Chapter 257: The Diary
Translator: EndlessFantasy Translation Editor: EndlessFantasy Translation
Zhang Yang unhooked the leather bound diary and opened it.
"Smaug, my one true love. When I heard about your passing, I was left alone, heartbroken. I wanted to end my life. I want to be with you! Please forgive me, my love! I’m still carrying your child. Until he grows up to be a fine man like you, I shall take my leave and meet you!"
On the very first page of the diary, Zhang Yang could already feel the unrequited love between a wife and her husband. How could a woman like her be a shameless whore?!
Zhang Yang flipped over and read more. The next six pages were of Liya lamenting of a husband who she clearly loved. But at the seventh page, the contents had changed.
"Smaug! Please forgive me! I’ve been tainted! I’ve been soiled! I have no right to be your love! The town chief, Aiden has violated me! My love! I want to die right now! But…I cannot take my life just yet. The child inside me is still growing…I cannot allow myself to die! I will endure this hardship! I will give birth to your child!"
Zhang Yang could feel the pain and despair through the writing. The words were written rather heavily. The quill had almost torn through the paper. Zhang Yang graced his fingers across the pages and could feel the agonizing pain of living, and the despair in her bravery to fight off death.
"The people…everyone stares at me with such judgment, such hatred! It’s too late, but now I know that they were insulting me for seducing Aiden, that monster! They are calling me a shameless whore! Smaug, my love. I…I…I can’t endure this any longer!"
"Kingsley…Owen…Kerry…they came barging in. They raped me. One by one, I was violated! When tear flow down my cheeks, they were only laughing! Smaug, I am destined for hell! But, before I knock on the gates of hell, I shall give birth to our child!"
"…Lady Velma from the bakery has dismissed me from work. No one in town is willing to hire me anymore! Oh…Smaug. How I wish to hear your sweet voice once more! Please…I will endure this…I will survive until our child comes to this world!’
‘…Smaug, I don’t deserve your love any more. To survive, I have sold my soul and body! Oh! Smaug, please forgive me! I may have given my body to someone else, but my heart will always be yours forever…’
The diary ended here.
‘Ding! You have found a suspicious circumstance of Liya’s death. Please head to the town’s bar for inquiry. Hint: Drunkards will sometimes reveal the important clues!’
Rage. Zhang Yang mind was suddenly filled with only one emotion. A man left the town and place his life in the front line to protect those who repaid him by blatantly raping, assaulting, insulting, and forcing a widow to the point of prostitution? Not even in death, the couple could rest in peace without being insulted!
Zhang Yang put away the diary and walked out of the house with grim eyes.
Liya had steel her heart with iron-clad fortitude to give birth to their child, how could such a woman would end her own life? She had already lost everything she had, that was why, there was no reason for her to end her own life!
If that was the case, who was the one who killed her?
The ultimate question played repeatedly in his mind, until he arrived at a small bar. Compared to the street, this place was much more rowdier and crowded. There were over 10 men occupying the bar stand, drinking and laughing with joy. Zhang Yang casually sat down and ordered a beer. Without much effort, he struck a conversation with one of the middle-aged drunkards, named Bass.
"I heard this town had an absolute beauty. What’s her name again? Li…Li…Li something!" said Zhang Yang, pretended to be oblivious.
"Liya – Tuskar?" said Bass. "Indeed she was a beauty to behold. It’s a shame that she died a couple years back."
"How did she die?"
The Drunkard Bass was startled. His face twitched a little as he continued gulping down his beer. "We don’t talk about this. There could be a price on your head if you get too nosy."
Zhang Yang laughed. "Alright, alright! You must be saying that to scare me off. I’m pretty sure that you don’t know anything, do you!?"
"Who says I don’t know anything!" Bass was infuriated. He calmed down and turned left and right before lowering his head, whispering to Zhang Yang. "On that very day, I saw with my own eyes, the town chief’s men brought Liya to his house with a horse carriage. However, when she got back home, she was already a living corpse!"
"Town Chief? You mean Aiden?"
"That’s right. That’s why I said it would be dangerous! My friend, you best keep your head down and keep this between us. Lord Aiden is the Count’s nephew! He is what you would call a man with power! If this gets out, both of our heads will hang!" said Bass with a terrified face.
"Huh…I do wonder, why did Aiden want to kill Liya?" said Zhang Yang. He was genuinely confused.
"That, my friend, is a question I cannot answer." Said Bass as he shook his head. "However, I did hear rumors that Lord Aiden kept a journal of sorts! Perhaps he could have written it down!"
‘Ding! Your quest: Last Wish has been updated. Please find Aiden’s Diary and give it to Smaug along with Liya’s Diary!’
[Last Wish] (Difficulty Level: A)
Quest Description: Find Aiden’s Diary and investigate the true culprit behind Liya’s death. Submit both Aiden’s and Liya’s Diary to Smaug.
Progress: Liya’s Diary 1/1 Aiden’s Diary 0/1
The quest difficulty level had just been raised!
Zhang Yang quickly left the bar after cutting the conversation short, and he arrived at Aiden’s house doorstep.
Aiden’s house, or rather mansion was the largest building in Balin. The area and land was so large, though it could not be compared to the palace back in White Jade Castle, it was still several times larger than a regular town’s man. There were eight soldiers fanned out in a straight line with long spears in their hands, with stern faces that would not hesitate at killing whenever necessary.
[Aiden’s Guard] (Elite, Humanoid)
Level: 65
HP: 1,000,000
Defense: 350
All of them were red-named! That meant that the guards would attack anyone within their aggro range!
If it was only one or two, Zhang Yang could at least survive the fight with a little HP left. But eight, 1,000,000 HP elite tier monsters were too much, even for the mighty Zhang Yang!
Zhang Yang clicked his tongue, annoyed. He summoned his bear and rode into the mansion boldly.
"Insolent fool! How dare you intrude Lord Aiden’s property! Kill him!" All eight elite guards surrounded Zhang Yang.
{Blood Rage}! {Blast Wave}!
A conical shaped, compressed air blasted out, stunning all eight of them. Zhang Yang took this chance and rode past the defense blockade, rushing inside the compound. Once inside, Zhang Yang was in a large flower garden. There were many guards inside that were widely spread out. The white bear ran past like the wind and rushed through the garden and towards the main building.
"Intruder! Intruder!" As the stunned guards recovered, they began to shout as they gave chase.
With the incredible speed of the mount, Zhang Yang had arrived to the doorstep of the main building in just a few seconds. There were another eight elite guards right at the doorsteps. All of them swung their spears at Zhang Yang.
Zhang Yang got down from his mount with a quick somersault. In an instant, Zhang Yang unsummoned his bear and activated {Shadow of the Void}.
*poof*
With a 200% bonus movement speed increase, Zhang Yang practically flew through the guards and entered the main building, like an actual thief.
Losing the aggro, the guards rushed back to their original position and resumed their guarding as if nothing had ever happened.
20 seconds later, {Shadow of the Void} ended and Zhang Yang materialized back in to the "real world".
"Die, intruder!" along with a scream, a shadow eclipsed over his from behind.
{Block}!
Zhang Yang raised his shield almost instantly and blocked what a seemed to be just be a broom wielded by a female maid.
[Aggressive Maid] (Elite, Humanoid)
Level: 65
HP: 130,000
Defense: 350
Luckily, she had only 130,000 HP, despite being elite. She was far easier to deal with compared to the 1,000,000 HP guards outside.
Zhang Yang started his counterattack. Zhang Yang was unable to summon the bear as it required a two second casting time. During the casting animation, the summon process would be interrupted when the summoner receives an attack. Zhang Yang had to fight this maid all by himself.
Even though he was alone, it took only one minute for Zhang Yang to terminate the maid. After making there were no other monsters around him, Zhang Yang quickly summoned the [Gold-Eared Bear King] and begun searching one room at a time.
The building was extremely large and was filled with many monsters. Luckily, they were all widely spread out. From the ground floor to the first floor, to the third, and the fourth, Zhang Yang had already killed more than a hundred elite monsters. After one hour, he had finally entered a room filled with nothing but books!
The room was as large as a hall, with 10 or more book shelves lining up to the end of the room. At the far end of the room was a desk. A silver-lined elderly man was wiping the desk. He was dressed in a butler uniform.
[Sebas the Butler] (Gray-Silver, Humanoid)
Level: 68
HP: 680,000
Defense: 700
This place must be Aiden’s personal reading room! Zhang Yang took out his battle axe and charged at Sebas.
"Hmm? Which cave did you crawl out from!? How dare you intrude Lord Aiden’s mansion!?" The old butler bellowed angrily and threw a punch at Zhang Yang.
‘-2,206!’
Zhang Yang took the damage head on. The boss basic attack damage was roughly around 5,000. But Zhang Yang did not know how fast was his attack or what skills he had! Zhang Yang thought of it while frantically counterattacking Sebas. In any worse case scenario, it’s still best to have {Cripple Defense} stacked up first and see how the battle turns out.
Two seconds later, another punch came flying.
{Block}!
Zhang Yang immediately raised his shield. He started calculate the boss attacking properties. So far, his single attacks were at 2,200 damage, with a two second attack interval. With {Block} every six seconds, the boss normal attack DPS will be roughly be around 700. After five stacks of {Cripple Defense}, the boss will still have 350 Defense. Combining the [Gold-Eared Bear King]’s basic attack DPS of around 1,850, and Zhang Yang’s DPS of around 2,600, it would take roughly 150 seconds to kill the boss. That being said, he would have to remain alive for the entire ordeal!
After taking another attack, Zhang Yang took out a bottle of [Level 3 Healing Potion] and gulped down the bottle clean.
[Level 3 Healing Potion] (Useable)
Use: Restores 4,000 HP immediately. Use of any Healing Potion regardless of level will cause all potions to enter the same cool down time.
Cool Down Time: 1 minute.
Level Requirement: 60
Since he had not found himself a recipe to craft the [Level 3 Healing Potion], Zhang Yang had bought the potion from the NPC for 50 gold coins a bottle! It’s extremely expensive!
After treating Zhang Yang like a punching bag, Sebas threw a lightning speed punch and stunned Zhang Yang.
‘Ding! Sebas has used {Uppercut}!’
After the successful stun, Sebas turned around and starting punching the white bear.
‘-3,812!’
‘-3,739!’
Even though the bear had stronger Defense than Zhang Yang, it did not have any damage reduction passive skills, causing it to take a ferocious beating. Luckily, the {Uppercut} only stunned Zhang Yang for three seconds. After the boss threw out two punches, he turned around and started flinging his fists at Zhang Yang’s body.
Zhang Yang had to resort to {Merlinda’s Shadow}, {Berserker’s Heal}, {Shield Wall}, [Heart of Fallen Warrior], and another bottle of [Level 3 Healing Potion]. Zhang Yang had manage to last for 95 seconds but his HP had been drained down below 2,000 HP!
Wham!
The boss threw another punch.
‘+10,620!’
Furious set equipment set effect activated!
However, that had only bought Zhang Yang another 15 seconds, before he was once again in the danger zone. He quickly activated {Shadow of the Void} and ran away from the battle while frantically chowing down several recovery snacks.
Once the boss lost sight on Zhang Yang, it began to kick the white bear’s furry *ss.
{Wild Recovery}!
A green-hue light radiated from the bear and it began to regenerate at the rate of 5% HP per seconds.
Once Zhang Yang was fully recovered, he straight up used {Charge} and bashed the boss.
{Provoke}!
Immune!
It did not work on him! However, the boss turned over to Zhang Yang and attack him.
The poor white bear had only slightly over 300 HP left. If Zhang Yang was just a second later, it would have surely perished. Now that Zhang Yang was barely out of danger, he had turned the tables around. This time, it was the boss’ turn to be in jeopardy. After merely 40 seconds, the elderly butler wailed in pain and fell down defeated.
The old butler had slightly below average HP, therefore, sadly, its drops were just as little. Other than a few silver coins, it only dropped one item.
[Butler’s Bell] (Gray-Silver, Accessory)
Use: Summons 3 slaves to help you do your daily task. They could help you out against the enemy as well. Lasts for 60 seconds. Be warned, you might need to think twice before relying on their battle prowess.
Zhang Yang had seen this plaything in his previous life. The summoned slaves where three Dwarven Fat Moms. They had a fixed attack power, and were only able to fight on par with a Level 30 players. It was actually not too bad for a toy.
Zhang Yang kept the bell in his inventory and sat on top of the desk, rummaging about for Aiden’s Diary.
The desk was extremely clean, without even a speck of dust on top. Zhang Yang pulled out the first drawer and saw a red, leather bound, slightly thick book. When he picked the book up, the system notification rang in his ear, indicating that he had obtained Aiden’s Diary.
Just Zhang Yang was about to open the book to read, a sudden loud commotion could be heard from outside. Zhang Yang hopped down from the desk and peek out of the window. There, he saw an extremely fat man was walking through the flower garden towards the building, with 12 guards surrounding him.
[Town Chief, Aiden] (Yellow-Gold, Humanoid)
Level: 70
HP: 10,000,000
Defense: 1,400
As for the guards around him were elite tier monster with 1,000,000 HP each! Each of them was like a mini-boss!
Zhang Yang knows it was impossible for him to leave via the same route he entered. He quickly took out a [Teleportation Scroll] and tore it.
After 10 seconds, a magic teleportation magic circle formed beneath his feet. With a gust of bright light, Zhang Yang teleported to Thunderstorm Castle. He summoned his bear and rode his back to Didier Flatlands. Along the way, he took out the Diary and read it. Although the book was designed to be thick, Zhang Yang could only open the book like two planks of rigid wood conjoined in the middle. The rest of the pages could be flipped open. They were glued together firmly. To think that the developers of the game would be too lazy to have a little more in-depth details. They were probably thinking that as long as the book could convey the quest’s story, the rest would not matter.