New Century Warriors

Chapter 14. The Birth of a Master-Level Mercenary

After staying up all night, Lei Ye finally finished learning the first stage of the course.

He looked at the string of tiny light bulbs in his hand that changed colors and let out a long, tired but satisfied sigh.

Although he's not yet proficient, Lei Ye is already able to make some basic everyday light, water, and heat magic items, and he should be able to handle the orders for the next two days.

Lei Ye both loves and hates these online classes on his computer.

The knowledge inside was genuine and perfectly suited to Lei Ye, which is why he was able to learn it all in one night.

But Teacher Ye Lei was too improper, always flirting with the students, which annoyed Lei Ye and made him feel powerless, as if he couldn't reach into the screen.

That's why, after watching a few more online classes, Lei Ye confirmed that it was Lei Ye himself who had hidden his longsword.

No one can fully understand another person's thoughts unless that person is themselves. Lei Ye put himself in the shoes of Lei Ye on Line 2, trying to figure out his thoughts and discovering his true feelings. He had always been suspicious of Ye Lei, who had inexplicably thrown herself into his arms.

So, in order to protect his chastity from this aggressive woman, he created a special spatial magical artifact that separated a part of his body, namely his longsword, and hid it somewhere.

Lei Ye didn't know where he would hide the longsword, but he was certain that the longsword was much safer than he himself.

Yawning, Lei Ye arrived at the shop entrance and hung up the "Temporarily Closed" sign that he had carved the night before.

Lei Ye was already working at full capacity just to process the backlog of orders, and he really couldn't take on any more orders until his skills were perfected.

After hanging up the sign, he turned around and saw a very magical-looking young lady standing behind Lei Ye. She was staring at the newly hung sign and then made a sour face.

"Isn't it incredibly irresponsible of you to suddenly announce a temporary shutdown during this time?"

"It's my own shop, I can close it if I want, what's it to you? And who are you to talk to me like that?"

Lei Ye started cursing as soon as he opened his mouth.

He can't stand people nagging him; if he hears someone insulting him, he has to yell back on the spot, otherwise he won't be able to sleep at night.

This excludes situations where someone calls another person "Mom" and gets scolded.

The magician seemed to have been stunned by Lei Ye's scolding, standing there dumbfounded, holding Lai Zi, his mouth slightly open, his gaze towards Lei Ye filled with confusion.

Lei Ye frowned, carefully examined the magician's face, and let out an "Oh~".

Elena, a mage who can be considered a pillar of the Explorers' Guild, was tried by Raino to turn into a mother during the first route, but was scolded and embarrassed.

Many people in the guild had bullied Lei Ye, but Lei Ye had a deep impression of her because she was the one who spoke the most offensively.

I called for my mother everywhere on Line 1, and she did indeed get scolded. I won't argue with her if she gets criticized.

I've been pretty well-behaved on Line 2, haven't I? If you still have that arrogant attitude, I'll make you and your mom fly!

"What are you so smug about? You think you're so great just because you secretly modified the guild card data?"

"You were the one who suspected me of tampering with things yesterday. That's easy to resolve, we'll just have a fight."

Raino promptly issued a duel request.

Many explorers in the guild have short tempers, and conflicts are common.

The solution is very simple and brutal: fight. It is said that there used to be special arenas for explorers to fight, but now it is even more direct. If both parties agree, they can just find any open space to start fighting.

Lei Ye didn't necessarily harbor any deep hatred towards Elena, but he also wanted to know if the body's stats were accurate, and going up against a mage was a very good option.

Because this kind of duel does not allow the use of advanced magic.

"Heh, heh heh heh heh."

As if she had heard something very funny, Elena snapped out of her daze and looked at Raiye with the same gaze one would give a little bug.

"What a shameless man! You know mages aren't good at hand-to-hand combat, so you think I'm afraid to fight? Wrong! I can tell you absolutely nothing about explorers! Let me tell you some basic knowledge about explorers: even mages who specialize in dealing damage in a team can be forced into close combat by monsters. So don't let my appearance fool you, my fighting skills are quite strong!"

Elena swung her long robe and struck a pose.

"And another thing, how can a duel be without a prize? I've long been annoyed with you, you swindler who's been making a killing off everyone's hard-earned money. If I defeat you, just give me five gold coins as compensation."

"Why are there five big gold coins again... Fine, I'll do it your way, but what if I win?"

Lei Ye also struck a pose, his hands moving like dragons in mid-air.

"You win? If you win... let me think..." Elena tilted her head thoughtfully, then frowned slightly when she saw Lei Ye's hand gesture. "Wait, wait a minute, what kind of move is that? Why does it look a little strange?"

Lei Ye remained silent, staring intently at the massive object swaying on Elena's body.

Beneath the long robe was a bodysuit made from high-grade slime material, infused with ink to make it opaque, but it looked remarkably like a female investigator's leather suit.

It's clear that this special protective gear needs to be worn close to the skin, so the milk basket was banned when wearing it.

"Oh Yeah~"

Raino's hands swirled in mid-air.

He strode forward, "Amiable!"

"Wait a minute! I said wait a minute! Boss Raiye, I know you're the most gentlemanly man in Hillius, and you'll definitely fight like a gentleman, right?"

"That's hilarious! I'm not some nice guy! When I was doing sewer cleaning at the very bottom of the guild, I'd climb onto rooftops every day and shove into chimneys to get money from those deadbeats who wouldn't pay!"

"You...you're really the boss of Raino? I don't want to fight anymore, can we settle this?"

"At this very moment?" Raino laughed heartily. "You must be joking!"

...

Elena was bruised and battered, while Duck sat in Lei Ye's little shop, whimpering.

On the other side, Lei Ye was calm and composed, without a single injury, and seemed to have just finished warming up.

Lei Ye had never had such a satisfying fight before. This body was incredibly agile, and its punches were powerful and impactful. Combined with the fighting techniques that Lei Ye had never stopped practicing on Line 1, he beat Elena so badly that she clutched her chest and begged for mercy.

Don't worry, there was no sexual harassment, just pure beatings.

This is a duel agreed upon by both parties, so Raino will naturally fight her with 100% respect!

"I didn't understand why you were dressed so provocatively until the fight started. The reason you didn't wear another layer of clothing is because you're going on a mission and need to make the most of this special protective gear. Here, take this and recover your strength first."

Lei Ye took a bottle of medicine out of his storage bag and handed it to Elena.

Elena, who was sobbing, originally wanted to slap Lei Ye's hand away, but after glancing at it and finding that it was the highest-grade healing medicine on the market, she grabbed it, twisted it open, and took a few sips.

After being severely beaten, she seemed much more docile and silently took out a note from a pocket sewn into her cloak and handed it over.

"015, pick up the package."

So it turns out she came to pick up a package. Lei Ye thought of the order he saw yesterday, and her name was indeed on it.

Regarding this, Lei Ye raised an eyebrow slightly and took out the colorful ambient light that he had spent the whole night working on from his storage bag with a hint of pride.

Elena stared blankly at the ambient light in her hand after receiving the item, shaking her head vigorously.

"Wait, no, that's not what I want..."

"Ambient lighting with magical properties," Raino frowned, "Is there a problem?"

"Well... we agreed that the light bulbs at both ends should be as round as possible... no, it's nothing."

Elena's expression was somewhat complicated, as if she wanted to say something unspeakable while holding the ambient light in her hand, or as if she had a strange fear of Lei Ye. She shook her head and stopped talking, then got up to leave.

Lei Ye called out to her.

"Don't rush off yet. I just said you're going on a mission, right?"

"Yes, that's how it is, why..."

"What kind of commission did you accept?"

"It's trolls. There's a goblin cave near the city that was recently destroyed. Recently, someone witnessed several trolls moving into that cave. Because it's very close to the city, we have to defeat them as soon as possible."

There was another deviation from Line 1. Raino remembered that he applied for funds from the guild to produce a large number of crudely made dolls. With the help of his teammates' poison, he destroyed the goblins on the outskirts of the town. However, according to Elena's description, there are still explorers commissioning goblin extermination.

Lei Ye wrote this down in his notebook.

As for trolls, Raino knew this kind of monster very well. All the novice explorers could only become the backbone of the guild after participating in the troll hunt. So when he participated in the troll quest for the first time, Raino did his homework and spent a lot of time in the library investigating the troll hunt records. In actual combat, he did save his teammates' lives with the information.

But now Lei Ye feels that he doesn't need to use tricks and can kill the opponent single-handedly with his own strength.

His body was heating up after warming up, and Lei Ye was feeling a little excited. The purity of this body was much higher than he had imagined. He couldn't really test his strength by fighting the female mage hand-to-hand, so Lei Ye was eager to have a proper battle.

Of course, Lei Ye didn't forget that he still had to pretend to be Lei Ye from Line 2, and couldn't do anything too out of character. But that's precisely why he had to go out while Ye Lei was away on a business trip. He still had a lot of questions to answer, such as about "Evil". Wouldn't a certain active explorer team be the perfect source of information?

Lei Ye looked at Elena.

"I won the duel just now, so I should get a prize worth five large gold coins. Don't worry, it's not an unreasonable request. I want to participate in this commission as a mercenary with you. I can do it without any compensation, but I ask that you keep my participation in this commission a secret."

"You... Boss Lei, really, go to the chapel and have the priest perform an exorcism. Seriously, I feel like you're possessed today," Elena said, taking a step back in disbelief. "It's one thing for other citizens to say things like that, but you should know very well how many new explorers the trolls have killed. I admit you're quite good at fighting, but fighting monsters is another matter. What are you trying to do, an ordinary citizen like you, suddenly get involved in the troll extermination campaign?"

Lei Ye was stunned for a moment, then slapped his forehead.

He had been in the River of Forests for too long, which made his concept of monster strength somewhat confused. But there was nothing he could do about it. Later on, this team had half-dragon blood and noble elites, and almost no monster could withstand more than a few moves. Over time, everyone would become numb to it.

Besides, Lei Ye was able to solo kill the troll with his skills on Line 1. He didn't consider any danger at all when he was doing this commission. He was just itching to fight and wanted to ask some gossip while the team was having a picnic.

"Hey, listen, actually it's like this..." Raino put it another way, "Recently, weapon orders have been increasing, and I want to make some special modifications to make these weapons more powerful when dealing with monsters, so I need to put them into practice. That's actually why I registered for a guild card yesterday. And considering the enemies we're facing... you know, it's pointless to deal with monsters that are too weak."

These words stunned Elena for a moment. She thought for a while, and her expression gradually became serious.

She shifted her body forward slightly. "I'm sorry for what I said earlier, Boss Lei. I'm not very bright and didn't think much of it. I know you're a good person."

666, they even have a "friend zone" card.

"But I still can't let you join. Everyone says your safety is very important to this city. If something happens to you, I'll be cursed to death. Besides, our team has run into some problems," Elena said, scratching her head in distress. "A few days ago, my captain got into some trouble and was sent to the dungeon by the law enforcement officers. Today is the deadline for the commission to be paid in full, but she hasn't been released yet."

"Your team leader..." Raino scratched his head, trying hard to recall the squad Elena belonged to.

If I remember correctly, this was an all-female squad.

Lei Ye had once targeted this squad as a primary target, but suffered a crushing defeat. However, during his interactions with the squad, he gained some impressions of the members. The squad leader was a dark-skinned female warrior with incredibly well-developed muscles.

"I remember her as a nice person, how did she end up in the dungeon?"

"I'm not sure," Elena sighed. "When she received the request, she said she was going to the chapel to pray. Later I heard that she was arrested for assaulting a priest, and the priest refused to reconcile. She might be locked up for a long time."

"ah..."

Lei Ye thought of some things about Line 1, hesitated for a moment, and said nothing about them.

"Even if she's not here, the rest of your team are pretty good, right? They should be able to complete the task."

"Don't let my boss's appearance fool you, she's actually the only one in our team with a brain. She's been in charge of all the battles before, but now that she's gone, we've discussed it and decided that as long as we don't lose any members, we'll consider this mission a success. We simply don't have the resources to take care of a newcomer."

Commander...

In the early stages of the Forest River, Lei Ye was in charge of command. Later, when his teammates were incredibly strong, he didn't need to coordinate much. When he was a mercenary helping other teams, he used his knowledge and intellect to provide support.

Hey?

Thinking of this, Lei Ye pointed to himself.

"In that case, how about I take charge?"