There were two new quests.
The first was to investigate the swampmen's whereabouts in Crookes, just as Jom had thought.
"Wait a minute. Didn't we kill the swampmen already?"
Using Pikes's dog nose, Terry, who was cooking on the stove, asked in surprise. He found some normal food stored in the house and asked while cooking on the stove.
"There are two possibilities."
Unlike main quests, side quests and event quests, the chain quests were very brief, which was why Jom could only come up with his own theories.
"Either the swampmen are parasites that have taken up residence in the city, and we have to find the broodmother and kill it to complete the quest." Jom said, arranging his thoughts as he continued along that line of thought. "Or the swampmen are monsters released by some faction in the city for some reason."
"Why can't two or three swampmen sneak into the city, and we just have to kill the rest?"
Terry asked. "That would be the simplest and most direct scenario …"
"Because the mission requirement is' investigate '. If it's the situation you're talking about, then the mission description should be' destroy 'or' attack '," Jom replied.
"How troublesome … what about the second quest?" Terry muttered in irritation, stirring the oatmeal in a crucible hanging over the stove with a spoon.
"You can just look at it yourself. It's not like there's no quest page."
"Urgh …" Terry made a sound of indecipherable meaning even as he sneaked a sip of his oatmeal, but Jerry had a feeling that he was probably saying something along the lines of 'opening the quest page is too troublesome'.
The second quest appeared much simpler than the first: after the investigation was done, Joshua had to find a way to personally tell old Meredith, the mayor of Crookes about the truth he had uncovered.
"But that's only on the surface."
Jom explained, knowing that Terry wouldn't understand the trouble. "Personally telling him the condition means that the quest itself isn't simple!"
"Is that so? I don't think it's hard. Even the Koi Brothers managed to infiltrate the Secret Eye's base and Tunaya's Silver Eagle Castle. If they can do it, there's no way we can't, right? "Terry said nonchalantly.
It was worth mentioning that Edward and the others, who had played a decisive role in the two conspiracies, had never taken the initiative to announce what happened. On the other hand, Terrosche and Silva, two buffoons — one fat and one skinny — were always bragging in taverns. Moreover, both of them had the title of Adventurers of the Seven Seas, a title only first-rate Players could have, which was why many Players who were unaware believed that they were really adept at stealth … little did they know that their infiltration was to run to their target location, tell jokes, and go on a killing spree …
"It's not difficult to break through the guards' defences and meet them face to face." Jom was one of the duped Players, but that wasn't the end. "But don't forget that the swampmen's specialty is to kill humans and mimic their appearance, even copying their memories. Obviously, the more powerful the person was, the more cost-effective it would be. And the most powerful person in Crookes … "
"So that's how it is. It's the castellan, Old Meredith!"
At that, Terry finally understood what Jom meant.
If they were too slow in their investigation and Old Meredith was already killed and replaced by the swampmen by the time they learned the truth, they would only be reporting it to the swampmen themselves instead of Old Meredith himself even if they could come up with a way to report it face-to-face.
That way, the entire quest process would be stuck, and they could directly declare the quest a failure.
"What should we do, then? We don't even know where to start investigating. " Terry couldn't help feeling uneasy at the thought, afraid that they would have to start all over again if they failed the quest.
Even if they were working hard on the quest to change Pikes' bloodline, it didn't hide the fact that the quest was complicated and lengthy.
It was the same as leveling up in a game. If you could charge towards the highest level in one go and have a good chance of doing so, most people would never tire of playing no matter how troublesome the game was.
On the other hand, if you were just one step away from becoming the Greatest King, and the server suddenly gave you a reset and asked you to start all over again as compensation, most people wouldn't have the heart to do that. They would simply curse the server for a while before logging off, and not touch the game for a long time.
That was the meaning of the saying 'the first spurt of energy, the second decline, and the third exhaustion'.
"That's true. Crookes is smaller than Lancaster, but it's built beside a mountain and is a mountain city. It's no different from looking for a needle in a haystack with just the two of us …" Jom said, scratching his head. "Although I don't really want to trouble others, it looks like we can only ask other Players on the forums."
"Would they come all the way to a place like this to help? There's no Lifestone to teleport here … "
Terry wasn't too optimistic about that.
"It's fine. Think about it. We've just arrived in this city, and we've already received such a clearly unusual quest. Doesn't that mean that Crookes is a place with lots of quests?" Jom, on the other hand, didn't doubt the Players' initiative in exploring new maps. "No one would complain about having too many quests. Moreover, Mister Edward the Quest Maniac is on a break, so they would definitely come."
"Let's hope so. Slurp."
"Hey, don't finish your oatmeal, leave some for me!"
☆
As Jom expected, many Players who were tired of loitering around Lancaster and being used by the nobles immediately formed an advance party, intending to head to Crookes first.
"Where's Mister Marni?" Edward asked, noticing that the organizer and sponsor of the advance party, Marni Wilf, was nowhere to be found. "He's dead again? But we have the Resurrection Ankh now. He bought a bunch of them before, so he should be able to revive quickly even if he's dead. "
"He's dying. He slipped and fell into a pool of acid while he was doing a quest. "Ivan, Marni's bodyguard spread his hands." That stuff is so thick that you can't move or climb out at all. You'd just keep sinking, and your HP would drop as the acid corrodes. Still, Mister Marni's + 7 resistances and high HP regeneration means that he would die for half an hour judging by the rate at which his HP is dropping … He's already given up and gone to the forums to play Tierra Cubes, the one with 65535 points. "
"Although that's not very polite to Mister Marni." Gou Dan stroked the fur on his chin with a subtle look on his face. "But I think the outcome of this expedition is set in stone when I hear that he's in such a terrible state!"
The others also nodded in agreement.
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