Chapter 128: It Can’t Be, Can It?

Chapter 128: Chapter 128: It Can’t Be, Can It?

Chapter 128: It Can’t Be, Can It?

At first glance, there was nothing particularly special about the building, as it was an ordinary house with old wooden walls and a roof that had clearly seen better days, making it easy to overlook among the other buildings in the area.

Osborne stopped in front of the door and knocked a few times, waiting for someone to respond, but the only answer he received was the faint sound of the wind blowing through the nearby streets.

He raised his hand to knock again, only for the door to creak open slightly under the pressure of his fingers.

Osborne paused for a moment as he looked at the opening, wondering whether someone had forgotten to close the door or whether there was another reason it had been left that way.

Since the house was supposed to be empty, the latter possibility seemed more interesting, although he wasn’t foolish enough to assume that a slightly open door meant something suspicious was happening inside.

After checking his surroundings, he pushed the door open and stepped inside.

The house wasn’t particularly large, consisting of a small living room, a narrow hallway, and a few other rooms that appeared to serve as bedrooms and storage spaces.

There was barely any furniture inside, and the few items that remained were either old enough to be falling apart or covered in so much dust that they had probably not been touched in months.

Osborne began inspecting the rooms one after another, carefully looking around for anything that might explain why the missing woman had been visiting the place so frequently.

Unfortunately, his efforts yielded almost nothing.

There were no signs of a struggle, no bloodstains on the floor, and no broken furniture that suggested someone had been dragged away against their will, while the thick layer of dust covering most surfaces made it difficult to believe that anyone had been living here recently.

He even checked the bedrooms, opening the few drawers that remained and looking beneath the old beds, but all he found were a handful of useless objects that had clearly been abandoned a long time ago.

After finishing his search, Osborne returned to the living room with a thoughtful expression.

’What exactly was a woman doing in a place like this?’

He couldn’t help wondering about that, especially since the house was so poorly maintained that even someone looking for a cheap place to stay would probably have considered other options.

Perhaps she had been using the house as a meeting place, which would explain why she kept returning despite not actually living there.

If that was the case, then it was possible that she had been meeting someone on the day she disappeared, only to have been kidnapped by the person she had come to see.

However, that theory immediately raised another question, as Osborne couldn’t figure out how it connected to the quest he had accepted.

’If she was meeting someone here, then why would the person who posted the quest be someone living nearby?’

According to the information provided by Black Ledger, the request had been submitted by a person who lived in the same neighbourhood as the missing woman, and they had supposedly done so because they were worried about her sudden disappearance.

Black Ledger had already investigated the individual responsible for the request, but their investigation hadn’t uncovered anything suspicious, leaving Osborne with little reason to believe that the person was directly involved.

Of course, that didn’t necessarily mean the person was innocent, since someone who had carefully planned a disappearance might also have taken steps to avoid attracting attention.

Still, Osborne wasn’t interested in accusing random people without evidence, and he had no intention of wasting his time investigating every person who had come into contact with the missing woman.

He needed something more concrete before he could decide what to do next.

Osborne walked through the living room once more, slowly examining the walls and the floor as he tried to identify anything he might have overlooked during his earlier search.

Something about the place bothered him, although he couldn’t immediately explain what it was, and the longer he remained inside, the more he felt that he had missed something important.

He stopped near the middle of the room, looking around carefully before taking another step forward.

Creak!

The old floorboard beneath his feet produced a loud sound, causing Osborne to lower his gaze toward the wooden planks.

He shifted his weight slightly, listening as the floor creaked again, before taking another step and stopping when he noticed a difference in the sound.

Osborne remained still for a moment, then slowly crouched down and examined the floorboards beneath him.

At first, they appeared no different from the other wooden planks scattered across the room, although a closer look revealed that the edges were slightly uneven, as if they had been lifted and placed back into position at some point.

He reached out and tapped the floor with his knuckles.

Dong!

The sound echoed faintly through the room.

’This sounds kind of hollow.’

His expression changed slightly as he examined the floor more carefully, wondering whether the space beneath the boards was simply empty or whether there was something hidden underneath them.

He had initially assumed that the house was nothing more than an abandoned building where the missing woman had occasionally met someone, but the strange sound beneath his feet suggested that there might be more to the place than he had first thought.

Suddenly, a memory flashed through his mind.

Even if the woman had been kidnapped, the people responsible would still have needed a way to remove her from the building, and doing so without being seen would have been difficult if they had used the front door.

Of course, there were other possibilities, such as a hidden exit or a passage that led somewhere else, but he had initially dismissed them because the house seemed far too ordinary to contain anything of that sort.

However, the hollow sound beneath the floorboards changed things considerably.

Osborne glanced toward the front door before looking back at the wooden floor, his expression becoming increasingly thoughtful as he considered what might be hidden beneath the house.

’Let’s see, shall we...’