Chapter 159: Dekan Really Doesn't Want to Take Any Detours

Chapter 159: Dekan Really Doesn't Want to Take Any Detours

Dekan surprised Mauleon by leapfrogging into the conclusion all of a sudden.

Ever since Dekan received information from his master, he had suspected that the final boss of this Shadow World was a powerful vampire.

Upon arriving in the Shadow World, the two most unsettling things for Dekan were—

Why did this small town have such an exquisite church?

And why did the church need a permanent archpriest?

According to Dekan's speculation, the most likely explanation was that an incredible monster was hidden beneath this church. Drawing from his experience in the "Shadow World: Desolate Mountain Blizzard Cineaste" last time, Dekan meticulously searched the church for any signs of magic circles. Even if he didn't find it immediately, Dekan was confident he would uncover it even if he had to tear the church apart.

It didn't take much effort. With just a slight adjustment by Cornelia to the church's layout, he quickly found the magic circle. The red light on the magic circle likely indicated that the archpriest Kevin was already dead, becoming one of the sacrifices for the vampire's resurrection. However, the magic circle was so complex that Dekan couldn't determine how many people would need to become sacrifices to revive the vampire.

...

"How long do you think it will take Dekan to unravel the mystery of this Shadow World?" Students from Hevenlit Magic Academy had already started placing bets.

Usually, the standard strategy involves gathering information, exchanging it, reasoning and verifying said information, confirming the mechanisms, identifying the enemy's true form, and then finding a way to confront and defeat it.

But based on Dekan's previous actions, he always skipped steps, sometimes inexplicably arriving at the endpoint quickly.

"Maybe three or four days?" Someone guessed.

"Too optimistic. This is a tier 6 Shadow World, with an extremely high level of complexity. Relying on just the three of them, even if they are powerful, it's very difficult to unravel the mystery of the Shadow World before half the time is up."

"Moreover, they haven't gathered much information right now. The past couple of days were spent on resource gathering."

"But you really can't predict Dekan's strategy with common sense. If he spends one more day, he might just find the ultimate enemy. I wouldn't be surprised."

Listening to the students' discussions, Croix's childhood friend Claire, sitting beside him, nudged him with her elbow.

"What do you think?" Claire asked Croix coldly. She was obviously still holding a grudge from a couple of days ago when "Croix was fascinated by the performance of the former Holy Knight Commander Judith."

"Five," Croix answered.

"Five days?" Claire was slightly surprised. She didn't expect Croix to be so conservative in his judgment of Dekan this time.

Croix: "Four."

Claire: "..."

Finally, after Dekan finished reciting a certain line...

[...]

The mission prompt for the Shadow World refreshed.

[Due to a challenger reaching the correct conclusion, a new mission objective has been unlocked.]

[Mission Objective 3: Prevent the resurrection of Marquess Roderick. If this mission fails, after the mission deadline, Marquess Roderick will be transported to random coordinates in the challenger's original world.]

"Holy shit! Can you really deceive and extract information from the Shadow World like this?!"

"Does this guy only know how to go in a straight line?"

"He really refuses to decipher the Shadow World's mechanisms slowly and methodically..."

The students from Hevenlit Magic Academy, having seen Dekan's process in conquering the Demon Academy and the Abandoned Mountain Manor, knew of Dekan's habit of skipping steps to find answers. But this time, the broadcast range expanded to the entire Norton Kingdom. Most citizens were seeing Dekan's style for the first time.

...

Although the Shadow World might not necessarily acknowledge answers guessed through non-standard reasoning, its judgment mechanism was highly objective.

When Dekan recited Mission Objective 3 word for word, the Shadow World had no way to determine that Dekan had arrived at the conclusion through guesswork. It had no choice but to reluctantly reveal the hidden Mission Objective 3.

If the Shadow World could express emotions and speak, then these last two lines of the prompt would have been gritted out through clenched teeth.

"See, my reasoning method is just that effective," Dekan said triumphantly.

"Are you sure it's okay to bully the honest Shadow World like this?" Mauleon was a bit worried that their actions might lead to repercussions from the Shadow World.

"It's fine. Besides giving me a scolding in the final remarks, it still has to carry out its duties impartially," Dekan said.

Dekan had been targeted before.

However, the Shadow World still couldn't withhold their rewards.

Dekan could already sense that the Shadow World would scold him again during the mission evaluation.

But right now, he enjoyed seeing the Shadow World frustrated and unable to do anything about it.