xie Lin had grabbed two players while chasing others—
the death toll wouldn't have been this high.
But when she looked closely, the three seemed to complement one another perfectly, with almost no weaknesses.
Still, even if there were no weaknesses, they needed to find one.
Why were they so strong?
Feng Huimin already understood.
"Wan, we've seen it all in this battle.
Our guild needs players with strong stats and high talent levels.
Regular players are just cannon fodder when pitted against powerful players like that."
"So you're calling me cannon fodder!"
Feng Huimin gritted her teeth.
"No, Wan."
She couldn't say more.
Wan Huanyu was in a temper right now; a good employee wouldn't provoke the boss while he was angry.
But Feng Huimin had already drawn her conclusions.
Lu An could actually hold his own against Chu Fu, as long as he had a priest assigned to him.
It was just that during the first battle, Holy Healing Angel had died, which left Lu An unable to withstand Green Leaf's attacks.
If they'd had one more assassin in the squad to pin down Killer Shrimp,
this battle wouldn't have gone so badly.
In plain terms, it was because Wan Huanyu couldn't tolerate other standout players, so back at the starting village, he'd only recruited Holy Healing Angel and Lu An.
Furthermore, after that player Lin Haowan exposed the capital-backed studios,
more talented players chose to stay away from the Wan Studio rather than join it.
Not only that—017 had become the stronghold of the Wan Studio, but because their reputation had soured, players wouldn't even choose that server.
Fewer and fewer people meant no economy.
This downward spiral would only get worse.
So Feng Huimin proposed pushing upward, having all players reach level 20 quickly and head to the city.
But going to the city didn't mean giving up the town.
Now, it was nearly impossible to hold it. Without fresh blood, they couldn't defend the town nineteen days from now.
"Wan, we need to get all players back to town immediately. No matter how strong Plantman and his crew are, they can't go on a rampage inside the city—the guard NPCs are much stronger."
"Also, at their strength, they'll clear the dungeon soon."
"If they camp outside the dungeon entrance, that'll be a problem!"
"You head back to town first!"
Wan Huanyu knew this logic all too well. He immediately exited the dungeon, nervously tore up his return scroll, waited ten seconds, and found himself back in town.
He finally let out a long sigh of relief.
Being back in town at least meant he could do some quests—much better than being stuck in the dungeon. That was too passive.
Besides, far away from the dungeon, he could finally feel safe.
After all, those three were still inside!
...
Inside the Goblin Nest on Hell mode.
Shen Chi reported their haul.
"Two resurrection scrolls, thirty-two pieces of gold equipment, 7,625 pieces of silver equipment, 45,279 pieces of bronze equipment, 52,708 pieces of iron gear, and over 3,000 pieces of plain white gear—most of it in special slots like necklaces and rings."
Chu Fu furiously pressed the buttons on her calculator.
Resurrection scrolls: 200 gold each.
Gold equipment: using a mid-range value of 6 gold each, that's 192 gold.
Silver equipment was top-tier gear in the starting village, so it priced higher there, but here in town, it was only worth a few dozen silver coins.
At 50 silver each, that came to 381 gold.
Iron and plain gear were just scrap, totaling about 5 gold—she planned to hand those over to Shen Chi as materials for his machinery.
The jewelry pieces would be set aside and given out as perks to guild members who lacked accessories.
Total profit: a solid 773 gold.
But that wasn't the end of it.
"Let's go, clear the dungeon. After that, we're stopping by their guild headquarters—at the very least, we're taking out their warehouse!"
That idea didn't come from Chu Fu.
It was something her brother Chu Feng did often in the script.
He treated Wan Huanyu like a pig being fattened up!
Whenever they were short on money, they'd go butcher Wan Huanyu for profit.
"Then let me check if Wan Huanyu's at the guild headquarters. We can take another cut from him!"
Xie Lin pulled up his phone screen within the game and opened the group chat.
Sure enough, a bunch of people in the group were already discussing what happened.
[Crab Crawl (group owner)]: Oh my god, what happened? My Wan got killed? Who's the jerk who did this? Boohoo, I feel so bad for my young lord.
[Wan's Little Sidekick]: Aw, Crab, good thing you didn't come—you'd have been killed too. You have no idea how brutal it was.
[Crab Crawl (group owner)]: You guys are making it impossible for me to sit through class. Where is Wan now? I'm going to go comfort him!
[The Rescue Monkey]: He's in town, still scolding Manager Feng. Honestly, what did Feng even do wrong? If it weren't for her, he'd still be getting kicked around like a ball!
Xie Lin chatted a bit more and found out that Wan Huanyu didn't seem to be heading back to the guild headquarters, so he gave up on that idea.
[Crab Crawl (group owner)]: The teacher just called my name, boohoo, gotta stop chatting, crying now!
"This Wan Huanyu is a real schemer—hiding inside town and not coming out. But that professional manager of his is pretty sharp; that's how she saved him."
It's said that manager has a special piece of equipment—a telescope—that lets him see the battlefield from a kilometer away!
Next time, we should take out that manager first."
Chu Fu nodded thoughtfully.
Then her eyes lit up.
"This guy's a real talent! What a waste for him to be working under Wan Huanyu!"
