Second World Chapter 271 - 271. Captives

On the morning of that second day, before he went on the hunting quests with the others, Jack had also gone to visit the guard tower where he could get the faction quest. Unfortunately, there was still no nobility faction quest available.
The three days he spent doing three short adventurer quests and two hunting quests, he had collected 9 gold coins, 163 hunter points, 105 adventurer points, and 2265 souls. He had also sold out the trophy loots of elemental powder and troll's tooth which he had gotten during the time he spent with Themisphere faction's cadets.
During the time he was in the Adventurers Association and Hunters Association, he checked on the exclusive item list. All the exclusive items on the bronze hall had been bought up. The silver hall ones were still available, but he didn't have enough points for any item. However, he still would not get them even if he had enough points. The way he saw it, if he kept with this pace, he could be the first person to reach the gold rank. If so, then at that time, he wanted to have enough points to buy the exclusive items of that rank.
He used 2000 soul points out of the souls he had collected to further upgrade Power Strike and Swing, bringing them to level 10 and 3 respectively. With the help of the Container of Souls, he could also become the first person to max out one of the basic skills. The others could only do so by leveling up and using skill books which were very rare to acquire.
There were another two events to note during those days. First, he had leveled up his Mage class to level 19. Second, he received a message from Scarface in his Unrivalled Arcaner's inbox on the second day, telling him to assemble at Crestfall Plain two days later. He used his Unrivalled Arcaner persona and replied to Scarface that he was still in the middle of a long quest. He would be unavailable for an indeterminate future.
It was not until the third day, that another of themisphere nobility faction quest became available. It was a mission to become a security guard of a dignitary coming from another city. He came to the capital as a guest to a local nobleman to discuss trade. The mission last one day and one night.
It was a boring mission where Jack almost completely did not do anything except following the dignitary around. It was not until the next morning when the dignitary was about to leave that something happened. A servant who was bringing the dignitary the parting gift from his master turned out to be an assassin in disguise. The only thing that made Jack aware of the servant's nefarious identity, was the red dot in his God-eye's radar.
He was confused at first when the red dot showed up, as they were still within the nobleman's residence and everything looked as it should be. It was only when the red dot was getting nearer and Jack matched the red dot's position with the incoming servant that he realized something was wrong.
Jack took action just as the servant took out a hidden dagger. He shoved the dignitary aside, pushing him out of harm's way, and received the assassin's attack using his longsword. The fight didn't last long as the other guards came and apprehend the assassin. The killer had lost his chance once his ambush failed.
Despite his life was saved, the dignitary was grumbling as he rose from the ground. Jack had a bad feeling hearing his grumbling. The mission ended once the dignitary left. He went to the guard tower to report the completion of his mission.
He got 50 merit points for completing the mission which requirement was only for escorting the dignitary. A bonus of 150 bonus points for foiling an assassination attempt. However, his bad feeling turned out to be correct, he was deducted 50 points for physically assaulting the dignitary.
Are you f**king kidding me? He complained in his mind. He was only doing that to save the bugger's life! This point deduction system was driving him crazy.
Total gained was 150 points, bringing his total merit point to 400 points. He was only a little bit more from becoming a Baron. Unfortunately, there was no more nobility faction quest available again. He might need to wait a few more days again. He wondered what would happen when more players joined the kingdom faction. The mission was already so scarce now, wouldn't then they had to fight each other when it happened? But probably the number of missions would scale up once more people joined.
He was coming out of the noble district when a player suddenly approached him. The guy was short and wore a hooded cloak. He moved in a suspiciously sneaky way. His hooded cloak was not the rare grade though, as Jack could still inspect the guy. The fellow was a member of Death Associates.
Did they seriously trying to look for trouble inside the city, Jack thought as the short guy was getting closer and closer. But instead of attacking him, the guy handed Jack an envelope.
Jack was not sure what to make of it. He just stared at the hand holding the envelope.
"Take it!" The short guy finally uttered.
"What is this?" Jack asked.
"It's a message for you," the guy said.
"What's the message about?"
"You read it yourself!" He spoke with impatience.
Jack decided to stop giving the short fellow a difficult time and took the envelope. He immediately scurried away afterward.
Jack looked at the envelope in his hand. What's the deal with this old-school message? What happened to the in-game message system? Oh right, the other party would not be able to contact him if they were not on his friend list.
He was about to open the envelope before he suddenly thought of something and asked Peniel, 'is there a possibility that this envelope is a trap? Is there a tool that can be disguised into a piece of paper which then can be detonated from a distance?'
"The hell are you talking about?" Peniel replied. "If it was that envelope, it should be all right. If it's something fishy, you should at least see rune words or some kind of inscriptions on it. I also did not feel any mana from it."
"You can feel mana?" Jack said as he turned the envelope around and saw it was indeed just a plain white envelope.
"It's an ability you will have to learn at some point, but not now. Still too advanced for you," Peniel said.
Jack's hand went back to the envelope and this time he didn't hesitate to tear its seal away. He then took out the piece of paper inside. There were writings inside. Jack read its contents. His expression turned grim and serious as he read. After he finished, he crushed the letter into a crumpled sheet.
So that's why Scarface had asked him to assemble at Crestfall Plain. Those guys had gone out of line, he said in his mind.
The letter had told him that Flame, Bowler, and The Man had been captured by Death Associates. If Jack did not want his three friends to lose everything they had accumulated till now and revert back to level 1, then he was to come to Crestfall Plain within six hours. A coordinate was written in the letter which he could input into his map to show the position of the plain. It was a plain to the East of the capital. It was not far away from Starlight Ruin where the three guilds organized their meeting. It was also one of the turfs occupied by the coalition.
It was pretty obvious that the invitation was meant for him to come so they could fight him on their term and had him killed in the wilderness. Still, there was no way for him to just abandon those three.
How the hell did they even get captured? Bowler and The Man, it was still conceivable for those two idiots, but how did Flame get entangled as well?
Jack did not just go ahead and believe the letter, he opened his friend list and write a message to Flame. After he sent the message, he soon received a system reply that the other party was unable to receive his message. He proceeded to send messages to Bowler and The Man as well, which he also received the same system reply.
"There is a couple of reasons when a message can't be sent," Peniel said in his mind. "When the recipient is in a restricted area, when the recipient chooses to turn off his message receiving function, or when there is a jamming object or spells nearby the recipient which prevents him or her from receiving a message. If what the letter said is true, then they are probably held captives in a special area or are being constrained by restraining tools."
"There are restraining tools?" Jack asked.
"Sure. A simple rope will be enough to restrict one's movement, but they are most likely being tied by restraining rope. It was a type of rope with inscriptions on it. Apart from restricting movement, it also inhibits skill and spell activation, and also prevents you outworlders from accessing your bags."
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