Chapter 204 - A Search Begins And Another Ends

The three players walked out through the door that San Zhe accessed through the blank door.

They looked around and found that the woman at the counter was still there, writing something on her instrument.

The three looked at each other.

"So…" San Zhe started. "What should we do? Just attack?"

Cheng Xiu thought for a moment. "How many Rat Counsellors were there?"

"Five," San Zhe answered.

"How many were killed?"

"Four," he looked confused. "Why are you asking this?"

"Do you think this woman is a part of a sub-plot or is she the fifth Counsellor?"

"What?"

Cheng Xiu shrugged. "We have established that the woman is the reason that we lost our memories. That means that she is an opponent. In this dungeon, the only NPCs who can be the opponents are those that belong to the Sub-Plot or they are the main targets themselves correct? So is the woman someone of the sub-plot or someone who belongs to the Main task? If it is the Main task…we only have 3 targets left. The last Rat Counsellor and the two queens. And we can't meet the queens first before we kill the Rat Counsellor…so…"

San Zhe frowned. "I would say…Sub-Plot."

"Why?"

"Well…" San Zhe gave his reasoning some more thoughts but he could not see where he could be wrong. "The trend has been that we kill main targets, get a sub-plot, kill another target, get another sub-plot…so why would things change now?"

Cheng Xiu raised an eyebrow in question, almost like she was asking him if he would really ask such a simple question. "Because this is the last Rat Counsellor. As the rule goes, if there is something that you want to change in a dungeon setting the best part to do that is to make the changes on the last target. Hence, we might not need any other sub-plots."

San Zhe sighed. Right. He had forgotten the basic formula of games.

"Then the chances of this being the main task has higher percent than this being a Sub-plot."

"Exactly," Cheng Xiu said with a smile.

"Then let us go and attack her?" he asked.

Cheng Xiu shook her head. "There is one thing that we haven't discussed yet. Maybe I am just ignorant and I don't know this, but what are the chances that we all will not forget each other and our mission goal again?"

San Zhe blinked his eyes. That…he did not think of that…

"The chances are high," Yaksha said to her.

San Zhe felt despair. "We can't leave the target and we can't approach the target…this is just too much."

Cheng Xiu sighed. San Zhe seemed to complain a lot instead of thinking of a solution at the moment. She hoped that he was not always like this.

"We can investigate the area around here," Cheng Xiu said to him.

San Zhe blinked. "You mean that since this is the lair of the Rat then it will have something to help us as well."

Cheng Xiu smiled. "Exactly."

At least he was quick on the uptakes of the suggestions that she gave.

"What do you guys think?" Cheng Xiu asked the two men.

"You are also asking me this?" Yaksha said in surprise.

"Now we are in a situation where even your memories are tampered with. We have to all cooperate."

Yaksha nodded in understanding. His heart felt lighter. If this really was Little Sela, then she had changed for the better. At least now she knew when to ask for help. Or maybe she was always like this and it was their hostile relationship that made her unable to ask for his help all those times. It had made him bow his head instead and he ended up asking her to cooperate with him. It had to led to too many Player debts that he owed her. He wondered how many more he still had to repay briefly.

"Then let us work hard to make sure that we get out of this alive," San Zhe said when he realised that the expert was not going to respond to Cheng Xiu's words. "Where do we start?"

Cheng Xiu frowned and thought for a moment. "That back door near the woman should be the key place but the chances of us reaching there is less likely. The reason we lost our memory probably had to do with that."

"You mean…the memory loss is a way to make sure that the teams who come to attack the dungeon will be so confused that they will leave the woman alone?"

Cheng Xiu nodded. "And if you want to take things a step further…the reason this place of the woman is the Nest is perhaps to make the players think that it is nothing more than a Nest."

"Is this even a Qi Sensing Dungeon anymore?" San Zhe asked in confusion.

"It is," Yaksha said to him. "But it is an S-ranked one."

San Zhe blinked up at the expert. "Does that mean something? Even if it was at S rank, it still should not be so complicated, right?"

Cheng Xiu tilted her head. "What do guys mean? Is this complexity not normal for S Rank?"

San Zhe shook his head. "Though I have not played S rank before, I am pretty sure that the game should not be so hard."

"There is a condition for it," Yaksha said.

San Zhe looked towards him, expectant.

Yaksha kept silent.

San Zhe felt a sense of déjà vu.

"What is the condition?" Cheng Xiu asked, leaning towards him, her Phoenix eyes sparkling like the starry night sky.

"The Clock Tower of the Viridian Forest is one of the oldest Clock Tower in the continent," Yaksha said to her, his eyes never leaving hers. "It meant that, the Clock Tower difficulty was always above that of the other Clock Towers all over the world. Now that the Clock Tower area has been upgraded to Level S, the difficulty is amped even further."

San Zhe ducked his heed, his eyes on the black combat boots of the expert. Sure enough. The expert answered Cheng Xiu instead. And even the conversation was familiar.

It really was déjà vu. Or maybe he time travelled without realising it.

Cheng Xiu nodded in understanding. "So we have to find any clues we can around here before we reach the counter. Otherwise, we will be caught off guard. Also, we have to make sure that we have a way to protect our mind from mental attacks like that so that we can approach the woman without the fear of loosing our memories."

San Zhe nodded. "So where do we start?"

Cheng Xiu looked around for a moment. "Brother San, you can check the barrels of alcohol. Lord Yaksha, you can do what ever that you want to. I will go check the Red Fires here. There might be a way to extinguish the fires and save the rest of those children. Maybe that could be a condition for us to get into the back room."

"Why did I get only the alcohol?" San Zhe asked her. Did she not think that he was capable enough?

Cheng Xiu let out an awkward laugh. "It was only a suggestion. You can do whatever you want to, Brother San. We are a team but we don't really have a team leader after all."

San Zhe sighed. He had too much of an imagination it would seem. Cheng Xiu was focused on the task at hand. Would she still have the moment to spare and think about whether he was weak or strong? San Zhe shook his head at his own naivety.

He left the group first to check on the barrels. After all, there was not much else that he could check.

Yaksha walked towards the other end of the room that held a few sacks in front of him. He squatted down on the ground and began to inspect the outer covering.

If Luther could see what his young master was doing at that moment the man would have had a heart attack. Thankfully, the man was currently following a bunch of idiots in the real world, and was unaware of it.

Cheng Xiu moved towards the floating Torch lights and observed the holders and the blood in it for a long time, inspecting each one of it, as though she was looking of something specific.

In the real world, a group of officials stood in a corner discussing.

A man with brown hair and green eyes walked towards them in even steps. "Hello. What are you all huddled together for?"

The group of white coats looked up.

"Dr Mead!" an old man in the group called. "We were discussing the new subject!"

The man tilted his head. "New subject?"

A man next to the old man laughed. "Right! Young Joseph took leave, correct? You wouldn't know! We have an Awakened Qiless in our hands!"

Joseph Mead froze. His eyes widened in shock. "What did you say?"

The man laughed. "It is all thanks to young Dr Fennings. He tracked him down."

Joseph smiled a strained smile. "Is that so? Then I should go talk to the Dean before talking to you guys!"

The group of men laughed.

Joseph left them and looked towards one of the closed cabins with a cold look in his eyes. That man got to one before he did.

He walked towards the room in an even stride.

***

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