Blue Sword

"Choose a mission." Asik looked away, forcing himself not to think about the unexplainable question "Why are all the beautiful NPCs in my team?"

"Can all tasks be selected?" Nora also stared at the screen and began to copy the contents of the tasks scrolling above.

"Yes." Asik said, "You can freely take on all the tasks here. The only problem is the cost-effectiveness."

"Value for money?" Eleanor was a little confused.

"First of all, everyone needs to understand that the content, difficulty, and rewards of the tasks are all given by the task publishers themselves." Asker pointed at the screen and said, "The Mercenary Guild is just a third-party platform for information exchange. It itself is generally It will not and cannot review or restrict the authenticity of the mission, so the problem of false reporting of mission information will inevitably arise."

"For example, it is clear that the enemy is a goblin tribe with ogres. The mission publisher is afraid that there will be no mercenaries to take it, so he lies that there are only two or three goblins. Such lies are the most common to deliberately reduce the difficulty of the mission." Asker continued. , "Another example is that the reward for a task is 100 pounds, but the task publisher is a farmer from a nearby village. How could the farmer be rich enough to spend 100 pounds to post the task? There is no doubt that the other party made an inflated price, and from the beginning Be prepared to pay less or even default on the bill afterwards.”

"If we waste a lot of time on such tasks with questionable cost performance, it will undoubtedly be very detrimental to the development of the team." Asker concluded, "A senior who played mercenaries once said that the best Mercenaries are not the ones who are the best at fighting, but the ones who are best at actually collecting the rewards of missions."

Nora couldn't help but nodded beside her, and wrote down a sentence in her notebook: How to get the mission reward for sure (key circle).

"So how can we distinguish from the massive task list those tasks that are truly cost-effective and worth doing?" Eleanor asked.

"This can only depend on experience. Real knowledge comes from practice." Asik stared at the screen and said, "Hey, Paradise Mountain?"

"Paradise Mountain?" Nora looked at the screen, but did not see any words related to "Paradise". She saw that Asker had already communicated with the lady at the counter, and seemed to be designated to take on a certain task. The latter answered fluently. road:

"Cang Qing Sword Mercenary Group, No. MS-995017-247, requested to undertake the mission of 'Missing Fishing Boat in the Black Sea', No. 1000000012763212. The mission poster has left a message, would you like to answer it?"

"Listen," Ask said.

So the lady at the counter took out a microphone from under the table and clicked on the corresponding audio file on the computer:

"I am the village chief of Burgas village in the Thrace province of the Empire. Last month, several fishermen from our village were fishing on the Black Sea. They disappeared that day and never came back. The latitude and longitude coordinates of the last fishing boat message It is 43 degrees 32 minutes 11 seconds north latitude and 32 degrees 2 minutes 26 seconds east longitude."

"The families of the missing persons and other villagers in the village have collected about 3 pounds as a reward. If you can find and rescue them, we are willing to pay you 3 pounds as a reward; if you only find their remains, we are also willing to pay 30 pounds. To thank you in silver dinars.”

"Let's take this." Asik said.

"Then please scan the QR code under the counter and download our 'Constantinople Mercenary Guild' APP." The lady at the counter said, "Your default account is the full spelling of the mercenary group name, and the default password is 8 by 8. After logging in, you can publish task logs online and listen to related task audio. After completing the task, you only need to bring people or remains to the guild. The reward will be sent to your APP account. Please remember to bind your bank card. "

"A month has passed, and the probability of the person surviving the accident should be very low." Medea analyzed, "If we only find the remains, I'm afraid we won't even be able to pay for our round trip."

"Anyway, we are just practicing, it doesn't matter what mission we take on." Ask said with a smile, "Maybe there will be unexpected gains."

Unexpected gain? Medea frowned, hearing the implication of Asik's words. It was the first time for the others to take on a mercenary mission and they didn't understand anything, so they didn't raise any objections.

The Black Sea is located north of Constantinople, and to the north is the Principality of Kievan Rus. The trade between the two countries is mainly fur and timber business, and there are also fleets running corresponding routes. Asker and others searched in many ways at the Golden Horn dock and finally found a merchant ship willing to carry them.

"North latitude 43 degrees 32 minutes 11 seconds, east longitude 32 degrees 2 minutes 26 seconds?" The ship owner said looking at the string of coordinates, "When I ran the route to Ochakiv recently, I did see a new ship appearing in the waters nearby. of islands.”

"A new island?" Nora was immediately interested after hearing this, "Have you ever gone to the island to see it?"

"Little girl, being too curious is not a good thing at sea." The captain smiled and shook his head and said, "Anyway, it was either a change in the earth's crust or some supernatural event that led to the emergence of this new island. There may be some dangers there. As for extraordinary creatures. For example, there is a big poisonous snake island near that sea area. It is full of spiritual snakes. If you are bitten, you will die immediately. The poison is so violent that it is said that even the soul will be annihilated. "

"Snake Island?" Nora immediately felt goosebumps all over her body.

"Yes, so this new island may not be safe." The boat owner said, "There is indeed a possibility that the missing fishermen you are looking for will be stranded and forced to go ashore there, but I can't let my sailors do that. Take risks. The most I can do is send you to a shallow sea area near the island, and then give you a small boat to go to the island on your own."

"One day later, my cargo ship will return from Kievan Rus and wait for you near the island for up to two hours. If you don't show up, we will leave on our own. And you need to pay 5 pounds for the one-way ticket. Prepay 1 pounds, and you’ll pay another 4 pounds after the boat is released. If you make it back from the island alive, you’ll need to pay another 5 pounds.”

In other words, even if the missing fishermen can be found, the mission is destined to lose 7 pounds. Medea said nothing and looked sideways at Aske, only to hear him agree happily:

"Okay, this is a prepaid 1 pound note."

As expected, what Aske was planning was not mission reward at all. Is there a problem with the identity of the missing fishermen? Or is it a problem with the island itself? Medea was secretly suspicious.

"Okay." The ship owner accepted the banknotes and said, "My cargo should be loaded. Come with me."

The cargo ship docked at the dock is called the "White Illiana". It is an offshore cargo ship that travels to the Black Sea all year round. In the center of the ship's deck is a groove for holding containers. Sailors run back and forth in the aisle next to the groove and close to the ship's side, responsible for maintaining the normal navigation of the cargo ship.

Ask and others boarded the ship, immediately attracting curious eyes from around them. These sailors are ordinary people. They have neither extraordinary strength nor any firearms. No wonder the ship owner said that it is impossible for these sailors to "take risks."

After reporting to the port office in Constantinople, White Illiana officially set sail. The departure time was 6 p.m., which was exactly the time for dinner. Therefore, everyone in the mercenary group was lucky enough to enjoy a "dinner at sea" with the sailors in the cabin: boiled hard salted spaghetti and a small bag of tomato sauce. , canned pork stew with beans and canned sardines.

Peggy picked at the beans from the canned pork and ate them boredly, with no expression on her face. Eleanor had a great appetite and ate all the spaghetti dipped in tomato sauce, and then started to deal with sardines. Nora opened two cans and lost her appetite just after smelling them. She stirred the pasta with a fork and ate it slowly.

"Here." Medea handed Nora a red sausage, "I just bought it with a sailor."

"Thank you." Nora thanked her politely.

"You couldn't have used your Psychic I ability to 'buy' it, right?" Ask teased.

"You care about me?" Medea rolled her eyes.

Ask ate a little of each dish and filled his stomach fully. Looking outside the ship's side, night has gradually fallen, and the sailors have gone back to their cabins to rest, leaving only a few people on night watch. The captain asked the first mate to deliver some sleeping bags. They didn't look like sailors' bedding, but were probably the captain's own collection.

So everyone lay down in the cabin with their clothes on. At about 3 a.m., Aske was awakened by a knock on the door and opened his eyes.

"Your destination has arrived." A sailor opened the hatch and said.

Peggy crawled out of her sleeping bag and pushed Eleanor awake next to her. Medea sat up, covering her mouth and yawning, her beautiful burgundy hair was messed up. Only Nora seemed to be a little bit out of breath. Eleanor took her a long time to wake her up, and her whole body felt a little low.

When everyone walked out of the cabin, they saw the outline of the island faintly emerging under the night on the sea on the left side of the ship. The first mate directed the sailors and placed a day's worth of dry food for five people, cables, oil lamps, two pairs of oars and several flares on the small boat hoisted on the side, and then shouted for everyone in the mercenary group to get on the boat. .

After paying the remaining four pounds, the boat carrying everyone was slowly lowered into the cold water. Even Nora, who had not yet woken up, was now awake. She looked at the undulating sea around her and asked:

"Shall we row across next?"

"Of course." Aske said. He and Eleanor each picked up a pair of oars and paddled the water to push the boat toward the island.

Although the island looked not far away, everyone rowed for half an hour before reaching the shore. Fortunately, there was a beach next to the island, so the boat was washed ashore easily.

"The cable must be tied tightly to the trees on the shore, otherwise the boat will be washed away by the rising tide," Ask said. Everyone worked together to tie one end of the cable to the iron nail on the bow of the boat, and the other end was tied several times to the tree trunk on the shore.

Ask looked at the beach and felt at ease. This island... is indeed the same as in the previous game. The only difference is that in the previous life, countless player guilds rushed to land on this island, and a group PK incident almost occurred on the shoal, but in this world, only their own five-person team came to land on the island.

The boat owner was right. New islands that appear suddenly for no reason are probably caused by supernatural events. The danger is definitely dangerous, but the benefits may not be there, so NPC mercenaries who think it is not cost-effective will basically not come.

However, for immortal players, any danger is simply a joke. Players only care about whether the benefits are large or not. Since your island is caused by supernatural events, there is a high probability that there will be high-value things on the island that meet the corresponding difficulty.

In the end it proved to be the case.