Chapter 51: Investigation

In the early hours of the morning, the world fell into darkness, with only the cold moonlight outlining everything on the ground.

Throughout the new and old cities of Wyzima, apart from sporadic lights, there were only a few squads of guards holding torches still patrolling back and forth on the streets.

Without anyone noticing, a figure wearing dark, tight-fitting clothes, a black mask covering their face, and carrying a silver sword on their back, walked out from the slums.

This person was, of course, Wayne. In order to investigate the truth about the house he had taken a fancy to during the day, he had specially disguised himself and even borrowed Geralt's silver sword.

After all, that house still belonged to the town hall, and he couldn't break into it for no reason.

And if he solved the trouble in the house with great fanfare, maybe the town hall would change its mind at that time and raise the price of the house.

So the purpose of Wayne's trip was just to go in and confirm whether he could solve the problem in this house.

If the trouble was within his ability, he could save a large sum of money.

Because he had taken a potion in advance, the dark environment at this time had no effect on his actions. Wayne moved forward all the way, avoiding the sight of all patrol squads, and soon reached his destination.

This was a two-story brick-and-stone house similar to a private villa, with its own front and back yards, as well as a wall more than two meters high. The overall area was about a thousand ping, looking quite imposing.

However, compared to those houses with their own storefronts, this house was relatively remote, with entrances and exits not on the main streets, almost adjacent to the city wall of New Wyzima, separated only by a passage a few meters wide.

Wayne observed around the house, and after confirming that no one saw him, he climbed up with a boost and easily climbed over the gate.

The front yard of the house was a garden, where many flowers and plants were planted, and for the sake of aesthetics, the workers had also built a wooden pavilion and a small pond in the yard.

Wayne walked around the front yard garden, neither seeing anything strange nor did his Wolf School medallion have any reaction, so there should be no problem.

So, he came to the front door of the house, pushed it, and found that the front door was locked, and the windows on the first floor were all tightly closed, making it impossible to enter.

However, this was nothing to a Witcher. He walked around the house for half a circle and saw the balcony on the second floor.

That was a semi-circular open-air balcony, more than three meters high from the ground. The previous owner of the house had also placed several pots of beautiful flowers on the balcony.

This height might be quite difficult for ordinary people, who would have to use a ladder to get up.

But at this time, Wayne was not wearing iron armor and was traveling light. Moreover, he was tall and sturdy, so he just raised his hands, accumulated a little strength, and then jumped up fiercely, and his arms firmly grabbed the edge of the open-air balcony.

After climbing up, Wayne discovered that this balcony was connected to the master bedroom of the house, and the furniture inside was ninety percent new, looking quite high-end.

It was very likely that the owner had chosen to leave directly after encountering various accidents, without taking all the items here.

However, Wayne didn't care about these external things. After entering the house, he immediately became vigilant and began to explore the house carefully.

If it was just those small ground spirits who liked to play pranks, or those non-lethal curses in the house, they would be relatively easy to solve.

But if it was a malicious wraith, it would be a bit troublesome.

Because although a wraith was collectively referred to as a type of monster, their strength varied. A powerful wraith could even slaughter an entire army, while a weak wraith might even have difficulty manifesting.

There was no unified answer as to why this kind of monster was generated, but most scholars and sorcerers believed that when certain intelligent beings held extremely strong negative emotions before death and died at a special time and in a special place, there was a certain probability of becoming a wraith.

Wayne searched in the house for nearly an hour, from the second floor to the first floor, from the bedroom to the kitchen, almost searching every corner of the entire house, but still didn't find any abnormal places.

Even his Witcher senses and the magic medallion on his chest had no reaction, which was so normal that he frowned.

There were only two possibilities for this situation: either the problem here was very big, beyond his ability, and he couldn't detect it.

Or, there was no big problem here, and the previous buyers were likely just having accidents due to various coincidences.

However, compared to the former, Wayne didn't believe in coincidences even more. After searching the house again, he still found nothing.

Wayne left the house and prepared to go to the back yard to continue searching.

Compared to the small garden in the front yard, the back yard was wider, about five hundred ping.

However, because the new city had just been built, these houses were not completely finished. At this time, the back yard was just a wasteland surrounded by walls. Except for a deep well dug in the center of the back yard, other places were quite flat, which could be said to be unobstructed, without any abnormalities.

Therefore, Wayne's gaze was instinctively attracted by that deep well.

With an inquisitive mind, he cautiously approached the well piled up with bricks and stones.

This was a style specially designed for wealthy families. The wellhead was nearly 1.2 meters wide, and a wooden roof was built above to block debris. A metal rotating lever was fixed at the wellhead, which could control the rope to scoop up well water from below.

However, this time, just as he approached the wellhead, Wayne immediately noticed something unusual.

In his keen senses, there was actually a faint airflow flowing outward from the wellhead, blowing on his skin, and it even carried a faint chill.

Instead of being a closed space like an ordinary well.

With this doubt, Wayne poked his head out and looked down from above the well.

It was pitch black below, and he couldn't see anything. Even with the blessing of the Cat potion, he could only determine that the space below the wellhead was quite large, and there was indeed air flowing, even forming a breeze.

And the Witcher's keen hearing and touch told Wayne that this well was not the kind of well that was dug to the aquifer to take water through infiltration.

This well was chiseled directly through the rock layer of the surface, connected to an underground river more than ten meters deep, and the underground river water was taken directly through a wooden bucket.

That was why there was such a large space below the well, as well as the airflow driven by the underground river.

Moreover, Wayne also smelled the scent of some kind of monster from the wellhead. Although he couldn't be sure, there were indeed traces of some kind of monster.

With this discovery, Wayne also had a certain guess about the whole thing.

Perhaps it was precisely because this underground river was connected to some mysterious place that some kind of monster or wraith entered this house through the wellhead, causing many accidents to the original buyers.

However, that monster should not be dangerous for the time being, because it did not cause life-threatening harm to the original buyers. He didn't know if it was because its ability was not enough, or if it didn't want to do so.

And after Wayne considered for a few minutes, he found that there were three solutions in front of him.

The first method was the simplest: directly set up a magic array to seal the wellhead, isolating the passage between that monster and the ground. Even if it wanted to do something else, it could only pass through other places.

The second method was relatively stupid and relatively traditional, which was to wait for the rabbit. He could spend a few days guarding near this wellhead, hiding, and there should be a certain probability of encountering the monster crawling out of the wellhead.

And the last method was relatively risky, which was to jump into the well, follow the underground river to directly find the mysterious area connected by the river, and solve this problem at the source.

And just in time, he had obtained the Ekimmara decoction, which could breathe underwater and speed up swimming.

The only thing worth considering was whether he could defeat that unknown monster with his strength, or negotiate with it in a friendly way to solve this problem.

Thinking of this, Wayne looked at the sky. It was still late at night, and the moon had already set halfway. There were still four or five hours before dawn.

He thought about it and sighed. If this were in the game, perhaps Wayne would jump into the well without hesitation to challenge the monster.

But now it was the real world, and he could neither save the game nor resurrect. Wayne felt that he couldn't take risks and had to be more stable.

So, after considering for a few minutes, Wayne stood up, returned to the house, came to the room on the second floor near the back yard, sat by the window, and quietly observed the wellhead through the window.

He hoped that he would be lucky enough to wait for that guy who threw himself into the net.

(Seeing that some book friends have some disputes about the plot, I did some popular science in the essence post in the comment area. Most readers should have only played the game and don't know much about the original novel, so there may be some misunderstandings. I hope that after reading my popular science, you will understand the plot better, mwah!)

(End of chapter) ===== CHAPTER 52 =====