The Great Thief

”My mummy said Night Elves all have green hair, but yours isn’t green,” Little Becky said as she placed her hands onto Lu Li’s head and stroked his black hair.

”My mummy said…”

Her voice became gloomy; talking about her mum probably made her miss her again.

”I’m here if you need me to help you with anything.” Fortunately, Lu Li had lots of experience with comforting little girls.

”I want mummy and daddy,” Becky whined as she looked up at Lu Li.

Lu Li realised that he had said the wrong thing because the system did not give him a quest.

”Your parents are at a faraway place and won’t be back for a while. You have to be strong because they’ll come back when you grow older.” Lu Li sympathized with the little girl because he had lost both his parents when he was young as well.

”I want to grow up faster!” Becky’s eyes sparkled and nodded.

”Now, is there anything you would like or anything that you would like to see?” Lu Li asked carefully.

There weren’t many things that a five or six-year-old girl would want. She contemplated for a while and said, ”Mummy said that she would buy me a fruit cake when it’s my birthday, but now both of them are gone.”

”I can take you to eat some fruit cake.” Lu Li was delighted.

This was possibly the easiest quest that Lu Li had ever done. All he had to do was get the little girl a cake.

The city consisted of mostly cathedrals and orphanages, so there weren’t many cake shops nearby. Lu Li opened up his map and realised that the closest cake shop was quite far away.

It would take a long time, even if he was to carry her the whole way, so he decided to summon his Headless Paladin War Horse.

The mount was a single player mount, however, this restriction only applied to other players. A small little girl NPC could easily fit on the mount with Lu Li. He secured Becky safely onto the saddle and took her to the closest cake store.

Luckily, there weren’t many people in the area, otherwise, the War Horse would have attracted a crowd for sure.

Up until now, only a handful of players had the privilege of riding a mount. Half of these people were in the Horde faction – Sorrowless, Blood Dagger, etc., and had all obtained the mount from the Halloween event.

However, since this was the capital city of the Alliance, there were still quite a few players that saw Lu Li’s War Horse.

Lu Li wasn’t sure which was more out of the ordinary for other players – the mount, or the fact that he was riding it with a little girl.

Following the merchant lane, Lu Li finally saw a cake shop.

The sweet aroma of freshly baked cakes could be smelled from a mile away. They both couldn’t help but salivate, and Lu Li decided to buy some for the little girl.

He allowed Becky to pick her favourite flavour and colour then paid for it.

Although it was a simple piece of cake that could be bought for a couple of silver coins, the poor little girl devoured it in a matter of seconds while crying.

Lu Li felt quite sorry for her.

”Is there anything else you’d like me to do, child?” Lu Li asked her gently as he knelt down beside her.

”Before my dad got injured, he was a sailor and told me many stories about sailing to Rattan City and Booty Bay. I’ve always dreamt of going out to sea with daddy. Can you please bring me to Ratchet City Pier so I can have a look? I promise I won’t fall into the water or cause any trouble; I just want to see the big boats and go to places that daddy has been.

The little girl looked at Lu Li expectantly; perhaps she was hoping to see her father there.

”Ok, I’ll take you to Rattan City.”

Lu Li agreed even though he disliked Rattan City. It was there where he had obtained the Ivy’s Fool Bomb blueprint from the engineers.

With a single message in the guild chat, thousands of players from Ruling Sword arrived at Rattan City.

The residents of the little town had never experienced this before. The level 60 Goblin Guards were afraid that they were being invaded.

Many of the Horde players that were in the area quickly teleported back to safety.

Ruling Sword, one of the top Alliance guilds in the game was planning on taking over Rattan City. The news spread like fire, even catching the attention of Sorrowless from Glory Capital.

He thought that Lu Li had found a way to take over the city.

In reality, Lu Li was scared of being attacked in Rattan City. He wasn’t planning on invading Rattan City, but wanted to intimidate them with numbers.

Goblins only respected others when they were stronger than themselves.

When they exited out of the teleporter, they were not greeted with words of disgust and disrespect like last time. Instead, the guards greeted them courteously and escorted them on their way.

”Look, Becky, this is Rattan City and over there is a boat that has returned from sea,” Lu Li said and pointed into the distance as a boat prepared to dock onto the pier.

The majestic boat took little Becky’s breath away; she couldn’t help but stare at it in awe.

”It’s you! How dare you return to this place?!” Akare exclaimed as he jumped out from his Engineering store, rushed towards Lu Li and grabbed him by the collar.

”What do you want?! Let go of our boss!”

”Do you want to die?! Our brothers will destroy your homeland!”

”Goblins are attacking the players!”

As soon as he laid his hand on Lu Li, hundreds of players surrounded them. These players from Ruling Sword were all protecting Lu Li under the orders of Square Root Three.

This was an honourable mission – to be able to protect your guild master was a privilege.

Whether they were up against Alliance players, Horde scum or NPCs, this group of players would protect Lu Li at all costs. Lu Li was the most respected player in the guild.

Akare instinctively ducked down and buried his face in his hands. The poor little guy was scared to death; he had never seen this many players wanting to take his life before.

The Goblin Guards hesitated for a second but remained in place.

Usually, these level 60 Goblin Guards would have no mercy against law breakers in Rattan City. However, when there were too many players to be dealt with at once, they tended to just turn a blind eye to whatever was happening.

No one wanted to be killed while on duty.

To these Goblins, there was nothing more valuable than life itself except for gold.

”Respected Mr. Akare, I don’t understand what you mean,” Lu Li greeted the Goblin Engineer with a bow while holding onto Becky’s hands.

”You.. you stole the blueprint for Ivy’s Fool Bomb! You long-eared despicable Thief!”

His pent-up anger and frustration had been building up until this day. Akare has been waiting day and night for Lu Li to return so he could straighten things out with him.

”You mean the blueprint for the bomb?” Lu Li asked as he blinked his eyes innocently.

”You sold it to me for 3 gold.”