Hunters

“Scare? People? Play?”

These three words spun around in Lin Gui's mind.

For a moment, he didn't quite register them.

After asking a few follow-up questions, he finally understood what the ghost meant.

Out of gratitude to Lin Gui for bringing news from afar.

This group of ghosts wanted to invite him to join their “game.”

Which was... playing ghosts to scare the living passing through this place.

“It's way too bo—ring— here normally—”

The ghost's “voice” dragged out incredibly long, laced with an excitement born of sheer boredom.

“We can't touch anything, have no sense of touch, and can't even feel the wind.”

“Aside from floating around and nagging, we can't do anything at all.”

“And Whitestone City is a dead zone. We don't see a single living person for months.”

“Now that a few breathing ones have finally shown up...”

The voice chuckled, its mental fluctuations brimming with eagerness.

“Shouldn't we show them some proper hospitality?”

Lin Gui's expression turned a bit strange.

He could more or less picture it.

A bunch of ghosts so bored they were practically growing mold, suddenly finding a few targets to scare...

The scene would probably be quite a spectacle.

He originally wanted to refuse.

He still had a queue of delivery tasks to get to.

There were several more city-states waiting.

But as soon as he turned his head, he met Eve's violet eyes.

She didn't speak, only tilting her head slightly, her eyes sparkling with unconcealed curiosity.

There was even... a faint glimmer of anticipation.

Lin Gui recalled how, all along the way, she had quietly helped him transcribe the letters without a single complaint.

The letters she transcribed amounted to a full third of Lin Gui's total.

In fact, at the very beginning, Eve had written even faster than Lin Gui.

But in order to increase efficiency, Lin Gui had actually revived his research spirit, which had been forgotten for years.

He combined Levitation with his already highly exquisite mana control abilities.

With that, he had developed his second self-created Novice Magic.

A Novice Wind Magic: Multi-Pen Transcription.

By using Levitation to control pens, he could divide his focus three ways and transcribe three letters simultaneously.

While it tripled his efficiency, it also nearly made Lin Gui's head explode.

As a result, he utterly detested this spell.

It was simply too mentally taxing, constantly pushing his mental limits.

If he kept using it, he felt he would probably end up with a split personality.

Fortunately, the next few city-states were very small.

Some of them couldn't even compare to Caran City.

So there weren't many letters to transcribe.

Lin Gui was finally able to breathe a sigh of relief.

This also went for the Saintess, who had been suffering right alongside him.

Thus, Lin Gui was inclined to satisfy Eve's expectation.

“Alright then.”

Lin Gui stored the organized items into his space before speaking.

“Let's go take a look.”

To be honest.

He was also a bit curious.

How exactly were these ghosts going to play tricks on those... unlucky bounty hunters?

Lin Gui activated his Shroud of the Gloomy Night and had Eve sit sideways on his staff.

The staff floated up, silently following behind the guiding glass bead.

Sparse snowflakes drifted down, painting the broken walls and ruins of Whitestone City in a layer of pure white.

They glided past a collapsed bell tower, crossed an empty square, and soared over the dead, silent streets.

The ghost floated along lightheartedly, clearly extremely familiar with this path.

Lin Gui glanced at his surroundings.

The Shroud of the Gloomy Night was functioning normally.

Yet, the glass bead ahead could “see” them without any hindrance.

It would even stop occasionally to wait, as if saying, “keep up.”

Lin Gui was not surprised.

The Shroud of the Gloomy Night could fool the senses of a Legendary expert, but it couldn't deceive the most ordinary ghost.

This wasn't a matter of spell tier; it was a fundamental countersystem.

Existing concealment magic, whether it was the Shroud of the Gloomy Night or the secret arts of an Epic assassin.

They all targeted physical or energetic characteristics like energy fluctuations, body temperature, scent, and light and shadow.

However, a ghost's “sight” relied on direct perception at the soul level.

What they “saw” was the very outline of the soul.

Thus, even the highest-tier concealment art, in their eyes.

Was as good as transparent.

Lin Gui was keeping up the Shroud of the Gloomy Night right now not to hide from the ghosts.

He was doing it to hide from those who might appear next.

The living.

He didn't want any passing bounty hunters to discover his presence here.

And he certainly didn't want to get into unnecessary trouble over a farce.

He only wanted to be a proper spectator.

The staff glided past the last street and turned into a relatively intact residential area.

The guiding glass bead slowed down, bobbing slightly up and down.

A suppressed excitement rippled through its mental waves:

“We're almost there.”

“Those guys are inside the old tavern.”

Following the ghost, Lin Gui floated in through a broken window on the second floor of the tavern.

He landed on a rotting beam, which gave him an unobstructed view of the main hall below.

At first glance, he spotted those “unlucky bastards.”

There were five of them in total, dressed in a mix of gear but exuding a capable air.

The leader was a scar-faced man wearing tight-fitting dark leather armor, with a poisoned dagger tucked into his waist.

He was an assassin.

Behind him stood two others; one carried a longbow wrapped in cloth strips, his gaze as sharp as a hawk's.

He was a Ranger.

As for the other three, their specific classes couldn't be determined from their equipment.

One was burly, carrying a heavy net gun with barbed hooks on his shoulder.

The remaining two wore warrior's leather armor but carried weapons that looked like staves, or perhaps wooden clubs.

Their gear was highly bizarre.

Oh, and in the corner lay two dying old men.

They were the dying individuals that hunters absolutely required to enter the Wall of Sighs.

At this moment, the five of them were gathered in the center of the tavern, conversing in hushed tones.

“I didn't expect that relying on a couple of half-dead old geezers would actually let us into this hellhole.”

The man carrying the net grinned, his voice raspy.

“This is the Wall of Sighs, after all.”

The Ranger beside him nodded, though his eyes never left the window.

“Yeah.”

“Who would've thought that the greatest forbidden zone of the past would have its secrets cracked by a bunch of disgraces to hunters.”

He paused, a hint of malice creeping into his tone.

“But the price was way too steep.”

“One and a half million gold coins for two old men on their deathbeds.”

“If they kick the bucket halfway through...”

The Ranger turned his head and glanced at the old men in the corner.

“I'll go back and slaughter their entire families.”

“That ugly brat of theirs wouldn't even fetch a decent price in the red-light district.”

“Taking our money and acting so happy about it.”

“We might as well use them to vent some frustration.”

In the corner, the two curled-up old men trembled violently.

They began to cough heavily, their breathing turning shallow and rapid, as if they might pass out the next second.

Their skeletal hands clutched their chests tightly, their eyes wide open.

They were filled with terror.

“Hey, don't take it so seriously!”

The scar-faced assassin waved his hand with a chuckle, his tone casual.

“It's just a joke.”

He walked over to the old men, crouched down, and flashed a seemingly warm smile.

“We're good guys. How could we possibly do something like that?”

The old man's lips trembled, a faint glimmer of hope flashing in his cloudy eyes.

“R-really?”

“Of course it's true.”

The scar-faced man's smile widened as he patted the old man on the shoulder.

The others exchanged looks and suddenly burst into roaring laughter.

The laughter echoed through the empty tavern.

It was filled with blatant mockery and naked contempt.

It was the casual trampling of the weak by the strong, a routine they had long grown accustomed to.