Chapter 59: Traces of the Spider

After turning back to greet Edwina and the others, and briefly explaining the situation to Walter, Vilyric and Little Dragon Daughter headed straight to Aileen’s house.

Although both Holy Knight and Mr. Nan Dao expressed their desire to join in, considering that too many people would make the target bigger and the situation was unclear, Vilyric still did not agree.

However, she didn’t leave them idle either. As a precaution, Priestess had Walter and a few demons secretly wait outside Lan’s house, ready to observe her return or anyone suspicious approaching. If the latter occurred, they would take action to capture them.

As for Edwina, Leila, and Renée, including Tilysha, it was also difficult for them to move freely in the city due to the bounty, but it wasn’t the time to be stuck on minor issues.

The Priestess directly handed each of them a “Cognitive Obstruction Mask” to wear before they left to gather information.

After all, this item was essentially something like a disguise card. Although Vilyric wasn’t a hoarding rat, she had over ten backups in her bag, and since they weren’t one-time-use products, sharing them with trusted friends wasn’t a big deal.

The four girls split into two groups: Leila and Renée wandered near the Acting City Lord’s residence to see if they could find any clues, while Edwina took Tilysha to the Demon Town’s internal security bureau in hopes of gathering information. After all, Lan was a prominent figure in the city, so it would be easy to hear some news while she was there.

Once everything was arranged, Vilyric and her companion quickly retraced their steps to the depths of the slums, arriving at the small house where Aileen had once brought them with the bangs.

Standing outside the door, Vilyric was just about to knock a few times when suddenly her brow arched, and she pushed the door open instead.

*Creek~*

The somewhat old wooden door swung open effortlessly, revealing the interior of the room.

“Did someone get here first…”

“Master, the door latch has been cut. It seems they used some sort of weapon to slice it from the crack of the door.”

Little Dragon Daughter glanced at the broken wooden latch on the ground and calmly deduced.

As expected, something had happened.

Thinking for a moment, Vilyric looked around.

There was no one in the room, and there were no signs of ransacking; the wooden bed that had been moved during the day to access the tunnel still stood to one side. However, a layer of dust near the tunnel entrance faintly revealed several new footprints that hadn’t existed when they entered before.

It appeared that someone had broken in and then used the secret passage connected to Aileen’s house to go below.

After pondering for a moment, the Priestess didn’t immediately pursue the obvious path but instead turned around and began searching around in the plain and monotonous wooden house.

“Master? What are you doing?”

“Hmm… of course, I’m doing something meaningful.”

While rummaging through the ceramic bowls on the shelf, Vilyric turned partially to smile at the puzzled Little Dragon Daughter.

“Xiao Guang, your hearing is sharper than mine. Didn’t you notice anything unusual when we came here during the day?”

“Uh, what do you mean, Master…?”

The blonde girl looked at her with a wise expression.

Alright, it seems the Little Dragon Daughter’s independent thinking skills are still a work in progress…

“It’s quite simple logic.”

Vilyric turned around and pointed at the hidden passage that had been covered by the wooden bed.

“Think about it, when the bangs led us to find Aileen, he knocked on the door for several minutes before anyone inside responded. What was Aileen doing all that time? Did you hear any sounds then?”

“Sounds… was it something like the board being lifted or hurried footsteps? I did hear that; that person named Aileen must have heard the knocking and ran out from the lower room through the passage, so it took some time to respond. And she did take us to meet, right?”

“Wrong!”

The black-haired girl crossed her arms and immediately interrupted the Little Dragon Daughter’s guess, looking as though she had anticipated her response.

“Xiao Guang, you need to understand, Aileen is just an ordinary person. If she was in that stone house in the underground market, she wouldn’t be able to hear the knocks from so far away, let alone run up to open the door.”

With that, Vilyric added with a peculiar expression.

“And do you remember? That passage, even at a normal walking speed, could be traversed in less than half a minute; the timing clearly doesn’t add up.”

“Also, when we entered the house, the bed was properly resting on the entrance. It would have been exhausting for Aileen to move it alone, and she only managed with bangs’ help then. If she came out from below and moved the bed back, we would definitely have heard the noise.”

“So, did you hear the sound of the bed moving at that time?”

Little Dragon Daughter fell silent, only shaking her head honestly.

“No.”

“Right? I didn’t hear it either.”

Vilyric led Xiao Guang to the concealed panel, crouched down, grasped the pull ring with her fingers, and lowered her head to say.

“And even if that can just be considered speculation, there’s an even more obvious contradiction, I wonder if you noticed it?”

“…Master, please just say it directly.”

Seeing her pet’s helpless face, Vilyric smiled and didn’t keep them guessing. She gently slid her finger on the floor, and immediately a discernible mark appeared.

“This is the biggest problem.”

“This is… oh! Are you referring to the dust?!”

“Correct, the dust.”

After patting her now clean hands, the black-haired girl stood up.

“Remember, this morning when we moved the bed, the dust on this hidden panel surface was very even, which not only made me not notice the hidden ring right away but also indicates something important.”

“Aileen, if she came out from below, how could the dust on this floor be so evenly distributed?”

“So I thought, there’s probably another hidden room below her house.”

“When the bangs knocked on the door, Aileen was likely doing something in that hidden room, and although she heard it, she couldn’t take the time to respond; that explains everything that followed.”

Vilyric lightly poked the face of the Giant Dragon Daughter, who seemed to understand but not fully, as silver-blue eyes glimmered with ambiguous light.

“And this is something Aileen didn’t tell us, even to bangs, whom she seemed close to.”

“Do you mean that woman has a problem?”

“Definitely. But what the specifics are, we need to see what’s hidden in that hidden room first.”

In fact, after noticing Aileen was concealing something from them, Vilyric had already developed some vigilance towards her. The reason she intentionally left the bangs alone with her was to give enough space to see what that girl was up to.

However, since Aileen was just an ordinary person, Vilyric hadn’t paid much attention, and after several unexpected events, the Priestess had forgotten about it until she remembered and hurried over.

With bangs and Aileen present earlier, and the time being tight, Vilyric hadn’t acted too noticeably; this time she came directly and used SP to scan the surrounding area.

Although the search effect below the ground was relatively poor, it was enough for Vilyric to confirm that beneath the wooden house, besides the connection to the underground market, there indeed existed another space.

The mechanism to open the hidden room should be nearby.

   

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