Dekan was truly unwilling to take any detours.
Dekan directly stated his conclusion in a leap.
Morion was completely stunned upon hearing it.
In fact, ever since Dekan received intelligence from the Master, he had suspected that the final boss of this Shadow World was a powerful bloodline vampire.
And immediately after arriving in the Shadow World, the two most unsettling things Dekan noticed were—
Why did this town have such an elaborate Church.
And why did the Church need a permanently stationed High Priest?
Based on Dekan’s assumptions, the most plausible explanation was that there was a formidable monster hidden beneath the Church.
Adding to the experience from the previous Shadow World “Foggy Blizzard in the Desolate Mountain,” Dekan diligently searched the Church for any signs of a magic circle.
Even if he couldn’t find it right away, Dekan was certain that he would locate it, even if he had to tear down the Church and dig up everything.
However, it didn’t take much effort; after Conelia slightly rearranged the Church’s furnishings, he quickly found the magic circle.
The red light on the magic circle likely indicated that High Priest Kevin was already dead, having become one of the sacrifices for the vampire’s revival.
Nevertheless, this magic circle was too complex for Dekan to determine how many sacrifices would be required for the vampire’s revival.
…
“How long do you think it will take for Dekan to solve the mystery of this Shadow World?”
The students of Hewenlit Academy had already begun placing bets.
In general, the usual strategy would involve gathering intelligence, exchanging information, reasoning through it, confirming mechanisms, identifying the true identity of the enemies, then finding a way to confront and defeat them.
But based on Dekan’s prior performance, he always skipped steps, sometimes inexplicably reaching the conclusion quickly.
“About three to four days?”
“Too optimistic. This is a sixth-rank Shadow World, highly complex. With just the three of them, no matter how capable, it would be tough to solve the mystery of the Shadow World before the halfway point.”
“And you can see they actually haven’t gathered much intelligence so far. They spent the first two days just collecting resources.”
“But you can’t really use common sense to predict how Dekan will approach the challenges. If he finds the final enemy in just a day, I wouldn’t be surprised.”
Listening to the discussions among the spectators, Claire, who was beside Chloix, nudged him with her elbow.
“What do you think?”
Claire coldly asked Chloix.
She was obviously still upset about the incident two days ago when Chloix was captivated by Judith’s performance as the former Knight Commander.
“5.”
Chloix replied.
“Five days?”
Claire was a bit surprised; she didn’t expect Chloix to be this conservative in his estimation of Dekan this time.
Chloix: “4.”
Claire: “…”
…
Morion quickly understood what Dekan meant.
“But how are you going to verify this assumption? To supplement and confirm its details, we’re still missing key intelligence.”
“Don’t worry, just watch my performance.”
Dekan smiled confidently, then turned towards the crucifix, with the light halo from the stained glass window shining upon him, resembling a devout priest praying.
Even without knowing all the processes and details,
Dekan thought he could roughly determine that one of the final mechanisms of this scenario would definitely include something along the lines of—
“To prevent the revival of a vampire Count or Marquis, failure would trigger severe consequences,” or something similar.
And the true name of this vampire, Dekan boldly guessed, was “Roderick,” the name of the church.
Knowing a vampire’s true name is a significant condition to seal it.
Since the Holy Ritual Church had incurred a great cost to seal such a powerful vampire, it would not hide its name but instead make it as obvious as possible to ensure future generations know it.
So if Dekan were the one who sealed the vampire and built a church over it, he’d certainly name the church after the vampire’s true name.
Dekan thus addressed the air,
“Our mission objective is: Prevent the resurrection of Marquis Roderick; if the mission fails, the Marquis Roderick will be transported to a random location in the original world of the challengers after the task deadline.”
After this statement, Dekan paused for a moment, as if waiting for something.
But nothing happened. Dekan sighed helplessly.
The Shadow World obviously did not acknowledge this method of forcing out answers by skipping all the steps.
Then Dekan adjusted his phrasing and expressed himself again to the air.
“Prevent the resurrection of Count Roderick, if the task fails…”
“Prevent Marquis Roderick from reviving, should this task…”
This way, Dekan, seemingly performing a solo act at the bulletin board, continued reciting,
Each time slightly modifying the wording and phrasing.
And since he wasn’t sure what rank Roderick was, he tried both Count and Marquis versions.
Morion’s eyes twitched; he had already guessed what Dekan was trying to do.
He had never seen someone behave in such a way to irritate the Shadow World.
Finally, after Dekan finished reciting a particular sentence,
[…]
The Shadow World’s mission prompt refreshed.
[Since a challenger has reached the correct conclusion, a new objective has been unlocked.]
[Mission Objective 3: Prevent the resurrection of Marquis Roderick. Should the mission fail, after the deadline, Marquis Roderick will be transported to a random location in the original world of the challengers.]
“※! Really? Is it possible to trick the Shadow World into divulging intelligence so easily?!”
“Does this guy only know how to take the direct approach?”
“He really does refuse to follow the proper mechanisms of the Shadow World to unravel its mysteries…”
The students of Hewenlit Academy had witnessed Dekan’s strategy in tackling the Demon Academy and the Abandoned Mountain Mansion, thus they understood Dekan’s habit of skipping steps to reach the answer.
However, this was the first time the live broadcast’s scope had been expanded to the Norton Kingdom.
Most of the citizens were witnessing Dekan’s method for the first time.
…
Although the Shadow World does not necessarily acknowledge answers guessed in this unconventional way of reasoning,
The Shadow World’s judgment mechanism is highly objective.
When Dekan had accurately articulated Mission Objective 3, the Shadow World could no longer claim that it was based on guesses.
Reluctantly, it displayed the concealed Mission Objective 3.
If the Shadow World had emotions and could speak, the last two prompts would undoubtedly have been articulated with clenched teeth.
“See, my method of reasoning is this effective.”
Dekan grinned smugly.
“Is it really okay to bully the honest Shadow World like this?”
Morion was a little worried that their antics might get them targeted by the Shadow World.
“It’s fine, the worst it can do is to criticize me a bit in the evaluation remarks, but it still has to conduct its business impartially.”
Dekan was already targeted before.
But the Shadow World still couldn’t withhold their rewards.
Dekan could already sense that the Shadow World would scold him again during the task evaluation.
But what he loved most right now was seeing the Shadow World’s helplessness amidst its anger.
