【 THE ELVEN TAVERN 】

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Elven Forest, Chosen City.

The teleportation formation leading to the Demon Lord Labyrinth Dungeon flickered with a soft radiance as several figures slowly emerged from it, sighing in exhaustion.

“Ah, finally… We can see the sun again.”

“The Elven Forest really is more comfortable…”

“So exhausted… why were those two new bosses so good at running?”

“Still, their conversation dialogue was pretty funny. It was hilarious when the escape mechanism triggered and they started dragging each other down with them.”

“That other clumsy new unicorn boss was much easier to deal with, though.”

“Yeah.”

The players who appeared were none other than members of Boxlunch’s team from Moe Moe Committee.

As the strongest pioneering team on the entire server, they had formed a party and headed to challenge the Demon Lord Labyrinth the moment the news of additional new bosses were released.

They spent a total of four days, before finally deciphering the battle mechanics of the new bosses completely.

After four days of continuous effort, even though all of them were intermediate Silver-rankers, fatigue was still unavoidable.

“Let’s call it a day. Everyone disperse and get some rest. Bash, remember to finish writing the new boss guide and upload it to the forum.”

Boxlunch, who’s already at the peak of intermediate Silver-rank, spoke to the rest of his long time teammates.

“Got it, Captain. Sister Cat has been urging me several times already.”

Calabash replied with a smile.

With their party officially disbanded, each member headed off in different directions.

After playing together for so long, the team no longer lived under the same roof. Almost everyone had purchased private villas in locations they personally favored.

Some settled in Chosen City, some preferred the main city of their guild Mountpeak City, while others moved to the recently popular coastal city of Mirovia.

The old house in Chosen City that had once served as their team’s base had long since been rented out. Now, it was renovated into a tavern and entrusted to a guild NPC for management, with regular dividends distributed to each member.

Nowadays, they only returned there during gatherings or coordinated group activities.

Except for Optimist.

He was currently the only member of their team who still had not bought a house of his own, and he continued to live in the old house that had been converted into a tavern.

It was not that he did not want to buy one. Rather, all the gold he earned had been poured into a certain cute bottomless pit with golden scales.

Looking at the pitiful balance displayed on his personal interface, Optimist let out a soft sigh.

Among all players on the whole server, he was probably the poorest one listed on the leaderboard.

“Whooh~!”

A soft, tender cry sounded, and a warm, gentle sensation brushed against his pant leg.

Looking down at the juvenile golden dragon nuzzling him affectionately, its scales growing ever more beautiful and its posture increasingly elegant, Optimist’s expression gradually softened.

“Well then, I’ll just treat it as raising a dragon daughter.”

He reached out and patted the little golden dragon, Christine, his face full of indulgence.

“Come on, let’s go home.”

He pumped his fist lightly.

Today, the Chosen City seemed far livelier than usual.

On the streets, one could see many elves of the Azurefrost Clan.

In particular, toward the central plaza, the crowd was the densest. Numerous frost elves could be seen kneeling there, praying fervently toward the towering World Tree in the distance.

Their expressions were filled with excitement and deep devotion.

Players had already grown accustomed to such scenes. Over the past few days, large numbers of frost elves had been arriving in the Chosen City almost every day.

They were pilgrims of the World Tree.

Players were both welcoming and delighted by the return of these elves. If nothing else, the sheer number of quest NPCs had increased dramatically, and a considerable portion of them were blue class, offering extremely generous rewards upon quest completion.

More importantly, they were still inexperienced when issuing quests.

As long as one knew how to flatter them, players could easily obtain personal quests with low investment and high returns from them.

In addition, compared to other elven NPCs, most players felt that these returning frost elves were more to their liking.

Their initial favorability was already quite high, and they carried an indescribable air of toughness. At the same time, their combat power was pretty outstanding, making them especially suitable as companions for joint missions.

Moreover, unlike other returning elves, these frost elves did not strongly resist eating meat, allowing them to quickly bond with players.

Therefore, drinking and eating skewered barbecue with these elven NPCs had become pretty much a common sight around Mirovia’s taverns.

Situations wherein some returning elves would lose favorability upon seeing players eat meat were almost unheard of among them.

And it was said that there were still over a hundred thousand of such elves living in Mirovia.

It was simply wonderful.

With so many new NPCs, there was no longer any need to worry about competing for tasks or quest.

Optimist was also pleased that the developers had added so many NPCs at once. To think that those perpetually aloof developers had actually listened for once and responded to the players’ complaints. After all, suggestions to increase the number of NPCs had been submitted countless times.

However, Optimist felt that the number of frost elves making pilgrimages today seemed a little excessive, and many of them were wearing identical outfits.

They looked somewhat like players’ starting equipment, yet appeared noticeably more refined and high end.

At the same time, in addition to the frost elves, he also noticed quite a few elves from the Rocksand Clan.

They were NPCs as well.

More than that, he even saw some NPCs who appeared to be high ranking members of the frost elves, speaking excitedly with the others. Some elves were even crying and embracing one another.

“What’s going on?”

Optimist found it somewhat puzzling.

Just as he was about to go over and see what was happening, the little golden dragon at his feet rubbed against his pant leg again.

“Wooh…”

Optimist lowered his head and then smiled foolishly.

“Hungry?”

“Wooh!”

“Alright, alright… let’s go back and get you something good to eat.”

“Wooh~”

༺⟐༻

After returning to the familiar street, and entrusting the little golden dragon to an NPC who specialized in caring for magical beasts, and spending all the contribution points he had earned from this mission on precious metals to give little Christine as snacks, Optimist finally stepped into the tavern.

The tavern was as lively as ever.

On the crystal screen in the main hall, a recorded broadcast of an assault on the Demon Lord Labyrinth was playing. In it, a group of Silver-rankers could be seen chasing two major bosses all over the map.

Those two new bosses looked far better designed than old Azzie. One was a fallen angel so handsome that any female players could not help but have their eyes light up upon seeing him. The other was a seductive queenly figure whose skimpy attire left little to the imagination, making it nearly impossible for male players to look away.

It was just that, under the players’ relentless pursuit, the two bosses were fleeing in a rather sorry state. Moreover, while running, they were also fighting each other, constantly trading outrageous banter.

A circle of players sat around the crystal screen, eating large sweet melons produced in the Elven Forest while watching the magical projection with great interest.

From time to time, bursts of laughter erupted from the crowd.

Optimist glanced at the crystal screen and quickly lost interest.

Although the two new bosses were quite amusing, he had fought them so much over the past few days that he was nearly sick of it.

He could not help but wonder how two bosses with such imposing designs had their dialogues planned to behave like comic relief characters.

Instead of delivering grandiose lines like Old Azzie, they were masters of rapid fire banter, all of it self deprecating too, casually throwing out all kinds of crude earth jokes and belittling themselves to an almost unbearable degree.

It was as if their developers had a personal grudge against them.

Perhaps he had simply fought against those new bosses far too many times and developed a distorted impression of them.

Optimist shook his head.

He sat down in a corner of the tavern and signaled to the elven waitress.

“A cup of floral tea, please.”

“Certainly, Sir Optimist.”

The elven waitress replied with a smile.

Optimist’s arrival quickly drew the attention of other players.

Seeing the familiar username and the equally familiar shabby equipment, their eyes lit up.

“Holy crap. Isn’t that Senior Optimist?”

“Boss, where’s your little Christine? Has she learned to transform yet? I want to see a golden dragon loli haha.”

“Boss Opt, have you guys finished figuring out the strategy for those new bosses already?”

“C’mon Tell us. Tell us! How do you clear the Fallen Angel stage and the Queen of Pain stage?”

“Yeah. It feels so hard when a small party tries to handle it alone. Sometimes only one boss gets triggered, which is still manageable since we just have to deal with one. But other times both bosses gets triggered at once, and we have to defeat them both to clear the stage.”

“Boss, when both bosses are triggered, how exactly does that escape mechanism work? And how do you activate that infighting scenario and all that funny dialouge afterward?”

“The unicorn boss seems easier. You just have to destroy the palace decorations to enrage him. Once he gets angry, his intelligence drops to zero, and you can kite him like walking a dog.”

“Exactly.”

Faced with the sudden crowd of players, Optimist cleared his throat.

“Ahem, don’t rush, don’t rush! My team have indeed figured out the trick to the new bosses in the Labyrinth Dungeon.”

“However… Ahem! I’m a bit thirsty, tired, and hungry, you see….so.”

At his words, the players immediately sprang into action. Before long, Optimist’s table was covered with all kinds of food.

Satisfied, he took a sip of floral tea to moisten his throat, then bit into a piece of tender, juicy roasted meat and said,

“Honestly, it’s not that difficult.”

“When those two new bosses appear at the same time, you just need to split your forces. As long as you reduce both of their health to around fifty percent at the same time, their escape mechanism will be triggered.”

“And as long as they run into each other while escaping, the infighting scenario will inevitably activate. At that point, the fight becomes much easier.”

“As long as you clear the dual boss encounter once, the next time it triggers it will be a single boss.”

“There is also a pattern. In a dual boss fight, whichever boss is defeated first will be the one that appears when the single boss encounter refreshes next time, and this can persist for several cycles.”

“It is recommended to focus your attacks on the Fallen Angel first. That one seems easier to deal with. Although it has more skills and looks more imposing than the Queen of Pain, it is actually weaker overall.”

“After farming the single boss a few times, the dual boss encounter will trigger again.”

“As for their funny dialouges, it is really just a few dozen lines repeated back and forth. If you fight them enough times, you will hear them all. Most of it is just them praising Old Azzie and self mockery.”

“…”

Optimist proudly explained the strategy that his team had summarized for the other players.

This was originally what their gonna write on their guide, and it would be uploaded to the official forum for free anyway.

As the crowd listened to his explanation, the surrounding players hurriedly took out notebooks, or simply opened the notepad app on their system interface, and carefully recorded everything.

This was first hand information from a top ranked player, so it was absolutely useful when doing the dungeon.

Just as the tavern was bustling with noise and excitement, the door to one of the guest rooms on the second floor was gently pushed open, and a figure clad in full six piece divine gear walked downstairs.

When they saw the newcomer’s username, the players’ eyes lit up once again.

“Holy crap. Isn’t that Boss Cypher?”

“Cypher, long time no see. That post you wrote was amazing.”

“Yeah man, it really brought people to tears.”

“Seriously, it was very touching. I had not even planned to take the storyline quest, but I ended up doing it anyway.”

“Let’s not talk about that. Boss Cyph, how does ten times thought acceleration feel?”

“Where is that little frost girl who always follows you around?”

“By the way, the new opening cinematic is so intense. I could not even tell you were a player at all.”

“Pfft, don’t mention the opening movie. Give me back the emotions I had just worked up.”

“Haha, Cypher, can you perform that again?”

Hearing the surrounding players’ chatter, Optimist curiously turned his gaze and saw a hunter class player with black hair and black eyes.

It was Cypher, the one who had triggered the highly popular personal epic quest some time ago.

He seemed to have just woken up and still looked a little dazed.

His sleep had probably lasted quite a long time.

Optimist clearly remembered how exhausted Cypher looked a few days earlier when he came to the Chosen City to turn in his quest.

After handing it in, he had come to their tavern and collapsed into sleep almost immediately.

Most likely, he had not logged out at all and had simply gone offline to rest.

Judging from his current appearance, he was clearly well rested now.

Thinking about it, that was only natural since their team had stayed inside the dungeon for more than two months.

In real time, that was three days.

To be honest, Optimist admired him quite a bit.

Cypher stood there blankly for a moment, as if only then realizing where he was.

After that, Optimist noticed that Cypher’s face reddened almost instantly.

Hmm…

It seemed that the players were talking about the game’s new opening movie?

Speaking of the opening movie, one had to mention the returning frost elves.

After their return, the login background screen of the Elven Kingdom had changed once again, depicting the story of the frost elves’ homecoming in vivid detail.

The protagonists of this cinematic were none other than the demigod Aurora and Cypher.

The new opening animation was short, yet it clearly conveyed the sequence of events. Paired with the sweeping music, the scenes were genuinely moving, stirring emotions that players could feel even from the comfort of their screens.

Cypher’s performance was also commendable, as he had clearly immersed himself deeply in the role.

Yet… it felt a bit overly dramatic.

Especially the scene where he paid homage to the goddess.

If it had been an NPC delivering the gesture, there would have been no dissonance at all—it might even have stirred the hearts of anyone who witnessed it.

But once everyone realized it was a player performing the scene, the scene became slightly immersion-breaking.

The feeling was like watching a character actor who usually played rogue villains suddenly take on the role of a righteous hero.

Faced with the players crowding around him, Cypher’s expression grew increasingly awkward.

“Guys, ugh, please don’t mention the opening animation anymore. Seriously, do not mention it… It has now become a dark chapter of my life,” he muttered, covering his face.

Then he fled toward the counter as if escaping, his movements slightly flustered and disheveled.

Behind him came the teasing laughter of the other players, filling the tavern with a lively, cheerful atmosphere.

Standing at the bar, Cypher retrieved a waterskin from his chest.

“Fill it with elven floral tea. The best kind,” Optimist heard him say.

At that moment, he noticed that the embarrassment on Cypher’s face had vanished, replaced by a trace of melancholy.

The elven attendant quickly filled the waterskin for him.

Cypher weighed it in his hand, then carefully tucked it back into his chest.

After that, he pushed open the tavern door and disappeared from the other players’ sight.

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Source: Webnovel.com, updated by NovelKeep