Chapter 213: Disgrace

Although he didn't know why Xiaoli would be interested in these things, Ansain still answered patiently, "If you really want to know, I can also go back and ask the captain, or write a letter to my teacher."

"That would be truly appreciated. By the way, are there any Awakened who live by drinking blood?" Xiaoli continued to ask.

"What kind of Awakened have you actually encountered?" Ansain couldn't help but ask.

Even if he didn't intend to be suspicious, the things the other party was asking about were not things an ordinary person would ask, "If you want to awaken, I suggest you join a Zheng Shen Church, for example, the Wealth Church. Becoming a Fortune-teller can make your efforts twice as effective with half the work; becoming one of those Awakened without the protection of a deity is very likely to lead to encountering strange things."

"No, I don't intend to awaken into those things. I just heard someone mention it and was a bit curious," Xiaoli explained, "If Tana City has these people, how should one discover them?"

Are you talking about those guys who turn into animals, or the ones who drink blood? Ansain frowned, "I'll go back and check. It is indeed possible for these guys to exist in Tana City, but they are generally quite well-behaved. After all, we don't have a trade in wild animals here; at most, there are some furs hunted by Hunters. These things cannot be maintained through Magic Potions."

In other words, even if these guys took Magic Potions and turned into animals, they would revert to human form after death.

Xiaoli felt this information was very useful and planned to tell everyone on the forum in a while.

It wasn't just Xiaoli who was interested in this matter; quite a few others were interested too. After Chimu confirmed it on the forum, he simply came to the vicinity of the inn to wait.

There were quite a few other players around who, like him, were interested in this matter.

Although the players were not well-off at the moment, quite a few top-tier players already had formulas to choose from. The first batch of players to enter the game possessed, more or less, the capital to awaken. The reason not everyone had awakened was that there were simply too few formulas.

Chimu had brought back several formulas this time and earned quite a bit of money. If he could get more formulas, he would also have better choices.

Even though he had actually already planned to choose the Storm Church and become a Believer of the Storm.

It was just that he hadn't had the chance to become a Believer of the Storm yet, so he was willing to wait and see.

"There are a total of 13 animals in this vicinity: three dogs, two cats, six sparrows, plus two crows," said Sawasi, who was guarding here, "How long are we going to stay here?"

"You can go back; I have other friends helping to guard," as an NPC, Sawasi only had one life. In case there was real danger, Chimu still hoped he could stay alive.

After a period of seafaring life, Chimu had already accepted this guy's jinxing mouth. After all, although this guy's jinxing mouth was accurate, every time it was a narrow escape, so it couldn't be counted as his fault.

"You don't need my help anymore? Let me tell you, although I don't have very good luck, helping a friend is no problem," Sawasi patted his chest loyally, "You haven't treated me to fewer meals during this time; I can't be a bad friend."

"Even good friends need to rest. Go back quickly; I have other friends watching here," Chimu pointed to the players on the side, "Everyone just takes turns in shifts."

"Alright, good luck to you all," Sawasi nodded, feeling a bit aggrieved. Although he didn't know what Chimu was doing, he could vaguely sense that this matter could yield quite a few benefits.

But this time, his friend hadn't brought him along—was it just because there was danger?

After sending Sawasi away, Chimu sat in the Coffee shop and said to several other players: "I estimate those people should make their move at night. The people protecting Mofate should be arriving soon, right?"

"They've already gone in. Those animals don't seem to have any problems, and our people are almost all here." Chimu yawned. In this game, if you were full and then sat under the sun, you would also experience fatigue and drowsiness, just like in real life.

Feng Buxi, who was on the side, said: "I just went to the Sun Church to ask around. The people there don't know about such a thing. Only a few older bachelors told me that a similar mission to find mutated animals had been issued in Tana City a few years ago, but the Sun Church didn't have much influence in Tana City at that time, so there was no follow-up."

"In other words, it's possible that those guys have been hiding in Tana City all this time, and we just didn't know?" Chimu felt this problem was likely very serious. While everyone was fighting against the witch, those guys who could turn into animals had been hiding in the shadows, and who knew what they might be doing.

Not to mention them, even Chen Zhi felt cold sweat breaking out on his back.

Unfortunately, he didn't have a back.

For such a long time, there had been plenty of rats in the Sewers. Even though the players had cleaned this section of the Sewers very thoroughly, there were still times when rats would pass by.

If one or two of those rats belonged to this organization, wouldn't he be exposed?

He could only hope that these people had no interest in the Sewers; otherwise, he might be watched by other Evil Gods at any time.

The worst-case scenario would be being targeted by both an Evil God and a Zheng Shen Church.

He shivered, feeling it was necessary to have the players ferret these guys out.

Shifting the perspective back to the players, Chimu and the others had already started discussing how to discover the problems around Mofate.

"I think a Channeling Charm might be useful. I mean, without relying on a Channeling Charm, let the Rita sisters come over to take a look; perhaps they can discover something different," Feng Buxi, who was sitting on the side, reminded them.

"As expected, you are the one who uses NPCs the best. You truly deserve to be the first generation of the Wealth Church," Chimu thought it was a good idea, "Then I'll ask the Rita sisters before I log off. You guys stay safe."

"No problem!" Yunxiao made an OK gesture, "Leave it to us. Even if they really come, as long as there aren't many of them, we can guarantee we can handle it. Besides, there are people who can go find the Church people for help at any time, though that might not be a good thing for Mofate."

As long as they could catch those guys and obtain the formula, the bodyguard fees Mofate gave were not worth mentioning.

Moreover, that guy himself had secrets. Being able to rely on himself to escape from that place, he definitely wasn't as useless as he appeared.

The group waited until the sun went down and finally waited for the late-arriving Lita.

"Sorry, my sister didn't come," Lita said in a low voice, "She still has many things to be busy with, but I will still help you."

"Please communicate with the spirits here and see if any discordant animal spirits appear," Yunxiao said to Lita in a low voice, "We are looking for Awakened who have problems; they can turn into animals."

"Let me see." Upon hearing this, Lita frowned. She had also heard of such Awakened, but she had never seen one.

Gannaer's management of outsiders was very strict; even without internal strife, the city was clearly divided.

Even if they turned into animals, they still needed supplies and such; otherwise, they couldn't survive.

In a situation where all residents met at the Church and everyone knew each other, it was too difficult not to be discovered.

So Lita had only heard of them and had never truly seen one.

Lita sat on the nearest chair and then closed her eyes.

The players didn't feel anything, but the surroundings became significantly quieter. The crickets that had been chirping incessantly stopped their noisy tune at this moment.

Only the Banyan Tree on the side was blown by the wind, making a rustling sound.

Inside the room, Mofate's spirituality was touched, and he woke up with a start.

He hadn't had a good night's sleep for a long time. Today he had slept quite well, but he still felt that touch on his spirituality.

"Did you guys notice any problems?" Mofate said to the few players opposite him, "I seem to have sensed something."

"Don't worry, we will be guarding you the whole time today." The player who logged on was Amao; he had worked overtime all day yesterday and only had time to log on during the day.

And the daytime happened to be the night in the game. He originally thought there would be nothing to do, but he didn't expect such a good thing to be waiting for him.

"You haven't awakened, so you can't feel that something is wrong. Listen, the sound outside is too soft; it wasn't like this just now," Mofate reminded his teammates. He was really afraid of death now.

Just as he finished speaking, the sound that had disappeared reappeared.

Several players looked at him as if he were a fool, "You're too nervous, and you haven't rested well during this time. Don't worry, even if we die ourselves, we won't let anything happen to you."

"But... sigh, forget it, I can't sleep anymore either. You guys should just chat with me," Mofate was completely unable to sleep. Besides, he didn't need much sleep anyway; as an Awakened, two or three hours of sleep a day was enough for him.

Amao thought for a moment and then said: "Tana City's Store Street has everything. If you have any needs, you can go take a look."

"These things of mine, including you guys, were all obtained on Store Street," Mofate looked at Amao speechlessly, "You don't need to tell me; on the first day I came to Tana City, quite a few people introduced Store Street to me."

"Uh... have you ever thought about what you would do if no one were hunting you?" Amao hurriedly changed the awkward subject.

"If no one were hunting me, I would probably find a manor right now and have a good sleep inside, maybe for a few decades." Mofate no longer cared whether his identity was exposed. "I left home back then just to have my own space. I really didn't want to live with my parents anymore; they were a bit too annoying."

"Haven't thought about going back? Or asking them for help?" Amao asked, not expecting this guy to actually have parents.

"No, I can't find them anymore. It's not that I haven't tried to look for them." Mofate shook his head helplessly. "It was my own choice to be independent. Unless they take the initiative to find me, I really don't know how to find them."

To think he was a lost Awakened who couldn't find his home. This kind of Awakened was truly rare, and his luck was really bad; he had encountered such a miserable thing just after leaving home.

Outside, Lita opened her eyes and said to the players, "The spirits here are indeed not quite right, but those people should have already left."

"Left?" Did they see the players' ambush?

Logically speaking, they shouldn't have been able to discover it, because the players didn't have a shred of tension, unlike ordinary trackers or protectors who were cautious.

Moreover, there were many players coming and going, and some just came over to say hello and then left, like Chimu.

"Yeah, they said they followed a dark-skinned person and left. I don't know the specifics."

With so many people passing by all day today, who exactly were those people targeting?

None of the players knew what was going on, so they could only go offline to ask around and see if any such player had passed by.

Perhaps it wasn't someone who passed by at night, but someone who passed by during the day.

Chimu, who was slacking off on his way to work, opened the post. The moment he saw the post, it was as if he remembered something.

He didn't have time to keep an eye on that Mofate at first, so he let his good friend help him watch for a while.

According to Lita's description, his good buddy Sawasi was a dark-skinned guy. He was a Sailor, and he had even talked to him at the scene about how many small animals there were.

The players stuck together, but Sawasi didn't. He had let Sawasi go home early to avoid danger.

In other words, it was very likely that those guys had targeted the lone Sawasi!

He immediately replied to the post on the forum; that was his good brother, he absolutely could not let anything happen to him.

If it weren't for the conditions of logging in, he would definitely have asked for leave to go home so he could save his good brother.

The online players soon learned about Sawasi's situation, and Yunxiao immediately sent a few people to the inn to check on Sawasi's condition.

Soon, someone came running over to tell Yunxiao about Sawasi's disappearance.

"Oh no, Sawasi is lost. If I had known, I wouldn't have let him go back alone." If it were a player, there would be nothing to worry about, but that was an NPC.

Players could resurrect after dying, but if an NPC died, they were truly dead.

Sawasi wasn't an Awakened; he was different from Mofate. If he also turned into an animal, there was no telling what method would be needed to turn him back.

Now the problem wasn't just Mofate's, but Sawasi's. He was a not-too-devout Storm Believer, a believer of a True God, so if something happened to him, he could ask the Zheng Shen Church for help!

"Lita, can you help me see where he is? This is our friend. He went to Rierna with one of us and experienced the wind and waves at sea, and he himself is not an Awakened at all; he is a believer of the Storm." Although it was a bit inappropriate to trouble Lita, there was no better way to find someone at this moment.

Although they could ask players for help on the offline forum, there were very few players online at this time, and relying on the local NPCs of Tana City was the most suitable.

"I'll take a look, but I can't find a very accurate location. Many spirits have no way to identify humans," Lita said, pursing her lips.

(End of this chapter)