Chapter 68: The Missing Important Figures and the Inner World

Wu Chang took out the letter from the compartment; the envelope bore the words "For Professor Ebert."

He did not hesitate at all, immediately opening the letter.

The letter looked ordinary, but the sender was no one small—he was a Mingdazhu Sect leader.

The purpose of the letter was to ask Professor Ebert, who happened to be on Briver Island, to investigate the whereabouts of the Holy Maiden and others.

According to the letter, the Holy Maiden and her group were spreading the Lord's light along overseas trade routes; originally, the Holy Maiden would send updates to the Church every two weeks, but for the past three months, her fleet had gone silent.

In her last communication, the Holy Maiden said her next stop would be Briver, mentioning that sea wraiths had appeared in the surrounding waters, with many merchant ships attacked—she believed heretics had conspired along the trade routes and intended to investigate.

The Church sent three teams to investigate, but found not a single clue, so they wished for Professor Ebert to secretly search for traces of the Holy Maiden.

"Hidden Side Quest: Find the Missing Holy Maiden or Recover the Holy Mark. No penalty for failure. Accept quest?"

Oh well, it seems more than one important person has vanished on this island.

Accept!

After all, there's no penalty for failure—why not accept? At the bottom of the envelope lay a crystal necklace, ending in a pure white crystal pendant.

"Item Name: Blessing of the Great Holy Mother"

"Item Type: Special"

"Item Description: A pendant blessed by the Great Holy Mother, capable of protecting the Holy Maiden through peril; it is a divine gift given to the Holy Maiden as her coming-of-age rite. When near the Holy Maiden or the Holy Mark, the crystal pendant will react."

Wu Chang hung the necklace around his neck and found no change in his attributes.

It must be a unique item.

He placed the pendant into his personal space and began examining the clippings made by the former mail carrier.

The clippings collected much information about Briver Island, including its past and present.

Two hundred years ago, Briver Island was a barren isle, its environment harsh, sparsely populated, and teeming with venomous snakes, insects, and ferocious beasts.

At the time, the Kingdom of Orgre would send condemned criminals and pirates here to fend for themselves.

Thus, it was then called Black Prison Island.

Until twenty years ago, when the first steamship was invented, Count Jemaine noticed that sea routes would be the kingdom's future; when he was rewarded by the king for hunting heretics, he chose this island as his fief.

Count Jemaine valued Black Prison Island immensely, bringing three full ships' worth of belongings.

He brought new population, the Church, schools, hospitals, and civilization and morality to the island.

He renamed Black Prison Island to Briver, meaning "Land of Peace and Serenity."

Jemaine was a famed iron-fisted count, a notorious control freak in the kingdom, known for taming anything.

For the island's native descendants of condemned criminals, he took only three years to teach them literacy, morality, and successfully integrate them into civilized society.

The cost? Reducing the native population from over five thousand to just nine hundred and twenty-five.

Compared to civilization and progress, it was negligible.

The tamed natives, alongside Jemaine's imported slaves, formed new families, reproduced, and gradually became today's Briver Island.

Two months ago, Count Jemaine suddenly vanished with his family, and his whereabouts remain unknown.

Town residents organized several searches but found no trace of Count Jemaine.

Wu Chang closed the clippings, feeling a strong sense of déjà vu about the instance's background.

No wonder the townsfolk all looked burly and unusually strong.

They were descendants of condemned criminals and pirates—pure-blooded, stereotypical old white men, utterly authentic.

Briver Island's history explains why the townspeople are so rigid about work and so hostile toward anyone who breaks town rules or neglects their duties.

Because they themselves were tamed exactly that way—five thousand reduced to nine hundred and twenty-five; that sense of control was bound to be carved into their DNA.

Putting away the clippings, Wu Chang flipped through the letters in the bag.

One letter caught his attention: unlike the others, its recipient was named Tony Stark.

Clearly a player-chosen name.

Opening the envelope, the handwriting matched the annotations in the clippings—written by the former mail carrier.

The former mail carrier and the recipient, Tony Stark, seemed to be exchanging information via mail.

The letter contained only the former mail carrier's final day's intelligence; each passage was brief but packed with dense information.

"I was right—breaking the town's rules does indeed make you a priority target for the Inner World, and yes, deliberately violating specific rules lets you enter corresponding Inner World zones. Tonight, I entered the same dock again."

Just this first paragraph revealed more than Wu Chang had expected.

If this information was true, it meant Briver Town harbored an Inner World, randomly pulling players into it each night.

And the Inner World had different zones; without deliberate control, you'd enter a random one.

But consciously breaking a specific rule would lead you to a fixed Inner World zone.

The former mail carrier, by refusing work, repeatedly entered the same dock in the Inner World—unsurprisingly, that was the dock where he was executed.

Wu Chang processed the information in the first paragraph and continued reading.

"There's bad news, and there's good news."

"The bad news: our assumption was correct—this instance has been tampered with. Even without player deaths, it's self-polluting. Rising pollution levels directly increase danger in the Inner World; tonight, I encountered a monster I'd never seen before."

"The good news: the monster I encountered was a group of merfolk—I'm certain whatever we're searching for is connected to these merfolk!"

"Killing those merfolk was easy. I tried eating their flesh—it's high in fat, like tuna belly, but fishier. Too bad I didn't bring wasabi."

Wu Chang read these two pieces of information several times.

From the paper's content, his predecessor and his team were veteran players.

Their goal in entering the instance was clear: to find something tied to the merfolk—or to sea monsters.

They could choose which instance to enter, vaguely knew about items dropped within, and were aware that instances could be tampered with.

A tampered instance, even without player deaths, would self-pollute.

These high-level insights were ones Wu Chang had never even heard rumors of on forums—they were undoubtedly information secretly suppressed among elite factions.

A dungeon that has been targeted by a major organization—if the breakthrough has been completed, they would never easily let other players in.

At the same time, for a dungeon that has been tampered with like this, the Administration only classified it as a Special Watch List item and did not immediately send people to break the deadlock.

This shows that the team the previous mailman belonged to not only failed to break the dungeon deadlock, but very likely suffered a catastrophic defeat, so much so that none of this critical intelligence could be transmitted out.

For a player like Spirit Fox, the news before her eyes would be enough to make her hard-won recovered spirits sink again, and might even cause her to lose control of her mind under the heavy pressure.

But for Wu Chang, this feeling was, on the contrary, just right.

If the dungeons the Abyss Game arranged for him didn't have some vicious tricks inside, he would instead feel out of place.

He looked toward the final paragraph of the letter.

"I suspect those fishmen are the monsters that attacked the merchant ship. I tried to ask the sheriff, but since I've been on strike lately, that bitch's only response to me was a middle finger."

"I'll leave this problem to Rogan. Today I overheard the mayor talking—because Rogan has been working so hard, he's going to let him join the town council and make him a real townsman."

"Tomorrow I'll continue the strike. I'm really looking forward to seeing what other surprises that dock can give me after I've met the fishmen."

(End of Chapter)