Gu Fei had carefully checked his surroundings earlier and hadn't seen any players. That's why he felt safe putting on Eddie's emblem.
The moment he put it on, the NPCs in the village started paying attention to him, including even the random passersby he'd spoken to earlier. This made Gu Fei even more convinced that the emblem was a key element. He steeled himself and walked towards one of the NPCs who was staring at him.
But before Gu Fei could even get close, this NPC actually walked away on his own. From his expression and demeanor, it seemed he was carefully trying to avoid contact with Gu Fei.
Gu Fei refused to believe it. He quickened his pace to catch up. NPCs didn't seem to have a "sprint" setting; Gu Fei caught up in a few steps. He blocked the NPC's path, wanting to talk, but the NPC stubbornly avoided eye contact and turned away.
"How strange!" Xiao Yu, finding the scene amusing, also hurried to the NPC. "Do you know where Mr. Adrian is?"
"Mr. Adrian is the wealthiest man in our village. He lives in the big house next to the church on the east side of the village," the NPC replied, not only with a friendly smile but also with accurate information.
"What's going on? Why won't he talk to you?" Xiao Yu scratched his head.
"Maybe that's just how my questline is," Gu Fei said, pondering in his mind. The NPCs in "Parallel World" didn't have the realistic intelligence of humans. They were still robots, following their programmed scripts to the letter. This guy in front of him would react to any question from Xiao Yu, whether he knew the answer or not. But when facing Gu Fei, whether he spoke to him or even tried to grab him, he only had one reaction: to turn his head and try to get away.
This was simply conveying one message to Gu Fei: these NPCs were avoiding him.
Gu Fei noticed that once he stopped bothering the NPC, he would walk a certain distance away and then stop, keeping a wary eye on Gu Fei. Gu Fei looked around and found that all the NPCs who were paying attention to him had this expression. But among them, there were also some NPCs who looked at him the same way they always had, unaffected by the fact that he was wearing the emblem.
An idea struck Gu Fei. He found one of the NPCs who wasn't paying attention to him. As expected, the man didn't avoid him at all, looking up at Gu Fei as he approached.
"Do you know who Eddie is?" Gu Fei asked.
"I don't know. You should ask the village chief; he knows a lot more," the NPC replied.
Gu Fei was taken aback. He then found another random passerby of this type and got the same answer.
"Who is the village chief?" Gu Fei added.
"Edwin is our village chief. He lives in the small wooden house outside the forest over there," the NPC replied, gesturing with his hand.
"Ah, I got an answer! That's how quests are done. As long as you ask every NPC, someone will always know the answer," Xiao Yu said, educating Gu Fei with great experience.
Although it was a stupid method, he had to admit it was indeed a method. Gu Fei noticed the different attitudes of the NPCs and managed to get an answer. If Xiao Yu ignored this and swept through them one by one, he could also get an answer. Because the NPCs who held two different attitudes towards Gu Fei each accounted for half.
As for why this was the case? It was probably another key to this quest.
Gu Fei couldn't think of a reason, so he had to follow the NPC's directions and look for the village chief in the small wooden house by the forest.
He knocked on the door of the small wooden house and saw an old man with white hair and a white beard. In the design concept of games, being young and promising seemed to be exclusively reserved for the protagonist. As a result, it sounded absurd to have an old geezer save the world. In games, old people were always old-fashioned, stubborn, timid, and clueless. Occasionally, one or two wise ones would appear, but their lives wouldn't be long. After making the last bit of contribution to the plot, they would burn out their lives and become the protagonist's fighting spirit. This was a common trope in games.
"Village chief, do you know someone named Eddie?" Gu Fei asked expectantly. He suddenly realized that doing quests was also a very exciting thing, because of this sense of anticipation.
"Eddie? He was a good young man. He promised to help our village," the village chief said.
"He's dead," Gu Fei said with great sorrow.
The village chief was stunned. "This... what are we going to do?"
"Is there anything I can help with?" Gu Fei asked, following the routine.
"Who are you?" the village chief asked.
"I..." Gu Fei didn't know how to answer, so he could only speak the truth. "Eddie asked me to come and help."
The village chief's eyes lit up immediately. "Are you the brave warrior that Eddie found to defeat the monsters?"
Monsters! Warrior! They both sounded very impressive. Gu Fei couldn't help but wonder if he, currently only level 30, could handle it. But at the moment, the village chief's question seemed to be an option to continue the quest or not. In any case, he couldn't just interrupt the quest here. Thinking this, Gu Fei nodded somewhat embarrassed and said, "I am."
"Welcome, warrior!" NPCs were awesome; they quickly emerged from the shadow of Eddie's death.
"I don't know what kind of monsters you're talking about?" Gu Fei began to probe for information. If the monster was a melee type and not too much faster than him, Gu Fei felt he could still deal with it. After all, this was a game, and monsters were made for players to kill. They shouldn't be so powerful as to be out of reach.
"Come with me!" The village chief walked out of the house, hobbling along. Gu Fei and Xiao Yu followed behind, only hating that the village chief was walking too slowly. In contrast, Xiao Yu looked excited, and it was unclear whose quest this was.
Leading the two of them, the village chief arrived at the Church of Nightglow Village.
The church's door was dilapidated, half of it having fallen off the door frame, hanging weakly. The stone slab path in front of the door had also been neglected for a long time, with weeds growing between the stones. The village chief led the two onto the stone slab path, walked halfway, and stopped, looking down at the ground.
"Here..." the village chief tapped the ground with his cane, "Moffee's bloodstains. No amount of rain over the years can wash it away."
Gu Fei and Xiao Yu looked down and saw a patch of black stains on the stone slab the village chief was tapping. According to the village chief, it was blood.
"What happened here?" Gu Fei asked.
"Werewolves!!" the village chief said. "There are werewolves lurking in our village!"
Werewolves... Gu Fei muttered to himself. This was a very cliché monster race in Western legends. They were usually human, but on the night of the full moon, they would reveal their true forms, lose consciousness, and become extremely ferocious and violent. More importantly, it was said that when werewolves revealed their true forms, their attack and agility would increase dramatically. If it was such a fast creature, it would be difficult to deal with.
While Gu Fei was pondering, the village chief was also rambling on about the legends of werewolves. Xiao Yu listened very carefully and took out his notebook again to record everything quickly. Gu Fei's thoughts were always faster than the village chief's words. By the time he finished thinking about all this, he heard the village chief say, "Legends say that werewolves fear anything made of silver. Warrior, do you have any silver weapons?"
"No," Gu Fei replied.
"Don't worry, I've prepared for this. Give me your weapon, and I can help you plate it with a layer of silver," the village chief said.
"Can it wait? I want to look for clues about the werewolves first," Gu Fei said.
"You can come to me anytime you need it," the village chief said, before leaving the church, tottering.
"Why didn't you let him plate your weapon with silver?" Xiao Yu asked.
"Uh... I thought I should find a knife or sword and then let him plate it with silver. A staff probably can't inflict any damage on a werewolf," Gu Fei said, showing Xiao Yu his staff and demonstrating its bluntness.
Xiao Yu nodded and said, "Do you want to use my axe?"
"I don't think I can lift it..." Gu Fei said. Although the game said that equipment had no class or attribute requirements, that was only because the requirements weren't stated in the form of data. For example, Xiao Yu's giant axe. According to the official, mages could of course use it, but if you were too weak to lift it, that wasn't their problem... This was equivalent to attribute requirements in disguise, and no one knew the specific requirements, which was very perverted.
"Oh, then let's go buy a weapon that you can lift!" Xiao Yu said.
"I'll go by myself. Aren't you going to find the person at that house to get some gold ore? You go ahead, and I'll find you there after I buy it," Gu Fei said.
"Okay!" Xiao Yu agreed. "See you later." He waved goodbye and walked towards the big house next to the church.
Gu Fei quickly ran to catch up with the village chief, who was still halfway there, and took out the Baptism of Fire. "Village chief, please plate this sword with silver for me!"
Although Gu Fei suspected that Xiao Yu's carelessness might prevent him from noticing that the Baptism of Fire was the weapon used by the masked assassin yesterday, it was always better to be careful and not be too ostentatious.
Without a word, the village chief took the Baptism of Fire, then took out a small cup from his pocket, poured some silver liquid on the blade, and chanted some incantations. Then, a flash of silver light appeared. The overall color of the Baptism of Fire didn't change, but there was a faint silver line across the blade. When looking closely, however, it was hard to tell where it was.
"Warrior, I'm counting on you," the village chief said, handing the Baptism of Fire back to Gu Fei.
Gu Fei looked up. The name of the Baptism of Fire had changed to Holy Baptism of Fire. In addition to the 30% chance of fire magic, it now had an additional attribute: Prevent Regeneration.
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