Since the system became my girlfriend

"Let's add them all in. The more people do the tasks, the faster our reputation points will grow," Feng Lixi advised from the side.

“Alright then!” Su Rui nodded. He knew Hu Bo well. Although the kid was no longer in this line of work, he still had the skills he had before, so recruiting him into the mercenary group was definitely not a problem. In addition, although these two people seemed a bit unreliable, adding them should prevent any major problems.

Moreover, Su Rui's mercenary group is indeed short of people right now. With just him and Feng Lixi doing missions, it's hard to say when the mercenary group will be able to reach level two. It would be good to have a few more people to do missions together.

With that in mind, Su Rui added Hu Bowei and the others to the mercenary group.

"Alright, share the mission details first," Su Rui said to Hu Bowei after adding everyone to the mercenary group.

“Okay!” Hu Bo shared his task with Su Rui and Feng Lixi.

Rescue Sergeant Brian: Sergeant Brian seems to be in big trouble; he's trapped. Get him out of there!

Mission objective: Take Sergeant Brian to a safe place.

Quest Level: 12

Difficulty: High (teamwork recommended)

Quest Rewards: 8000 experience points, 30 silver coins, and one of three items from Xuanwu City: gloves, gauntlets, or hand armor.

After briefly reviewing the mission details, Su Rui asked Hu Bowen, "Have you guys tried this mission yourselves?"

"I've tried, but there are too many monsters, it's impossible to fight them..." Hu Bowei said.

"Besides the small monsters?" Su Rui asked.

"I don't know, we haven't even gone past Xiao Guai's place," Hu Bowei shrugged.

"Even the minor monsters didn't get past?" Su Rui was taken aback.

"You'll see when you get there. It's okay if you fail the mission; the quest NPC will respawn after a while," Hu Bowei said.

"Alright then, let's go take a look first." Su Rui nodded. Hu Bo and the others hadn't even gone past the small monsters, so naturally they couldn't get any more information from him.

"Okay!" Hu Bo nodded, then led Su Rui and the others out of Xuanwu City through the west gate.

They then headed southwest, a place Su Rui hadn't been to much before.

After traversing the hilly area, Su Rui and his group walked for about half an hour. Then, the surrounding environment began to change. The lush green hills were gone, and yellow sand began to appear on the ground. After walking a while longer, Su Rui and his group were already in the desert.

"How much further?" Su Rui glanced at Hu Bowei. At this stage, players rarely go to places so far from the main city to level up.

"It'll be another ten minutes' walk. We were guided here by a quest, otherwise who would come to this wretched place? There isn't even a single monster around," Hu Bowei said with a shrug.

After walking for another ten minutes, buildings began to appear ahead, but they were all very simple stone houses. The houses, made of stacked square boulders, were half-buried by yellow sand. Moreover, judging from the height of the doorway, they did not seem to be inhabited by humans. The people living inside must have been much taller than humans, at least two and a half meters tall.

"We're almost there!" Hu Bo said as he walked around the houses.

"Are all these rooms empty?" Su Rui asked.

"Yes! We've checked. It's empty when you go in now, but once the quest is triggered, it'll be full of monsters," Hu Bo explained.

After walking for about five more minutes, Su Rui and his group finally encountered four green-named NPCs.

The leader was Sergeant Brian, who was wearing standard Xuanwu City uniform and was accompanied by several NPCs of different races.

One of the bearded lovers was dressed like an adventurer, wearing a vest with many pockets and a backpack on his back. Besides this dwarf, Brian was accompanied by a human female NPC and a goblin whose gender was indistinguishable.

"This combination is too strange, isn't it?" Su Rui muttered. Dwarves and humans are allies, so it makes sense for him to team up with Sergeant Brian. But goblins are a race that only cares about profit. How could he possibly get involved with a Xuanwu City soldier who doesn't offer much in terms of benefits?

"I'll go trigger the mission first!" Hu Bo said to Su Rui, and then stepped forward.

"Ah! Dear mercenaries, have you come to rescue us?" As soon as Brian opened his mouth, Su Rui knew that he was an ordinary quest NPC with little intelligence. He would only say some stock phrases according to the established procedure and then do the same things.

“Yes! We are here to rescue you!” Hu Bowei said to Sergeant Brian.

"Great! Let's get out of here quickly!" As soon as Brian said this, Su Rui sensed that something was off about the atmosphere around him. Clearly, the mission had been triggered.

"Rustle, rustle..." With a series of faint sounds, groups of monsters emerged from the previously empty stone houses. These monsters were roughly humanoid and walked upright, but they were much taller than humans. The men were about 2.5 meters tall, and the women were over 2 meters tall.

These creatures have blue skin, huge fangs, and both men and women have extremely fierce-looking faces!

“Trolls?!” Su Rui was taken aback. He had seen descriptions of these creatures on the official website. These creatures were once the masters of the world. They had established countless empires and ruled over more than half of the land.

But later, these creatures became too warlike, leading to years of war between different empires, and they gradually declined. Eventually, the empires established by these trolls collapsed one after another, and they had to retreat to the deserts, jungles, or mountains, leaving the fertile plains to the newly rising human empires.

"Okay! Keep up!" Hu Bo nodded and then reminded Su Rui.

"Follow what?" Su Rui was taken aback.

"They're here! Run!" Before Hu Bowei could even answer, Sergeant Brian shouted and turned to run.

The other three NPCs also ran wildly behind Sergeant Brian. When Su Rui and the other players saw this, they naturally followed closely behind. The group ran ahead, while the trolls chased after them relentlessly.

After running for about ten minutes, Su Rui and his group were surrounded by trolls. Behind them was a high platform similar to a Mayan pyramid, and from all other directions were trolls surrounding them, with a conservative estimate of more than a hundred.

"Go up! Go up quickly!" Sergeant Brian shouted as he led the other three NPCs up the platform.

"We have to go up too!" Hu Bo called out to Su Rui, and then the three of them followed. Su Rui and Feng Lixi exchanged a glance and then followed as well.