“Yes, you can!”
The butler replied, “However, I am of the same level as the City Lord’s bodyguard. You should consider this carefully before you choose to beat me up…”
Wang Yu, “…”
This old man had to be the most annoying pain in the neck. Wang Yu wondered what the designers of the game had experienced in life to make this old man this shameless.
Just when Wang Yu was still arguing with the old man, Fearless suddenly asked, “The pirates have been in control of Harbor City for so many years, so I bet the city collects tax too, right?”
“Eh?” Hearing Fearless’ question, the butler raised his eyebrows as he suddenly looked more serious than ever while staring into Fearless’ eyes, “That’s right!”
“Haha!” Fearless smiled as he took out a bag of gold, “Then can you tell me who has been the one collecting the taxation?”
“Haha!”
The butler chuckled as he took over Fearless’ bag of money and said, “You’re truly a smart kid.”
After saying that, he did not forget to look down upon Wang Yu, “Unlike you… who even wanted to beat me up.”
“Damn it…” Wang Yu’s face turned red when he heard that.
Following which, the butler spoke unhurriedly, “That’s right! Over the years, Harbor City has been collecting taxes.”
“The pirates have to pay taxes too?”
Hearing what the old man said, the others from the Quan Zhen Sect were tongue-tied.
It was reasonable to assume that law-abiding residents paid taxes during their stay here but pirates were the rowdiest people who went around robbing others, so why would they agree to pay taxes?
“The pirates were of course unwilling to pay taxes!” the butler continued, “But they were merely occupying the city and because they were not the City Lord, they naturally had to pay tax according to the rules.”
“Oh… I see!”
After the butler said this, Wang Yu asked, “So does this mean that the person collecting the tax currently has the Harbor City Seal?”
Collecting tax was the privilege of a City Lord so it made sense that only the person with the City Lord Seal had this privilege.
The butler only mentioned that there was no seal but did not mention who didn’t have the seal… After all, Fearless was a master of wordplay so it wasn’t hard for him to detect this.
“That’s right!”
Indeed, the butler nodded, “Three hundred years ago, Harbor City suffered the ambush of pirates. The previous City Lord of Harbor City, Karl, abandoned his citizens and fled with the City Lord Seal. His whereabouts were still unknown up till today.”
“Unknown?” Ming Du laughed, “No one knows where he is yet everyone still has to pay tax? Don’t tell me you’re the one receiving all the taxes.”
“That would be ideal!”
The butler shook his head, “According to the settings of the system, the taxation received every month will be transferred to the account of whoever who has the City Lord Seal. Government officials like us depend on these taxes to live, yet our wages have been owed for over hundred of years.”
“Tsk, tsk, tsk…”
Wang Yu couldn’t help but sigh as he heard the words of the butler.
The system fixed the rules and as residents of the game, NPCs had to abide by these rules strictly. Who knew that defaulting on debts could happen in-game, too? And to think that the debt had been dragged on for hundreds of years.
Hundred of years… This old man must have been really capable of surviving.
However, people who owed wages never end up well ever since a long time ago. Chiang Kai-shek was a perfect example of how one would turn out for owing large amounts of debts.
It was no wonder why the pirates could stay here for such a long time without any resistance from the residents here…
“Young City Lord ah… Will you seek justice for me?” the butler started pleading.
“This…”
In the early stages of <>, most of the quests were battle-based but as the game progressed, there were all sorts of quest-modes especially ones where the player had to look for items. To be frank, Wang Yu detested such quests a lot.
Given Wang Yu’s standard, no battle quest could ever trouble him, but for him to look for something… was simply too troublesome.
That scheming City Lord had been missing for three hundred years. In such a big world, how difficult was it to look for a man who had stayed hidden for three hundred years? Even if he found him, how much time would he have spent on this?
Wang Yu knew how the previous two phases of this quest were like but he knew he had no choice but to accept the quest. Otherwise, who knows what consequences he had to face?
“Ai…”
Wang Yu sighed as he clicked on ‘Accept’.
Quest Requirement: Look for the City Lord Seal to reissue the wages of the butler.
Quest Notification: This quest is relatively more difficult. Please gather some of your comrades to embark on this together. Squad limit 15 players.
Looking at the content of the quest, Wang Yu told the butler, “This is an incredibly massive world so you cannot possibly expect me to search every inch without a clue, right. Give me some clues because your wages are at stake too.”
“Haha!” the butler laughed, “About a month ago, I’ve heard from the pirates that it appeared as though they saw City Lord Karl at Immortal Island. You can start by looking for him there.”
“Immortal Island?” Wang Yu furrowed his brows, “Where is that?”
“The 17th district of Brave Continent!” Fearless commented, “It is also the legendary Japanese server!”
“Japanese server?”
Wang Yu questioned, “We have to cross servers just to complete this quest?”
“En!” Fearless reaffirmed, “If I am not wrong, this chain of quests is to open up the nation’s server.”
Fearless was an experienced player who knew the methods of the game designers.
The official announcement of the merging of data meant that servers in the past without the slightest degree of interconnection were now brought together into one world. However, the players had to complete quests or go through quests to open up the route to the different servers.
In the previous quest, Wang Yu obtained the Maritime Road which was the connecting route between their country’s server and the Japanese server. In the background story, the Maritime Road had been set aside for over three hundred years and this quest must be to re-open this route.
“So how are we going to head to Immortal Island?” Vainglory asked.
The butler replied, “There is a cargo ship at the port which was intercepted by the pirates back then. Perhaps you guys can take that and set out into the sea.”
Even the ship was prepared for them, so it seemed like the nature of this quest was exactly like what Fearless mentioned. Finding the previous City Lord was secondary as the main purpose of this quest was to reopen up the Maritime Road.
Once they left the City Lord Mansion, the Quan Zhen Sect followed the butler’s instructions and found the cargo ship at the port.
To be left behind as a treasure to the pirates, this cargo ship was indeed pretty huge. However, it didn’t look to be in pristine condition after being set aside for over three hundred years.
As the engineers tried to emphasise on how old this three-hundred-year-old ancient ship was, they were elaborate in their designs. Everyone could even hear the creaking sound of the floorboard while walking on the deck. A clumsy and heavy player like Crotch Lord was even worried that he might destroy the deck with every step that he took.
