Chapter 200 The Truth

The "online GM" on duty, Lao Geng, witnessed the whole process of En Bu Zeng connecting the logging site with the neighboring village, and could not help but praise. "This girl has a good brain."

The players thought they were just completing tasks in a game, but Lao Geng would definitely not have had such a misunderstanding... Ever since Lord Yang had revealed the truth to Comrade Zhao Zhenzhen sent by the National Security Bureau, it was as if they had tacitly acknowledged that those of them who had obtained "moderator accounts" had a common channel of information, and that they were too lazy to use the "game" as a cover for anything they did.

Therefore, Lao Geng knew very clearly that the "Exorcist Mission" that seemed to be a new part of the game was actually a path opened by Lord Yang for players to contact the weird core of this strange world.

It could also be understood that by opening up access paths to players, it indirectly allowed those on the national team to gain a deeper understanding of this alien world from a different perspective.

How bizarre was this alien world? Although Lao Geng did not know anything about astrometry, he had learned some knowledge that went against the common sense of earthlings from Director Lu of the expert group.

For example, through months of (alien time) celestial observations in Exile Town and Westram, the expert group had been able to determine that the planet beneath their feet did not belong to the Milky Way.

After measuring the movement trajectory of the sun for many days and referring to the movement trajectories of celestial bodies and galaxies during the day and at night, the expert group calculated and unanimously agreed that the volume of this planet was much larger than that of the Earth, at least three times larger.

It stood to reason that the larger the planet, the heavier its gravity. However, when the expert group tested the density of the wood transported to Earth by Lord Yang's "space logistics" and reweighed the goods that Lord Yang's "logistics" brought to this world, they found that the gravity of the celestial bodies on both sides seemed to be almost the same, leaving many experts in related fields scratching their heads and unable to figure it out.

Through carbon testing of the mud and sand attached to the wood, the expert group believed that this planet had an ancient history just like the Earth, or perhaps even older.

Through careful testing and observation of the wood itself and the microorganisms attached to it, they found that there were huge differences between the microscopic world of this world and the evolutionary path of microorganisms on Earth - of course, Lao Geng could not explain exactly where the difference was, and he did not understand the professional terms that Director Lu used.

In short, the expert group had a strong desire to learn about this planet that had overturned the common sense of the earthlings in all aspects. Lord Yang took the opportunity of opening "new content" to the players to give the national team the opportunity to get in touch with the core. Of course, Lao Geng would very diligently keep an eye on these players who were running "exorcist missions" and "bounty missions".

Seeing that the players had no awareness of being undead and were running towards the indigenous village in the middle of the night, Lao Geng quickly sent out a warning message:

"Hint: You are entering Lanna Village."

"Your Indhal territory's reputation has reached Friendly, allowing you to enter Lanna Village."

"[Warning]: The villagers are resting, please do not disturb them. Please come back at dawn."

The players who had fought in the Indhal Territory War had a territory reputation above friendly. In theory, players could go to any village or town, but disturbing people's sleep late at night was absolutely prohibited. Houses in the countryside were not like those in the city, which were mostly made of brick walls. They did not have such good sound insulation.

The first reaction of the players who were given a warning was of course to curse the stupid planner.

It would have been fine if it was a normal time. Qin Guan could just have taken the team to kill monsters first and come back when the daybreak in the game came. But this time the difficulty of the mission was ridiculous. When the daybreak in the game came, even if Entropy was smart, she would have to log off and go to class. What the hell was going on?!

Tang Jia, who did not want to miss the mission, made a bold suggestion. "Wait, since we can enter the village, isn't it okay as long as we don't disturb the sleeping villagers? We are going to find the hunter to interrogate the truth. This hunter is a mission NPC. It's okay to do the mission, right?"

Qin Guan immediately gave a thumbs up. "Not bad, it's no big deal to find a quest NPC to do the quest!"

"That's right, let's enter the village quietly and not make any sound!" A group of players said in unison.

Then these guys really ran into the village...

Old Geng, who was sitting in the back of Exile Town, looked at this group of people from a distance with a helpless look.

Well... he was also quite curious about this "exorcist mission". As long as these young people could really do what they said, he would turn a blind eye.

The black book contained the addresses of all the suspected related persons. Hunter Ulduar's home was at the foot of the mountain at the end of Lanna Village, quite far away from other houses. As long as the players did not demolish Ulduar's home, they would not disturb other villagers.

Lanna Village was very close to Indhal City, less than ten kilometers away in a straight line. Many villagers had opened vegetable gardens in front of and behind their houses and relied on selling vegetables in the city to supplement their family income.

It was also because of this geographical convenience that the economic conditions of this village were pretty good. In addition to their houses, many families had built sheds to raise chickens and ducks, and only pigs and dogs lived with people... Considering the current situation in rural areas of this world, this was already a reflection of "living a good life."

As the dead spirits tiptoed through the village, some people's dogs were startled and sporadic barking sounds were heard.

But it was not a big problem, as not many villagers were woken up by the noise, and those who were woken up were unwilling to go out, so they just kept their dogs under control.

Ulduar was the only hunter in Lanna Village. His economic condition was slightly better than that of the villagers. Two earthen-walled thatched houses built side by side at the foot of the mountain, a half-person-high chicken coop in front of the house, a small courtyard of about 40 square meters surrounded by a fence, and two hunting dogs kept in a kennel made of wooden boards in the yard were all Ulduar's property.

Dozens of undead surrounded the fence of Ulduar's house, and the first ones to be alarmed were the two dogs in the yard.

Country hunters certainly could not afford expensive hunting dogs. The hunting dogs of the Ulduar family were actually just guard dogs commonly seen in the central and eastern countries of the Nabaron continent. When they popped their heads out of the kennel and saw the groups of undead outside the fence, the two dogs did not dare to bark loudly at all, and shrank back with a whimper.

The noise was still enough to wake up Ulduar. The strongest man in the village jumped off the bed as soon as he opened his eyes, picked up the hunting bow hanging on the wall, grabbed the quiver and rushed out.

He rushed out of the room, and under the starry sky, he stared at a large group of undead across the fence.

Like his hunting dog, Ulduar subconsciously wanted to hide inside the house, but when he thought of his wife and children who were still sleeping in the house, he stopped abruptly and blocked the door with his head held high, looking at these undead spirits wearing fish scale armor and carrying weapons as if they were facing a great enemy.

People in the surrounding villages knew that the owner of Indhal City had changed a week ago - it was not that the farmers suddenly became concerned about the replacement of the lord, but because the villagers who came to the city to sell vegetables would see the undead wandering around the streets in broad daylight, and they could not help but pay attention.

An undead walked to the gate of the courtyard and shouted "KABAKABA" several times at Ulduar through the waist-high gate.

Ulduar must not have understood what it was saying, and could only confront the group of undead with a look of horror on his face.

"Damn it, even the quest NPC can't understand what we say?" Qin Guan cursed angrily.

In the background, Lao Geng silently sent a task reminder to Entropy Bu Zeng who was holding the hemp rope. "Do you want to use the quest item 'a roll of hemp rope'?"

Entropy glanced at the information bar in surprise, raised the hemp rope and pointed it towards the hunter.

Ulduar had no reaction.

En Bu Zeng thought for a moment, then handed the hemp rope to Qin Guan, and pointed at the hunter. "Show this to the NPC."

Qin Guan jumped over the waist-high gate with a hemp rope in his hand, walked into the yard carelessly, and handed the hemp rope to Ulduar.

Ulduar was very confused and looked with fear at the large group of undead surrounding his yard. He gritted his teeth and took the hemp rope.

Lao Geng took the opportunity to operate the "GM authority" and dragged Ulduar into the matrix.

The operating principle of temporarily pulling the indigenous people into the matrix was similar to that of the Azalea Badge engraved with the Spirit Link Rune, but it was not as convenient as the Azalea Badge. It required immediately "adding people" and could only drag people who had been in contact with the undead. The time limit was very short, usually only lasting half an hour. It was a new function developed after Yang Qiu allowed the players to go out to do "hidden tasks".

To put it simply, it allowed people who came into direct contact with the undead to be temporarily contaminated by the aura of the spiritual imprint runes hidden in the undead's skeletons...of course, the effectiveness of this would not last long.

Ulduar was stunned when he got the hemp rope. The "KABAKABA" sound of the undead in front of him was almost instantly replaced by the impatient, clear voice of a young man. "...Don't pretend, Ulduar, we all know what you did. Look at this roll of hemp rope, do you recognize it?"

Ulduar stared stiffly at the aggressive undead in front of him and swallowed hard - Lady of Gold Coin! Why could he understand the undead talking?!

Qin Guan naturally could not understand how the natives' fear was experienced. "Do you still want to play dumb? What did you do in the Misty Shadow Forest in the spring?"

The two key words, spring and Misty Forest, plus the hemp rope that the undead stuffed into his hands, made Ulduar shudder, and the horrifying memory that he had tried his best to ignore suddenly came flooding back to him.

It was difficult for living people to discern the expressions of the undead, but the undead could observe the reactions of living people quite accurately. Qin Guan's eyes lit up, and he quickly took out the badge given by the Night Watch NPC, shoved it in Ulduar's face, and shouted. "We are exorcists investigating the Misty Forest incident. Tell us quickly! Otherwise, we will take you back with us!"

Ulduar's face turned pale and his whole body became limp.

If the person who came was a Night Watch investigator, Ulduar would still dare to pretend nothing happened; but if the person who came was a group of undead who even knew that he had hidden the hemp rope for hanging... he really would not dare to talk nonsense.

Ulduar's mind was blank, so he did not have the energy to wonder why even the undead could be exorcists these days, were the standards slipping this much? This was a question that shattered his worldview. He was naturally afraid of the undead, and mistakenly believed that the undead knew about the afterlife and could even communicate with the dead. The ordinary rural hunter wrinkled his face and stammered: "I, I really didn't do anything, you undead masters... I just, just... collected the body of that shameless Janet..." Ulduar said with tears in his eyes, "She was obviously Master Jeff's woman, but she was secretly communicating with the foreman of the forest farm, and then she went to the forest farm to hang herself for no apparent reason... If this matter were known to outsiders, Master Jeff would be disgraced, and there is nothing I could do——"

"Who is Janet?" Seeing that the NPC was finally willing to speak, En Bu Zeng quickly jumped into the yard.

"She is the fourth daughter of the headman of Needham," Odur replied tremblingly, "For her, Master Jeff would come back to live in the big house in the village for one or two months every year... Although she can only be a maid in Jeff's family, for a country woman like her, what's wrong with that? If it weren't for Master Jeff's kindness, she would not be able to live the same good life as the city people. Besides, Mrs. Jeff is also very good to her."

Hearing this, Qin Guan snorted, "What the hell, being a concubine makes people envious?"

En Bu Zeng frowned as he looked at the trembling NPC in front of him and said, "Are you sure Janet hanged herself?"

"Of course, undead... lady," Ulduar nodded vigorously. "I was the first person to go up the mountain that day. When I found her, she was wearing the skirt given to her by the forest foreman. There were no wrinkles on the dress, and there was only a mark on her neck. I have seen several women in the village who had hanged themselves, and they all looked like this."

"Wait a minute, why have you seen several women who hanged themselves?!" Qin Guan was shocked.

"Every few years, there will always be one or two people who can't get over it," Ulduar was frightened by Qin Guan's raised voice and spoke haltingly.

En Bu Zeng shook his head slightly and said nothing.

Before the game "Another World" was released, besides studying, En Bu Zeng's biggest interest was watching legal programs, so she had all kinds of weird knowledge points - for example, she knew the symptoms of some diseases, and she was also quite familiar with the police's investigation and evidence collection routines.

Anyone who is familiar with the progress of the rule of law in China will know one thing: the suicide rate among rural women in New China was once alarmingly high.

The planner of the game "Another World" seemed to be obsessed with "realism". It was not impossible that he had made a set of hidden settings like "easter eggs" for players to discover by referring to the laws of social development in reality.

"Then why did you try so hard to cover up the fact that Janet hanged herself? Is Robert Jeff's reputation important to you?" Entropy asked again.

"Of course, Madam Undead!" Ulduar straightened his back, his voice no longer trembling, and even carried a sincere plea, "When this place was still the territory of the Korf family, 60% of the food was not enough to pay the autumn tax! For a family like mine with very few fields, there is not much corn left after paying the tax!"

"After Master Jeff came, no matter how much the grain price dropped during the autumn harvest, he only bought 50% of it!"

"If Master Jeff leaves, and another lord comes who is more like the Korf family...what shall we do then?"

Entropy fell into silence again.

Because her original family is relatively complicated, although En Bu Zeng is young, her understanding of the ways of the world is no less than that of adults who have lived for several decades.

For example, in this case, Entropy can determine one thing... Whether the little mistress in the country had fallen in love with someone else is not a big deal for a knight of status like Robert Jeff. If he really cared about Janet, he would not have abandoned her in the country.

But for the villagers of Lanna Village, Robert Jeff's small matter is their big matter.

In order to "protect" Lord Jeff, who was a little more "merciful" than other lords and not particularly cruel in sucking blood, the villagers here could calmly do what they thought was right.

Forcing a young girl who they considered to be "improper" and "ungrateful", and who was tacitly accepted by everyone at a young age as "very happy to be an old man's mistress" to shut up, not even allowing her to express her resistance by hanging herself, strictly hiding her personal joys, sorrows, pain, and anger, and completely erasing her existence, even the investigator "Mountain Rat" who had investigated the matter did not know her name... of course, it was the "right" thing to do.

But at least, this kind of thing was not right for that girl. She was unwilling to let her disappear so silently.