Chapter 28: [Two way Investigation]
"It’s confusing. And if I were to be completely honest, hard to believe as well," Encerid answered as he sipped the mango shake before glancing at the heavy notes in front of him. His eyes lingered on them for a few more seconds before he asked,
"Even if there is like a 1%... or 0.1% chance that it is true, how am I supposed to finish reading through this in a single month? Based on what you have said, I don’t think it’s just reading. There is analyzing. Cross-examining. Analyzing again. Connecting dots. And perhaps even after all that, I would still have to read a few more times until I could reach a probable conclusion. To be blunt, it’s impossible. I don’t think I can do it."
"I know," I answered.
It was pretty obvious when I was making these notes.
But that was never something I considered a problem.
"But that’s not your work. Your work is to do... about the first 100 pages only. Highlight the most important with red, slightly important with blue, and anything that piques your interest with green. Your work isn’t to analyze it completely. Just do what you can with it, and tell me if you find something out. That shouldn’t be too much, right?"
This way, I can present Encerid to-the-point notes based on what he considers important. It should be much better than me reducing the information based on arbitrary knowledge and hints.
"Will that really be enough?" He asked, slightly agitated. Looks like he wanted to do it whole despite it being impossible. A puzzle maniac? Or a mystery lover?
"You can do more. Just do it after you finish the minimum I had asked of you," I answered before adding,
"I’ll even make it a quest for you. That way you will stay motivated."
[Quest: (Compile) Generated!]
His eyes lingered on the quest, as a brief smile formed at the edge of his lips, and then, turning to me, he nodded.
"All right. If you present it like that, I don’t mind. Though, what will you be doing?" placing the notes in his inventory, he asked before finishing the rest of the shake. He seemed to have calmed down quite a bit from the few minutes where he had his guard up when I told him about ’R-Man’.
"Figuring a few things out," I added, standing up and then slowly walking away from there.
"See you later, Encerid."
Encerid nodded, slightly shaken when I took his name again, but began working on the notes just a few seconds later. It seemed like he was too enthralled by this as well.
A mystery maniac, huh? I thought before looking forward to my next destination.
The Northern City.
Getting out of the starter town, I reached there in about a few hours, where I began observing the outer walls first. It wasn’t because I had a clue about this whole thing, or because I was curious either. I was just fucking bored, and I needed to start somewhere that I hadn’t looked into.
Slowly walking around the external perimeter, I began searching for clues within the walls themselves. And the surrounding area. I tried sensing mana, divinity, True Mana, or perhaps any other form of energy, but other than the lingering earth mana with which the wall was created, there wasn’t anything noticeable enough.
Which made me question something more... simpler. Or perhaps complex?
"How does a starter town come to be?" I mumbled it out loud.
It was something that bugged me once when I was in a border town, and then another time when I was in Mirag City. But now that I was really in a pinch, I felt like finding the answer to this question might be worthwhile.
As I circled around the wall, I tried recalling the similarities between the 4 starter towns, their positions within the kingdom, the surrounding hunting grounds, the particular differences and anything I can make up to be as something that would help me designate it as a starter town.
The few similarities were the hunting grounds for starter players, a default forbidden area where weak players cannot enter its vicinity, and enough distance from the main central city to make the players travel through a portion of the kingdom.
Forbidden zones, huh?
For Mirag City, it was the Forbidden Wasteland, for Border Town, the players are too weak to enter the Elven Kingdom, for the Norther Highland here, there are the Lost Mountains of the North and for the eastern starter town, it was the Sea where the sea-folks lived.
That’s about the information I have on the similarities I have about the starter areas.
"I wonder if there is anything else that I can look into? Like its origin?" I pondered before looking at the Lost Mountains just beyond the Northern City. It was a dangerous place to visit, but from this far, it was more of a tourist attraction than anything.
I had a rough idea of the existence of these forbidden zones from the knowledge I had about the game, but I should try to find out any hidden secrets it had too. Something that I did not or could not find in the game.
An inkling that finding out about these forbidden zones would be as important as finding out about the origin of the city itself. Perhaps if I get lucky, I can even find a connection to this doctor mess as well.
And the best place to find out about the whole thing would be... the Library... and my dear Goddess Alepsia.
"She should be in her chambers, I guess?" I mumbled before deciding to take a few more rounds around the city walls before concluding that there was nothing suspectful about it, yet. While the Library would surely give me something, I suppose talking with the God who manages that area would give me much more valuable information than the speculations of those who could barely visit it.
Taking my steps south, walking towards the central capital, I began running at full speed. It was then I started realising another thing that was becoming a bother at this point.
All this running is pretty tiresome. I should at least find a teleportation skill. Or at least a warp.
While running gave me quite a bit of ample time to think, I was getting the idea that a teleportation skill, especially something that would help me travel enormous distances, would be quite useful right now.
"A teleportation skill, huh? I think there was one that I could get from the Dungeon of the End Times. Though it barely covers about 10 kilometers at, it’s best..." I pondered as I began wondering if there was a faster method of travel with arrays or something. Like, I can do a onetime teleportation with a lot of energy, but since I can’t do it in quick succession for more than a few times, it’s not viable.
Plus, it takes a bit of time to charge as well.
Too flashy as well.
Running through the kingdom, it took about an hour to reach the capital, and a few more minutes before I reached deep into the temple’s hidden chambers. Searching around for Alepsia-
"Alepsia isn’t here. She went with Ameliana to train in the Spirit Woods," Valencia, the Goddess of War, sat near the window, sipping red wine as she curiously observed me.