All my teammates online are my girlfriends

"Go away, if you're not a newbie, don't come here. There are no missions for your level."

"There's a newbie over there who wants to take on a beginner quest, could you please help them?"

"Tsk——"

Seeing the village chief's obvious displeasure at being interrupted, Chen Xiao's lips twitched, and his impression of the game gradually became distorted.

Are all the newbie quests like this?

"Then it's the same as before. Go and clear out the mutated rats in the vicinity. What weapons do you need?"

"A staff, perhaps."

"Wow, you're pretty good at this, buddy."

The village chief glanced at Lin Qiu with some surprise, and then, to Chen Xiao's bewildered look, pulled a gilded staff from his collar.

Where did you put it?!

"Hey, Old Chen, use this for now. A staff will make it much easier for beginners to clear out mobs, and it'll also fetch a bit more when you resell it than other weapons."

"Huh? Ah—okay then."

"As for newcomers, it's best to be careful. Recently, those mutated rats have shown signs of group combat, so be careful not to get killed."

193 - Going home to visit?

"Fireball at nine o'clock!"

"it is good!"

"Old Chen, don't rush over! This isn't placed right in their face!!"

Lin Qiu's eyelids twitched wildly as he watched Chen Xiao shove his staff into the mutated rat's mouth to unleash a fireball spell.

Old Chen, do you have some misunderstanding about the word "remote" in "remote mage"?

Just as Chen Xiao burst the mutated rat, two other mutated rats instantly closed in on her, their scythe-like claws mercilessly grabbing at her body.

"Bang!!"

"Click——"

The staff, like an unstoppable battle club, snapped back and slammed into the mutated rat's claws.

As the chilling sound of bones cracking echoed through the woods, the mutated rat beside him shuddered in fright.

Before it could even react, the invincible staff had already struck its crown...

"Sister Xiong, was the president always this violent when playing games?"

Watching the two large black rats being tortured to death, Shang Yan, who was observing from a distance, felt a cold sweat break out on his back.

The president is usually a bit serious, but he's not this ruthless!

Is this a sign of letting loose?!

"No way... I've never seen Old Chen play games before. Maybe he's just naturally gifted?"

"Shouldn't they be inherently vicious...?"

Wei Ran muttered to herself, glancing at Lin Qiu beside the president. She was just about to use "intelligence spying" to check the information when the other party scanned her first, startling her so much that she shrank behind a tree.

"Isn't this guy being overly cautious?!"

"Your counter-surveillance skills are probably maxed out. With your amateurish reconnaissance skills, you should save your breath. Let me do it; I'm a level above you."

"Stop joking around. Lin Qiu's gaming skills are very high. All of you combined wouldn't be enough to beat him."

In the end, it was Han Xianyu who stopped the two guys from continuing their intelligence gathering efforts, and casually offered an explanation.

I had the misfortune of facing him a few times in the arena before. His playstyle was really toxic, which left me with a psychological trauma for a long time.

However, that guy hasn't been to the arena lately, and I haven't been able to get a spot in the queue again.

"Xianyu, you've fought him before?"

Wu Xiaoxiong also became interested, not expecting that the two of you had actually met before.

"I've queued up against them in the arena before, they're pretty strong. They're coming, so we're retreating. We'll talk about the rest later."

Seeing Lin Qiu and Chen Xiao change positions, Han Xianyu called out and quietly moved away into the distance.

Lin Qiu, who had been observing these guys' little tricks, paid no attention and continued to give Chen Xiao instructions while secretly setting up the trap.

"Old Chen, don't rush over with the fireball. If you cast it at the original distance, the fireball will explode at its maximum range, causing splash damage and igniting three mutated rats at the same time."

"If it's splash damage and ignite, wouldn't it make killing too slow?"

"In the early stages, these small monsters have very low health; just ignite them and they'll lose half their health. The main thing is to draw their aggro, then ignore them for a moment and go find other mutated rats. Once you've gathered them together using the same method, use a sweeping attack to clear them out all at once. This will speed up the process considerably."

Lin Qiu explained in detail how he had done it when he was leading the new members of the strategy team.

Back then, my performance far surpassed that of others!

Chen Xiao nodded thoughtfully, shook the staff in his hand, and sighed somewhat helplessly.

"I'm not very comfortable using a staff; I prefer using a knife."

"This is just a beginner's quest to get you through. If you're not in a rush to level up, you can try this out first."

As Lin Qiu spoke, he took out a prototype longsword from his backpack. Although its attributes were so-so, it was enough for his needs.

Looking at the low-level, unequipped gear that clearly didn't match Lin Qiu's current level, Chen Xiao couldn't help but smirk.

"Your collecting obsession hasn't changed at all."

"There's nothing we can do about it, it's just how we are."

"I guess there's an exact spare."

"You remember it pretty well."

......

As the two chatted more familiarly, Wu Xiaoxiong and the others' expressions became somewhat subtle.

Are we being suspicious of hiding a third wheel?

"Sister Xiong, why don't we go fight the boss first? Those two old flames can catch up, nothing bad will happen. The rewards from the new boss are the best, let's do that first."

Shang Yan eagerly made the suggestion, and he wondered if it was just his imagination, but the boss seemed to have a strange resemblance to Lin Qiu. Anyway, he figured it didn't matter if they were the same person.

"But......"

"The president knows what she's doing. Let's go, let's go. There's a shortcut here, we can get there quickly. There are a ridiculously large number of people planning to take down the new boss lately. If we go too late, we won't get anything."

Shang Yan called out, and seeing that Wu Xiaoxiong also showed a look of interest, he immediately hopped excitedly in a certain direction.

Han Xianyu stared blankly at her retreating figure, then suddenly seemed to remember something, and his face turned pale—

"Wait! There's something over there..."

"Click——"

Hearing the strange sound coming from below, Shang Yan, who had been jumping around quite happily, froze on the spot.

Before she could even cry for help, an overwhelming array of traps engulfed her...

Watching helplessly as Shang Yan died without leaving a trace, Wei Ran immediately panicked and grabbed Han Xianyu's arm in terror.

"We're surrounded?!"

"Lin Qiu thought we were here to ambush the newbies, so he set traps on the road. Just don't take the route he took."

Han Xianyu explained helplessly that they could go directly to the resurrection point to pick up Shang Yan.

Hearing the commotion, Chen Xiao turned around with some confusion, staring at the slowly rising mushroom cloud with a slight pause.

"What's going on over there?"

"It's probably just a passing mutated rat that stepped on a trap. Don't worry about it."

Lin Qiu ignored the notification of player kills in the system bar and urged Chen Xiao to continue killing the newbie monsters.

"Do you usually team up with Qin Yunmo and the others to play?"

While torturing the mutated rat, Chen Xiao casually asked, "Those guys must be really skilled, right?"

"Pretty much. Except for Ziyan, who was introduced by the class monitor later, I knew the others from the early days of the game. They all became famous quite quickly."

"Is it very famous...?"

Chen Xiao murmured to himself, then stopped dwelling on the topic and changed the subject—

"Your younger sister is quite cute, she looks a lot like Aunt Chizuru."

"If she heard that, she'd probably be proud again. Oh, by the way, my mom also asked when you're coming back to visit. It's been years since we last saw each other; it would be good to catch up."

"Are you sure it was Aunt Chizuru who asked that?"

"It's not impossible for me to ask that question."

Chen Xiao smiled as he watched Lin Qiu scratch his face, and the tension in his heart dissipated considerably...

194 - NPCs also need to make a living, right?

"Old Chen, Old Chen! Don't shove the light wheel into the monster's mouth!"

"Old Chen, you have a knife, don't just keep smashing your head with rocks!"

"Old Chen, that's not a monster. Don't hurt the innocent!"

......

In the dark forest, a slightly frantic voice kept echoing all around.

Watching Chen Xiao's increasingly frenzied fighting, Lin Qiu felt as if each blow was hitting him, and his skull throbbed with pain.

Meanwhile, Chen Xiao returned somewhat reluctantly after smashing the last mutated rat to death.

The beginner's skills are a bit limited. The only skill that feels pretty good is the light wheel saw, but the others aren't that great.

Wasn't that rabbit a monster?

"That's a Lucky Rabbit, it spawns randomly in the forest. If it's particularly fat, it can be used as high-grade food. But the one we just saw was too skinny. It's better to let it roam freely. The chances of finding one will be higher next time we come to the forest."

Lin Qiu explained that although these chances were negligible to him, it was still better to give Old Chen some advice.

Chen Xiao nodded, deciding to keep it in mind for the time being.

Glancing sideways at the notification that the task was complete, she called out impatiently—

"The mission here is done. The next mission seems to be to take a caravan to Shutrinia. Hmm? No more monster hunting?"

Chen Xiao was somewhat displeased upon seeing the new task requirements.

I was having so much fun, and it just ended like that?

"It's not that simple. In a normal storyline, caravans like this usually run into trouble. There will be a lot of monsters harassing them along the way, and you'll be busy for a while."

As Lin Qiu spoke, his gaze fell on the hand holding the knife.

"Is the knife not working well for you? You seemed a little unnatural when you were swinging it earlier."

"It's too light, it feels like holding a piece of paper. It would be best to add a scabbard."

Chen Xiao muttered to himself that wielding this knife now felt like fanning a monster with a flimsy piece of paper, giving him a strange feeling that he couldn't muster any strength.

"Hmm—then let's use this one for now. Once you level up, I'll have Xiaoxi make one for you."

"sorry to bother you."

"What a big deal."

Lin Qiu waved his hand, and before he could finish speaking, a message popped up in front of him.

"Lin Qiu, do you have any tasks we can do together? Yun Mo and the others haven't logged on yet, and I'm getting really bored by myself."

Lin Qiu smiled as he read the message from Ying Ziyan, then quickly typed and sent it.

"I'm mentoring newbies at the Sprout Forest. If you don't mind the trouble, you can come and mentor her too."

"she?"