Gu Fei and Xiaoyu left the church and visited Chief Edwin once more.
"Chief Edwin, how was Murphy, the one killed by the Werewolf, as a person?" Gu Fei got straight to the point.
"Murphy was a kind-hearted, virtuous lad. He was loved by the villagers, so many were saddened by his death," Chief Edwin commiserated.
Gu Fei specifically asked him about Murphy's fighting skills, yet the latter only repeated his previous words.
"Where is Murphy buried?" Gu Fei asked.
"He is buried in a graveyard behind the hill south of the village. It is where all the dead villagers are interred," Chief Edwin answered.
After inquiring about all this, Gu Fei and Xiaoyu strode out of Chief Edwin's house. They quickly headed to a general store in the village, bought a metal shovel there, and made their way to the graveyard's location.
"What are we doing next?" asked Xiaoyu as she eyed the shovel. Although Xiaoyu was a natural airhead, she was still able to guess what Gu Fei planned to do.
"Dig a grave," Gu Fei replied honestly.
"Why are we doing that?" Xiaoyu asked.
"Murphy's character seems a little fishy to me," Gu Fei answered.
"What's fishy about his character?" Xiaoyu curiously asked.
"He seemed to be great at fighting, yet the village chief doesn't know about it," Gu Fei answered.
"Then, how do you know about it?" Xiaoyu continued inquiring.
"Uhhh… It's just a hunch," Gu Fei said to her simply, as he did not know how to explain his intuition.
"Oh…" Xiaoyu actually accepted such a vague answer.
Xiaoyu was apparently not afraid to do anything for the sake of questing, as the idea of exhuming a corpse did not even elicit a shred of fear in her. The two arrived at the graveyard by the southern hill. After finding Murphy's engraved name on one of the tombstones, they began digging close to it alternately.
A brown coffin was soon unearthed before their eyes. Gu Fei stuck his shovel into the gap between the lid and the coffin and called Xiaoyu for help.
The Strength-based Xiaoyu reached out for the lid and pulled it up. The cap was easily separated from the casket. Thinking that it had something gruesome inside, Gu Fei immediately covered Xiaoyu's eyes with his hands as he scanned the contents of the coffin.
"I'm not afraid of seeing a corpse!" Xiaoyu peeled off Gu Fei's hands from her eyes and peered into the coffin as well, "Eh? Why's it empty?"
Gu Fei fell deep in his thoughts.
"Did they get lazy making the game?" Xiaoyu asked.
"I don't think so. If they hadn't bothered with the details, they wouldn't have buried this coffin here in the first place. Since they even designed the coffin, it wouldn't be difficult for them to place a skeleton or corpse inside, right? There must be a reason why it's like this," Gu Fei analyzed.
"Maybe, Murphy isn't truly dead?" Xiaoyu suggested.
"That..." Gu Fei agreed, "...Or someone stole the corpse."
"Why steal it?" Xiaoyu asked.
"I don't know. Maybe, there's a secret inside the corpse," Gu Fei answered tentatively.
"So what do we do now?" Xiaoyu asked.
"Now we wait," Gu Fei answered.
"Wait for what?" Xiaoyu questioned.
"If unearthing this coffin is not part of the quest, it will revert back to its original buried state. But if it's actually part of the quest plot, it will return under the ground only after we complete the quest," Gu Fei explained.
Xiaoyu was dumbfounded after hearing this. Gu Fei laughed, "When all is said and done, Parallel World's quests were made by the game design team. It's like we're interacting with these quest designers when we're doing a quest or intermingling with any NPCs as part of a quest. So when doing difficult quests like this, it's beneficial for us to try and understand their thought process."
Xiaoyu displayed a look of distress for some time until she finally blurted out, "I don't even know what they're thinking about!"
Gu Fei chuckled, "I don't as well. It's just a hunch."
The two waited by Murphy's grave for a few minutes, and it did not revert back to its original state. Gu Fei confirmed his guess. Murphy's identity was truly shrouded in mystery.
Meanwhile, Ye Xiaowu was feeling bored, so he decided to activate the monitoring room's tracker for Gu Fei to watch the latter's progress in the chain quest. As for the monitoring team members' accusation about the activity being "against the rule", Ye Xiaowu had given them the excuse of Gu Fei being "the first player to obtain a chain quest, so I need to observe him for a while. I need to check if there's any problem with the chain quest". Actually, Gu Fei was not the only player to have fortuitously obtained a chain quest. Ye Xiaowu chose to watch Gu Fei purely because he was interested in his gameplay.
However, Gu Fei's quest progress had left him astounded.
Completing a chain quest was not just about reaching its end in a straightforward manner; many different routes existed in-between the start and the finish. These numerous routes were of course created by the game designers to provide players a myriad of ways to attain quest completion, as well as to account for the players' different levels, job classes, and skills. Ye Xiaowu already had a deep understanding of Gu Fei's in-game character. So when he simulated the quest using Gu Fei's in-game character, Ye Xiaowu discovered that he would get stuck at certain portions of it whichever route he took. The jam was due to the in-game character's level or skill limitation, and neither could be solved by relying on wits alone.
With all these in mind, Ye Xiaowu waited to see Gu Fei's expression as he got stumped on the quest. He almost burst out laughing when Gu Fei and Xiaoyu got on all fours and searched for clues on the ground by the church. However, this feeling of schadenfreude only lasted for a short while before it was replaced by surprise. The pair seemed to have actually found something, as they got up from the ground and rushed over to Chief Edwin's hut in the next moment. They even proceeded to dig up Murphy's grave afterward.
'Murphy' was indeed a possible route, and picking up a trail by the church was another. However, 'Murphy' could definitely not be triggered by searching the ground like what Gu Fei and Xiaoyu had just done. The method that Ye Xiaowu knew to trigger it was absolutely not doable for those two. And yet, it seemed as if they had managed to stumble upon the very same route.
Ye Xiaowu really wanted to listen to the two's discussion, but the monitoring system had the audio turned off. After all, conversations between players might have private content. They would only be able to listen in on the players' talks by turning the audio on. However, neither Ye Xiaowu nor the monitoring team had permission to do so without the higher-ups' clearance.
Ye Xiaowu and the pair by the graveyard were filled with doubts as they mulled over different things. Ye Xiaowu suddenly realized that a level 30 player should not even be able to trigger the chain quest's requirement of meeting Eddie in the first place. And yet, Gu Fei had done exactly that. Was there a way to progress in this chain quest that they had overlooked while designing it?
In Parallel World, Gu Fei and Xiaoyu had left the graveyard and were now talking to Chief Edwin once more.
The village chief showed surprise when they informed him of the missing corpse, yet he did not introduce a new conversation topic to them.
It was getting dark when they left Chief Edwin's hut. With the four-hour daytime over, nighttime was upon them in the blink of an eye. Gu Fei looked up at the moon in the night sky; would there be a full moon tonight?
If there was a full moon tonight, where would the Werewolf appear?
Gu Fei thought of the church and hurriedly ran toward it with Xiaoyu in tow.
Moonlight finally descended. Sadly, there was not a full moon tonight. If the moon in Parallel World had phases, then tonight was definitely not a night of a full moon.
"Xiaoyu, can you see what shape the moon has?" Gu Fei asked Xiaoyu. He suspected that the night sky he was seeing while on his quest would be different from what the other players were seeing.
"Do you have myopia?" Xiaoyu raised her head as she asked, before replying, "It's a crescent moon."
It's the same, Gu Fei muttered to himself. Today was not a day when the Werewolf would transform.
The dilapidated church appeared very desolate under the night sky. It would serve as a great crime scene for a murder! Gu Fei sighed. At this moment, a shadowy figure suddenly scampered from outside the decrepit wall.
"Who's there?!" Gu Fei shouted instinctively as he pulled out the Sacred Flames of Baptism, ready to strike.
The shadowy figure had already rushed toward him, however.
"Werewolf!" Xiaoyu exclaimed. Her voice did not quake when facing such a terrifying creature; instead, she showed exhilaration, "The Werewolf appeared!"
The game design team would definitely cry if they saw this. They constructed such a terrifying scene, yet it got completely ignored by this lady. She's so ditzy she even forgot what fear is, Gu Fei thought to himself. He raised his Chinese broadsword and dashed toward the shadow, delivering a cut.
It was indeed a Werewolf.
The Werewolf's body structure was huge and bulky. Its pair of eyes glowed green as its front paws clawed toward Gu Fei. Spittle from the Werewolf's jaws flew everywhere as the moonlight ominously reflected off its razor sharp teeth.
The Werewolf dodged in mid-air Gu Fei's first slash, as its front paws continued to swipe at him with unbridled ferocity. Gu Fei was close enough to smell the monster's rancid breath.
Gu Fei quickly held the Chinese broadsword firmly to his side, parrying the incoming swipe from the Werewolf.
With a whoosh, Gu Fei flew backward from the impact.
It's too fast! Gu Fei exclaimed in his head. The Werewolf's speed was definitely as fast as how he had imagined it would be. It was almost on par with the speed a Warrior's Cyclone could attain. This made Gu Fei use the same method he had employed when dealing with Xiaoyu's Cyclone back then. Luckily, his weapon did not break this time. The blade of his Chinese broadsword was facing outward, and the Werewolf's attack was not made using a weapon but its paws; as a result, the Werewolf was injured by the force behind its swipe.
Isaac Newton's third law of motion: For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction!
Gu Fei was thrown onto the ground, and his HP dropped a bit from the resulting impact. Had the swipe fully connected, Gu Fei would have surely been insta-killed there and then.
Xiaoyu stared intently at the Werewolf, as she dashed forward with her axe raised to hack at it.
"Don't!" Gu Fei hurriedly shouted. He and Xiaoyu were originally standing together. The Werewolf would have been capable of pouncing on the two of them had that been its original intention. It was only because Gu Fei was the quest-holder that it had focused on attacking him. So although the Werewolf ignored Xiaoyu, that did not mean that it would continue to do so if she struck it.
Unfortunately, Xiaoyu could no longer stop her forward sprint at this point in time due to inertia. But before she could close in the distance, the Werewolf had already emitted a low growl and leaped over a wall to escape.
"Did I scare it away?" Xiaoyu was dumbfounded.
Gu Fei quickly chased after the Werewolf over the wall, yet no traces of it could be seen.
"It's injured," Gu Fei returned to Xiaoyu's side and squatted as he touched the few drops of blood on the ground.
"Did you see what's on its neck?" Gu Fei asked Xiaoyu.
Xiaoyu shook her head.
"Do werewolves even wear collars like dogs?" Gu Fei mumbled to himself. As the Werewolf was running away, he had noticed an item hanging around its neck.
"Did we mistake a regular wolfhound for the Werewolf?" Xiaoyu asked.
"That's… highly unlikely," Gu Fei believed that the chain quests' complex design was something that the developers were very proud; hence, they would never incorporate such a ludicrous concept to any of those quests. Instead of being a real werewolf, it was actually a wolfhound with sentience? That was just plain silly.
"Let's see if it has left any other trails of blood," Gu Fei suggested.
"Good idea! We can catch up to it by following the blood trail!" Xiaoyu exclaimed.
"Uhh... It was scratched once on its claw. Wouldn't it be too far-fetched for it to bleed that much?" Gu Fei rationalized.
"Who knows?" Xiaoyu asked rhetorically, as she began to search around once more.
As for Gu Fei, he stared intently at the few drops of blood on the ground.
The Werewolf was far stronger than what Gu Fei had anticipated. It was unusually fast and possessed high attack power. Gu Fei only managed to block its single attack even though he had tried his best. He had no chance of winning at all if he were to engage the Werewolf in a real fight. Ultimately, it was inevitable for there to be a gap in terms of strength between the bosses and players. Even if Gu Fei wanted to, he had no way of bridging the gap between them with his skills alone. The Werewolf would most likely be done with Gu Fei in just two or three strikes before he could even observe its attack patterns and grasp the loopholes within.
Still, why would such a powerful boss flee? Was a mere scratch on its claw all it took to frighten the ferocious Werewolf? This was far too ridiculous. Or was the Sacred Flames of Baptism that fearsome after being plated with silver? Was the Werewolf so stricken with terror once it noticed that the weapon had been coated with silver?
Evidently, the escape of the Werewolf was not something that it decided on its own. Rather, it was a scenario that the game designers had come up with beforehand. Gu Fei just happened to fulfill the condition that led to the Werewolf's escape.
The 'condition' seemed to be injuring the Werewolf.
Just what kind of message was such a scenario trying to convey? Gu Fei could not fathom it at the moment.
"There's no other blood trail," Xiaoyu said disappointedly after searching the nearby surroundings through and through.
"Let's go to where the village chief is, I have some more things to ask," Gu Fei said.
"Is that so? Let's go, let's go!"
It was quiet over in Yeguang Village under the night sky. The NPCs that had earlier been roaming about were nowhere to be seen; instead, there were now houses with lit windows. Whereas the players were active inside the game twenty-four seven, the NPCs were bounded by their programmed daily schedule: being active at daytime and resting at nighttime. At times like this, telling who the humans and who the NPCs were was amusingly hard.
When they knocked on Chief Edwin's door, he politely greeted them like how he always did. "Ah, Chosen Hero, you are here again," Chief Edwin kept on addressing Gu Fei as the 'Chosen Hero'.
"The Werewolf that killed Murphy… What does it look like? Does it wear anything on its neck?" Gu Fei asked.
"Oh, you'll have to ask Mr. Adrian about that. He's the guy who lives near the church, and the sole witness of that past incident. He heard sounds coming from the church that night, so he went over to investigate and witnessed the Werewolf killing Murphy. That poor man; he must have been traumatized," Chief Edwin said.
"Mr. Adrian..." Gu Fei recalled him as the wealthiest man in Yeguang Village.
"Chief, where's Murphy house?" Gu Fei asked again.
"It's the third house by the woods. No one has gone there ever since he died," Chief Edwin answered.
"Let's go there for a look," Gu Fei said to Xiaoyu.
Murphy's house was actually very easy to find, as it was the only one with no lit windows among the houses. No one lived there ever since Murphy passed away.
As they drew closer to Murphy's house, Gu Fei gently blocked Xiaoyu, who was behind him, and signaled her to keep quiet. He then carefully walked toward the house as he held Sacred Flames of Baptism in front of him.
Xiaoyu felt so nervous that she dared not exhale, although she was clueless as to what Gu Fei was doing. She only saw Gu Fei walking up to the door, sticking his ear on it as he listened for quite a while, and pushing the door open. Xiaoyu inspected her surroundings nervously before sneakily going inside along with Gu Fei.
Gu Fei had already lit up an oil lamp inside the house and stood near a bed, looking at a parchment in his hand.
"What is it?" Xiaoyu got close to him.
"Seems like a map to me," Gu Fei answered.
"Treasure map?!" Xiaoyu felt thrilled.
"Too bad there're no coordinates on it. It might be a little tricky to locate it!" Gu Fei said.
"Let me see it," Xiaoyu took it.
"This right here is the main street of the village, and over here looks to be the church..." Xiaoyu pointed at the parchment with her quill and started to mumble.
"I know where it is!" Xiaoyu declared happily after a while. But when she turned around, she saw that Gu Fei was standing by the door and peeking outside warily.
"What are you looking at?" Xiaoyu inched closer to him.
"Shhhh..." Gu Fei gestured her to keep her voice down. Even though NPCs were currently outside, Gu Fei was not sure if 'making too much noise' would be one of the condition to cancel their current actions.
"Come on, let's trail after them," Gu Fei pulled Xiaoyu.
"I found the treasure spot!" Xiaoyu waved the parchment wildly.
"Really nice; we'll go treasure hunting later. For now let's trail these four fellows," Gu Fei said.
"Why? Are they up to something?" Xiaoyu asked.
"Not sure... But I recognized the three among the four as the NPCs that kept on avoiding me. I have never seen the fourth guy before. They are definitely up to something," Gu Fei said.
"Let's go, let's go!" Xiaoyu excitedly said.
The four people walked silently on the main street of Yeguang Village, resting on their shoulders were something that seemed like shovels.
"Uh-oh, don't tell me they're going to dig treasures! Could they be planning to dig the treasure shown on this map?" Xiaoyu said.
"Didn't you already figure out the treasure spot of that parchment? See if the path they are taking now leads to that treasure or not," Gu Fei said.
"It's not the right way," Xiaoyu replied.
"Then, let's keep on trailing them."
The four NPCs eventually reached a little hill near the village. They disappeared somewhere in the middle of it after pushing away a layer of plants blocking their way.
"Look, what's that?" Xiaoyu pointed at something.
"That's a shaft..." Gu Fei answered.
"What are they doing inside?" Xiaoyu asked.
"How am I supposed to know?" Gu Fei replied.
"Shall we take a look?" Xiaoyu suggested.
"Don't be so hasty! Let's wait until morning before going in. They'll surely leave in the morning," Gu Fei said.
"How do you know that?" Xiaoyu asked.
"These NPCs need to be in their position inside the village during the day," Gu Fei answered.
Xiaoyu looked at the time, "There's still more than an hour left!"
"Then, let's go through the spot that you've figured out earlier," Gu Fei said, "Where is it?"
"The woods behind Murphy's house."
The two returned to Murphy's house and entered the woods behind it. Xiaoyu led the way with the parchment in her hand, looking around and finally stopping under a tree. "It's here," Xiaoyu pointed.
"This iron shovel is well worth the money," Gu Fei mumbled as he took the iron shovel out and began digging.
"Treasure chest! Treasure chest! Treasure chest!" Xiaoyu chanted as she saw the pit got dug deeper and deeper. However, what appeared in the end was not a treasure chest but a burlap sack.
"So heavy!" Gu Fei grabbed the sack with his two hands, yet he was still unable to pull it out from the pit he had dug.
"Allow me," Xiaoyu came forward. The burlap sack was pulled out from the pit as she lightly grabbed on to it. Once again, Gu Fei felt depressed at the sight.
The two were stunned as they opened the burlap sack and looked inside.
"Gold?" They looked at each other.
Xiaoyu took out the small bag of gold ore from her own quest. She compared a piece of gold from her bag with the one inside the burlap sack.
"They look so much alike!" Xiaoyu remarked.
"Mr. Adrian, huh?" Gu Fei was deep in thought.
"Let's return this gold to him. There must be a reward," Xiaoyu felt delighted.
"Did you receive a quest related to this sack of gold?" Gu Fei asked.
"No."
"Then, why would there be a reward when there's no quest?" Gu Fei stated matter-of-factly.
"What are these gold ore for, then?"
"I'm thinking that it might be an important aspect of my chain quest," Gu Fei was feeling vexed, "Things just go on and on. I am tired; let's take a break!"
"Where to?" Xiaoyu asked.
"The village Inn should still be open for business. Let's head there to rest and wait until morning," Gu Fei said.
The two headed to the Inn. It was a game after all, so there was no such thing as 'closing time' for the system-operated shops.
"Order any drinks you want. It's my treat," Gu Fei said.
"I feel sleepy all of a sudden… I'm taking a nap," Xiaoyu lay down on the table as soon as she finished speaking.
Gu Fei randomly ordered a glass of drink. While drinking on, he pondered about his chain quest...
Two groups of village NPCs treated him differently;
Traces of a fight in front of the church;
Murphy's strong yet unknown fighting capabilities;
The missing corpse of Murphy;
The Werewolf that fled from just a light injury;
Murphy's hidden sack of gold;
And finally, the NPC villagers that went to a shaft late at night.
There must be a story timeline that could explain all these events clearly, which would display the chronological order of the entire storyline behind the 'Eddie's Mission' quest. Gu Fei doubted that everything could be solved by simply finding the Werewolf and killing it. Currently, Gu Fei had an idea of what he was supposed to do. He just needed to wait until morning. The whole thing would be revealed once he made sure of a few crucial things.
Meanwhile, Ye Xiaowu who had been observing Gu Fei as if he was watching a movie was utterly blown away by how Gu Fei carried out his quest.
From what Ye Xiaowu observed, Gu Fei was roaming about in front of the church when he suddenly ran off to unearth Murphy's grave. Ye Xiaowu still did not know whether Gu Fei had figured something out or simply taken a wild guess.
He actually managed to fend off the Werewolf's assault... He's only at level 30! A mere slap from that Werewolf can kill a level 30 player....
If the situation continued to unfold at the current pace, Gu Fei might be able to achieve a completion rating of 90% or above for his chain quest.
Completion rating. This was how the game measured how well a player did for a chain quest; this same criterion was used to determine the value of the final reward for players as well.
Killing the Werewolf? That was only one of the many ways to complete the chain quest. For example, if Ye Xiaowu was the one doing the quest, he could complete it simply by going to where the Werewolf was and killing it with a single blow. This was because he knew the whereabouts of the Werewolf. However, he would get the lowest completion rating and the worst kind of reward.
The way to get the highest completion rating was to unravel the entire storyline behind the chain quest and leave no stone unturned, presenting everything clearly.
This was akin to a standalone game with multiple endings; every ending could be considered clearing the game and beating it, but only one true ending would be considered as the perfect ending.
As the great kid detective Conan once said, "One truth prevails!"
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