Chapter 2429: Unraveling the Clues
"No, not at all." The little girl shook her head.
Just then, a woman's voice came from outside calling them to eat, so the conversation came to an end for the time being. Xu Huo followed the two children out to have their meal.
Shortly after dinner, the two players from next door came to visit, expressing their desire to search for a way out together with Xu Huo. They, too, wanted to leave this place.
"But this fog won't dissipate for at least two or three days," Xu Huo said, glancing at the sky outside. "If we go out now, we can't see anything anywhere."
"That's exactly the problem," Bubble Bean said. "But before coming here, I looked into the local weather patterns. Sudden heavy fogs like this usually don't last too long. To be honest with you, we're instance players. This area imposes certain restrictions on instance players, but it doesn't affect non-instance players like you. We're afraid we won't be able to find our way out, which is why we're asking you to join us."
The man wore a broad smile, a hint of anticipation in his eyes. "If you agree, we can offer you some thanks—items, potions, whatever you'd like."
Xu Huo seemed somewhat tempted, but after some consideration, he still refused. "Your instance must be no simple matter. I don't want to get dragged into it."
"Don't be so quick to turn us down," Bubble Bean pressed on. "Since we're all heading out anyway, wouldn't it be better to travel together? We can look out for each other. Legend has it that the Hidden Friend specifically targets those who are alone. The more people there are, the safer it is. You won't lose out."
"Then let's go together," the Painting Woman said, pressing her communicator. "If we run into danger, they can take the lead."
Her words were a bit harsh, and Yin Yang Master's expression darkened slightly. Bubble Bean, however, remained unfazed and pressed a hand on his arm, agreeing, "Little sister is right. We're B-rank players. Taking the lead is only fitting."
And so it was settled. The next step was to wait for the fog to clear.
To learn as much as possible about the instance, Yin Yang Master and Bubble Bean took their leave and began visiting the nearby residents one by one, gathering clues about the "Hidden Friend."
Regarding the "Hidden Friend," most adults, like the middle-aged couple, remained tight-lipped, as if merely uttering those words would draw the attention of the figures in the jungle. The elderly and children, however, had fewer reservations. The old folks had many versions of the "Hidden Friend." Some said the figures would impersonate familiar people to lure the living. Once a person heard the call, they would lose their mind and follow the figure deep into the jungle, never to return.
Others claimed that the "Hidden Friend" was actually a plant in disguise. A mutated plant would mimic a human form, using the fog as cover, tricking people into coming close before devouring them whole. That was why the missing persons' bodies were never found.
Still, some people swore to the players that they had heard someone calling from the jungle but hadn't answered, and nothing came of it. However, a companion who inexplicably responded to the call vanished the next day...
Yin Yang Master and Bubble Bean questioned many people. The elderly's accounts grew stranger and stranger, while the children's stories were wildly imaginative, even incorporating baseless fantasies.
The more people they asked, the greater the discrepancies in the details of the rumors. In the end, it even made one wonder whether the "Hidden Friend" truly existed at all.
"Are those people calling out in the woods really the Hidden Friend?" Yin Yang Master couldn't help but say. "I think it's more likely just a prank by the villagers."
"Some say you're only targeted when you're alone, others say that when several people travel together, each one hears the call, or that only one person in the group hears it... The more you listen, the more bizarre it gets. It feels like something made up."
"Human memory is the least reliable thing. Sometimes people fill in the gaps themselves. The longer time passes, the harder it is to remember what actually happened, and the more fabricated details pile up," Bubble Bean said. "But Deng Guang's disappearance is real. We can't reach him on Under Dimension, and he left on his own. That only proves this instance isn't as simple as we thought."
"Too bad we haven't run into enough instance players," Yin Yang Master said. "When the time comes, if we kill a few more, the instance's player count will drop, and our chances of clearing it will naturally increase."
"Keep it down, will you? The instance has already made it clear: if a role player kills the wrong person, they lose their qualification. Do you want to die here for no reason?" Bubble Bean shot him a glare.
Before Deng Guang—their other companion—went missing, they had considered forcibly reducing the player count. But the problem was what the instance background mentioned: the "Hidden Friend" only needed one friend per day. No one knew what consequences would arise if a role player killed too many people or if players started killing each other.
If this instance were as simple as it appeared on the surface, why would it be ranked B-rank?
"Be careful," Bubble Bean said, noticing Yin Yang Master seemed distracted, and reminded him again.
"Since we've already decided that you'll clear the instance, as long as I don't end up alone, there won't be any problems," Yin Yang Master said.
Bubble Bean was about to say something more when the game panel suddenly popped up:
[Current Instance Remaining Players: 37.]
Xu Huo also received the notification. Another person was gone—either killed by another player, or had the "Hidden Friend" role transferred?
He had been keeping an eye on Bubble Bean and the other's movements. He had, of course, heard all the stories about the "Hidden Friend." Though there were many versions, they shared a few common points.
First, the process of calling out. Almost everyone who heard the voice said it sounded like a familiar person, not a stranger. Second, although the instance background mentioned that the "Hidden Friend" only needed one friend per day, in reality, the disappearances in the village before weren't so evenly spaced. People didn't actually vanish every single day.
This could be inferred from the elderly's accounts. Communication between villages wasn't completely cut off, so even if they couldn't track the disappearances in real time, they could figure out who went missing on which day when they exchanged information later.
No one mentioned two or more people disappearing on the same day.
In this statistic, outsiders weren't counted, because the villagers couldn't tell whether the visiting players had left on their own or had gone missing.
Bubble Bean and the other had specifically asked if they had ever heard outsiders being called. Many said they had, but the guests staying with them at the time hadn't disappeared. As for what happened afterward, they couldn't tell.
From these overlapping pieces of information, it seemed that if a local went missing, there was at most one.
As for the calls being heard by multiple people or just one person, if a player was pretending to be the "Hidden Friend" to lure other players, it wouldn't be strange for multiple people to hear the voice. Whether the player disappeared or not was also normal. Players could set that aside for now and focus on the locals.
Although there were cases where multiple locals heard the call at the same time, no one disappeared when that happened. There were two possibilities for this: one, with more people around, the real "Hidden Friend" found it harder to call a friend; two, the caller wasn't the real "Hidden Friend."
After such bizarre rumors spread, there would inevitably be some cases of hearsay. Some people might even fabricate stories to attract attention.
In the household where Xu Huo was staying, only the little girl heard the voice while everyone else was inside. If this was indeed a fact, at least two conclusions could be drawn:
First, the real "Hidden Friend" only allowed one person to hear its call each time. Second, the locals all acknowledged this point.