Quadruple split.

Chapter 2683 Interlude: Waiting for the Kobolds
Game time: 17:58 PM
Northwest Continent, Tianzhu Mountain, the First Outer Mountain
"Well--"

A semi-professional high-end player belonging to the [Broken Wind Bird Club], although not required to work at the club, still has attendance quotas. The monthly salary she receives from the club is equivalent to that of an ordinary first-tier white-collar worker. The highly skilled and reliable adult woman 'Turn Fire That Priest' took a deep breath, looked around nervously, and felt very uneasy.

She was only here because she had received a rewarding escort mission in the Forest Spirit Habitat, and was required to escort several Forest Spirits to the Tianzhu Mountain area. In fact, until half an hour ago, the 'Priest Who Switched Fire', who had just completed the mission and was preparing to use the reward to buy himself an engineering motorcycle... or bicycle, was still on flexible leave.

To be fair, this girl named 'The Priest Who Switches Fire' isn't a high-skill player. Although she is indeed very good at the game, she's not good enough to earn a monthly salary from a top-tier club like [Windbreaker]. Her biggest advantage is actually in administration.

After all, the club has a limited number of registered employees and must continuously carry out activities for fans and online members. It is impossible to ensure that every event organizer or even operator is a formal employee. Therefore, the relevant department will conduct several rounds of investigations every once in a while to find responsible, capable, and available online members or die-hard fans, and give them certain permissions to assist the club in carrying out various activities to increase fan loyalty or to engage in intrigue with other professional organizations.

As for the 'Priest Who Turns Fire', who is a fan of the Fangshi class, she was selected by the logistics department of [Broken Wind Bird] a few years ago. Considering that this girl is beautiful, has a sweet voice, is smart, smooth, rational in her pursuit of stars, and has a strong sense of unity, the club immediately extended an olive branch to her, using the in-game resource allocation and the fixed monthly salary plus social security outside the game as an incentive, successfully getting the 'Priest Who Turns Fire', who is a homebody, to take on the job.

Today, the priest who switched fire has become a high-ranking member of the online guild [Windbreaker Bird Club]. Her salary from the club has also increased significantly. In fact, she received a formal invitation from the club in the middle of the year, hoping that she would consider working in S City, where [Windbreaker Bird] is located. The benefits and salary are better than her current job, and the promotion opportunities are also quite broad.

Although she didn't agree immediately, the priest who switched targets was indeed deeply moved, so much so that after the official launch of [The Realm of Innocence], she maintained an online rate of almost 18 hours or more of game time every day. It wouldn't be an exaggeration to call her a workaholic.

However, as we mentioned before, while the priest who switched targets wasn't bad in combat, she wasn't particularly strong either. Therefore, since her main talents were concentrated in the administrative field, she wasn't in a hurry to improve her strength. Instead, in addition to handling guild affairs, she used her spare time to study various non-combat professions.

For example, pharmaceutics;
For example, engineering;
For example... a chef.

In short, although he wasn't exactly a specialist in any of the so-called "secondary professions," the priest who switched targets, with the resource supply from the [Windbreaker Bird], still managed to level up many of his secondary professions to a very high level. In the end, he decided—secondary professions are too tiring, let's just fight instead.

In conclusion, the priest who switched targets picked up his combat class again and began leveling up by completing various quests. In just over a month, he had already acquired a high-level class.

Meanwhile, given that top-tier professional organizations have shifted their project focus to this area after the explosive popularity of "Innocent Realm," the priest who switched targets from the beginning of the game has been having a much easier time lately. So he simply picked two rewarding quests that were not far apart from the club's accumulated quest library and leisurely started doing them.

She had barely finished the first task and hadn't even started the second when she heard a world mission notification. She casually reported it to the head of logistics, and within three seconds received a friend request from her superior, [Lucel]. After adding him as a friend, she received a notification: Overcome all difficulties, fully cooperate with Nightsong, the test subject of the latest world mission, and gather as much intelligence as possible during the process. The club will provide a guaranteed 150% compensation for any losses incurred, with no upper limit.

The priest who switched targets naturally agreed to cooperate unconditionally. After all, putting aside the club's consistently outrageously generous compensation measures, even if Lucel said that the club would not provide any compensation, even just for the three super interesting challenges on the mission panel (a chance to get close to Miss Nightsong, and two possibilities that would almost certainly result in her death), this girl would definitely not miss this mission.

The only problem is that she can only position Night Song within the 'Northwest Continent'. Without solid and reliable intelligence support, making progress would be extremely difficult.

However, as a semi-employee of a large corporation, she knew that the pastor was someone with connections. So, after she gave Luselle an affirmative answer immediately, he gave her an instruction that was clearly "insider information."

That is, wait near the west gate of the First Outer Mountain Arena of Tianzhu Mountain for the kobold brothers who can directly contact Night Song to lead the way.

"Hi hi hi hi!"

A moment later, the priest who had switched targets immediately stood on tiptoe and shook her hands vigorously. Because she was not an elven race with height correction, her tall stature quickly attracted the target's attention.

"Eh?"

A man with flowing, golden hair, a gentle yet wildly charming face, wagged his tail as he slowly walked up to the priest who had switched targets, and hesitated, "This... has someone else taken over?"

"Replacement?"

The priest who switched targets was taken aback and asked curiously, "What? Someone changed players?"

"Uh...this..."

The blond man frowned, hesitated for a while, and then lowered his voice to tentatively ask, "It's... related to that 'world mission,' isn't it?"

"That's right."

The priest who switched targets nodded with a grin and said happily, "It's alright, it's alright. I just arrived too, I haven't been waiting long."

"Ah."

The blond man nodded, standing arm in arm with the priest who had switched targets, and casually asked, "Which family are you from?"

"I?"

The girl blinked and smiled, "I'm from [Windbreaker Bird]."

"Oh."

The man nodded slightly, then waited a while, and when he realized that the other party had no intention of asking him a single question, he said with a subtle expression, "So you're not curious at all about which family I belong to?"

"Eh?"

The girl who was trying hard to maintain her composure paused for a moment, then asked curiously, "Should I be curious?"

"No, it's nothing, you don't need to be curious."

The man shook his head slightly, his expression stiffening, then shut his mouth and remained silent.

……

Time flies, time flies
Two minutes later, the priest who had switched targets couldn't stand the silence any longer and broke the silence, asking, "By the way, young man, how much longer are we going to have to wait here?"

The young man, still feeling frustrated, shook his head and said somewhat dejectedly, "I don't know."

"do not know?"

The girl blinked and asked again, "Didn't you come to pick me up?"

"what?"

The blond man was stunned and said in surprise, "I didn't come to pick you up."

"Eh?"

The priest who had switched targets was startled and asked in confusion, "But since you're a kobold and asked me which family I belong to, I thought..."

"Wait a minute!" The blond man, finally realizing what was wrong with the conversation, abruptly interrupted the girl, saying in a dry voice, "Is it possible that the canine half-orcs with golden hair blood are not the same as the kobolds?"

The pastor, who had been talking to the fire, was startled again and said, "But aren't they all... all dogs? Ah! Sorry, sorry, that's not what I meant. Actually, I really like Golden Retrievers. Every time I go to my aunt's house, I take her Golden Retriever for a walk after dinner. Really!"

"It's okay if you don't like golden retrievers, after all, I should be a person in the strictest sense."

The blond-haired man sighed and shrugged, saying, "Anyway, let me introduce myself. I'm Kara from the Card Club."

The priest nodded slightly, then frowned slightly and asked, "You... play Animal Chess?"

"I simply like the style of our club, not the card games or chess."

Gala sighed and said with a wistful expression, "But this is the first time I've heard of the term 'playing animal chess.' The race is randomly assigned again, which has nothing to do with me."

Realizing she had indeed offended him, the girl shrank back and whispered, "I'm sorry..."

“It’s okay. Brother Wang asked me before if the name was related to the movie ‘Kara is a Dog’. He also wanted to discuss with me whether calling him ‘Hachiko’ would turn him into a half-human with Akita dog blood. He also asked me if I would have some kind of urge deeply rooted in my genes to his ‘eternal form’.”

Gala gave a wry smile and said with a complicated expression, "Because he thinks dogs like to gnaw on bones."

Switching focus to the priest: "...Pfft!"

Kara: "..."

"Oh, I'm so sorry, I'm so sorry, I didn't mean to laugh at you."

Realizing she had offended her new friend again, the girl who had switched fire immediately bowed frantically to her, then hurriedly changed the subject, saying, "Speaking of which, I've never seen a proper kobold before. What do they all look like?"

"First of all, the canine orcs are not 'shady kobolds'; in fact, we have absolutely no relation to kobolds."

Kara twitched the corners of her mouth, and then explained to the young lady, who was a bit speechless but had a strong sense of friendliness: "As for kobolds, they actually have nothing to do with 'dogs'. Under normal circumstances, kobolds are very small in stature and their intelligence is unlikely to develop to the level of conventional intelligent races. However, a small number of kobolds are born very smart and can even learn magic and the like."

"oh oh!"

The priest who switched targets nodded vigorously, it was hard to tell if he was praising Kara or the kobold: "Amazing!"

"However, apart from a few exceptionally talented individuals, it is difficult for the kobold race to produce truly strong and wise people. In fact, they are excellent miners. Although they are inferior to dwarves in many ways, they are still very good as laborers."

Kara shrugged and explained in a lighthearted tone, "Besides that, as for more specific characteristics, well, kobolds like to carry candles on their heads, are generally hunchbacked, have tails, long heads covered in manes, look somewhat sleazy, and are a bit neurotic. In general, they're not easy to get along with."

"I think there's nothing we can do about it."

A cold voice came from Gala's blind spot, filled with dissatisfaction and hostility: "After all, anyone would become a little difficult to get along with if they were described as 'sleazy-looking' and 'neurotic' for no reason."

"Uh!"

Kara turned around abruptly and immediately noticed a kobold that was clearly in her field of vision but showed no aura or presence whatsoever...?

The reason he hesitated was mainly because, although the other party was a kobold no matter how you looked at it, for the kobold race, this guy was really too over-the-top, even just visually.

In short, although this dog-headed man looks somewhat like a dog, he has a heroic air about him. Two thick, long eyebrows hang on a pair of sharp black eyes, giving him a very spirited look. Although his height of 148 centimeters only makes him stand out among his fellow dogs, his heroic temperament makes him look like he is 1.84 meters tall. It is beyond the description of "handsome".

"You two must be 'Kara' from [Card Master] and 'The Priest Who Switches Targets' from [Windbreaker Bird], right?"

This incredibly handsome, almost unrealistically cool, spirited dog-headed man glanced at the two of them and said calmly, "I'm A Liang, a player just like you. I've been helping out in the First Outer Mountain for a while now, and I'm friends with Ye Ge, who gave you the quest."

"Hello, Brother Liang!"

The priest who had switched targets immediately extended his right hand to Ah Liang, his face slightly flushed, and said, "Um, could we exchange contact information later?"

"Hello."

Ah Liang raised his right hand, touched the other person's index finger, and immediately lowered his hand as a greeting, saying indifferently, "No need for contact information, we're not on the same wavelength and don't have much in common."

"Woo!"

The girl from Zhuanhuo, who was asking a guy for his contact information for the first time, was immediately devastated.

Kala, looking embarrassed, said, "Well, Brother Liang, that's not what I meant. I meant the kobolds..."

“You clearly lack a systematic understanding of kobolds, Brother Kala.”

"Uh……"

"I heard you're planning to take on Brother Córdoba's test, is that right?"

"Yes, that's how it happened."

"Well, in that case, let's have a fight first."

"Eh?"

"Well, if you can't even get past me, then don't go and spoil Córdoba's fun."

"this--"

"After all, I'm just a kobold, I'm not very strong, don't worry."

Chapter 2674: The End