Elf Kingdom: Game of the World Tree-Chapter 297 - 283: This Must Be a Game BUG!

"Where’s everything? Why isn’t there a single thing here?"

Looking at the empty plaza, Demacia’s joy quickly turned into shock, and then into sorrow,

"Oh my God! None of the bound items were teleported back! My storage ring, my divine artifact materials! My heart aches!"

He plopped down on the ground, wailing like a banshee.

It was a huge loss.

Except for the storage ring traded with the Lion Heart Sword, nothing else that was bound came back!

Li Mu’s expression was equally dazed. He carefully felt around his body, but aside from the equipment he had originally bound, he found nothing.

"Could it be... did we encounter a bug in the game?"

He muttered, somewhat depressed.

None of the items they had bound had returned...

*Reality is often like this.*

*That feeling when you thought you’d easily obtain something, only to suddenly find out you can’t, is truly the most frustrating.*

At this moment, the moods of the two players had plummeted from high above the clouds to the depths below.

Suddenly, Li Mu thought of something, his face changed,

"No! Our contribution points! Quick, check the contribution points!"

Hearing his words, Demacia turned pale,

"Crap! Right! The contribution points!"

They had spent over two hundred thousand contribution points to bind those items! Quite a few were borrowed from Little Xian Miao.

If the equipment didn’t come back and the contribution points were also cleared, their hearts would truly be broken.

Losing so much at once, converted to RMB, would be tens of thousands. They’d be on the verge of quitting the game!

However, after checking their contribution points, they both breathed a long sigh of relief,

"Phew, phew, the contribution points are still there..."

The contribution points they spent were all quietly resting in their accounts.

Not a point more, not a point less, as if they hadn’t bound any equipment at all.

"So... the binding failed? I clearly remember it succeeded! The contribution points were deducted too!"

Demacia said in confusion.

Seeing that the contribution points were still there, Li Mu’s expression eased considerably. He thought for a moment and said,

"I’ll ask around."

However, the result was the same.

None of the players who participated in the black market managed to bring the goods back.

"Sigh... It seems the binding failed, the game system didn’t allow it, so the contribution points were refunded."

Li Mu sighed regretfully.

"But we still died once... Why do I feel like we lost?"

Demacia said, feeling down.

"We did lose."

Li Mu shook his head.

*They could have leisurely returned with the rescued NPCs and missed the best opportunity to take advantage of the situation, but they chose to suicide back to the city, didn’t they just lose more than thirty resurrection coins?*

They both let out a sigh of resignation.

Just then, Li Mu received a new message.

He opened it and his expression slowly turned strange.

"What’s up, Brother Mu? Who sent the message?"

Demacia asked curiously.

"It’s from the players who went back. After hearing the equipment binding failed, someone begged Gugu Bird to fix the Teleportation Array and boldly went back."

Li Mu replied.

"They went back?"

Demacia was slightly taken aback.

"Yeah, they went back. And..."

Li Mu’s expression became even stranger,

"Fengye City... it’s in chaos, the underground market has gone crazy, and the items we bound have genuinely disappeared."

"Really disappeared?"

Hearing this, Demacia suddenly felt a glimmer of hope.

But soon, his expression turned to disappointment,

"What if they disappeared? They didn’t come back with us! Our treasures didn’t return, where did they go?"

Li Mu looked at his contribution points balance, pondered for a moment, and uncertainly said,

"Disappeared, indeed disappeared..."

"Maybe... it’s truly a game bug. After all, ’Elf Kingdom’ is still in beta testing; bugs are normal, and they might have truly disappeared... After all, it can’t be that the Goddess staged a heist, right?"

He joked.

Demacia: ...

They exchanged looks and sighed again, helplessly.

Sigh...

Such heartache!

...

"Never thought it would turn out this way..."

In the Divine Country of the World Tree, Eve looked at the line of player-looted equipment, potions, scrolls, and various valuable materials at her feet and couldn’t help but feel amused,

"This method is really too overpowered, should I say players really are players!"

The players’ binding was indeed successful.

Only, during the teleportation, everything got intercepted by Eve.

To speak of it... Eve hadn’t initially thought that the equipment binding system designed merely for players’ convenience to prevent losing items would be used in such a way.

*It can only be said this group of players sure knows how to exploit loopholes.*

Of course, whether ’Elf Kingdom’ is truly a game,

Technically speaking, the reputation evaluation system already gave players subconscious choices when tricking NPCs. This operation was actually aimed at the underground black market, targeting potential Elven enemies, indirectly weakening the enemies.

That said... Eve decided she couldn’t let them do this.

At the very least, she shouldn’t encourage it.

"Though in essence beneficial from this event, the aftereffects of this method are too significant. Moreover, if items are bound elsewhere, what’s bound could get detected by other mysterious forces, so... I’ll keep these items for now. For this incident, treat it as a bug; later on, compensate with contribution points in the name of a bug reward, they worked hard enough, so a bit more compensation. Also... if players trick items via regular means rather than the binding system, I won’t take it back."

Eve murmured to herself.

Of course... this was only one reason.

The other reason was she feared that if this binding bug weren’t closed, everyone would blindly bind things at the NPCs, which would not be beneficial for her future plans to profit from the exchange mall.

Furthermore, with the players’ current level, obtaining these items would be premature and overly extravagant.

*Hmm...*

*Though ’Elf Kingdom’ isn’t a true game, Eve still hoped to maintain some balance.*

*Diligently grinding tasks, defeating monsters, leveling up, and saving contribution points to exchange for resources was the way to go!*

As for the items the players got, she planned to slightly adjust their appearances and list them in the exchange mall’s prize pool.

Of course, she intended to favor those who brought items back, subtly increasing their drop rates.

But not for Demacia.

Eve still remembered the incident with the notebook.

"Also, add a condition for binding equipment in the future: it must be done in my temple or via prayers facing my true form."

She pondered for a moment then murmured to herself again.

"However..."

"This matter can be postponed; for now, there’s a more pressing issue."

After speaking, Eve shifted her focus to the main player group returning with rescued elves and half-elves...

Meanwhile, on the other side, Li Mu, just coming out of the cycle of joy and sorrow, received another private message.

It was from Little Xian Miao.

For a moment, his face grew serious again.

"What’s going on, Brother Mu?"

Seeing his increasingly serious expression, Demacia asked curiously.

Li Mu took a deep breath, took out his Magic Wand, and said,

"Demacia."

"Yeah?"

"Gather some manpower, and let’s find Mairrel to meet up with the team Little Xian Miao and the others haven’t returned with."

"Meet those who haven’t returned? What happened to Boss Miao and the others?"

"The players who turned back were discovered by the merchant guild people. Although they managed to escape, the Teleportation Array was exposed. Now... Fengye City’s underground forces are chasing our main group leading the elf NPCs."

"Holy crap!"