Chapter 379: Chapter 379: Investigation
In a lavishly decorated French-style mansion in the Holy City.
In a study, a stone statue suddenly comes to life… Crack! With tiny stones falling to the ground, a grey stone foot lands onto the floor.
Just completing a “transfer”.
This Secret Stone user then kneels on one knee.
“Sir, the mission about ‘carrying cement’ may have been exposed… Two special apprentice knights have learned about the cement, and there’s a high possibility they will continue to investigate.”
In front of the desk, the mysterious figure crosses his arms over his chest.
“Special?”
“They have a corruption trait similar to mine, they killed my ‘stone creature’ in an instant… moreover, one of them possesses the ability to detect and locate the ‘stone’.”
“Apprentice knights with outside city attributes, have you noted their appearances?”
“There are elements of disguise involved, so appearance information is not very significant… This time, I came to ask for your approval of my actions.
I plan to completely eliminate the ‘risk’, after all, it will take a few more days to fully complete the work.
If they continue their investigation and discover the ‘project’, it will cause trouble.”
“Hmm…go on then.
Also, if the strength level of these two apprentice knights is not very strong, try to capture them alive if possible.
I am very interested in these two apprentice knights who have contact with the outside of the city.”
“Yes.”
The Secret Stone user transforms back into a normal stone sculpture in the study, his consciousness departing.
The mysterious figure slowly gets up and goes to the window.
From his current window position, he can overlook half of the civilian area… If the view were to zoom out, it would reveal that the French-style mansion he resides in is completely enveloped in a camouflaged barrier.
Some crows can only perch outside the mansion, seemingly monitoring the situation here.
Any crow staying over a minute is shot down by the gatekeeper’s fire gun.
“Because of my intervention, the investigation of the Knight Regiment is limited. Coupled with the hidden attributes of this demon… At least within two weeks, the Knight Regiment won’t figure out anything.
I didn’t expect that the ‘cement’ would be discovered by two apprentice knights, it’s quite interesting.
It seems necessary to be prepared to abandon pawns… after all, it was an experimental attempt. From the current attempts, the Holy City’s [loophole] is incredibly large.
As long as we don’t make too much noise, and making use of my power to interfere, the Knight Regiment’s investigation will be greatly hindered.
Patience, when the Big Expedition arrives, and the big figures go out of the city to battle, that will be the time for me to take action… moreover, the two kids who emerged from this incident are quite interesting.
‘They’ might be very useful to me.
The only trouble is the crow in Holy City… otherwise, I could catch those two kids myself.”
…
Han Dong has already relayed the ‘stone’ information they found to all the squad members.
Then.
Abe and Cass in a group.
Mia and Winry in a group.
Knight Vino alone in a group, makes contact with the secret organization in the civilian area, adopting various strong-handed methods to get the ‘cement carrying locations’.
Once enough information is collected, everyone will meet in this underground bar.
While waiting for everyone to investigate.
Han Dong and Dumps possess a unique set of information… according to the marked map, they arrive at the spot where the cement was delivered recently near the underground bar.
In a densely populated residential area.
The civilians around here have been inspected by Han Dong’s Eye power, and there are no ‘stones’ in their bodies.
A copper coin is placed into the hand of an old man who appears to be quite sharp and has been living here for a long time.
“Old man, someone should have delivered cement here recently, right?”
The old man cooperates naturally once he gets the copper coin.
“Yes, someone brought several large boxes of cement here yesterday… and workers quickly arrived at the scene. However, their actions were very strange.”
“How so?”
“They tore down the stone walls that clearly didn’t need to be repaired, then filled them with brand new cement… It looks no different from before.”
“Can you take us to where the stone wall was repaired?”
“Of course… if you two wealthy gentlemen could give this old man a little more advantage it would be better. My old wife is sick, and I have to pick up garbage outside to make a living.”
Another copper coin was handed over.
The old man immediately stands erect and brings Han Dong and his companion to the area where the stone wall was repaired yesterday.
“This is the place.”
“Is there any other information you find unusual that you want to report?” Han Dong takes out another copper coin.
“This…” The old man thought for a long time, truly unable to think of anything, he gazed at the copper coin greedily.
“If not, then please leave. Pretend you never saw us today.”
Dumps, skillful in all kinds of spells, including the rare illusion system, easily sways ordinary people.
When the old man leaves, Dumps turns to look at Han Dong who’s carefully observing the stone wall.
“Did you find anything?”
“The stone wall appears to be used to separate the inside and outside of the building… but in reality, it’s unnecessary. Why tear down a perfectly good wall and rebuild it?
The answer lies within this new wall.”
Han Dong uses the plague short dagger in hand to chisel a hole in the stone wall.
It could be seen that there were other things mixed in the cement wall, numerous pebbles embedded inside.
“When they were mixing the cement, they added these small stones… If I’m not mistaken, these small stones should be of the same type as the stones found in the human body.”
Han Dong forcefully snatches a pebble from inside the wall, squeezing it slightly with his left arm.
Hiss!
A round toothed mouth immediately grows on the surface of the pebble, trying to bite Han Dong.
However.
The next second, the pebble quickly disintegrates into sand and disperses in the wind.
“This…” Dumps’s complexion also turned unsightly, “If these kinds of stone walls are filled all over the civilian area… the consequences are unimaginable.”
Han Dong adds, “If these stone-filled walls follow some kind of pattern, or can constantly reproduce, the Holy City might go into chaos because of this.
We need to quickly gather information, confirm the connection between different cement points.”
Just as Han Dong was trying to contact his teammates to ask about their progress using the clockwork device.
Beep beep beep…
The magic array within the clockwork wristwatch fails.
All of a sudden.
On the stone wall where the two were investigating, numerous hollow and desperate faces suddenly appeared, with more shattered stones flowing out from the facial features of these faces.
This scene would cause significant visual pollution to any living being.
But Han Dong and Dumps aren’t affected.
“As I thought… we are of the ‘same kind’.”
A heavy voice came from behind the two.
With his outstanding visual abilities, Han Dong retreats at the first sign.
But Dumps, distracted by the terrifying faces on the stone wall, is a step too slow.
His body is hit from the side.
Crack!
The magic shield instantly shatters, and his body is thrown more than ten meters away, with sounds of bones breaking reverberating in the air
