Just as Angora was thinking about how he could attract the kidnappers' attention and extract some information from them, the Players made their move as well.
Vela had obtained the title of Deputy Lord and the authority to issue quests, but there was only one quest she could issue:
[Quest Name: Hey, time for some sun.]
[Quest Details: The lord of this town has been kidnapped, and the evil creatures that roam the Shadow Divide are extending their filthy claws to the Church of Games! Could it be that you can tolerate these fellows doing such an insult to you? It's a naked provocation, and all you have to do is capture those foolish creatures that only know how to swim in the shadows, kill them, and turn them into dried salted fish!]
[Quest Requirement: Track down and rescue the kidnapped Angora in three days. Quest fails if Angora dies.]
[Quest Reward: EXP, Game Coins, 1-5 Shadow Embryos (can be used to craft equipment at the blacksmith), Shadow Maelstrom Head (Outfit).]
[Failure Penalty: Angora's Affinity drops significantly.]
[Note: Dried salted fish goes well with a sunny day.]
Since Vela's System wasn't a Lord System, Xi Wei had to limit it when he patched her, and issuing quests would cost her EXP.
Be that as it may, Vela didn't hesitate to mobilize most Players in the town apart from Life Players and have them participate in the rescue of Angora, to the point that her level dropped from Level 40 to a little over Level 30.
It was a pity that Edward and the other first-rate Players had gone out to explore and were now quite far from the Lifestone. Unless they killed themselves and returned to town, they wouldn't make it back in time for the quest.
This time, the leader of the Players was the best of the new generation, Simba's party, which had a brilliant performance in the Crookes event.
Since the enemy was ambushing them from the Shadow Divide, the Players had targeted the shadow creatures at first.
Simba had asked for a bottle of Shadow Bait from the town's alchemist, Lady Kinley, who was rumored to be Lord Angora's fiancee, and the bait had attracted many shadow creatures.
Soon after, the well-prepared Players went forward to capture a few shadow creatures that seemed to have some intelligence and interrogate them.
At first, the shadow creatures had no intention of working together, believing that the Players of the Prime Material Plane couldn't do anything to them.
But when Zazu and Nala pulled the remaining shadow creatures together according to Simba's instructions and took them down with a single wave of AoE attacks, the shadow creatures who had witnessed the carnage promptly cowered.
After all, the Players' skills dealt damage from the Rule of Skill, and not physical or magical attacks in the truest sense.
"Miss Vela, you've been misled."
After integrating the confessions of several shadow creatures, Simba came to a conclusion after some analysis.
"What?" Vela asked anxiously.
"If I'm not mistaken, it wasn't a Shadow Creature that attacked you and kidnapped Mister Angora," Simba said.
"No, that's impossible!" Vera immediately refuted, "I saw them come out of the shadows with my own eyes!"
"Being able to enter the shadows doesn't mean they're shadow creatures. In fact, Shadow Blade Players who take the Dark Blade path have movement skills that allow them to temporarily enter the Shadow Divide."
Simba said amiably. "According to the information from the shadow creatures, the ones who captured Angora only stayed in the Divide for a while before returning to the Prime Material Plane … they didn't have to do that if they really were shadow creatures. They just had to return to their lair through the Divide."
"But the quest clearly said that they were shadow creatures …" At that, Vela suddenly realized that the quest did not explicitly state that the enemy was shadow creatures.
"I once heard that when I was begging in Lancaster," Zazu suddenly said. "Some countries would groom some Shadow Guardians … they are usually orphans adopted by nobles or royals, and they would be soaked in a medicinal liquid since young. Their skin would stop growing, but their bodies would keep growing, and their bodies would burst out of their skin like butterflies breaking out of a cocoon when they are around ten years old, and they would wriggle out of their skin."
"Normal people would die quickly under such circumstances, but the potion the children were soaked in also contained a potion that could keep them alive, and it's said that two out of ten could survive … after that, the person who groomed them would drape a freshly peeled shadow creature pelt over the children's bodies and feed them another potion so that the pelt would eventually grow onto the children's bodies, granting them the ability to move freely through the Divide. They would also act as sentries and guards in the shadows to protect their targets."
He wasn't exactly being secretive. Many leaders of countries were afraid of the various powerful churches, which was why they would secretly groom special soldiers to maintain their rule. Many of them would even be promoted as national heroes due to their outstanding achievements, and everyone present apart from Vela who was a real country girl had heard about it.
Still, Zazu was clearly quite eloquent and told the story vividly, even spending hundreds of words to describe the horrific sight of those people crawling out of their skin, as well as the pitiful sight of the children who were forced to wear the skin of monsters and turn into something neither human nor ghost. It left everyone else feeling uncomfortable.
"In other words, it's a noble … or even the royal family who attacked our liege?" Vela frowned. But just when Simba thought that she understood the gravity of the situation, the girl asked, "What should we do, then? Kidnap the emperor as a hostage? "
"Ahem. No. Leaving aside the fact that we might not make it in time, we might not be able to get Mister Angora even if we kidnap the emperor. Moreover, if it's a noble who did it and has nothing to do with the emperor, not only would we be taking a risk for nothing, we might even be helping our enemies. That's not a good move." Simba promptly rejected her suggestion.
"Then we'll kidnap the emperor and the nobles!" There was a fierce glint in the girl's eyes. It seems that Angora's kidnapping had left her furious.
"That's too much. It would push the Church of Games directly against the Valla Empire, and we'd be in trouble if the other churches stand on the Valla Empire's side against us." Simba wiped the cold sweat off his forehead and quickly comforted her. "Don't worry, we have a general estimate of how far those fellows left the Divide. We just have to follow that distance to look for tracks and tracks, and we should be able to find where Mister Angora was taken …"
