owlsbooks Chapter 596 Confusing
Chapter 596 Confusing
Chapter 596 Confusing
The evidence rope that strangled the dead man's armor was collected. Although it was useless, it might be related to some clues. The blood-red spear stuck in his chest was also collected.
At first, Kobayashi thought the spear was Smaili's weapon, but after getting it in his hand, he found that it was just an ordinary spear. He then threw it to Kirito and asked him to keep it together with the rope as evidence.
After walking out of the church, Xiao Lin nodded to the two players guarding the door to thank them for their hard work, and then shouted to the players who had not yet dispersed: "Everyone, who was the first to discover this just now? Can you raise your hand to signal!"
As one of the famous people in Aincrad, his words were still very effective.
Soon, a woman in the crowd raised her hand timidly and walked out after the crowd dispersed.
She has slightly curly hair, and judging from her appearance, she should be only seventeen or eighteen years old. She looks rather ordinary, and there is still a terrified expression on her face.
Xiaolin didn't know this person.
This shows that she is not a member of the strategy group or a top player, and her equipment looks relatively ordinary. She should be a mid-level player who came here for sightseeing.
"Your name is?"
"Ye, Yezi."
This voice seems familiar. It should be the person who screamed just now.
Perhaps because she felt sorry for the girl in front of her, Asuna took the initiative to step forward and asked, "Excuse me, I have to ask you after seeing such a horrible thing just now. Could you please explain what just happened?"
"I, I... am a friend of the person who was just killed. We agreed to have dinner here together today, but we got separated in this square... and then... and then..."
She seemed unable to continue speaking and just covered her mouth with her hands.
Asuna gently stroked Yako's back.
It seemed to alleviate her fear in this way.
After a long time, she finally stopped crying, said sorry in an almost inaudible voice, and then began to explain again.
"That person... is called Keynes. We used to be members of the same guild. We occasionally team up or eat together. Today, we are going to have dinner here..."
Ye Zi closed his eyes tightly, and then continued in a trembling voice: "But there are too many people here, so we got separated in the square. When I looked around, I suddenly saw Cainz fell from the window of this church and was hanging in the air... There was a bloody spear stuck in his chest."
"Did you see anyone else at that time?"
Hearing Asuna's question, Yako fell silent for a moment, then she nodded slowly but surely.
"Yes... although it was only for a moment, I seemed to see... someone standing behind Cainz."
Hearing this, Kirito and Asuna's expressions changed slightly.
Is the criminal really in that room?
Asuna asked again: "Is that figure someone you know?"
"..."
Ye Zi closed his lips and thought for a while, then after a few seconds he shook his head as if he couldn't think of anything.
"Has Keynes ever offended anyone, or had any conflicts with others?"
"..."
Ye Zi shook his head again.
But this is not necessarily true. After all, the two are good friends. Maybe she just thought there was no conflict.
"That's right..."
Kirito and Asuna sighed helplessly.
Without any clues, looking for the murderer was like looking for a needle in a haystack. For a moment, both of them were at a loss.
Later, because Ye Zi was afraid to go back to the lower level alone, Kobayashi and others took her to the nearest hotel.
Then--
"I say, Xiaolin, I'm hungry! I was dragged around just now and I didn't get to eat anything! Go eat something quickly! Hurry up, hurry up!" The stupid goddess started to throw a tantrum.
There is clearly no feeling of hunger in the game, there are only numerical values, but she can still say with a clear conscience that she is hungry.
Moreover, a murder has happened now, but she is still thinking about eating. I have to praise her for being quite thick-skinned.
Kirito was speechless.
Asuna said in a gentle voice, "Um... Miss Aqua, could you please be patient for a while? We still have to find the murderer..."
"No, no, no! I want to eat! I haven't even finished the wine I just ordered! Why do I have to encounter something like this? Please don't push this kind of trouble onto me!"
Aqua started to act unreasonably.
Asuna and Kirito were helpless in dealing with such a person, so they stated on the spot that they would be responsible for the rest of the investigation, while Kobayashi took Aqua to eat.
Return to the 59th floor.
There were still quite a few players here. After all, a murder had just happened here, so it was impossible not to be nervous. But now they didn't know who the murderer was, so they could only let the others disperse first and warn them not to leave the hotel during this period - the hotel could lock the door, and no one could enter except those who were allowed.
Coming to the restaurant again, Aqua ordered a bunch of food and ate happily.
Kobayashi used messaging and Asuna to contact Kirito.
[Sure enough, the first step should be to investigate the murder weapon. 】
[In that case, let's go find Kazuma. His blacksmithing skills are pretty good, so he should know something. There are also players with special blacksmithing skills in the guild, so they should be able to find out more information.]
【Understood, go now. 】
He closed the communication with Kirito and sent a message to Sato Kazuma about Kirito and Asuna bringing the weapons to him for identification. After waiting for about fifteen minutes, he received several messages from Sato Kazuma.
First of all, the rope that helps Keynes is an ordinary item sold in the store, and its durability is only about half left.
The blood-red spear stuck in the chest was made by a player named [Grimrock]. The effect was nothing special, and the spear was not a top-level weapon. It was just the name of the weapon - Spear of Thorns - and the appearance of the spear was a bit scary.
Kobayashi then asked Sato Kazuma to find a player who could make a spear, but soon learned that there was no such person in the Business Alliance.
Kirito and Asuna suspected that he was dead.
However, when they arrived at the Black Iron Palace, they did not find Grimrock's name. He was most likely still alive in Aincrad, and Keynes' name was indeed crossed out.
As it is getting late, today's investigation ends here.
Kobayashi also said that after returning, he would ask Sato Kazuma to find out the whereabouts of Grimrock as soon as possible, and agreed to meet at the restaurant on the 59th floor tomorrow evening.
Sato Kazuma controlled 30% of Aincrad's business, and with his vast network of contacts, he quickly found out where Grimrock was. However, Kobayashi did not leave Kirito and Asuna behind to look for him, but waited until the evening of the next day.
They had originally agreed to meet at 5pm, but they both showed up at 6:30pm.
“Damn it! That guy…!”
As soon as she sat down, Asuna looked very angry.
After detailed questioning, they learned that the two met a player from the Holy Dragon Union when they came to the restaurant, and he snatched away the blood-red spear that killed Kainz.
This behavior is a clear violation of etiquette.
In SAO, if a weapon that is not set on an equipped doll falls to the ground, is handed over to someone else, or is stabbed into a monster and taken away directly, the owner's attributes will disappear after 300 seconds.
Regardless of the system or general concept, this item belongs to the next person who picks it up.
After the blood-red spear took Kainz's life, the owner's attributes disappeared, so now it belongs to Kirito in the system.
Although there are cases where people are forced to hand over their weapons for free, the gun is not only a weapon but also an important piece of evidence.
"So you just handed it over so easily?"
Xiaolin looked at Asuna strangely: "What about you? Didn't you stop him?"
"I stopped him, but this guy actually said something like - I'm not a security guard or a military policeman, it's not right for me to take it for myself. Since he wants it, I'll just give it to him... and he handed it over so easily."
Asuna was furious.
Kobayashi suspected that she was angry not because she was robbed, but because Kirito was not tough enough.
Kirito also said, "That man - Schmidt seemed to know Keynes. He acted very rude when I asked him, so I thought he also wanted to help, so I gave him the spear."
"...You are really kind-hearted."
"That's right! Especially that Schmidt, who actually threatened not to investigate further at the end! Ahhhh, I'm so pissed!"
Asuna became more and more frantic.
Even at the end, he actually said: "Could it be that the guy is the criminal? He was afraid that someone would find the clues, so he hurriedly took back the murder weapon."
"No, if that's the case, why didn't you take it away from the beginning? I think the gun is a message left by the criminal." Kirito said.
"I thought so too. Rather than a malicious PK, it was more like a public execution."
Hang the person out of the window and let him die slowly.
"But what is certain is that Schmidt is also an insider."
"The motive for the murder was revenge... no, it should be punishment. Because Keynes committed some crime in the past, he was killed as punishment - this is what the criminal probably wanted to express."
"So, Schmidt is probably not the criminal, but the target of the criminal. He did something with Keynes before, so he took action anxiously after his partner was killed..."
The three of them raised their heads at the same time.
Looks like it's time to talk to Ye Zi again.
Aqua seemed to sense something, and she also raised her head, but with her mouth full of food, she looked like a Husky hiding in a wolf pack. They looked similar, but their inner qualities were completely different.
The four of them soon met Ye Zi again.
No pleasantries, straight to the point.
"First, let me share the information we found out... We went to the Black Iron Palace last night to confirm that Mr. Keynes had indeed passed away. We wanted to ask you if you have heard of these names - one is the blacksmith Grimrock, and the other is the spear user Schmidt."
Ye Zi's head, which was originally lowered, shook slightly.
Obviously, she knew these two people.
"Yes, I know both of them. I, Keynes and them were all members of the same guild in the past."
According to Yako, the guild they originally belonged to was called Golden Apple, a small guild that did safe hunting not for the purpose of conquering floors but to earn money for hotels and food.
But half a year ago, they were lucky enough to encounter a special monster, which was the same as the treasure rat on the first floor and could drop special items.
They were very lucky to defeat the monster, and the treasures that dropped from it shocked them.
That is a ring that can increase agility by twenty points.
Even on the front lines, no accessories with such high values have ever dropped.
What happened next can be imagined.
The expensive item that was obtained inadvertently split the guild into two factions. One faction was for guild members to use it, and the other was to sell it. The two factions almost fought each other and caused the guild to split. In the end, they chose to vote, and the result of the vote was to sell it.
However, since the item was so rare, middle-level merchants were unable to handle it, so the guild master had to take the ring to the front-line auction house to entrust it to be sold.
As a result, the president did not come back.
The next day after the agreed time, the president still hadn't returned. Feeling something was not right, the group ran to the Black Iron Palace to check the situation.
"The time of death was the night when the president took the ring to the upper level, after 1 a.m. The cause of death was... penetrating damage."
Hearing this, the three of them raised their eyebrows.
The blood-red spear that killed Kainz had the penetrating attribute damage.
"After getting such a rare item, you shouldn't deliberately run outside the circle. If you still get killed like this, it means it's a sleep PK. But six months ago, not so many players knew about this method."
Half a year ago, someone discovered that when a player falls asleep, they could use an application to reset their health to zero, which caused quite a stir at the time.
Since then, no one has slept in the common area in order to save on accommodation costs.
"As expected, the only player who killed the president was the one who knew about this ring. In other words..."
He is one of the seven members of the guild.
Asuna didn't finish her words, but Yako nodded heavily: "Of course we thought so too, but we couldn't track down where everyone was during that time period, so we began to suspect each other, and soon the guild collapsed."
A miserable silence fell upon the room again.
This is a rather uncomfortable story, yet it happens all the time in Aincrad.
It is not uncommon for a harmonious guild to collapse without any signs of discord due to a rare item obtained through a stroke of luck.
The reason why this kind of gossip is not often heard is that for the people involved, it is mostly a memory that they very much want to forget.
Although I didn't look in the mirror, I was sure that my expression was gloomy.
Kirito asked with difficulty: "I want you to tell me something. Can you tell me the names of the people who opposed the sale of the ring?"
"..."
Ye Zi was silent for a few seconds.
Then he raised his head as if he had made up his mind and answered clearly: "Keynes, Schmidt and I..."
This answer is a little surprising.
After all, Ye Zi didn't look like a militant person, but then she revealed her relationship with Keynes - they were a couple.
(End of this chapter)