064 Asel Tavern

"What's wrong, big guy? Did you get cooked... no, wait, did you get abandoned?"

Sitting in the corner was the same middle-aged man who had traveled to Flawless Town with Bond and Mengzhu, a person whose name was Smiling Butcher. He leaned against the wall of a building, sitting cross-legged in the corner where the wall met the ground. His large iron shield lay horizontally across his knees, reflecting the metallic light of the early morning. With both hands, he gently tapped the surface of the shield, looking utterly miserable yet having nothing to do at all.

Seeming to recognize the approaching man and woman, the Butcher's initially gloomy expression softened into a smile.

"Oh, it's the two of you..."

"What are you doing sitting here?" Bond looked around left and right, then sat down right beside him.

"Well..." The man paused, then wore a very bitter expression. "I don't really know... what I should do."

"Huh?" Mengzhu, standing nearby, also leaned in closer. " Weren't you here looking for a job?"

Finding a job was the common way players put it; in reality, it meant looking for people to form a party and go on adventures.

"Not really," the Butcher laughed. "I just saw there were a lot of people here, so I ran over to join in the excitement."

"I've never seen anyone sit here just to watch the commotion..." Bond rubbed his chin. "If you want to watch a show, go over there. I guarantee there's drama every single day."

The direction he pointed was toward the line of guilds recruiting members. Just as Bond pointed, two players from different guilds had already started arguing, looking ready to throw punches and eager to start a fight at any second.

Smiling Butcher gave another knowing smile, then shook his head and looked away. Bond caught all of these expressions, suddenly recalling their conversation when they first arrived in Flawless Town: "I remember you said you came to this place to look for someone..."

"Ah, that..." The Butcher's face grew gloomy again. "I've already... finished looking."

"Already finished looking, huh?" Bond and Mengzhu exchanged glances. The latter slowly sat down on the ground beside them and asked, "Big guy, I wonder if... you've joined a guild yet?"

"...No." The Butcher looked at the young girl in front of him and slowly shook his head. "Is there something you need?"

"Well, it's like this." Mengzhu thought for a moment before speaking, "I... oh, the two of us want to set up an adventure team, but we're currently short on people..."

"The two of you?" The Butcher looked at the pair in front of him with surprise. "You're going to set up a guild?"

"Not a guild, an adventure team!" Mengzhu retorted, displeased. "We don't want to mess with anything that troublesome. We just want to... build our own adventure team. Having our own adventure team in this game might make things a bit easier for us."

"We'll earn a bit more money too..." The young girl added at the end.

"Heh..." The Butcher looked at her youthful face and chuckled, a reaction that finally suited his name. Bond secretly gave Mengzhu a thumbs-up, signaling her to keep up the good work.

"What do you think, big guy? Would you consider it?" Mengzhu cut straight to the chase.

"Right now, I really don't have any guild affiliation, and I don't have anything else to do..."

"See, look, look! Will you or won't you? Will you or won't you?"

"But right now, I don't really want to join any guild..." The Butcher looked melancholic, tilting his head back to gaze at the azure sky.

"Eh? But..."

"Don't rush, young lady." Smiling Butcher closed his eyes, the corners of his mouth turning upward. "I only said I don't want to join a guild, but... you also said it's just an adventure team. If I casually join an adventure team to stretch my limbs..."

He opened his eyes. "That sounds like it could be pretty nice."

The girl froze for a moment, then jumped up in excitement. Bond knew this was the first step toward recruiting a teammate, and also the first real step forward.

The streak of bad luck they had encountered over the past few days could finally be put behind them.

After a brief celebration, Mengzhu sat back down. The three of them sat cross-legged on the ground, exchanging information about each other and their current situations.

"Moshang Qingshan, currently a swordsman using a sword, and in the future... cough, cough, depending on the situation." Kicked by Mengzhu, Bond didn't dare finish his sentence.

"I'm Mengzhu, also a melee class, proficient in using daggers and short swords... um..." The young girl frowned and pondered for a long time, unable to think of anything she was actually good at, and sheepishly scratched the back of her head.

"I'm Smiling Butcher. Well, I just picked the name randomly, don't mind it." After finishing his laugh, the big guy cleared his throat and continued introducing himself. "As you can see, I specialize in shields, and I used to... heh."

The Butcher smiled without continuing. "You can call me Butcher, Smile, or Big Guy, anyway..." He looked at the two people in front of him. "It shouldn't be considered taking advantage of you kids."

Amidst the fluttering catkins in the air, the three of them introduced themselves to one another and thus became teammates. The Butcher quickly grasped the situation and slipped right into his role. "So... that means we're still missing two people, right?"

"Even though this is the busiest main street in Flawless Town, you two still looked in the wrong place," the Butcher laughed heartily. "My case is a special one. If you want to find people who specifically want to join other guild factions, you should..."

"Go to the tavern." He pointed in a direction at the very end of the street.

*****************

As the commercial avenue of Flawless Town, Flower Dance Street was exceptionally wide. Because it was located at the foot of that small hill, the terrain was generally gentle, though there was still a slight slope to it.

Assel Tavern was situated at the very end of the street, which also happened to be its highest point. From late afternoon until deep into the night, this tavern enjoyed its busiest hours of business. Countless people seeking relaxation and amusement would come here after a tiring day to unwind as a way to pass the evening.

Naturally, the tavern was also a great gathering spot, the best choice for discussions and planning, and a frequent haunt for intelligence brokers and black-market merchants.

There were still people in the tavern during the daytime, but the crowd was naturally much smaller than at night, and almost all of them were players. Most of those lingering here now were solitary individuals, all fully geared up and looking quite formidable, scattered in standing or sitting groups around the perimeter of the main hall.

The tavern used a wooden structure and its decor was rather crude, but it made up for it with its spaciousness. However, the counter deep inside the hall had no attendants behind it at the moment, as if it weren't open for business yet. Nor did anyone in the tavern pay attention to these lingering players, leaving them to make a ruckus as they pleased.

The reason it was called a ruckus was because when Bond and the other two walked in, a group of players was egging each other on in the middle, watching two players fight.

One player wore a suit of leather armor that looked quite stiff, making his movements somewhat restricted. His weapons were short swords, but he held one in each hand. The other person wore armor styled like chainmail, though the clasps on the armor appeared to be made of wood. At that moment, wielding a large saber in his hands, he was hacking away at the dual-wielding player opposite him.

"Taste my Chaotic Wind Saber Technique!"

Wielding the saber with both hands, that player unleashed a flurry of wild chops right in front of him without a single pause between the strikes, executing them in one fluid motion from an onlooker's perspective. With a series of swishing sounds, he slashed the opposing player left and right, reducing him to desperate dodging with zero room for counterattack.

"Is fighting allowed in a place like this?" Mengzhu asked in a low voice.

"Looks like someone takes care of it... but only after they finish fighting," Smiling Butcher said from the side.

"They're all players looking for steady jobs, so naturally they refuse to submit to one another. And if they refuse to submit, they have to fight it out first... You guys must be first-timers here."

The person answering was a player leaning against the wooden wall near the door. Bond turned around and was startled by the other person's attire.

That player was currently wearing... a tavern waiter's uniform.

"People who come here specifically to scout for players gradually get used to this kind of thing. They even treat it as a method for picking candidates," the player named Salted Fish King chuckled, then struck a standard professional pose again. "So people here have gotten used to it too, including... the tavern owner."

"According to our boss's rules, once they finish fighting, the loser gets thrown out and... is responsible for paying for the damages here." The person pointed toward the front where the dual-wielding player was being beaten into continuous retreat, as if he were about to become the next payer of damages.

"Trust me, that's not a small sum. So if you guys plan to step into the ring, you'd better consider it carefully..."

The three of them looked at each other and slowly shook their heads. "We're just here to take a look, but..."

"To come all the way here to fight first thing in the morning, they really have a lot of energy."

"It's not early morning in real-time anymore, and... I don't think it's just people trying to fetch a good price for themselves who are here..." Bond rubbed his chin. "Going by how this is developing, it might just become a designated PK zone in the future."

"Hm, this gentleman is right." The person was really getting into character. "Some players who love fighting others have already started stationing themselves here permanently. I believe that before long..."

"Business at this tavern will become even more prosperous."

He smiled faintly, which, coupled with his handsome face, gave off the strong impression of an aspiring head concierge.

Bond smiled along with him and looked back toward the center. "By the way, I don't think I've ever heard of a skill called Chaotic Wind Saber Technique..."

"Of course there's no such skill," Smiling Butcher replied. "Skills recognized by the New World system are very few, but players love acting cool, so... shouting out the name of the move loudly before attacking is just something people do."

"Naturally, they make up the names themselves," he spread his hands.

"That's... really lacking in imagination." Bond shrugged along with him.

While they were talking, the match on the floor finally reached its conclusion. After hacking through three consecutive rounds, the saber-wielding player had finally exhausted himself. He stepped back heavily, panting as he tried to fully recover his stamina before changing tactics and trying again. However, the opposing dual-wielding player didn't seem inclined to give him that chance.

Rolling forward, the dual-wielding player closed in rapidly without getting up from the floor, executing a horizontal sweep straight from the ground.

"Taste my Ground-Sweeping Sword Technique!"

"I simply can't bear to watch..." Seeing the saber player scream as he fell, Bond covered his face with his hand. "Can't you guys come up with some better-sounding names..."

"No way, I think it's quite descriptive..." Smiling Butcher stood at the side, still wearing his characteristic chuckle.

The saber player didn't die; he was simply hauled out directly by tavern security who materialized from out of nowhere. It seemed players in the New World didn't kill each other casually either—after all, they were inside a city, and taking a life meant facing consequences.

However, the victorious player naturally received cheers from the other spectators, and a few people observing from the shadows slowly walked over to extend olive branches.

Having the same idea, the young girl had no choice but to retreat.

"Relax, with so many people here, isn't it simple to scrape together two more?" Bond comforted Mengzhu, who had lost her nerve. "Besides, that guy used cheap low-road tactics anyway, we look down on him too..."

"Dear customers, excuse my intrusion..." The waiter-dressed player standing by the door spoke up once more. "Are you... looking to recruit people to form an adventure team?"

"Yes." The three of them turned around simultaneously to look at the Salted Fish King before them. "Do you have any good suggestions?"

"If you don't mind, I can recommend a candidate for you." The person maintained his smile. "However, in exchange, I require a brokerage fee..."

"I think you're pretty great yourself," Bond suddenly chimed in. "Since we just need to fill numbers, we'd take someone like you too. Why don't you just sell yourself to us... how about it?"

Under his gaze, the person opposite lowered his head. "Hmph..."

"You aren't the first person to make this request to me, but begging your pardon, my asking price... might be a bit high."

"How high could it... Hey, hey, hey, say whatever you want, alright fine I'll shut up..." Brushing a footprint off his clothes, Bond stepped back and let the smiling young girl take over. "Well... we're very poor, and we aren't part of any big guild. We just want to build our own adventure team, do some quests normally, and earn a little money... But I can guarantee the atmosphere in our group is abso-lute-ly harmonious, and there are definitely perks, though I haven't thought of them yet... Oh right, we have a high-level expert anchoring us, so doing quests normally will definitely be fine, we're guaranteed to make money..."

Virtually transforming into a veteran vegetable market vendor, Mengzhu began chattering away to negotiate with him. But Bond, standing behind her, saw the smile on the waiter's face rapidly cracking and knew the man was suffering an inner breakdown.

"Just think, being taken care of by an adventure team while living life freely—how wonderful and cozy would that be? Oh right, Uncle Richard mentioned earlier that Flawless Town hasn't even established a single adventure team yet, so we might be the very first one! What a glorious thing..." Chattering on and on.

History proved that persistence could indeed win people over... or rather, break their defenses.

"Alright, alright, alright, I get it, I just need to lend my name, right..." Seeming unable to withstand the young girl's endless bombardment, the waiter finally agreed, his nodding movement resembling an old-fashioned garlic pounder. "Let's make this clear first: I'm not going to do any actual work, and I reserve the right to quit at any time..."

"Fine, fine, no problem, no problem. Just sign your name on this parchment, or pressing a thumbprint is fine too..." The young girl skillfully produced a piece of parchment, thrust it right in front of him, and blinked her large eyes like the stars in the night sky of the New World. "Oh right, who was that person you said you'd recommend to us?"

"Hahahahaha..." Amidst the somewhat greenish complexion of Salted Fish King, Smiling Butcher laughed heartily.