Chapter 41 – Ox-Horn Mountain

Fatty left a message to Purple Bell, telling her to contact him when she logs on, then returned to town with the others.

Liu Lan was rather angry along the way, so the pitiful Fatty gained countless extra bruises.

“This is daytime, work hours. What’s the company going to do when the General Manager and Vice General Manager are both playing games?” Fatty started to change the topic.

“What? Do think I’m in the way?” Liu Lan glared at Fatty. “Although the company was handed over to me, my father’s board of directors still has the actual power. I’m just learning how to manage it. What’s more, if I need to watch over everything, then what are the various elites in the company for?”

“It’s getting late. Where should we go to farm?” Fatty continued on his attempt on changing the topic.

“We’re going to help Snowy with her mission. We were about to finish it, but we followed when we heard that there was a gold boss, since we were afraid you won’t be able to take care of it. Who would have thought, not only a certain someone managed to kill the boss, it was for someone else as well! Wow, what a real man, so cool,” Liu Lan was clearly still annoyed.

How’s me helping someone with a boss monster any of your business!? Fatty thought to himself. However, he once again intelligently chose to stay silent and allowed Liu Lan to rant away.

Darksnow’s secondary profession was an alchemist. She was doing a mission that would allow her to allow her to become an apothecary, which was a subprofession of an alchemist. The mission was to pick up a strand of Snowsilver Grass on Ox- Horn Mountain to the north of Black Tortoise City. The mountain range had a lowered middle, with two tall peaks in the shape of ox-horns, which gave it its name. What’s more, there were also a group of powerful minotaurs living there.

The Snowsilver Grass was found deep in the mountain range guarded by some minotaurs.

“We wanted TheFugitive to stealth in to harvest it, but this idiot doesn’t have the skill Harvest!” Darksnow glared at TheFugitive and snorted.

“That’s not my fault,” TheFugitive felt troubled. “I went to ask quite a few NPCs, but still didn’t manage to learn the skill.”

“Who else is to blame? Your bad luck is your fault.”

TheFugitive rolled his eyes and went silent.

…

The two beauties walked in front in the night, while the two lecherous rogues followed behind them. Some interested players looked vigilantly at the two rogues, and some players even walked over to ask the two girls whether there was a need to chase away the two hoodlums behind them.

Two hoodlums…

Hoodlums…

Fatty and TheFugitive were nearly in tears, but had nobody to voice their objections to.

…

When they finally reached the foot of the mountain, Fatty pointed at the peak proudly, “Snowy, see how your Big Brother Fatty help you harvest the herb.”

“Hurry up, we’ll wait here for you,” Liu Lan smiled.

“Wow, why does that sound so familiar?” Darksnow watched Fatty walk into the mountains, then exclaimed. “OOOH! They say that there was once a family. When the husband ventured out, his wife stood at the entrance of their home and shouted emotionally, “Darling, come back quickly, your honey will be waiting for you here’.”

“Damn you. Do you want to get beaten up?” Liu Lan giggled with a blush.

…

As Fatty walked up the mountain in stealth, he saw a bunch of antelope monsters laze around near the road.

As usual, he used Appraisal.

Jumpy Antelope

Level: 20

Attack: 95 – 110

Defense: 80

HP: 1050

Notes: Jumpy antelopes are some strange antelopes. They prefer to jump around instead of walking. Their meat is very tasty and is one type of meat that the large restaurants will buy.

…

Wow, this place really isn’t a place that we can come to right now. Even the monsters at the foot of the mountain is Level 20. No wonder they spent so long and still couldn’t complete the mission.

As Fatty walked up the mountain along the road, the level of the monsters became higher and higher. There were even a few pheasants Fatty tried to appraise, but couldn’t see any stats of.

Damn, how are players supposed to do anything when even a bird is so high level? Fatty sighed silently.

When he reached halfway up the mountain, Fatty began to hesitate even more. There was a huge ape hanging off a tree in front of him.

The ape was more than twice the size of its nearby kin. It had steel-like fur with a straight tail that seemed like a well refined metal baton.

There was no doubt that the ape was a boss, and it definitely was at least around the level of the Phantom Blue Butterfly King Fatty killed not long ago.

Fatty always felt like there was something wrong with the Phantom Blue Butterfly King. It might have been due to the mission that the Phantom Blue Butterfly King did not actually show the strength befitting that of a gold boss. Instead, it seemed to be a lot weaker than other bosses of that level. Or, at the very least, it couldn’t compare up to the Phantom Messenger on Mass Graves’s fifth floor.

Fatty used Appraisal on the ape.

Bloodthirsty Monkey

Silver Boss

Level: ???

Attack: ???

Defense: ???

HP: ???

…

Yep, all question marks.

Fatty snuck a bit closer, then the monkey on resting on the tree suddenly opened its eyes and glanced over at where Fatty was with its blood red eyes. Fatty immediately held his breath and stopped moving.

After a while, the Bloodthirsty Monkey put on a puzzled look, then closed its eyes and begun to rest once again.

Fatty retreated quietly and discovered a cliff where he could climb up. Just when he finally reached halfway up, a huge tree appeared in front of him. Fatty took a peak, then saw a huge eagle looking down at him with bright eyes.

“Uhm… Hi,” Fatty said hello to the eagle, then felt his hand slip…

A terrible scream rang out, scaring countless birds. Many players were also stunned by the scream, and the monsters they were facing took that moment to send them back to town.

Fortunately, Fatty managed to hug onto an outstretched pine tree as he was falling. He slowly returned to the ground and walked back down the mountain tremblingly with a stark white face and cold sweat dripping off him.

…

“You’re back so quickly?” Darksnow exclaimed, then looked at TheFugitive in disdain. “Look at Fatty, then look at you. Both of you are rogues, but why is the difference so huge?”

TheFugitive turned around with a silent sob.

“The Snowsilver Grass?” Liu Lan asked.

Fatty shrugged, then cursed towards the sky. “These damn mother f*ckers! Damn them! Argh, it’s just a tiny mountain, where did all those bosses come from? Like what the hell!?”

“Stop with the nonsense, you mean that you didn’t manage to harvest it?” Liu Lan wanted to sew Fatty’s mouth shut.

“I couldn’t get up,” Fatty dipped his head.

“AHAHAHAHA,” TheFugitive laughed loudly. I’m finally not alone.

“Shut up!” Both Fatty and Liu Lan glared at TheFugitive.

“Damn Fuge, you very happy about my not getting the Snowsilver Grass?” Darksnow pouted.

TheFugitive was confused. He looked at Fatty, then at Liu Lan, then at Darksnow. Then he immediately closed his mouth and turned around to do his own thing.

“Don’t worry, since you couldn’t stealth up, then we’ll fight our way up,” Liu Lan comforted.

“We’re both rogues, but why is the difference in treatment so huge?” TheFugitive felt very troubled.

“It’ll be tough,” Fatty kicked TheFugitive. “The monsters at the foot of the mountain is already Level 20. The peak should have something like Level 40 monsters.”

“The minotaurs on the peak are Level 38,” TheFugitive said. “Someone already posted the monster locations of Ox-Horn Mountain on the forums. The normal monsters are from Level 20 to level 38. The highest is the Minotaur Chieftain boss at Level 40. What’s more, there is a dense concentration of monsters here, making it a good place to farm. A lot of guilds said they will be taking over the area.”

“Take over? So it’s not going to be peaceful here anymore?” Fatty laughed in disdain. Take over? They need to be able to do that.

“That doesn’t matter to us. What matters right now is how we’re going to harvest the Snowsilver Grass,” Darksnow put on a troubled face and looked towards the peak.

“Snowy, don’t worry. Fatty will get it for you. Am I right?” Liu Lan caressed Darksnow’s hair and looked at Fatty.

“Of course, when I’m Level 50, if Snowy wants it, I can even get her the Minotaur Chieftain, not to mention the Snowsilver Grass,” Fatty immediately held his head up high when Darksnow glanced at him hopefully.

Oh my god. TheFugitive facepalmed.

“Stop it. Hurry up and think of a way,” Liu Lan glared at him speechlessly.

“Didn’t you say you guys were close to completing the mission? How did you do it?” Fatty pulled a strand of grass off the ground and held it in his mouth.

“I was just saying,” Liu Lan began to be unreasonable again.

“Fuge, what do you think?” Fatty intelligently turned to the only other man present.

“I don’t have any smart ideas. That’s the only way,” TheFugitive rubbed his hands.

“What way?” Darksnow asked in excitement.

“What else? We fight our way up,” Fatty chuckled.

…

The sky has already begun to light up, but the four still did not think of any good methods to get the grass, so they could only fight their way up carefully and just treat it as farming.

There may be shortcuts in the world, but there won’t always be shortcuts. The best shortcut to success was to take each step firmly, and take everything a step at a time.

Out of the four of them, the two rogues were definitely amongst the strongest of their class the knight was once the ninth place on the leaderboards; only Darksnow was slightly worse compared to the other three, but she was still pretty strong.

As long as their group didn’t face any monsters way above their levels, they can pretty much just run through them, and Level 20 monsters were just a piece of cake Liu Lan would use her class attribute of tanking perfectly, and Darksnow would attack from backlines. Since the pair of girls have worked together many times in the past, and Liu Lan got new items from Fatty, they were pretty efficient at killing monsters. On the other hand, Fatty and TheFugitive didn’t need to work together to farm. Even though they were all grouped into a team, the two of them ran solo and killed their own monsters.

Rogues must learn to live by themselves. That was what Fatty said.

The Level 20 Jumpy Antelopes were around the same size as normal antelopes. Their weapons were just the horns on their heads and their hooves. The 2 skills they had were Crash and Sheep Baa.

Headbutt: Crash into the enemy with its horns and deal a moderate amount of damage

Sheep Baa: Let out a baa, increased all stats by 10% and lower all enemies’ stats by 10% for 600 seconds.

The attacks of the Jumpy Antelopes weren’t any particular high attack because it was only Level 20. It’s Headbutt ability was similar to a Knight’s Charge, while its other ability was rather useful, and would be very strong when used by a player to farm and to fight other players. However, it did raise the question of why antelopes could baa like a sheep. That was something Fatty noted down to ask Star Fantasia if he ever gets the chance.

Yet, although Sheep Baa was a pretty good skill, it was still quite a bit worse compared to Fatty’s Rooster Squawk. Although Rooster Squawk only increased Dexterity and attack, that was the main two stats that Rogues needed.

Fatty easily dodged the headbutt of a Jumpy Antelope. Rogues were very good at dealing with strength focused monsters like these. He immediately got behind it and slashed at its bottom. The Jumpy Antelope tried to turn around to attack a few times, but Fatty continued to turn with it, and continued to attack its butt.

Thus, the Jumpy Antelope died under Fatty’s lecherous butt attack, leaving a pile of drops behind.

Then, Fatty immediately used Harvest, the skill that invoked TheFugitive’s envy.

Whoosh. An antelope pelt and two pieces of antelope meat appeared in his hands.