Chapter 461 461 – I Found Something
After talking to Duke Blacktomb and Naya, who joined after bringing us tea, I left his mansion and secretly left the Capital City.
My destination was Steelwill Viscounty, where I left Sandra alone. I felt bad for my gluttonous dark elf. Besides, I wondered if she had something new to report to me while staying in that place.
'There is a chance that some cultists visited the Viscounty to check what happened after their Instigator and Bishop went missing.'
To reach the Viscounty, I decided to run while using [Shadow Cape] to hide from other people.
I didn't teleport because it was to find the hiding cultists on my way between the Viscounty and the Capital City, if there were any, using my <Presence Detection>. I already marked those who had [Hell's Cult] titles as my enemies with red dots.
Anyway… when I just exited the Capital City by jumping out of the wall, I noticed that Naya seemed to follow me. She looked frustrated and confused when she lost me as I dived into the shadow and left afterward.
'What's she doing?'
It was strange and confusing. What did she want? I believed she didn't need anything from me from our conversation earlier.
Saying that she was interested in me wasn't wrong, but it wouldn't get to the point where she followed me like this. Duke Blacktomb also didn't have any reason to send her daughter to secretly meet me, either.
So it was something she did entirely by her own decision. Still, I wondered what it was about.
'Well, we will meet again in the future. I believe she can at least wait for a week or two. The Duke told me the invitation would arrive around that time.'
I began to run at full speed and appeared in the forest not too far away from the Capital City. My [Shadow Cape] still draped over my body, hiding my outline and face.
When Mia was drawn and fooled by Carissa, I passed this place before and found her blood there. That shy but yandere maid unexpectedly did things thoroughly when it came to something.
Also… it just came to me now, but how was it possible to set up such a setup in such a short amount of time? Her blood was literally spread in almost every direction of the Virtue Kingdom between the Academy City and the Capital City.
Normally, it would be impossible, even with her enhanced status from (Full Moon Rampage). Yes, it was impossible… Unless…
'There is someone helping her besides that crazy bitch, Carissa. Maybe… Could she be related to the Hell's Cult too?'
How she took the Royal Guard's loyalty so soon without King Cassius' notice was also strange. This crazy possibility just came to me after I learned about their existence.
And knowing that crazy Princess' willingness to go through everything to get her father's love...
'It's possible. In that case, it also explains how they managed to infiltrate inside the Castle last night as servants. It wouldn't be strange if other servants didn't notice something strange if those people had always been servants in the Royal Castle.'
That meant, they probably had a base near Capital City. And probably whatever magic item that forced their revival process to have black light instead of a blue one was also located in that.
'It's almost been a day since I killed some of them. There must be traces somewhere.'
So I searched all around the forest, hoping to find something strange on my radar. I had been running for a few minutes now toward the direction of Steelwill Viscounty. And when I just exited the forest area and entered the mountain range, I detected something.
"Aha!"
It was located at the edge of my radar. A small red dot was moving in the same direction as where I was going.
However, I was disappointed because it wasn't the cultists. When I used <Appraisal> on it, the result came out that it was just a wild monster. My mood plummeted slightly after that and I hurried up to where Sandra was.
"I am looking into things too much."
I guessed they weren't a group of idiots, after all. Having their hidden base between the Capital City and the Steelwill Viscounty would be the biggest tomfoolery if I needed to say so myself.
Before long, I got tired of running and stopped at the top of a mountain where I detected the monster earlier because the dot suddenly disappeared.
"Hmm?"
I found the monster easily. It was an ape monster called [Crazy Ape] that got separated from its family.
Obviously, I killed the monster and sat on the edge of the mountain to look around.
Why did I stop? The reason was simple. The map on my radar got updated once I arrived at the mountain. It seemed like this area was considered as a different one from the ground.
And…
"It's indeed tomfoolery."
My lips curled up into a smirk as I saw a blank part on my radar. It was an entrance to another area. It was often like this if the entrance was not hidden underneath a rock formation or something like a cave.
I called it a special entrance.
"To think they are in a place like this." I looked at the area that wasn't shown on my radar. It was a slightly elevated ground, a bit higher than the peak where I sat.
On that ground, a special barrier was erected. The barrier kept what was inside hidden from the bottom using a special illusion, bending the light so people would only see the empty sky.
That was the reason why I recognized it as a special entrance.
One of the special entrances was a dungeon. Their appearances were random, but mostly were caves. Of course, there were big to small dungeons.
It seemed like what lay before me was one of its classifications: a small dungeon with only one type of monster, [Crazy Ape].
"This monster isn't separated from its family and group, but it tried to find food for them outside the dungeon." I looked at the monster's corpse behind me. Its hand was holding some kind of purple fruit that was shaped like bananas. "Thanks, anyway. I found them thanks to you."
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