“Did we find all there is to find in the church? The manor had two books in it too,” Mr. Alf suggests.
“There’s nothing on my side either,” I inform the others.
“But where else is there to look?” asks Mr. Alf.
“Actually, the suspicious groups’ personal notes wouldn’t be in the lord’s manor or the church, would they? Perhaps they have a base in town, as well as the abandoned mine?”
“That’s possible,” say Mr. Alf and Mr. Skelly in unison.
“Who breaks into places and leaves their items behind?”
The twins are right—that would make the suspicious group quite buffoonish. It would be hard work to break into a place like the church, so to go to those lengths only to leave their notes behind for us? Not to mention, why not just steal the books in the first place?
“They could be hiding out in an empty house somewhere,” Mr. Skelly suggests.
“Or they’re openly using a house they don’t own, lying to the neighbors and saying they just moved in,” Mr. Alf adds.
“I’ll ask the union if they have any ideas. Perhaps they’ve heard something during their investigation into the lumber.”
“Got it!” the four reply to me.
I open up the union channel and send my message.
“Yeah, there was a house like that.”
“I heard it too. But we couldn’t get in.”
“My party is on the way now, so wait and we’ll have an update soon.”
“We could ask the lord if he has the key or go straight to the realtor.”
“The lord sounds like the better choice. It’ll be faster to get help from the highest authority in town, right?”
“We’re here, but the house is different now. Looks like we can go in! The door’s locked, but I think we can break it down.”
“Hang on a minute. I’ve got the lord right here with me.”
“Okay!”
It seems as though the suspicious group does have a base in town. We should be able to start deciphering the texts once we find their remaining members.
“Sounds like they’re done exploring the abandoned mine too,” Mr. Skelly updates us.
“So this group was the culprit in the lumber theft? But they say some of the lumber’s still unaccounted for,” I read.
“Yeah. I doubt they were planning to light a fire in the mine, so maybe they’ve got it stashed in their base in town,” Mr Alf suggests.
“It’s possible. Wait, why haul all that wood to the abandoned mine in the first place?” asks Mr. Skelly.
“Perhaps…”
I ask the union members searching the second base if there’s any lumber around, but they tell me they haven’t seen any.
“No lumber in their base in town. That means they snuck it out of the city, hauled it to the abandoned mine, then took it to another location?” asks Mr. Alf.
“The site of the summoning?!” both twins cry.
“I can’t think of any other possibility. Oh, look at that. More documents have been found,” I note.
Information has been shared with you.
All documents have been collected.
It’s time to uncover what the group of fanatics were plotting.
Select Shub-Niggurath or one of the Our Ladies of Sorrow, watch the UI, or keep it open while sitting to make progress.
The progress of your deciphering will be shared with the entire server, and the rate of analysis is influenced by each player’s intelligence and spirit.
The maximum bonus will be applied to your progress speed due to obtaining all available documents.
* There is no need to remain physically with the documents or take them out from where they were found. You may work on deciphering in any location of your choosing.
“I see. In that case, let’s clean up here and head out,” I suggest.
“Why don’t we meet up, Princess? We’re probably near the climax of the event. Let’s all sit down and have a strategy meeting, since we can still decipher if we’re sitting.”
“Where shall we meet?”
“How about the field in the west? There’s a lot of us, you know.”
I agree with Mr. Cecil’s suggestion. Let’s all gather up for the time being.
I notify each party leader, clean up my work, lock the door behind us, and head out. After returning the key to Bishop Beriess and saying goodbye, our group sets off for the western field.
I see a large group has already gathered.
There are chairs, mats, and even plain wooden boards set out for everyone to sit on.
“Over here, Sis!”
My friends appear to be gathered in the center of the field.
Rina runs and leaps at me, so I wrap my arms around her in an embrace, stopping her momentum.
“Hey there. This deciphering process is really slow,” Mr. Cecil informs me.
“But there’s nothing else left for us to do. We’ll have to wait.”
“Yeah, I think so. At least we finally have a real goal we can accomplish.”
I hope Mr. Cecil doesn’t care that my sister is nuzzling against me. This sort of thing is normal for her, after all.
“Hopefully these documents contain the location of the summoning and instructions about how to handle any mythical beings,” I add.
“That would make sense. Although, this is an action game where you fight with swords and spells, so it won’t be like the TRPG at all.”
“Considering mythical beings will certainly be at the max level, there must be some sort of gimmick to handle them. Even if we find a spell that banishes them, it probably won’t work unless we manage to lower their health first, right?”
“Yeah, games often have items you can only use once you get the enemy’s health down first.”
Now that my sister has let go of me, I take a seat on a wooden bench without a backrest—like one you would find in a park. I suspect Ms. Primura was the one who made this.
“All right, which one should I start deciphering?”
“That’s a big sister, all right. Totally ignoring her little sister when she goes back in for a second cuddling…”
“This happens all the time, so it’s normal for me. Which one are you working on, Rina?”
“Shub-Niggurath!”
Ah… Well, they’ll all be deciphered in the end, so I suppose it doesn’t matter. I’ll go with Shub-Niggurath too.
“We called this a strategy meeting, but there’s no way to strategize until we finish deciphering and get some real information.”
“What else shall we do if not wait for the task at hand to be complete, my liege? The Halloween tickets exist so that we may exchange them for our desired goods whenever we please,” Mr. Musasabi explains.
“Let’s sit around and chat while we’re all here!”
“But it looks like it’s about to rain.”
“Yep, it does, but who knows for sure?”
I wonder what the weather forecast for today was like. It’s hard to remark on it when I don’t know how it works.
“Rain is confirmed for tonight. There’ll be a thunderstorm tomorrow, but no one knows what time yet.”
“Is that a spell? How does it work?” I ask.
“Supposedly, the spell lets you look up the weather once every hour.”
“Oh, if it isn’t Mr. Studylover. What happens in between those times, like at 2:30?” I ask him.