Chapter 672: Smuggler: I

Smuggler: I'm here to find Adric.

The person has been caught.

Li Wu's speed in becoming serious was much faster than "Ram Horn"; after all, he was a peak hunter. Under his full-force strike, the intruder didn't even see who had come before his feet left the ground and he was brought before Cheng Shi.

The investigator's methods were too clean, so much so that when the intruder knelt before Cheng Shi in a daze, Cheng Shi subconsciously took a step back, thinking the other party was trying to set him up.

But he hadn't expected this cautious reaction to make Li Wu, who had just relaxed, instantly change his expression. He looked around with extreme vigilance while retreating toward Cheng Shi, asking with suspicion, "Is there more?"

"......"

A trace of awkwardness rose on Cheng Shi's face. There was indeed a situation—you were that situation. If one were to set you aside, it was quite safe here.

But he couldn't say that he had been overly steady and suspicious of his teammate, so he could only laugh it off: "Just testing how fast your reaction is. It's quite fast."

"......" Now it was Li Wu's turn to be speechless. He sighed with a blank expression, wanting to say something, but then held it back with a strange look on his face. He pointed at the intruder beside him and said no more.

Cheng Shi gave two dry laughs, thinking it was fortunate the other party hadn't pressed the issue, otherwise he wouldn't have known how to continue.

After dealing with Li Wu, Cheng Shi turned his attention back to the intruder before him. This person was clearly a smuggler, and a smuggler with no assets at that.

The other party's face was covered in mud, his clothes were tattered, and apart from a small bag tucked at the small of his back, there wasn't a single valuable item on him. He looked far more miserable than the vast majority of smugglers Cheng Shi had seen today, but the reason he could conclude the man was also a smuggler was because he had a pair of eyes as shrewd as those of the inn's guests.

The smugglers at the Gate of Inversion were all very shrewd; they had to be good at discovering opportunities here to accumulate enough wealth to exchange for a ticket to leave the underworld.

The man before him had clearly come for wealth as well. As for whether he had come to steal people or mine, that would have to wait until after he was questioned.

Cheng Shi didn't waste time; he tossed a scalpel at his feet and asked with a smile:

"I'll give you a chance to live. Tell me who you are and what you're doing here. If you explain it clearly, I'll let you go. If you can't, I'll bleed you out."

"......"

The smuggler was terrified. He lay on the ground, trembling all over, and opened his mouth to beg for mercy.

"Don't kill me, don't kill me! I'm not here to steal anything, I'm here to find someone. I know a miner here, I came to ask him for help. We agreed on a time to meet, but he never showed up, so I came to check!

Really, it's the truth, don't kill me, I beg you!!"

It was indeed the truth. Cheng Shi frowned and continued to ask: "I'll give you one more chance. I said, explain it more clearly."

"Yes, yes, explain clearly. I'll explain clearly right now.

My name is Gers, I'm from the surface—ah, no, from the underworld, from the underworld.

I'm a half-blood of the Bomeide and the Far Furnace people. My father's name is......"

"Boom—"

Before Gers could finish, he was kicked over by Li Wu.

"I told you to explain the matter clearly, not to recite your family tree here. What use is it for me to know your parents?

And whether you're from the surface or the underworld—at a time like this, you wouldn't want to lie in front of him, would you?"

Li Wu pointed at Cheng Shi and smiled brightly, but as soon as these words were out, not only was Gers terrified, but Cheng Shi's heart skipped a beat.

What was going on?

Had this investigator seen something, or did he know something?

In front of a hunter, Cheng Shi dared not show suspicion, so he glanced at the other party vaguely, his heart slightly on guard. But his ears remained pricked, listening to Gers, who was terrified to the extreme, as he continued to defend himself.

Gers was stunned by the kick; he curled up on the ground, trembling uncontrollably.

"I understand, I understand now. I am an underworlder, I was born in the underworld, but a few months ago, I went to the surface through the connections of the Hand of Agency and became a... vagrant in Jiasimaila.

The cities ruled by scholars are truly beautiful, and life on the surface is glamorous, but for people like us without status, city life is too hard. We are hungry and cold, we have no civil rights, and even if we die on the street, the ones collecting the bodies aren't the research institutes or the cemeteries, but other starving vagrants.

I was too afraid. I knew I couldn't keep drifting on the streets, so when I heard that the Tower of Reason needed someone to explore mineral veins in the 【Abyssal Volcano】, I signed up, hoping to obtain a legal Jiasimaila citizen status.

But I didn't expect that while exploring, I would fall back down!

I spent all my family's wealth to exchange for a ticket to the surface, I exhausted all my efforts to reach the paradise of 【Truth】, but now, everything is gone, and I'm back!

Fate, how could you treat me like this! How could you treat me like this!!"

Speaking to this point, the grown man actually began to cry. He cried heart-wrenchingly, as if the fact that he had fallen back into the underworld had directly killed his future, causing him to lose all hope.

But as Cheng Shi listened to this, he felt something was off.

Not so fast, buddy, you did the stupid thing yourself, why are you shifting the blame onto my Benefactor?

Furthermore, the space within the 【Abyssal Volcano】 is extremely dangerous; even peak players rarely set foot there. The fact that you survived going up once is already not easy, and that you survived falling back down—isn't that because of the protection of 【Fate】?

He had done all that for you, and yet you could still give Him a bad review... Tsk, you deserve it, you really deserve it.

It's because there are too many people like you that His reputation has become so poor.

Cheng Shi rolled his eyes and continued to listen to Gers's wailing.

"I was almost about to get Jiasimaila status, just a little bit more! How could I be reconciled? So I wanted to come and find my friend, to ask him to help me one more time, to help me secretly get a quota for the surface. As long as I can go up, I can become a true citizen of the Tower of Reason!

I can help them solicit business on the surface, I can also be their contact person. I am very diligent, I am very capable, I can endure hardship, I......"

"Then why don't you endure hardship in the underworld?"

"......?" Cheng Shi's question interrupted Gers's howling. He looked up, staring blankly at the man before him, choking for a long time before replying, "The underworld is all hardship, I've already endured it, I can't endure any more... Wuwuwu."

"......"

I have a mouthful of old complaints, but I don't know how to spit them out.

Cheng Shi was so angry he laughed. He just felt that the Gate of Inversion was truly spectacular; the people here were all geniuses!

"Your friend is a member of the Hand of Agency. What is his name? It wouldn't be...... Arad, would it?"

"Arad? Who is that? I don't know any Arad. My friend's name is Adric, he's just an ordinary miner."

"?" The two players present were stunned for a moment, their faces full of astonishment as they asked, "Who?" ===== CHAPTER 673 =====