An hour later, Lin Fan met up with the three kids at the north gate like they had planned.
When Lin Fan came over, the three kids couldn’t help looking at him with a strange look. That was because his face was a bit red.
Xiao Huo couldn’t help asking, “Big brother Lin, what’s wrong? Are you sick? Your face is red.”
Lin Fan felt even more awkward being called out like this, but he gave a cough and forced himself to calm down before saying, “It’s nothing.”
Since Lin Fan didn’t want to talk about it, it wasn’t as if they could ask about it, so they decided to drop the topic and focus on the task on hand.
As they were about to walk through the gate, Lin Fan suddenly thought of something that he had forgotten.
Right, what even was the mission that they had been given?
He had only heard that they had been given a mission before being asked to go with them, he didn’t actually know what the mission itself was…
As this thought passed through his mind, Lin Fan couldn’t help feeling a bit embarrassed. So he gave an awkward cough and asked, “I forgot to ask, but what is the mission?”
All three of the kids looked at him with surprise since they clearly didn’t expect this. It was clear that they had thought that Lin Fan had only accepted the task of coming with them after he had learned what the mission was.
But since they respected him, they didn’t want to make it hard for him.
Xiao Huo replied, “Big brother Lin, the mission we were given is to go and investigate a cave near the city. It’s been reported that there’s an unknown monster living there that has been attacking people nearby and they want us to investigate it. If possible, they also want us to eliminate it.”
Lin Fan knitted his brows for a few seconds before asking, “Then have the other missions all been about this same monster?”
Xiao Huo nodded before saying, “They’ve all been about the same monster. However, sometimes it shows up by a road and sometimes in a forest, but it’s still the same monster every time.”
Lin Fan asked, “Then it’s this monster that’s responsible for all the missing people?”
Xiao Huo gave a shrug before saying, “No one knows.”
Lin Fan slightly knitted his brows when he heard this and he said, “But it’s always the same monster that’s being requested in these missions, so what else would it be?”
Xiao Huo revealed a bitter smile and said, “Well, no one has ever come back from these missions, so it’s not as if anyone has ever been able to bring information back on this monster.”
Lin Fan was surprised to hear this, but he knew that Xiao Huo was right.
All the people that had been sent on these missions always disappeared mysteriously, so even if they wanted information, there was no information to get.
Luckily the cave that they were supposed to check out wasn’t that far from the city, so it didn’t take them long to arrive in the area around the cave.
Before heading to the cave, they decided to search the surrounding area to see if they could find any clues as to what the monster was. However, no matter how they looked, they weren’t able to find any clues that would help them identify what the monster was.
But that didn’t mean that they didn’t find any clues at all.
All over the forest around the cave, they were able to find many different patches of blood and even severed limbs.
It seemed that whatever monster was inside the cave was very aggressive and it attacked anyone that approached without discrimination. It was indeed very dangerous for it to remain in this area, but it also meant that it was very dangerous for them to deal with it.
So after not being able to find any clues, they decided to check out the cave itself.
As expected, there were pools of blood all around the cave and many different severed human parts. It really looked like the gates of hell with the blood and human bodies scattered out in front of the cave.
Yan’er almost couldn’t hold it in anymore and barfed.
But Lin Fan stopped them from going in when they wanted to explore.
Xiao Huo couldn’t help asking with a confused look, “Big brother Lin, why aren’t we going in? This is the place that the mission is for, so shouldn’t we go in and scout it?”
Lin Fan shook his head and said, “This is clearly a trap, so why should we go in?”
Xiao Huo revealed a bitter look when he heard this, “Even if it is a trap, we still have to go in and scout the place. If we leave now, who knows what the Mercenary Guild will do to us. I’ve heard that they are even harsher to people that try to run…”
Lin Fan shook his head again and said, “Who said that we’re leaving?”
Xiao Huo and the others all revealed surprised and confused looks as they couldn’t understand what Lin Fan was saying.
If they weren’t going in and they weren’t leaving, then what were they going to do?
Lin Fan could see their confusion and explained, “I have a way of scouting out the cave without going in first, so we’re doing that. Just wait until I’ve scouted out the area and then we’ll go in.”
All three of the kids revealed shocked looks that had a trace of awe in them as they looked at Lin Fan.
They had never heard of this kind of ability before!
Xiao Huo couldn’t help asking, “Is there really such an ability in this world? Why haven’t I heard of it before?”
Lin Fan revealed a smile and said, “Well, that’s because there’s no one else in this world that has this ability.”
While they looked a bit doubtful when they heard this, the kids still decided to trust Lin Fan.
Lin Fan released Greeny’s puppets and sent them into the cave to scout it out as he linked his senses with them.
He found that the inside of the cave was just as bloody as the outside. No, it was even bloodier inside than it was outside the cave.
There were corpses strewn all over the ground and there was even a thin layer of blood that stained the floor. Lin Fan really didn’t know how many corpses it took just to form this thin layer of blood on the floor.
But the cave itself wasn’t actually as big as he thought it would be.
It only went a few meters in before opening up to a large space. There weren’t any other exits in this cave, just the one that Lin Fan had taken to enter it.
When he looked carefully, Lin Fan was able to find that there was a creature that was sleeping on a pile of bones right in the center of the cave. He couldn’t see it clearly to use his Appraisal Eyes on since it was covered in bones, but he could tell from its form that it was almost human-like…
He really couldn’t help feeling something strange about this, like something was off…
But there was nothing else left in the cave for him to see, so he left his puppets there to monitor the creature in the center while he pulled himself back to talk to Xiao Huo and the others.
Lin Fan simply explained the situation in the cave and then asked them what they wanted to do.
Naturally the first plan that they came up with was to block the cave and burn whatever was inside. But Lin Fan poured a bucket over this plan as he said, “There’s nothing inside the cave that would burn. Plus, there’s too much blood inside that any flame that we create would just be put out and we would have to try several times to burn the inside of the cave. By the time that we manage to clear out the blood, the monster inside should notice what we’re doing and attack us. Then we would be put in a bad position.”
They were surprised by how deep Lin Fan had analyzed this, but they didn’t give up as Yan’er said, “Then what if we set a trap at the entrance and wait for it to come out? We can ambush it and catch it off guard.”
Lin Fan pointed around the entrance of the cave in the distance and said, “There’s no cover around the entrance of the cave at all, so there wouldn’t be a place to lay a trap. Not to mention that we don’t know anything about the monsters, so we don’t know what kind of trap to lay for it. If it’s a beast with a strong sense of smell or has sharp vision, it will have ways of seeing through any random trap that we set. So there’s too many unknown variables to make it a viable plan.”
Once again, they were blown away by how deep Lin Fan’s analysis was and this time, there wasn’t anything else they could say.
These three kids were good at cultivating, but that didn’t mean that their heads were good. They relied more on brawn than brain, so they couldn’t think of any other plans other than these two.
But that was what Lin Fan was waiting for.
He had deliberately asked them for plans since he wanted to put them in a tough position, which would then make it easier for him to make his proposal.
“How about I go in alone and check out the monster myself?”
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