Chapter 129.1 Merfolk Shore
As Wen Shi vanished right before his eyes, while the wounded merfolk on the shore was raging and bleeding, Chubby Guy surprisingly found himself growing calmer.
In the game, there were no heaven-defying items like spatial teleportation items. The only way for someone to disappear was either by using a scapegoat item to leave the instance directly or by triggering a hidden map.
Pei Wenwei wouldn’t waste a scapegoat item for a bet of just ten thousand points… Chubby Guy squinted at the shining lake, convinced something was triggered below.
But even before he could investigate closely, a strong killing intent gave him goosebumps.
Merfolk were way more extreme than regular humans. After Wen Shi vanished out of nowhere, the merfolk, unable to release its frustrations, suddenly looked at Chubby Guy.
Chubby Guy felt really unhappy about this. This was why he wanted to choose the principal’s faction. Different species would always have different thoughts. For humans to gain full trust from merfolk was nearly impossible.
Now, he could only somewhat comfort himself. This journey had not been totally empty-handed. At least, he now knew that another merfolk was hiding in the academy.
“I really tried hard to stop him from running away,” Chubby Guy said, rubbing his head.
Even the merfolk couldn’t deny this fact. This person had almost succeeded in stopping the target from escaping.
Drawing back its gaze, the massive merfolk submerged into the lake. Unwilling to give up, it continued searching for any trace of Wen Shi. Chubby Guy stood still for a few seconds, then turned around and headed back to Dormitory Building 32.
The position of the iron chain tied by the well had changed. Chubby Guy investigated the well and, as expected, the Merfolk King’s remains had disappeared.
The only thing he couldn’t understand was, despite the ice cone piercing Pei Wenwei’s heart, how could this person still manage to wear such a triumphant expression in the end?
Illusion? Or perhaps a rare item that could lessen the damage?
Being overly certain in his skill of calculating survival probabilities, he even thought about the possibility of Ji Yuanzhi disguising as Pei Wenwei.
The corners of his mouth, usually upturned, drooped down. Chubby Guy looked toward the direction of the Exhibition Hall. With the body missing, there would definitely be a major incident tonight. Since the sides had already been drawn, he needed to carefully consider how to exploit the situation and take down the principal.
……
Darkness surrounded him on all sides.
In an environment where he couldn’t see his own hand in front of his face, Wen Shi almost believed that the teleportation hadn’t completed yet. While his health bar rapidly rose as he consumed potions to restore his HP, his limbs still felt weak and sore.
His nose twitched as a faint strange smell wafted over.
Wen Shi took a moment to recover. He still couldn’t stand up properly. The side effects from almost having his HP drop to zero were too apparent.
“Incomplete transformation.”
Since he couldn’t focus to check the attribute panel, he poked at the game directly. After the somewhat edgy words dissipated, and with the agility boost from the cat, Wen Shi could finally move freely.
Night vision couldn’t penetrate this overly thick darkness, so Wen Shi had to take out the【Small Lantern】.
The slightly eerie glow illuminated a small area, and suddenly a misshapen and rough head was reflected in his clear pupils.
“Fu…” The word got stuck in his throat.
The decline in bodily functions weakened his senses. Wen Shi finally understood the source of that strange smell.
Stumbling for a moment, he regained his balance, composed himself, and held the lantern up and down, inspecting this skeleton.
Flesh and blood had long since deteriorated, but the sparse hair seemed to contain some sort of magic, still lingering. The dense jagged teeth were clearly non-human.
Upper body human bones, lower body fish bones—this was a long-dead, distorted merfolk body.
Within the area illuminated by the lantern, there was another set of human bones. A dagger was thrust into his chest, its sharp tip seemingly embedded in the bone, fitting perfectly.
The system’s cold, robotic prompt sounded:
“Please greet one of the skeletons within thirty seconds.”
“……” Are you playing with me?
Wen Shi shook his head, his voice slightly ethereal due to weakness. “That night at the principal’s residence, I was curious why the trigger point was at the lake.”
Song Yan had mentioned that the lake was filled with beneficial aquatic plants for the merfolk. Just before he fell, he also sensed an unprecedented clarity in the lake water.
This was a lake untouched by contamination. The principal had no reason to contaminate the resources within the academy. Hence, there was no place more suitable than here to store the Merfolk King’s heart.
In simple terms, it was also a strategy of being under the light but in the dark.
The surrounding light illuminated the area and reflected on the water’s surface. Wen Shi hadn’t completely left the lake’s multidimensional space. He had merely entered a separate space created by psychic power alone.
Step by step, he walked toward the human corpse. In the final three seconds, he stopped in front of it, the cat’s tail swaying friendly, and he opened his mouth to say, “Hi.”
Human bones: “……”
For Wen Shi, this wasn’t even worthy of being a multiple-choice question.
The focal point of the series of quests was all the letters hidden in the album.
The Merfolk King bewitched the residents, and the mentally contaminated residents seemed to plead for it like they were possessed. This kind of confusion had probably existed earlier, but at that time, the Merfolk King’s body was too weak. Otherwise, the outcome of that revenge operation might have been different.
Only the residents, or perhaps a student within the academy, could have stealthily transported the Merfolk King’s heart here.
If they wanted to find out the whereabouts of the heart, naturally, they had to approach the humans.
【You awakened the loyal servant who was enchanted by the Merfolk King.】
【He was the one who smuggled the heart here. Upon the success of the mission, he was commanded by the Merfolk King to commit sucide.】
When the prompt sound stopped, Wen Shi looked to the other side, curious about where the deformed merfolk came from.
Creak, creak.
The unpleasant sound of friction brought him back to reality. He saw the human bones in front of him slowly stand up in an awkward posture. Two pale leg bones took hesitant steps forward.
The skeleton wasn’t heading towards Wen Shi. As it passed by him, a chilling breeze swept past. After a moment, the skeleton stopped in front of the deformed merfolk. It bent down and placed its hand on the merfolk’s skull. A magical scene unfolded: the deformed merfolk gradually turned ethereal until it completely disappeared, leaving only a shining scale at its core. The scale flew into the hands of the skeleton.
It was evident that this fish scale didn’t belong to humans. Wen Shi instantly realized that what he had seen before was an illusion. This fish scale had an effect of causing mental contamination.
Eyes fixed on the scale, Wen Shi’s throat moved suspiciously. A human couldn’t have entered this space alone, and the Merfolk King couldn’t have entered the academy back then. So, did this scale possess the ability to create an isolated space and cause mental contamination?
He wanted to possess it as well!
The restless claws twitched a few times, but ultimately, rationality held them back.
Wen Shi, with a hint of regret, said, “Forget it, let’s be cautious.”
Since the game had prompted a choice before, making the wrong one would certainly bring punishment. This fish scale most likely had autonomous attacking consciousness.
The skeleton held the scale, with one sharp end tracing the character “王” in the air. For the first time, Wen Shi witnessed the scene of space tearing open. His pupils slightly dilated as he vaguely saw a bloody corner of a heart in it.
The deadly selection process had concluded. Now all he needed to do was wait to obtain the heart.
Along with the space completely tearing open, the entire half heart was revealed. Its valve was trembling incessantly, and astonishingly, it was still beating.
Fresh, warm, and feline!
Wen Shi slowly lifted his arm, but the next second, someone suddenly tapped his shoulder from behind. He gave a start, stiffly turned his neck to look back.
Behind him, an entity seemingly both human and ghost had appeared, its features eyeless, its chest cavity wide open like the merfolk torso by the well, its limbs all formed from sinister black smoke.
The man’s vacant eyes “looked” at Wen Shi. After several seconds, he slowly opened his mouth and, imitating Wen Shi’s earlier greeting, said, “Hi.”
“……”
If you enjoy this novel, support the Translator ginevre on her ko-fi account :))
