Chapter 46 -46-S-Rank Hidden Quest: Night of the Wine Festival

Chapter 46: Chapter46-S-Rank Hidden Quest: Night of the Wine Festival

After leaving the pet shop, John found a quiet inn.

He rented a room and began sorting through all the loot he had obtained during the trip to Giantwood Town.

Shadow Corpse materials.

Wraith Fragments.

Equipment dropped by the Shadow Guards.

Shadow Mage robes.

The A-Rank equipment and skill books dropped by Charon.

And the special items Glen had left behind that Zoey had not taken.

Aside from the Void Staff, John currently had no shortage of direct combat abilities.

Physical and magical attacks.

Close-range and long-range combat.

Single-target burst damage and wide-area clearing.

He had already developed a complete system covering nearly every form of offense.

Ordinary A-Rank weapons and skill books would provide only limited improvements to him.

John organized the information on the equipment suitable for guild use and sent it directly to Luna Wolf.

[Endbringer: I just obtained a batch of A-Rank equipment, skill books, and Shadow Realm materials.]

[Endbringer: If you’re interested, I’ll let you evaluate them first.]

Horus replied almost immediately.

[Luna Wolf: Send everything over.]

[Luna Wolf: Luna Wolf will purchase them at the highest recent market price. We won’t let you suffer a loss.]

Trading with Luna Wolf was certainly convenient.

John did not need to list every item individually.

Nor did he need to haggle with unfamiliar players.

Anything Luna Wolf did not need could simply be placed in the marketplace afterward.

Just as John prepared to continue sorting the loot, a black diary among the drops caught his attention.

[Glen’s Diary]

[Type: Special Story Item]

[Would you like to read it?]

"Yes."

The diary opened automatically.

The earliest pages had already yellowed with age, but the handwriting remained extremely neat.

Glen had once been a human ranger.

When he was young, he had traveled through many cities.

Escorting merchant caravans.

Hunting monsters.

Exploring ruins.

He had even tracked prey through snow and ice for more than ten consecutive days, all for the sake of a few gold coins.

After years of wandering, he arrived in Giantwood Town.

For the first time, this unremarkable border town made him consider settling down.

The residents would actively invite him to take part in festivals.

The tavern owner would leave a bowl of hot soup waiting whenever he returned late.

Nearby neighbors would frequently help him look after his home as well.

It was there that Glen met his wife, Nina.

Several years later, the two of them had a daughter.

Her name was Lily.

The entries about combat and adventure gradually became less frequent.

In their place were fragments of ordinary daily life.

The first time his daughter learned to walk.

The time his wife ruined an entire pot of stew.

Their family’s plan to open a small general store beside the giant tree.

For the first time, Glen discovered that a peaceful life could also bring fulfillment.

Until the wine festival ten years ago.

That day, Glen had been assigned to patrol outside the town.

During the patrol, he suddenly received a message.

His home had been surrounded by nearby residents.

The neighbors who normally got along well with his family were now holding clubs and torches, demanding that Nina hand over everything of value in the house.

If she refused, they threatened to make both mother and daughter pay the price.

Nina and Lily were trapped inside by the crowd and did not dare open the door.

By the time Glen returned to Giantwood Town, the house had already been consumed by flames.

He charged into the burning building.

In the end, he found only two charred bodies embracing one another in the corner of a room.

From that point onward, the diary became increasingly chaotic.

Large sections of writing had been covered in black ink.

Many pages repeated only a single question.

[Why?]

Glen completely lost his sanity.

That night, he killed every neighbor who had participated in surrounding the house.

Afterward, he ended his own life beneath the giant tree.

The pages in the latter half of the diary gradually turned black.

The words written across them appeared to have been formed from dried blood.

After Glen died, his soul fell into the Land of Fading Silhouettes.

Charon found him there.

Using the Strength of the Shadow Realm, Charon reconstructed his body and transformed him into the Shadow Archer.

Glen altered his appearance and returned to Giantwood Town.

Starting as an ordinary soldier, he gradually rose through the ranks until he became the Guard Captain.

The giant tree had also disappeared after the fire that night.

For the next ten years, Glen continuously assisted Charon in maintaining the passage to the surface.

The timing of the monster tides.

Weak points in the defenders’ formations.

The routes taken by reinforcements from Sunset City.

He secretly transmitted all of that information to the Shadow Realm.

John closed the diary.

Glen had undoubtedly deserved to die.

However, there was clearly more to the tragedy from ten years ago.

Why would a group of neighbors who normally shared a friendly relationship suddenly undergo such a drastic change in temperament on the same day?

And why had they chosen the exact moment when Glen was away on patrol to surround the house?

[Critical story clue detected!]

[You have triggered the S-Rank Hidden Quest: Night of the Wine Festival!]

[Quest Objective: Investigate the Giantwood Town wine festival massacre from ten years ago. Identify the true mastermind responsible for the residents’ sudden change in temperament and kill them!]

[Time Limit: None]

[Quest Reward: God-Rank Equipment ×1]

John’s eyes widened slightly.

God-Rank equipment!

This was the first time he had ever seen such an outrageous quest reward.

The next second, he suddenly slapped his thigh.

Smack!

"What a massive loss!"

He had blown Glen apart with two Void Spears on the spot.

Aside from shouting a few threats, Glen had not even been given enough time to reveal anything useful.

Had John known this kind of quest would be triggered, he would have left Glen with at least a few breaths of life.

At the very least, he should have asked exactly what had happened during the wine festival ten years ago.

Now Glen and Charon were both dead.

The Command Stone had also been stolen.

An entire section of the trail had been severed.

"From now on, when I encounter an important boss like this, I should talk to them a little longer."

"I can’t focus only on charging my attacks."

Fortunately, the quest had no time limit.

Once he came into contact with more forces from the Shadow Realm, he could slowly continue the investigation.

John resumed searching through the loot.

Before long, a completely black mask appeared in his hand.

It was the same mask he had knocked from Glen’s face with the Void Staff at the start of their battle.

[Faceless Shadow Mask]

[Rank: S]

[Equipment Slot: Headgear]

[Effect: Freely alters the player’s appearance, body type, voice, equipment appearance, weapon form, and the visual presentation of carried items.]

[Hidden Effect: Targets whose level is lower than the wearer’s cannot see through the disguise.]

[Information Concealment: Targets whose level is lower than the wearer’s cannot inspect the wearer’s name, level, class, or basic information.]

[The disguise may be removed at any time.]

A good item.

Whether used to conceal his identity or infiltrate restricted areas, it possessed immense value.

Unfortunately, it occupied the headgear slot.

The A-Rank Monocle Lens John currently wore was also classified as headgear.

Although [Scan] appeared in his skill list, it was fundamentally still an equipment skill provided by the monocle.

Once the lens was removed, the skill could no longer be used.

Detection abilities were far too important in Apocalypse.

Without understanding a monster’s attributes and skills, a player could easily be killed by some unusual mechanic through a single careless mistake.

For the time being, John stored the Faceless Shadow Mask away.

"It looks like I need to obtain an independent detection skill book."

Once he truly learned a detection skill, he could replace the Monocle Lens and keep the Faceless Shadow Mask equipped permanently.

The remaining loot contained no major surprises.

John sent the complete list to Horus.

Now that he possessed the Void Staff, he did not plan to learn every skill he encountered.

Having no class restrictions did not mean he needed to stack every class’s offensive techniques onto himself.

Learning too many scattered abilities without mastering any of them would only make his combat system increasingly bloated.

What he currently lacked most was a summoning system capable of independent combat, beast-taming abilities, and assassination methods such as invisibility and weakness-based burst damage.

The Thorn Sprite could temporarily fill part of the gap in his beast-control abilities.

As for the rest, he could only collect them gradually in the future.