748 Chapter 748 - Character Clues (1/2)
”There's another name here. Angus!” Svelte Dancer had also made a discovery from the notes she got.
”Hmm, I think no one thinks that monster's a girl, right?” Xi Xiaotian asked.
Everyone shook their heads.
”It's pretty obvious that he's Angus, Guillermo's assistant, who was also his student at the same time. Meanwhile, this Courtney lady that had been mentioned was also a student of Guillermo's, and they should be a pair of lovers,” Xi Xiaotian summarized all they had learned thus far.
”What? You can't learn all that through the notes!” Gu Fei exclaimed.
Xi Xiaotian took out from her pile and shoved it right in front of Gu Fei. Written on it was the words ”I love you” and ”I love you too”, a pair of mawkish sentences exchanged that told volumes about their relationship.
”Students nowadays are really quite something,” Gu Fei mused.
”This one, take a look at this note here,” Royal God Call had made another discovery.
”Angus. This project doesn't sit right with me. Can you not continue it?”
”Haha, relax, teacher has already found the solution for us.”
”Oh? What is it?”
”You're the only one I'm telling this secret to; it's magic. Can you believe it? It's such a wondrous thing.”
”Magic? That makes me all the more uneasy.”
”It's going to be fine. Trust me.”
”So,” Xi Xiaotian nodded her head after hearing all that. ”The story here is becoming more coherent, isn't it? It's very likely that this project that Guillermo fellow had planned utilizes some kind of magic that should not be used, perhaps an accident had happened, or maybe Angus was supposed to be the sacrifice for his plan in the first place, which caused him to mutate into that gruesome monster that we saw him as.”
”Look at this one… It's so sad,” Svelte Dancer had picked out a note from her stack and handed it over for everyone to read.
”This part here doesn't seem to be using the same paper as all those we read before,” Xi Xiaotian said.
”But the handwriting is all the same throughout. This isn't like the notes that were being exchanged between people like before,” Royal God Call observed
”This is Angus' handwriting, but it looks to be a little different,” Gu Fei was flipping through as well.
”I think it must have already mutated when writing this, so it was unable to go and find Courtney. All it could do was write all this to itself, to express its thoughts…” Svelte Dancer's voice trailed off.
”The words are getting messier and messier,” Xi Xiaotian flipped through one by one and commented. ”Looks like the mutation made it harder and harder for it to maintain human consciousness.”
”That is so tragic! Even in its current state, it's still pinning after Courtney with such longing.” Saying that, Svelte Dancer turned to regard Gu Fei, ”you're a murderer.”
”Hey! You're the one who started vomiting the moment you saw it,” Gu Fei reminded Svelte Dancer.
”That does not affect what sympathy I feel for it,” Svelte Dancer declared.
”Fine… Actually, nothing of what we found seems crucial. What's important should be the project that these notes mentioned before. Perhaps it's referring to that opening at the bottom of Yunjiao Lake. There must be some sort of secret to it.” Gu Fei speculated.
”Murderer…” Svelte Dancer was still engrossed in the storyline.
”It was only lines of code!” Gu Fei was exasperated.
”I have no doubts that there must certainly be some story behind that underwater opening, and these notes had at most proved this very point. But there's not one clue in here that explains how it would serve to unravel any sort of secret. Perhaps we will have to head to the hole and take a look for ourselves?” Xi Xiaotian said.
”That's impossible,” Gu Fei shook his head.
”Why is that?”
”Because it is underwater, and humans need to breathe air,” Gu Fei told her.
”So this quest has you finding Guillermo, then Angus, perhaps it's all so you could obtain some sort of method to make your way into that hole,” Xi Xiaotian said. ”Perhaps we shouldn't have killed it…”
”I'm not the one who killed it,” Gu Fei shrugged. ”Those players did.”
”Who knows, maybe it might drop some important clue or item after killing it.”
”Well, it looks like we won't be getting that either,” Gu Fei turned around and saw the crowd of players that had drowned Angus in their attacks. Even if it had dropped anything, those players would have surely picked it up by now. It would be insanely difficult for them to somehow find a way to take the item back from such a sea of people.
”However, we did learn of another possible clue from these notes,” Xi Xiaotian pointed out.
”Did you mean this Courtney NPC?” Gu Fei asked.
”That's right. From the contents of the note where Angus misses Courtney, we can clearly deduce that Courtney isn't dead, and Angus did not dare to look for her precisely because of how he looked after his mutation. Guillermo, Angus, and Courtney all knew about this project, and Courtney might be the one who knows the least, but she is our only option. At least, that's where we stand at the moment,” Xi Xiaotian said.
Gu Fei nodded as he began to flip through the notes in his hands as well, ”But none of these tell us just where to look for her. Ugh, we're looking for an NPC again… I really hate looking for people.”
”At least this is just an NPC. It's a lot easier than looking for a player,” Xi Xiaotian encouraged.
”Hold up a minute,” Gu Fei suddenly thought of something. ”Just who lives in that empty log cabin by Yunjiao Lakeside? Who would go live there for no rhyme or reason? Of course, what I'm saying is, what if that location was not a backdrop that the system had randomly chosen, but it had been chosen similarly because there's a backstory to it?”
”In the chimney of the log cabin, we discovered the remnant ashes from an extinguished fire and discovered a piece of paper in our search of the place. This paper depicted the location of the opening under Yunjiao Lake, which meant that someone must have studied this project there. Just who was it?”
”Perhaps it was Guillermo's; since he was the one who had led the city assaulters who picked up his quest over to that location, perhaps that was the place where they had first studied this project. But it could also be Courtney; she could have been staying there before, doing her research for the project. Just what was she trying to do? From the contents of those previous notes, it seems like she did not join in on this project, and was only worrying for Angus' safety,” Gu Fei said.
”From what you've just said, it seems like we must head on over to that place and take a look for ourselves,” Xi Xiaotian said.
”That's probably not a good idea. That place… Young Master Han might have set up an ambush in that place again since he knows that it would be somewhere highly relevant to my quest,” Gu Fei warned.
”Courtney… Just where can we find that NPC? All of you, look through all the notes and see if there are any clues left anywhere. I'll send Sword Demon and the others a message and get them to keep an eye out for an NPC going by that name.”
”Okay…” The few of them nodded their heads and tended to their own stacks, but there really was no further information on Courtney when they looked through the notes. That was when Xi Xiaotian shifted her attention over to the necklace, examining it from all angles as she asked, ”This necklace should be Courtney's, right?”
”Or perhaps it's a gift that Angus wanted to give, but did not manage to do so. It's really sad,” Svelte Dancer said.
”Perhaps this would be key to finding Courtney,” Xi Xiaotian handed that necklace to Gu Fei.
”Eh?”
”Take this item and go ask your quest giver about it,” Xi Xiaotian instructed.
”Oh, I should take it back and ask indeed,” Gu Fei nodded.
”The three of us will make our way over to Yunjiao Lakeside and see if there are any sort of ambush,” Xi Xiaotian said.
”What if we get caught?” Royal God Call knew just how scary it would be if they got caught in an ambush designed by Young Master Han.
”Then you'll die once. It's not a big deal,” Xi Xiaotian said.
”Okay, let us split our ways and do what we got to do,” Gu Fei said.
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Over by the city assaulter's side, the guild leaders from the four large guilds were seated together with Ye Xiaowu, all ready to see just what could be the reason for this little Priest to be so inexplicably confident.
”To put it simply, the quest that Thousand Miles Drunk is currently taking part in has a huge chance of causing the city assaulters from Yunduan City to fail in their taking of the city,” Ye Xiaowu began.
”What? That's so unfair. How could the single quest he's on cause all of us to fail?” The four guild leaders were all anxious to hear what he had to share.