I, the prince in distress, send money

Chapter 496 Watching a Show
Night fell heavily, like a velvet cloth soaked in thick ink.

Outside the camp, the firewood piles hastily erected in the afternoon were ignited by rockets, slowly forming huge, leaping fire pits. The orange-red light bravely drove away the darkness, illuminating an area of ​​about a hundred meters in front of the camp's wooden wall.

However, beyond the light was pitch black, a darkness that neither moonlight nor firelight could penetrate.

At the very edge of that boundary between light and shadow, and even further into the shadows of the jungle, countless pairs of eerie green, cold, vertically oriented eyes lit up.

They floated aimlessly like will-o'-the-wisps, moving slowly and making a chilling sound as their dense scales rolled across the ground.

The sounds converged, forming a deep, malicious background noise that constantly assaulted the eardrums and nerves of everyone in the camp.

The snake people arrived, and in greater numbers than the players had anticipated. Just from the sound, they knew that the area outside the camp was piled high with disgusting things.

The players gripped their muskets and swords tightly, crouching behind a wooden wall only about two meters high, pointing their guns into the darkness outside, awaiting the expected fierce charge.

A minute passed...

Five minutes have passed...

Ten minutes have passed...

The anticipated onslaught of attacks failed to materialize.

The snake-men lingered and swam only at the very edge where the light could reach. Their twisted and slender figures appeared and disappeared in the firelight, sometimes revealing their bodies covered with dark scales, and sometimes vanishing into the darkness.

They neither advanced nor retreated, but simply stared intently at the brightly lit camp with their countless cold eyes.

"Damn it... what are they doing wandering around there?"

One player couldn't help but mutter a curse under his breath; his fingers were turning white from being tense for so long.

"Are they waiting for us to let our guard down, or are they looking for weaknesses in our defenses?"

Another player guessed, constantly adjusting the direction of the gun muzzle, trying to lock onto a target, but the snake-men were always at the edge of maximum range, and firing now would only waste ammunition.

A furrowed brow and a look of displeasure—this unusual quiet is more unsettling than a direct attack.

He observed carefully, but could see nothing clearly. The snake-man remained hidden outside the firelight, only discernible through vague shadows.

"Everyone stay alert, don't waste ammunition, and don't fire unless you're sure you can win!"

If you're unhappy, don't play.

"Musketeers, get ready! Brothers, bring our cannons up and mount them on the wall, but don't fire until they're within range!"

Time passed slowly in the suffocating stalemate.

Flames leaped, snake shadows flickered, and hissing sounds filled the air, which began to annoy many players.

Just as Bushuangbuwan was patiently hiding behind the wooden wall, looking outside with binoculars, his ears suddenly caught a very ominous sound.

That was... the heavy, clumsy pull of the camp gate latch, followed by a clanging sound of metal being removed.

Immediately following was the teeth-grinding creaking sound of the log door being violently pushed open from the inside.

Unhappy and unwilling to play, I subconsciously turned my head to look to the left, and saw a group of players silently rushing into the darkness under the torchlight of the wooden wall.

"Fuck!"

He was so annoyed that he started yelling unconsciously.

"What are you going to do?"

No one paid him any attention. Even those who had left the camp heard his angry shouts of "I'm not playing anymore!", but no one responded.

The drawbacks of popular elections were exposed at this moment. Just because the dock battle was a bit conspicuous, the fact that the person elected was unhappy and refused to play had no binding force on the players below.

Having accomplished nothing remarkable, lacking reliable subordinates, and possessing weak personal combat skills, all these factors rendered the temporary leader's title of "Unhappy and Unplayable" virtually meaningless.

He lacked the prestige to command everyone's respect, and he also lacked a coercive command structure to restrain these naturally undisciplined, thrill-seeking players. The latter were willing to listen to him, so he was just a captain; the players ignored him, so he was just a nobody.

He understood that if he was unhappy, he wouldn't play anymore. So, after shouting a few times, he gave up trying to keep these players who were just feeding kills to the enemy.

Anyway, there aren't many of these players, only about twenty or thirty. If they die, they die. It's not good if it drags more people into it.

However, a shout from a player nearby instantly changed his mind.

"Damn it, those bastards took our flamethrowers... two of them!"

"Damn it, shouldn't such an important artifact be kept under special care?"

"These are the grandsons who left to keep the flamethrowers safe!!!"

"grass!"

He was so annoyed that he cursed without hesitation, and now he had no choice.

The most important thing in the entire camp was not the cannons... The cannons were not big, they were all about the size of a bowl, and if one was lost, there were still several others.

Flamethrowers are different. They are extremely lethal to snake people. They are special attack weapons and are rare. There are only two, and if even one is lost, they cannot be replaced.

Without flamethrowers, this camp is basically indefensible... A camp with a capacity of a thousand people now only has two hundred left, and without flamethrowers, how can it possibly hold out?
"Charge with me! Grab grenades and Molotov cocktails, and charge out with me!!!"

"I'm not happy, I won't play!" he roared, grabbed a bundle of homemade Molotov cocktails and a few crude hand grenades, and was the first to leap down from the two-meter-high wall.

Behind him, dozens of players on the wall, having realized what was happening, also grabbed weapons and explosives while cursing, and followed closely behind.

Their objective was clear: to reclaim the flamethrower. Those who acted on their own were dead if they wanted, but they couldn't let them give the artifact to the snake people.

As soon as his feet touched the ground, BuShuangBuWan had already anticipated the snake-men's riot, their swarms emerging from the darkness, intending to tear him and the group of brutes in front of him apart.

Putting myself in their shoes, if I were the one besieging the city, and I saw those idiots in the castle willingly walking out on two legs, I would definitely lead my men to rush over and take them down.

Players who leave the camp are most likely planning to lure the snakemen over, then use flamethrowers to deal with them while retreating.

But something was very wrong. The snake-men didn't move forward; instead, they retreated and deliberately disappeared into the darker distance.

The players carrying flamethrowers ran and stopped by the fire. They watched the snake-men disappear into the distance and immediately began to curse loudly in displeasure.

"Why did you run so far? Come here!"

"Drive it over here, let this old man have some fun!"

They were furious, but they did not leave the area illuminated by the fire.

These players who acted on their own weren't stupid; they just wanted to provoke the snake people into attacking, but if they went into the night, they would be courting death.

Even with two flamethrowers, if they were surrounded by snake people far from the camp, they would definitely be doomed.

At this moment, Bu Shuang Bu Wan and his men chased after them. He ran ahead, grabbed a man carrying a flamethrower, and began to forcibly remove the weapon from the man's back.

The player carrying the flamethrower instinctively tried to struggle, but then more players rushed over and pinned him down, forcibly removing the flamethrower from his back.

"Hey, hey, what are you doing?"

"Screw your mother!"

A hot-tempered player was pulling hard on the straps of his flamethrower while cursing loudly.

"This is public property! It's the guy guarding the camp! You fucking carried it out to your death without even asking us?"

"That's right, if you want to die, don't drag everyone down with you!" "Without this thing, what's the point of defending the camp? If the snake-men break in, we're all doomed!"

"Let go, or I'll beat you up!"

The players who arrived later were excited and rushed to grab the other flamethrower.

The twenty-odd players who had left the camp without permission were also furious. They had originally planned to wreak havoc with their flamethrowers, but now that they were being attacked by their own people, they were enraged.

"Bullshit, what's wrong with us taking it out and using it? Are we going to leave it in the camp to rust?"

"That's right, we're taking the initiative, what do you cowards know!"

"Try taking it from me, my knife doesn't discriminate!"

Pushing, shoving, shouting, and even brandishing weapons... the players were instantly on the verge of exchanging insults and escalating into a full-blown brawl.

He was among those who were unhappy and refused to play, desperately protecting a flamethrower he had just seized while yelling.

"Fuck them, what are we waiting for? Kill them!"

When the man shouted "I'm not happy, I won't play!" the twenty or so people immediately backed down.

"Hey guys, why can't you take a joke?"

"Yes, yes, we're just talking. Fists are fine, but knives are pointless. We've gone through so much to get here; it would be such a waste to die at the hands of our own people..."

With one side backing down, the impending conflict was quickly extinguished.

It was at this moment, when he was annoyed and stopped playing, that he had a chance to look around, and that's when he noticed something was wrong...

It's so quiet.

Apart from their own arguing, it was too quiet around them.

Those omnipresent, annoying hissing sounds had somehow completely disappeared.

The flickering firelight illuminated the players' faces, contorted with excitement, and also lit up the small open space around them.

Beyond the light lay boundless, deathly darkness and silence.

There were no green pupils, no slithering snake shadows, and no rustling sound of scales rubbing together.

It was as if the thousands upon thousands of snake-men who had surrounded them earlier were just a collective illusion, now quietly fading away and merging into the deeper, more distant darkness of the jungle.

They... just left like that?

"what happened?"

"Never mind what happened, hurry back and bring the flamethrower back!"

"I'm not happy, I won't play!" urged the other players, who immediately snapped out of their daze and hurriedly took their two flamethrowers and headed back.

When he returned to the camp after being frustrated and not playing anymore, a player who was on lookout duty slid down from the makeshift tower and ran to his side to report.

"Boss, something's not right..."

"What's wrong?"

"They seem to be bypassing our camp and heading towards Casarina..."

He paused for a moment, then suddenly realized something and turned to look at the back of the camp, in the direction of Casarina town.

The guy who set up this camp must be a bad guy. The Macon people must know the approximate location of the snake people and which direction they will come from when they arrive.

Therefore, placing the mercenary camp here is tantamount to using the players as shields.

The people of Macon are so mean!

The thought of not playing when unhappy inevitably brought to mind Chris, who had also seen other veteran players complaining about this NPC online, saying that the latter always treated players' lives as if they didn't matter.

But no matter how much Chris bossed the players around, he at least treated them well in terms of treatment and attitude, which allowed some of the hardworking players to become the elite in Bagnia, living in big villas and being served by young maids.

Now, comparing Chris to the Makon people, the former really is a great saint.

"What's the situation now?"

He paused for a moment, then, after regaining his composure, continued to ask questions.

"I told you, the snake people are heading towards Casarina."

Unhappy and unwilling to play, he shook his head, stopped asking the sentry, and went to climb the tower by himself.

As soon as he went up, he faintly heard several shrill screams and terrified cries coming from the direction of Casarina town.

Although the sound was far away, it was exceptionally clear in the quiet night, so not only did BuShuangBuWan hear it, but the players on the wooden wall below also heard it.

Immediately afterwards, Casarna erupted in a series of gunshots.

The other players in the camp also heard these sounds and became restless, climbing to higher ground to look out over the back of the camp.

"Something seems to have happened in town!"

"The docks too, I think I heard cannon fire..."

"Damn it, we've been tricked! They're using this as a diversionary tactic! What should we do? Should we go and help them?"

"Go to hell!"

Some people were cursing and swearing.

Why should we fawn over someone who doesn't reciprocate our feelings? Are we just being pathetic?
The people of Macon don't care whether they live or die, whoever wants to go can go, I'm not going, I'm staying here!

"But if we just wait, the snake people won't come!"

Someone was grumbling.

"Waiting here is too boring."

"What do you mean by 'waiting idly'? We're watching a show!"

He was so annoyed that he wouldn't play. Just by watching the players arguing below, he knew how the game would end.

Don't go.

There were only about two hundred players to begin with, and now some people have different opinions. If they go to support the Macon people, leaving the camp would mean total annihilation.

Besides, I'm not happy about this and I don't want to save the Macon people.

The reason was simple: he disliked Governor Almeida.

What if the snake people successfully capture the town and docks of Casarina?
What's it to me?

If a player dies, they can simply resurrect in Bagnia. But if they help the Maconians, they'll feel unhappy and won't want to continue playing.

Thinking about this, he felt relieved and stopped playing. Without saying anything, he found a chair on the tower, moved it to the armrest, sat down, and quietly raised his binoculars to watch the show in the distance.

(End of this chapter)