Chapter 56

Baron Bary’s castle was very big, and all of Bary Town was the Baron’s territory.

“Apologies, there’s no such person in our castle; please search for him elsewhere,” the proud butler professionally replied before chasing Su Mo out.

Su Mo did not try to barge in; he was not stupid. Not only did these NPCs have high levels, but there were also many of them.

Moreover, Bary Town was a system town and had a teleportation channel. Players could set this as their default teleport location. It would not casually become a dungeon for him to farm.

As such, what could he do?

It was quite simple, something that could be done in both real life and the game—to make an accusation.

The difference was that in real life, one could directly call the police if they felt that something was off, but in the game, he would have to do some investigating. After all, Baron Bary was a noble and one couldn’t accuse him of murder just because one of his NPCs had disappeared.

The investigation would appear in the quest log, and it not only needed a conclusion but also the process.

Su Mo already had a certain amount of evidence, which was that letter he had obtained after killing Lady Cathy Bary. It proved Lady Cathy Bary’s identity, and the gravers and servants in the manor were also evidence.

However, this was not enough; he still needed to follow the process.

The reason why other players had not been able to complete this quest was because they did not think outside the box. They had never suspected that Tie Dan had been killed, and they did not investigate Lady Cathy Bary, who was no longer in the castle.

After saying goodbye to the butler, Su Mo first went to the tailor shop opposite Baron Bary’s castle.

“Aunty, I’m an adventurer. Do you know a servant from the Baron’s castle called Tie Dan? His mother asked me to tell him to go home.” Su Mo decided to start from the shops around the castle.

“Tie Dan? Never heard of him, you should ask the butcher over there,” the tailor aunty said.

Su Mo then went to the butchery.

“Tie Dan? Of course I know him, there was a period where he’d help the Baron’s chef buy meat every day,” the chubby butcher did not feel anything was wrong and said honestly.

“And then?”

“And then they changed servants. If you want to find Tie Dan, you can ask the castle’s butler, Master Santos.” The butcher once again pointed him back to the Baron’s butler.

When most players did this quest, they would go back to talk to the butler.

Did it achieve anything?

Of course not, and they became stuck here.

A minority of players, the smart ones, would focus on a keyword from the NPCs, which was servant.

Perhaps they would get something out of asking the other servants.

As such, Su Mo waited outside Baron Bary’s castle for a servant to come out.

Baron Bary had many servants, and after a few minutes, one came out.

“Tie Dan? Didn’t he go home? I don’t know anything else, so don’t ask me; I’m pretty annoyed at the moment,” the servant said impatiently, “Master Santos told me to buy 20 sand goose eggs but only gave me 60 silver coins. I need to go to town to find the cheapest peddler.”

This was another setback. No matter how patient players were, and no matter how many servants they asked, they would not be able to glean much information.

Baron Bary’s butler had evidently suppressed the information.

In actuality, these servants did not know much either, or they would have already run off to survive.

“Sand goose eggs? I actually have 20 of them that I can give you. If you wait for me, I’ll bring them for you. That way, you can save those 60 silver coins. If I were you, I wouldn’t tell Master Santos.”

Su Mo thought about it and decided to use money to tempt the servant.

He could not use many of his techniques in real life.

If it was in real life, he could capture the servant and keep him in a small, dark room, before…

Was there anyone more proficient than him at interrogation?

Sand geese were a type of wild animal in New World, and they looked quite like normal geese but could not swim or fly.

20 sand geese eggs were worth one gold coin, and if Su Mo walked around for a bit, perhaps he would be able to find a cheaper price. However, Lord Su was now a man of dignity and would not look around everywhere just to save a few silver coins.

Hearing Su Mo say this, the servant nervously looked around before unhesitatingly nodding and agreeing.

One option was to pay for some of the sand geese eggs with his own money; the other was for him to earn 60 silver coins. Was this even a choice?

After bringing back the sand geese eggs, Su Mo did not directly give them to the servant. If he handed them over to the servant and he left, Su Mo would not be able to do anything. After all, the system had not told him that he had received a ‘collect 20 sand geese eggs’ quest.

“A number of servants have disappeared from the castle lately; can you tell where they went?”

“This… Master Santos doesn’t allow us to say.” The servant felt quite conflicted; after all, he was about to earn a decent sum of money.

“Master Santos killed them?” Su Mo’s tone was quite calm.

“No no no, how is that possible?”

The servant was given a big fright and hurriedly waved his hands as he said hurriedly, “Master Santos isn’t that kind of person. Those servants just went with the miss to the manor in the countryside.”

See, look how simple that was.

The servant realized that he had said something that he shouldn’t have and felt like dying. He didn’t know what he had done, but if Master Santos knew about it, he would definitely be punished.

At minimum, he would be chased out of the castle and his high salary of two gold coins per month would be gone.

Su Mo felt quite satisfied, gave the sand geese eggs to the servant, and said, “Is it Purmo Manor?”

This was the benefit of reverse deduction.

“I don’t know, but Greta’s mother would definitely know. Greta is one of the miss’ subordinates, and the miss takes Greta wherever she goes. No matter what happens, don’t say I told you anything, alright?”

“Don’t worry buddy, I was just asking out of curiosity.”

17%!

The system notified Su Mo that he had completed the first phase of the quest, and it gave him the EXP reward for this phase.

Wait, something was off.

Su Mo pulled up his information page and became stunned as he looked at his EXP bar.

He remembered that after handing in the Orange Tree Heart quests, his EXP bar had been 77% full—he was sure of this—and he was confident that he could level up by tomorrow.

However, his EXP bar was now at 94%.

17%!

A quest had given him 17% EXP?

Even hidden quests would not give this much. Normally, ordinary hidden quests would only give 10% at most. Last time, despite killing a Boss higher level than him and handing in the quest, Su Mo had only received 13% of his EXP bar.

After doing this stupid quest, even though he had not killed a single monster and had only spent one gold coin to buy 20 sand geese eggs, he had received 17% of his EXP bar.

Was this a bug?

Would the system detect this and then deduct the extra EXP?

Su Mo continuously pondered to himself, and he did not even notice the servant leaving. He thought about it—if this wasn’t a bug and there was nothing wrong with the system, what did this mean?