Merry walked in with the prepared ingredients, and when she saw Xavier preparing to go out, she greeted him:

"I was going to ask if you wanted to stay for a meal, little Norberto. But judging by the way you are in a hurry, let's just say goodbye like this. ”

Xavier nodded, and said goodbye to the old lady and Maxi with a friendly smile.

It was already lunchtime, and Xavier walked around the settlement on the edge of the town, looking for a few talkative-looking residents, and learned some scattered news about the monsters:

The lightless forest outside Darkforest has been unusually quiet lately. As Marven said, monsters and beasts were rarely seen as if they were frightened.

Some hunters said they had come across herds of beasts. Different kinds of beasts and monsters gathered together, as if they were taking refuge from somewhere.

… There were also hunters covered in scars and recuperating from their wounds. They claim to have encountered unusually restless monsters, frantically attacking those who pass by, causing them to nearly die.

The disappearance of monsters, the gathering of beasts, and the madness of monsters...... All three of these events seem to point to the same fact: some unknown existence has appeared in the Lightless Forest, causing monsters and beasts to panic and threaten.

And what is this existence...? Plus the information from Merry and Marven......?

- Xavier, who had returned to the town and found a restaurant to sit down, took out a notepad from the Ring of Everything, wrote it in the lingua franca "His", and began to sort out his thoughts.

First of all, from the situation in the town.

The young spellcaster who disappeared for no apparent reason initially suspects—or rather, is behind it—that there is a mastermind behind it. It's possible that their talents, or magical powers, have caught the attention of some "special" organization... Either they were kidnapped, or they were forced to leave the town, and even... The worst and most likely outcome: they were all killed.

Combined with Marvin's daughter, Rosa's encounter... As a "missing young spellcaster" with detailed information, her experience can be used as an important part of the analysis. According to Marvin, before Rosa's disappearance, Baron Legros had promoted her to head maid and declared that "training is needed".

"Training... ...... become a maid? Xavier sat in the dining room and muttered. Although he has lived in the East called Earth for the past twenty years, he has not had much knowledge of Western institutions - but coincidentally, in order to deal with difficult players, he has searched for relevant information: at least in the history of Western countries, becoming a maid master is not an easy task.

In other words, it is quite strange that Rosa, as a hunter-turned-maid, was promoted after only a few months or even a few weeks of work, even if her mother was once an elegant elf. Unless she's the so-called "maid genius".

- Such an adjective is too strange. Xavier pinched his temples and twisted his thoughts back on track.

He looked at the written notes, drew a few lines between "Rosa" and "The Missing Young Spellcaster", and wrote "Baron Legros" on the side.

Baron Legros, who promoted Rosa to become the head maid, was obviously very suspicious. But according to Marven, their family has been quite good before this......

"Then there are two possibilities..."Xavier wrote on the next line with his skills in analyzing the game's plot.

Baron Legross is a decent character. Then his poor physical condition is most likely due to the character hiding behind the scenes that caused the disappearance of the spellcasters - is it a curse, or is it a spell?

Baron Legross is the villain. So to make a simple association, the disappearance of the young spellcasters has a clear relationship with him. He was even the culprit behind this......

Xavier paused, putting a question mark in front of the "villain" column. According to his train of thought, this conjecture is obviously more likely—he doesn't believe that there really is anyone who is "good" from beginning to end. What's more, as the ruler of Darkforest Town, what happened here basically couldn't get out of his sight.

The link between Rosa and the missing young spellcaster, and the role Baron Legros plays in it—both the good and the villain, the ruler of Darkwoods seems to be inextricably linked.

"The cutlet you ordered," the female voice interrupted his thoughts, and the rough palm of her hand placed the plate in front of Xavier, "Please." ”

"Ah, thank you." Xavier didn't look up, he put away his notepad, picked up his knife and fork, and prepared to settle his lunch first.

It's a thick-cut beef steak with a crispy crust and only a salt as a base seasoning. In addition to a plate of crimson sauce, two halved pieces of baked potatoes and peas sit on the side, as well as a clump of cabbage.

Xavier cut the steak with his knife and fork, staring at the tender red half-cooked piece of meat and falling into a little thought—he seemed to have forgotten to tell him to be fully cooked.

But it doesn't matter, as a person who has suffered from Ernaux's culinary skills, even unpalatable half-cooked steaks can be eaten. As he attacked the half-cooked cutlet, a slender hand brought him a cup of tea with lemon slices.

"Thank you...?" Xavier swallowed the meat and was about to pick up the teacup, but remembered that he hadn't had it here.

However, when he raised his head to warn the waiter, he found that the slender blonde waiter had already walked away.

As if thinking of something, Xavier picked up the cup of tea and raised an eyebrow unsurprisingly.

At the bottom of the cup is a flat leather badge.

The brown leather underside has an upside-down, broken triangle carved with a twisted "loop" pattern carved inside. It consists of two twisted black snakes, head and tail connected to form a closed loop.

In the center, there is an abstract eye mark, and the dark red pupils are a crazy vortex - almost just looking at it makes people fall into a trance.

Xavier withdrew his gaze, didn't look at the emblem again, just complained inwardly: "Why is this kind of operation ...... again?"

It's a emblem that has never been seen before, both in Forgotten Realm and after coming into this world. Xavier frowned, reached through the napkin and picked up the emblem, wrapping it up.

Although I don't know the representative of this emblem for the time being, I don't understand what the hand that gave the emblem wants to express. But Xavier he... It's really hard to control your curiosity.

But you need to take a little precaution in case the owner of this emblem traces you through this thing... Or take a guess, just in case the emblem has a monitoring function.

Xavier thought so, and took out a small cloth bag from the Ring of Everything.

[Bag of Avoidance.]

Strange things, not ordinary

It's a small tan cloth bag, and it looks unremarkable.

Any item placed in the Bag of Avoidance cannot be targeted for prophetic magic below or below the three rings, nor can it be detected through the Magic Detection Sensor. 】

This is a common prop used when he was still used as "Xie Wei", stealing chickens and dogs.

As long as an object obtained through improper means is stuffed in, most common low-to-medium ring prophecy magic will not be able to break through the protection of the bag and lock the location of the item.

Of course, it has two drawbacks: one is that it is too small to fit into an item the size of an adult male's palm; One is that you are only immune to spells with three rings and below, which is of little significance when dealing with high-level victims.

However, this does not affect its usefulness. After all, the caster who can release the four-ring spell is a well-known person on one side, and Xavier usually doesn't provoke such a character casually. In addition, with the four rings and above, there are many spells and means of tracking, and a mere uncommon magic item is obviously unstoppable - spells such as "biolocation" can even track creatures directly.

In short, putting this emblem in it solves the problem of "monitoring" and "tracking".

As for whether the enemy will have spells above the four rings, Xavier left it behind: all have four rings, and any spell can solve his rookie mage who has not even obtained a sub-class.

Xavier was about to put the emblem in the cloth bag, but he felt the heat of the vibration through the napkin.