Pride Online

Chapter 461: Quid Pro Quo Part V

“Because we’re not going to drag any more people in this trouble.”

After hearing that, everyone turned to Wisana. They all agreed with the grandfather because Wisana was an outsider who volunteered to help this town without anything in return. And now he got in trouble for being involved in this, too.

“That’s right!!” Uncle Berm shouted aloud. “We’ve found the cause of all this anyway. Let’s come after that asshat and finish it off. Get it over with!”

“Yeah!”

“Now we know what’s behind this. Let’s kill it.”

“We can go save both the girl and our village from that demon finally!”

The villagers started yelling, aroused by the grandpa’s words.

However, Wisana did not think like them. He glanced at the villagers around and there was no way that these people would stand a chance against the golem. They were just going to slow him down.

“I disagree.”

Wisana said with a stressed face, before standing up for everyone to see.

“This boss’s skilled enough to capture my daughter so easily, so it means that it’s extremely dangerous. You won’t be able to do any harm to it, even though everyone from the village goes for it together.” Wisana said, tilting his head down. “To be honest, you guys are not a match with it. You’re just going to slow me down, if you come after it with me, too.”

Everyone froze after his words, especially Uncle Berm who turned to stare at Wisana.

“How could you say something like that, girl!” He yelled. “Miss Vissara, you’re in trouble because of us. At least let us take responsibility. It’s our problem, too, anyway!”

“Yeah, that’s right.” The others started yelling as well.

“Let us help you, too, Miss.”

“We know we’re not fighters, but we want to be useful for you a bit.”

Wisana sighed at the majority votes. But then he smiled and nodded at them.

“I’m just going to take only the kindness of you all,” Wisana replied briefly. “Don’t forget that we still don’t know why it attacked the village. We can’t do something risky, because its real intention could be to invade and destroy the town. So, it’s not a clever idea to leave no one protecting the town.”

Wisana’s words had a point, so they got quiet down again.

Wisana turned to look Jinnie in the eyes like he was asking her for suggestions.

“If the enemy is a golem, do you have any presumption of why it attacked the town?”

Jinnie nodded at the question, then opened a couple more screens.

She pushed them to show everyone in the room to see them clearly.

“It’s not hard to guess since we can identify the boss monster like this already,” Jinnie said. “Normally, Golden Trickster is a boss in the tomb of the ancestor dungeon, which is the place where many kinds of rare items are kept. So, there’re a lot of golem bosses guarding these treasures, and this one is one of them.”

After Jinnie’s words, the screens she shared with everyone in the room started showing an image with many kinds of items on them. Each of them had an outstanding design, looking like a high-ranking item that had a high price.

“I want everyone to look if there’s some of these items in the village. You probably didn’t take it yourself but got it from someone else or bought it from a market in a different town. Please think about it cautiously.”

After hearing that, everyone instantly looked at the image on the screens carefully, including Jeng who moved over to sit by his grandfather’s side to look at the items in the picture, too.

“You think it’s after one of these items, Jinnie?” Wisana asked,

“There’s a high chance that it is, sir,” Jinnie answered. “Because there’s no reason for the golem to capture Mona Lisa unless it’s assessed your skills and realized that it won’t be worth fighting you directly. That’s why it came to take Mona Lisa as a hostage.”

“Quid pro quo, huh?”

Wisana understood what his AI was trying to imply right away.

Of course, a boss-ranking monster would take the least risky way. There was a high possibility that Jinnie’s theory was right. There was no reason for it to capture Mona Lisa unless it knew that the girl was his only weakness.

And each time that the monster sent Sand Men to attack the village was to estimate the force’s strength before invading to take its item back. However, when it saw Wisana who was strong enough to kill it yesterday, it had to act faster now.

For all these reasons, he got to admit that this golem was such a tricky ass!!

“H ...hold on, I know this item.”

Suddenly, a voice rang up. It was from Jeng who widened his eyes out of shock.

He was pointing to an item in the picture, getting everyone’s attention on him right away. The item looked like a transparent light green crystal the size of a man’s palm.

“A Cure Stone?”

Wisana read the item’s name out loud with a curious face. He then caught eye with Jinnie who already nodded at him in response.

“Bing go, Master. Cure Stone is an A+ item that is guarded by Golden Trickster in the dungeon. That should be it.” She said, looking at Jeng’s face. “You’re probably the one who brought it into the village, aren’t you? That’s it. The item is the cause of the monster attacking your village.”

“All because of that piece of rock?!”

Jeng yelled aloud. His eyes widened and his mouth gasped out of shock. Then he glanced at the grandfather sitting next to him with an uneasy face.

“You did that, Jeng?” Grandpa asked.

“I ...I didn’t know that.” Jeng was dumbfounded. He could barely speak. “I got it from a player. He sold it to me at a cheap price, telling me to put it in the water and it would cure any kind of curse and injuries. Then I tested it, and it actually had the effects like he said. So, I used it with our hotel’s hot spring.”

Jeng explained everything quickly. The villagers looked at each other confusedly as they realized that the one who put the town in danger was Jeng, and he did it without even realizing.

“I ...didn’t know. I’m sorry, Grandpa.” He whispered, hanging his head low. “I tried every way to save the hotel. I travelled to find something that could make our town a popular attraction again, just like how it was before... but, ..."

That was all he could say. He reached up to his forehead with extreme confusion. Jeng did not say anything more. He just stood there, shaking. Seeing that, Grandpa Khao let out a soft sigh and placed his hand on his grandson’s shoulder. There was no word of comfort coming out of his mouth, but only the hand on his shoulder was already enough to stop the young man from shaking.

“It’s not your fault,” Wisana spoke up. “Who would have wanted this kind of thing to happen? All you ever wanted was just to save this hotel, didn’t you?”

Wisana tried to comfort him, but the guilty one still looked down without saying anything. Seeing that, Wisana huffed out a long sigh at the same time that he caught the old man’s eyes. Grandpa Khao shook his head slowly to imply that it was useless to say anything right now.

“If we know what’s causing all this, now it won’t be so hard to fix anymore.”

Grandpa said, before looking at Uncle Berm.

“Berm, bring the stone to Miss Vissara.”

Everyone froze at those words. Especially Wisana, he narrowed his eyes at the other.

“Why would you do that? We don’t have to return the stone to the golem, you know. I’m going to go after that jerk anyway. You should just keep the stone.”

“I can’t do that.”