Chapter 56 - IVY GROVE MANOR (I)
WHEN Luo Yan opened his eyes, he was at the middle of a village. Or at least that's what it seemed like. He looked around and saw a very quiet and almost deserted medieval village. The few NPCs who saw him immediately looked away once their eyes met.
Well, at least he wasn't sent straight to the Ivy Grove Manor, wherever that was. That would be such a disaster.
Before he moved, he opened his Status Window first and went to his Character Tab. He clicked his game avatar icon and it showed his equipped items. He then clicked his costume and turned off its specific special effect. He couldn't possibly do this task properly if he was flashing off a purple after-image.
After doing that, he then opened his Task Column and read his task once again.
[Kill the real master of Ivy Grove Manor without anyone in the manor seeing you. Finish this task before the time limit of three hours and you'll successfully enter the ranks of the powerful assassins in Arcadia. If you managed to finish this at the fastest speed, a good reward is waiting for you. Good luck!]
The key word here was 'real'. Which meant that whoever was known as the master of Ivy Grove Manor was not its real master at all. So, his task was to find this real master and kill him without anyone in that manor seeing him. This was probably the reason why he was first sent to this village - to find information about this real master.
Then find information he should.
In situations like these, the best source of information was the innkeeper. So, he started walking and looked for the inn. The two or three NPCs he encountered all ran away when they saw him, as if scared. Like he he was some killer or something. With the desolate atmosphere and the weird action of these NPCs, he could already tell that something was wrong.
It was obvious that there's some kind of story behind this task. Luo Yan sighed. Why couldn't he just receive a simple task like killing this certain number of monsters? That's actually what he's expecting at first. Because that's how it was in the PC version. Instead, what he got was some kind of mystery that he probably needed to solve first before he could truly succeed.
Solving the mystery and being stealthy were the two important points he should look out for during this task. Admittedly, these could test an assassin's skill - collecting information and killing someone as quietly and secretly as you could.
What if his target was a human looking NPC? With this game being so real, wouldn't it feel like he's really killing a real live person? That would be kind of violent, wouldn't it? Now that he thought about it, wouldn't this game be a good outlet for serial killers? Here, they could indulge in their killing fantasies without worrying about the consequences of it. Like going to jail for example.
Luo Yan shook his head. Where did that come from? He's probably affected by this dreary atmosphere. In any case, he didn't need to worry about that. Because he certainly didn't have any psychopathic or sociopathic tendencies.
Soon, he found the inn. It was not that big, only two floors. Just right for a small village such as this. He went inside and saw that the first floor of the inn was a restaurant. There weren't any customer inside. There was only one old man sitting behind the bar counter with the word [Innkeeper] on the top of his head.
Luo Yan walked towards the bar counter. "Good day," he greeted.
The Innkeeper glanced at him then went back on pouring himself a glass of alcohol. "You should leave here as soon as you could, boy. This is no place for an outsider like you."
[Well, aren't you being a bit overdramatic, old man?] "And why is that?"
The Innkeeper drank the glass of alcohol. "Haven't you heard of the rumors floating around here?"
"No. I haven't seen anyone around. So, what's the rumor?"
"Just two months ago, young girls started to go missing. One girl disappeared each week. Just yesterday, the eighth girl vanished. Nobody knew where they went, they just disappeared like bubbles in the air. So the villagers are starting to think that there's a monster hunting and kidnapping these girls."
A monster, huh? No wonder the atmosphere in this village was like this. "Could it be related to the people living at the Ivy Grove Manor?" he asked.
If he was transported in this village, that could only mean that the manor was near here. And what the Innkeeper was telling him right now was somehow connected to his task.
"What are you saying, that it had something to do with the people at the manor? Impossible!" The Innkeeper appeared affronted by his suggestion.
"Why is that?" he curiously asked.
"Because the first victim was Miss Eliza! She's the friend of Miss Jewel - the only daughter of the master of the manor. She's a young lady from Matlock Town who came here for a vacation. But then, as soon as she came, tragedy struck. Every week since then, pretty young girls like her kept disappearing." The Innkeeper sighed. "Truly, what a tragedy."
"The first victim was the friend of the daughter of the manor? Wouldn't that only make the people in Ivy Grove even more suspicious?" After all, their guest was the first one to disappear.
The Innkeeper put down the glass he was drinking on forcefully and glanced sharply at him. "What are you insinuating, boy? The Sutton family has been living here for as long as I can remember. They have been nothing but kind to the villagers. If they're the reason behind what's happening right now, it should have happened a couple of times already. But no, nothing similar to this have happened to this village. I know, since I lived here all my life."
[But what if something similar to this happened before your time?] But Luo Yan didn't ask that. Because it looked like this NPC was programmed to vehemently defend the Sutton family who appeared to be the owners of the Ivy Grove Manor.
"Are you the oldest living person here in this village, then?" he asked instead.
The Innkeeper snorted. "I am."
So, he couldn't check if a similar incident had happened before. "Could you tell me the names of the families who lost their daughters?"
The Innkeeper looked suspiciously at him. "Why?"
Luo Yan just smiled. "I'm a detective hired by Mr. Sutton to solve the mystery of this number of disappearances."
The suspicion on the face of the Innkeeper disappeared. Looked like 'Mr. Sutton' was the magic word. "I see."
Then he proceeded on telling him the names of those families.