The Great Thief

Lu Li had no idea that someone had plans for them – Square Root 3 hadn’t told anyone about Ruling Sword.

Neither of them wanted to get money quickly, so they always had an independent negotiating position. They didn’t accept any commercial injection of funds, so most companies didn’t pay attention to them.

The overbearing president also didn’t know that his baby had once again become mixed up with Lu Li.

Because Lu Li had ’generously’ shared the farming tower with Water Fairy, she had returned with a quest. It wasn’t an official quest, but her Thief mentor was threatened and had asked their disciples to solve the problem.

Water Fairy’s mentor was a strong Night Elf Thief who was associated with the King of Stormwind. Her Enhanced Backstab had been taught to her by this mentor.

When Lu Li heard Water Fairy mentioned this, he remembered one of the most important sources of enhanced skills – mentors.

These mentors were not the same as an ordinary skill trainer. Skill trainers were public NPCs that everyone could learn basic skills from. However, enhanced skills or ultimate skills were unlikely to be available. Mentors rarely accepted disciples; they often only had a few or one disciple.

Water Fairy’s mentor was a man from the Lakeside Town. She had been asked to deliver the letter of introduction to him.

The Lakeside Town was located to the west of the Redridge Mountains. The mountains bordering the Burning Plains in the north had been destroyed. The south was adjacent to the Sorrow Marsh and the Deadwind Pass, while the west overlooked the beautiful scenery of the Irvine Forest. The reason why the lakeside town was named this way was because of the large Lake Everstill that lay next to it.

Unlike the Crystal Lake in the Elwynn Forest, it accounted for one sixth of the total territory in the entire Red Ridge Mountains, from the lakeside town to the easternmost tower of Illgara. Looking down over the entire Red Ridge Mountains, the shape of the lake was like a dragon without wings.

The waters of the lake were clean and temperate, making it the perfect environment for a variety of aquatic plants and animals. The most famous of these was the Spotted Sun Fish, a species of tender and plump fish. Merchants from other towns would purchase a large proportion of these fish from fishermen at the Lakeside Town.

This lake was also one of the most famous tourist attractions in Azeroth; many gamers liked stopping by here to appreciate its natural beauty.

If you didn’t count the players, the population of the Lakeside town was about 2000. The government in place was a democratic system and whenever something happened, a General Assembly would be called.

However, the issue that had arisen this time was so difficult that it couldn’t be solved in a General Assembly.

The mayor of the town was a male man who was over fifty years old. His name was Solomon and he was a high-ranking warrior.

”Damned Gnolls are up to no good again. The Gnoll activity in the area has tripled recently and I fear they are planning an attack on the town,” Solomon sighed sadly.

It was he who had given the letter of introduction to Water Fairy, requesting an armed guard to protect the town.

”What’s so scary about Gnolls? Aren’t you a high-level warrior? You should be able to protect the town,” Lu Li asked as he walked along the road.

”What do you know?” Mayor Solomon shot back as he glared at Lu Li. ”The Lakeside Town is not as peaceful as you think. There are tarantulas in the East, Orcs in the north and Wolves in the forest. However, these aren’t the biggest threats. The real problem is the fallen Dwarves of the Blackrock clan. The Blackrock clan is much bigger than us and they have built their castle in the Easter Red Ridge, which is between the town and Lake Everstill. We need to ensure we have enough troops to guard against them.”

In fact, these Dwarves were the original residents of the Red Ridge Mountain. More than 200 years ago, when humans and orcs first migrated into this area, the fallen Dwarves of the Blackrock clan fought to keep them out. Eventually, many years passed and the Lakeside Town was established, but so was the castle.

”He’s not going to get us to fight the Gnolls is he?” Lu Li sighed.

”We still have many friends. We have the manpower to contribute to the Lakeside Town,” Water Fairy said. She and Lu both had large guilds at their disposal that they could pull tens of thousands of supporters from.

”I’m sorry; Lakeside Town doesn’t welcome outsiders. Even if it was just the two of you, I would still need a show of honor before I could trust you,” Mayor Solomon said solemnly.

”Old man, you’re way too proud,” Lu Li thought to himself.

A disaster was imminent, and Lu Li would much rather just leave them to attend to it.

”Okay, Mr Mayor. What do we need to do?” Water Fairy asked as she looked at Lu Li helplessly. She had resigned to the fact that they couldn’t rally their guild members to help them with the quest.

”I want you to go to every Gnoll camp in the area and collect as much information as possible. Check out the camps in the north, east and southeast. Bring back anything you find,” the Mayor instructed. He was satisfied with the girl’s performance and completely ignored Lu Li’s frustration.

Lu Li had no choice but to accept this quest and begin exploring the Gnoll camps around the Lakeside Town.

The Gnolls around the area were between level 40 and 45, so they didn’t pose much of a threat to them. Lu Li and Water Fairy simply used their Stealth the whole way; the only requirement of the quest was to explore.

After exploring several camps, they didn’t find anything useful. However, as they were travelling around, Lu Li and Water Fairy bumped into an Alliance Scout on the outskirts of a camp.

”We were sent by Mayor Solomon,” Lu Li quickly introduced when he saw that he was about to attack.

They weren’t afraid of the level 40 NPC; they knew that he just needed some information. It was obvious that this guy had some clues.

”This is the information I’ve gathered. You can bring it back to the mayor,” the Thief said indifferently.

After taking the so-called intelligence, Lu Li and Water Fairy quickly ran back to the Lakeside Town.

Hopefully, this quest wouldn’t require them to visit countless areas like Sesame Rice Ball’s. Neither Lu Li or Water Fairy had that kind of time on their hands.

”I asked you to investigate the Gnolls. Why are you back so quickly?” Mayor Solomon asked, instinctively thinking that the two adventures had failed.

However, there wasn’t much they could do – their charisma values weren’t as high as Hachi Chan’s.