Another familiar person

"Of course. I will immediately report to the cult and they will recall the beasts and the demons," answered Piece of Cloth.

'Looks like I might be able to complete the quest after all. Could it be that the real way to complete the quest was not to fight all the demons... It was only to get rid of that Eye of Mydas?'

Li Wei hesitated for a moment. His quest only required him to bring the princess to safety. There was no mention of that Eye of Mydas. Although he did not care about the quest much, now that the circumstances had changed and given him another go, he wanted to try to complete it.

'Maybe bringing back the Eye of Mydas would affect the final rating or something like that.'

He looked up and said, "Princess, you should have heard our conversation, right? The items the Earl gave you should not be that important to the royal family. As long as you give it to them, they will not do anything against you anymore."

Piece of Cloth was confused. He did not make the connection between Li Wei's actions yet but his eyes brightened as he saw a small pouch fall in Li Wei's hands.

The system immediately displayed [Eye of Mydas] above it.

"Quick, give it to me!" said Piece of Cloth. As soon as he received the jewel, the little fatty leveled up to level 16.

"Yes! Finally! Now, I have passed the test. They cannot say no now," exclaimed Piece of Cloth.

Li Wei did not interrupt the fatty's celebration. It was only after he calmed down that he finally asked:

"Can you tell me what exactly is happening? Were you not chasing the old man to become an identifier? How did you end up here?"

"Oh, right. It was the old man that sent me here. He told me that if I passed the entrance test, he would immediately take me as his disciple! By obtaining the [Eye of Mydas], I just completed the quest! This is great, I just obtained the Identifier profession!"

Li Wei was puzzled. He could not understand the fatty's reaction. "What is so great about being an Identifier? Isn't it a useless profession?"

"Ignorant! It is true that Identifier is one of the weaker professions as they don't actually craft anything. Since you helped me complete the quest, I'll tell you a secret. The Identifier profession is the key to obtaining the title: Internationally Acknowledged Trader. With this, it will be a piece of cake to set up a Chamber of Commerce. Without that title, people can only become simple traders, but I can control all the trades!"

"You don't know how much I went through just to become an Identifier. None of the identifiers of the associations can take apprentices due to their contracts. I had to find an old man like this to become one early or else, I would have had to master all the other professions... He made me change my name to that silly name. He made me carry all the trash..."

The chatty fatty continued to narrate his tasks. Li Wei bitterly smiled and interrupted him. "I am happy for you but what are we waiting for now?"

"Oh? For the members of my cult to arrive. They must check the Eye of Mydas first. Don't worry, they won't try to harm you. The person looking after me is very nice. She is a stunner, my goddess. She even gave me those two foxes to look after me. Although she is just an NPC, I will do what I can to court her! Who says people cannot marry NPCs? You should see her thoughtful expression. She is so pretty. Oh no, I am the only one who can see her like this..."

Li Wei no longer listened to the fatty. He was way too talkative. Piece of Cloth was a rather innocent and gullible person. He trusted people easily and this could be seen from how he shared his secret with Li Wei. However, he also had a kind aura that attracted people to him and made them unconsciously trust him.

Li Wei silently waited as Piece of Cloth continued to describe the woman looking after him. His ears were numbed but he did not want to disrespect the fatty as whether his quest would succeed still depended on him.

After a few minutes, Li Wei finally saw a few figures stepping out of the shadows. He was once again stunned as he recognized the lady leading the group. Their eyes met as they both froze.

"Miss Trisha! You are finally here. This is my friend, Seven. Here is the [Eye of Mydas]," excitedly said Piece of Cloth as he handed her the small pouch.

The NPC with the name Trisha was unexpectedly the young girl who attended to Li Wei when he was staying at the Evil Cult's camp. Li Wei did not think much of her at that time. She was pretty and young which was why the Messenger ordered her to look after Li Wei but it seemed that she was not as weak as she looked. From Piece of Cloth's description and seeing how she was leading the team, Trisha should be relatively powerful.

The Enraged Forest Fox lightly growled as they rushed to Trisha's side. She briefly checked the Eye of Mydas and walked toward Li Wei. She lightly blushed as she recalled the night she spent with him. Although they did nothing, it was still an embarrassing moment for her.

"Sir. It is good to see you again."

Li Wei smiled. "You are a druid? Looks like the Messenger thought highly of me."

"She did. I will have to thank, Sir. I will inform the Messenger when we return to the camp. Unfortunately, you were involved in our operation. The Messenger did inform you to not head East. I would like to apologize for it." Trisha apologetically smiled.

"It is fine. In the end, I still survived. Will I be free to leave?" asked Li Wei.

"Of course. Is the princess with you? We were going to capture her and ask for a ransom but since she is with you, we will let her go. The rest of your trip should be safe."

"Thank you," answered Li Wei. He briefly looked up but as there was no response, he shifted his attention back to Trisha.

"Would you like to spend the night at our camp? We would be delighted to have you there again."

"I would not mind but I don't think the princess will. Right now, I need to stay by her side for a quest," answered Li Wei.

"The princess? Fine. In that case, we will take our leave. There is a group of knights on their way here. They should be the cavalry dispatched from Boroughton to escort the princess. If you have time, do not hesitate to come back to our camp."

Trisha lightly bowed as she quickly signaled her teammates to leave. Piece of Cloth shot an inquisitive glance at Li Wei. The latter shrugged his shoulders innocently. How was he supposed to tell Piece of Cloth that the woman he regarded as a goddess was seen completely naked by him and that she was offered to him?

It was only after the Evil Cultists left the area that the princess and her maid jumped to Li Wei's branch.

"You are allied with the evil cult?"

"I just happen to have met her before. They helped me once. That's it."

"Hmm. You should have asked them if my brother is still alive," continued the princess. She did not care much about the Evil Cults; the nobles tended to stay away from the battle of religions.

'I don't care about your brother. I just want to complete my quest,' thought Li Wei. Naturally, he could not say it out loud.

"You've heard them. We can do down and wait for the knights to arrive," said Li Wei as he jumped down and landed on the damp grass.

"No need. We will stay here until the knights arrive. We do not trust evil cults," answered Rose.

Li Wei did not answer. He leaned against the tree and sat down. He could tell Rose and the princess' attitude has changed. Despite his [Socialite Aura] that increased the NPC's favorability toward him, his actions displeased the two women. But Li Wei could not care less.

Now that he finally had some peace, Li Wei took out the document about the update and skimmed through it.

There were quite a lot of changes but the most important ones were the increase in the size of the territory the players could explore. They could finally go to the capital and the price of the portals to the other cities was significantly lowered!

'Seems like we will start interacting with people from other countries.'

Aside from the territory expansion, a few adjustments were made to the combat system and now, instead of displaying the monster's health, they would only display a percentage. The calculation of the damage dealt was also slightly tweaked. More importance was put on the player's equipment instead of their own stats.

The Death penalty was also increased. Players would now lose two levels when dying and the chance of dropping items from their inventory doubled!

Another change that attracted Li Wei's attention was that items could no longer be brought to the new Time Attacks. It was clear that the players had abused items too much for the first three. Li Wei himself did so.

The update was massive but it would not affect Li Wei much. It mainly added a lot of areas, waiting to be explored. These areas were meant for players above level 20 but at the moment, there was only one player that met the requirements.

'I am still lagging behind...'

'Now that I think about it, I should think of a way to look for a title. According to Piece of Cloth, titles should be an essential part of the game. He also seems to have insider information... I should have asked.'

After waiting for a few more minutes, a few knights finally reached Li Wei's location. The princess and her maid excitedly jumped down and spoke to the captain. The latter was a told man with a long beard, going all the way to his crotch.

He did not put Li Wei in his eyes but nevertheless gave him a horse to ride on. The princess and her maid rode their own horses in the middle of the formation while Li Wei followed behind quietly.

He could not be bothered to argue with them. He was more worried about his fatigue level. As Trisha promised, the journey to Boroughton was peaceful; they did not encounter a single beast or demon but Li Wei's fatigue kept increasing!

When the town finally came into view, Li Wei's fatigue had already reached 92%. Escorted by the knights, they did not have any trouble entering the town in the middle of the night. None of the knights spoke to Li Wei. They simply continued on their way while the latter stopped in the middle of the street as he obtained the system prompt:

[System prompt: You have completed the quest "Escort the Seventh Princess". You have obtained 5000 exp. Due to the small number of players participating in this quest, the difficulty was reduced by sending a troop of knights from Boroughton. The reward has been halved. Due to the player's actions, no additional reward will be obtained. The Seventh Princess will remember you.]

Li Wei froze as he read the system prompt. He wanted to swear. The rewards for the emergency quest were already left to be desired but it was actually halved by the system?

'Stingy system. Reduced difficulty, my a**. That quest was so hard...'

But the most infuriating part was that he was supposed to receive additional rewards but because of his actions, he would not? Was it because he ran away from danger the first time or was it because he did not treat the princess like a real one?

'Tsssk. The princess and her maid are really two-faced... She looked sweet and pitiful when she explained how she was used as bait but after the threat was gone, she immediately became cold and ignored me.'

'Anyway, I better find a place to sleep. With that much fatigue, I will collapse if I do not sleep very soon. This will teach me to take emergency quests like that. Next time, I will hurry up and take the easiest one.'

Finding an inn was not very hard but the problem was that most inns were closed. It was still 04:16 and most NPCs were fast asleep. Only the most expensive inns offering night service were still open. Li Wei did not care about it. He had a lot of money on him and right now, he himself just wanted to sleep.