Dying In Real Life Is Another Way To Play - Chapter 23 Suspicions And Directions

After the meeting with Garam, as soon as Ye Qing, Ye Qian and Lan Ranyan were out of the Discovery Facility, Lan Ranyan asked Ye Qing as they kept walking down the road.

“Did you notice it?”

“You’re right, it seems that you’re correct once again with your uncanny intuition.” Ye Qing answered.

“You’re both talking in codes again! Hmph!” Ye Qian harrumphed and pouted

Lan Ranyan was silent for a moment and said “It’s not than Qian-er, were not trying to hide this from you, but when we were talking earlier with Garam… just like what happened last time at the “La Nara” Inn. He would seem weird and different at certain times.”

“What do you mean?” Ye Qian asked.

Ye Qing answered this time “First off, when he went to the “La Nara” Inn, he mentioned having someone follow us. Right?”

“Yes, so?… I guess he’s just wary of us when we are in the city.” Ye Qian said.

“Has any of your traps been triggered so far?” asked Lan Ranyan

“We’ll since you asked me to deploy them ever since we entered in the city today, I haven’t had any triggers yet.” Ye Qian answered.

“Right, that means, if he is wary of us, he would still have sent people to follow us at this time.” Ye Qing added.

“That could be because he already swore allegiance to you…” Ye Qian answered

Lan Ranyan hummed and closed her eyes as she said “No, there is more to it…”

“Wait, do you mean that when he sent people before, was not to follow us but Zhang Shan?… Did he have something against him? He’s a newbie after all” Ye Qian was confused and then enlightened after half a breath as she looked at Lan Ranyan

“Yes, it means that we were at the wrong place at the wrong time…” Lan Ranyan added.

“Then it’s not us who ended up dragging an innocent player, but it’s us, who were the victims?” Ye Qian was shocked in this revelation.

“Right. It seems that Zhang Shan or “Looter Zhang” is someone more than meets the eyes.” Lan Ranyan said.

“I see… now can you two tell me, what did you notice earlier?” Ye Qian asked.

Ye Qing answered “Whenever he talks about Zhang Shan, it seemed as if his eyes are full of reverence.”

“Like when one is looking at their idol?” she asked.

“No… more of a fanatic looking at his God.” Lan Ranyan answered.

“…..”
for visiting.

“Wow! that’s… just wow!” Ye Qian was so amazed with her response that she ended up being speechless.

“It’s like this… Whenever Garam talks to me or Ye Qian, even though he knows we can kill him in a flash, he seems to treat us as ants.” Lan Ranyan explained further while she was still contemplating

“The story he also concocted previously at the “La Nara” inn also fooled me” Ye Qing said honestly as he shrugged his shoulders

“Now that I think about it… He is so good at lying that he can mix truths and lies…” Lan Ranyan said with a blank gaze

“I see, then he really fooled me as well, he he he!” Ye Qian added.

“I’m no longer referring to Garam…” Lan Ranyan tried to clear things up.

“Who?” Ye Qian asked.

“It’s Zhang Shan that I’m worried about…” she continued.

This time, Ye Qing’s interest was piqued “Wait is there something wrong with him as well?”

“Think about it, when we first met him, then at the pub, after that when we were in our travels and when we were killing him…” Lan Ranyan reminded the two.

“The first time we met him?… that’s when he evaded my sword and fought back, right?” Ye Qing asked

“Right, and then when it happened again at the pub, he was scared shitless.” she said.

“There were times where he would be a “tease”, an idiot and then knowledgeable” Ye Qian added.

“What do you mean a “tease”?” Ye Qing raised his eyebrow as he looked at Ye Qian.

“Oh, nothing, you might have misheard what I said…” Ye Qian clarified.

“Right! I remember now!” Lan Ranyan suddenly exclaimed as she stopped walking and hit Ye Qing’s shoulder.

“Whhaat?” Ye Qing said feeling wronged.

“Remember when he was rolling on the ground as his bones were broken after he punched you?” Lan Ranyan said.

“No, how the hell would I remember that?” Ye Qing said.

“It was very peculiar and seemed out of place at that time that’s why I can still remember it clearly” She said.

“So, tell us what you remembered, don’t keep us hanging!” Ye Qian was excited.

“He said something like.. “You better have a good reason for attacking… better pray I don’t hold grudges and hunt you….”.” Lan Ranyan said.

“That’s just him boasting right?” Ye Qing said.

“I don’t think so, he did say that it was a fact after that…” Lan Ranyan replied.

Ye Qing tried to recall a bit “Hey, you’re right, when he stared at me that time it seemed that he was already looking at a dead man walking.”

“What does that mean?” Ye Qian asked further.

“It means that if you’re a newbie, you aren’t supposed to be that gutsy when meeting high level players…” Lan Ranyan added

“That is unless… you have someone to back you up…” Ye Qing said worriedly

“Oh… In that case, why didn’t he mention anything about that when we left tje city and came back afterwards?” Ye Qian asked curiously.

“I’m thinking that he gave the people following us a signal, for them to back off as we were leaving the city since itwould definitely rouse our suspicion or attention.” Lan Ranyan said

“That seems to be a possibility since we are always leading him before we went into the desert.” Ye Qing said

“Wait… if he’s in league with Garam or anyone else, why didn’t they attack or stop us?” she added

“That’s actually what’s creeping me out right now…” Lan Ranyan said

“It’s as if they’re waiting for his orders…” Lan Ranyan said while frowning

“Wow, he sure is a patient guy… to tag around with us like that…” Ye Qian said with an admiring tone.

Ye Qing saw this and said “You better stay away from those types of people, they are good at manipulating others..” then he quickly glanced at Lan Ranyan, and when he saw that their eyes met, he immediately looked away and gulped

This didn’t slip from Lan Ranyan’s notice but she just let it slide this once.

Ye Qian noticed this and said “I see, I guess Garam wasn’t really lying about that either.”

Lan Ranyan looked at her and said “Did you notice something as well?”

Ye Qian suddenly backed of a bit and created distance as she said teasingly “Garam said… that you might have fallen for him!”

Lan Ranyang: “WHAT?!?”

Hearing this, Lan Ranyan was infuriated just as she was about to come after Ye Qian she heard a sustem notification sound in her mind.

*Ding*

System Upgrade in progress.

This made her stop in her advance at Ye Qian while the two stopped as well upon hesring the notification.

When the three tried to pull up their system intergace with hand gestures, it didn’t pull up at all.

Ye Qian said “You know, ever since I got used to the system interface and pulling it up, I now feel at loss and kind of afraid that it’s no longer there… I’m have this uneasy feeling of being trapped.”

“I understand what you mean… What if we can no longer log-off and then at the same time could actually die in here, right?” Lan Ranyan said

Ye Qian followed up and spoke “What if Zhang Shan actually lost his interface, you know… He’s now trapped here and could never get out… That may be the reason we couldn’t reach out to him and the system prompts thatvthe user does not exist…”

“Shut your mouth… Damn you’re giving me the creeps…” Ye Qing said.

Lan Ranyan wa silent for a bit and said “Well.. I feel refreshed instead. Aside from the possible fact that one can actually live here with all this magic, power and abilities, I’m more worried about what would happen to our bodies in the real world. Should that happen, is it going to rot and die off, or disappear just like what happened with Zhang Shan?”

The two shivered after hearing her say this as they thought of their body rotting in the capsule and then shook their head to move it off of their minds. They thought, this girl really is insane.

“….”

After an hour or so, the three heard a system notification.

*Ding*

System upgrade completed. System interface has been updated.

When they tried to pull it up using hand gestures, it didn’t come up at all.

Ye Qing started panicking and seeing him like this, Ye Qian started to panic as well. On the other hand Lan Ranyan closed her eyes and started to thinknabout concentrating on pulling up the interface while doing hand gestures and it showed up. She closed the interface and tried again without the hand gestures and it pulled up again. She then said to the two idiots.

“Shut up, it’s still here, you just need to close your eyes and focus of thinking about it and it will pull up.”

The two who were rambling and pacing about stopped and then said.

“Oh….”

As they pulled up the system interface from their minds, they saw big changes, they can now see their images rendered by the system AI.

They also noticed that a few options were available and update notices on the system logs.

The system logs showed that the previous unofficial tagging of the monsters have been updated and accepted by the Company. The Legendary tagging has appeared as well and a few explanations on it’s first sighting and the events that transpired with it’s appearance have been indicated, though with minor adjustments on the way it actually transpired.

A new tracking option also appeared but it was kind of limited. It only shows your city and kingdom location and your friends on your list their location should they choose to show it. When they checked Zhang Shans Location it showed up that he was in an”unknown location”

Seeing this Lan Ranyan and Ye Qing stated that Zhang Shang may be in an undiscovered location that the System has yet to register. At the very least they know that his details indicate that he exists in the game. When they checked his profile though, they were stunned.

“I-it’s the “doppelganger”!” exclaimed Ye Qian.

This made Lan Ranyan realize and ruminate on a lot of things as she continued to discuss with the two.

“It’s possible that when he “died” in the real world, he transmigrated and ended up getting in the “doppelgangers” body due to it eating his soul stone.” she said.

“Right, after the “doppelganger” left no one knew where it went as it disappeared.” Ye Quin added.

“What if we try to ask Garam the last known direction it went to?” asked Ye Qian.

The two looked at her with confused looks.

“Why? is something wrong with what I said?… Garam’s guild members were the last to see the “doppelganger” right?”

“We can just ask them the direction to which it faced to before it disappeared and using a map we can head to that direction… I don’t think it will change off course, given that unlike in the real world, we can just jump over any obstacles like the buildings and stuff.” she added.

The two looked at each other after hearing this and nodded.

“You know, sometimes, your head works the right way!” Lan Ranyan praised Ye Qian.

“Yeah, I knew you’d get better sooner or later!” Ye Qing added.

Hearing this, Ye Qian smiled and was extremely happy, it’s very rare for her to think of ideas that these two would appreciate.

Right now, the only people who knows Zhang Shan’s current details and features including his predicament were this three, since friends list entries could not be exchanged, They made sure to discuss to keep what they found a secret.

After a while, they went to one of Garam’s hangout and asked some of his men to send their request for direction.

When Garam heard that they may have found some clues on Zhang Shan’s whereabouts, he went to them personally and readily agreed as he instructed his men who were the last to see the doppleganger to provide all the assistance.

He even offered to have someone to accompany and assistthem, which the three declined. Seeing that the three were not going to change their minds about it, Garam had to yeild and offered supplies and provisions instead of which they happily accepted.

As they left, Garam beckoned a guild member and said.

“Tell the Guild alliance intelligence team to keep an eye on them, put it on the highest priority. If there are any chances to tail them, do so, but be on guard that they may notice someone following them, so make sure to avoid making them suspicious.”

“What if they do find Zhang Shan?” the man asked

“Have the person tailing them approach Zhang Shan inconspiciously and talk about the current market trend of Sylvannas and the nearby Kingdoms”

“That doesn’t seem logical?” the man spoke

Garam replied “For us it doesn’t, but for the him it does…”