Tokyo underground city

Chapter 167 Motive

However, although Catalina herself was nowhere to be found, the head of the crew, the chief producer who Lin Huai'en had never paid much attention to, was furious and took out the remaining middle-level managers of Windrunner and questioned them one by one.

It was only at this moment that people were a little shocked to discover that even the first time the tree leopard lost control was an "accident" deliberately caused by Catalina, the head of the "security team".

"I just followed Captain Catalina's instructions to increase the active ingredients in the casting materials. Although Captain Catalina said that my behavior might cause some disturbance, she told me to keep quiet and she would protect me. .”

The previous animal trainer was released, but Catalina refused to see anyone else on the grounds that he was being kept in isolation.

Like the barrier master, he had no idea of ​​Katarina's true intentions, but after the incident, no matter how dull they were, they could feel that what they had done seemed to be something very bad.

In a panic, they will instinctively rely more and more on Katarina, who was previously their captain.

Catalina took advantage of this and used further coercion and inducement to control them.

There are actually more than a dozen people like this, including the dead Li Muen, who are all Windrunner explorers. For various reasons, even within the "Windrunner", it is rare to have any interest in Katarina. Obey her words and do things for her.

Some people were beguiled by the interests, while others were frightened by her threats.

"Captain Catalina has some relationship with the board of directors of Ark Holdings. She is a confidant sent by a high-level explorer from Yemo City, which is part of the New York Dungeon Association. She is specifically responsible for the training of Mr. Moon. I don't know what happened. It was unexpected that she decided to attack Mr. Lin, and we didn’t know much about it.”

The vice-captain of Windrunner, he knows Katarina’s situation better than other Windrunner explorers——

Rather, if Catalina hadn't airborne, he would have been the leader of the "Windrunner" explorer team.

"Yemo City..."

Lin Huaien wrote down this very fantasy name in his notebook.

If I remember correctly, although the "Yemo City" belonging to the New York Underground City Association was not captured by monsters like the Kadchan Underground City in Siberia, among the more than 100 cities with underground cities in the world, the underground The degree of urbanization is also quite serious.

The entire city has been occupied by explorers, and the city government can do nothing about it. Even the city government itself has become the puppet of high-level explorers. The status of ordinary people in Yemo City, except that they have not become slaves, can Even worse than a slave——

At least the slaves will have their masters feeding them every day.

Among the senior members of the board of directors of "Ark Holdings", there are actually high-level explorers from such a place. This is the first time that Lin Huai'en has heard of it.

Perhaps even Ark Holdings knew about Yemo City’s bad reputation, so they didn’t make it public...

"The reason why high-level explorers from Yemo City are introduced as shareholders... is probably because Yemo City is one of the few 'high-level explorers' and 'dungeon exploration companies' who work together to master both the above-ground and the underground. A place of dual rights in the world..."

"In other words, in Yemo City, the status of 'high-level explorer' itself represents wealth and status, especially those who are powerful. No matter where they go, they are the guests of the corporate power..."

"And Catalina is a close confidant of these high-level explorers...and yet she attacked me inexplicably...could the reason behind it have something to do with her identity?"

Lin Huai'en frowned and analyzed.

He doesn't like reasoning, and he knows very well that the basis of mystery novels is the scientific thinking called "reductionism."

Reductionists believe that by piecing together the details, they can restore the truth of the ‘whole’.

But neither he nor Xu Qin believed this.

"No amount of details can replace the whole... It's like the chess pieces know all the movements of the chess pieces on the chess board, and they don't know what kind of expressions their own chess players see on the opponent's players' faces."

"So the reason why Catalina took action against me is probably because of her way of doing things from Yemo City——"

"In the eyes of others, Catalina is resolute and very commanding. Her way of thinking - or ideologically driven software - is probably not a 'commander' as ordinary people understand it, but a 'Yamamo' The explorer of the city..."

Lin Huaien tapped Terraris's index finger and looked at the information on Wilderness House. For the first time, he realized that there was such a group called "Yamo City Explorers".

The first time they met, they showed such a high level of hostility.

"The explorers of Yemo City, as they describe themselves, are an extremely efficient deep explorer service group. In other words, all their purposes and original intentions are to go to deeper unknown places, from Bring back priceless treasures there to enrich the interests and strength of your own enterprise.”

"Therefore, they will destroy hostile explorers, and even cross the boundaries between secularity and wilderness, killing individual explorers in other explorer cities who have the potential to enter the deep..."

When Lin Huai'en read this, he suddenly paused and frowned.

But because the paragraph was not over yet, he continued reading:

"This is because they believe that all elite individuals in the hostile forces who may become deep explorers will have conflicts with high-level explorers of Yemo City after entering deep dungeons in the future."

"When the time comes, if there is a conflict with each other, the losses suffered by the side of Yemo City are likely to be in the billions. Therefore, instead of fighting to the death with the enemy's high-level explorers in the deep dungeon, it is better to sneak into the enemy in advance. Inside the dungeon, we will strangle those elite individuals who may grow into top purple cards, high-level black cards, or even white cards.”

Deep explorer, strangling...

But Catalina’s identity is to help Ark Holdings cultivate Mu En, the “ace” of Windrunner...

Is this luring a wolf into the house? Or is it that Ark Holdings itself does not regard itself as a member of the Shangdu Underground City Association?

After all, they are a foreign-funded enterprise, and their stance is different from that of the other three primary colors...

Lin Huai'en played with the magic pen in his hand, and rarely wrote this part himself.

Firstly, he was very impressed by writing it himself, and secondly, he did not want to expose some of his thoughts on paper.

Not even the Skin of Terraris.

At this moment, he suddenly heard Yuan Ximu's voice coming from outside the tent——

"May I come in?"

Lin Huai'en was stunned for a moment and put away the notebook on his knees——

"Wait a minute, I'm going out right now."

"No, forget it, what I'm going to tell you next is not convenient for others to hear."

Lin Huai'en didn't expect that the moment he stood up, Yuan Ximu also got in.

The two people's lips were so close that they almost bumped into each other.

"cough……"

He coughed awkwardly and sat down again.

Yuan Ximu seemed a little indifferent. She played with the ribbon tied around her neck and threw something like a wrist wheel in her hand to Lin Huai'en.

"What's this?"

Lin Huai'en took it in surprise.

"I helped you pick up the things you forgot about Mu En."

Yuan Ximu calmly sat down cross-legged in front of Lin Huai'en: "Since you have decided to write off Mu En, it would be a pity not to even take the most valuable thing from him."

"The most valuable thing?"

Lin Huai'en looked at the unattractive silver wristband in his hand and was stunned for a moment.

At first glance, this is just an ordinary wrist wheel, but there is a rotatable pointer at the end of the wrist wheel, which points to five different decorative crystals.

Yuan Ximu nodded simply and revealed the true identity of the wrist ring——

"Yes, the elemental blocker can generate an elemental shield with a strength of 350 points, and strengthen the user's related spell resistance. In addition to consuming the crystal core with related attributes, it can be said to be a perfect second-level relic."

"This elemental wristwheel has a total of five grooves, which can be filled with crystal nuclei of five different properties. It is worth about five million. You didn't take this thing, but you took the one worth more than two million. The cross sword is really a shame."

As a swordsman explorer like Lin Huai'en, if Li Mu'en has any weakness, it is probably that he is afraid of large-scale attack spells.

"Is that why Ark Holdings prepared this equipment for him..."

Lin Huai'en turned over the unattractive silver wristband and looked at it, and couldn't help but look at Yuan Ximu: "How do you know the value of this piece of equipment?"

"Ahem... I saw something similar on the auction list when I was looking for a light-catching crystal."

Yuan Ximu covered her mouth and stuck out her tongue where Lin Huaien couldn't see it.

Of course she wouldn't tell Lin Huaien that she didn't remember the equipment used by swordsmen. It was purely what the viewers in the live broadcast room told her.

Not to mention the two people who behaved very unprofessionally in cleaning the trophies.

Yuan Ximu and Lin Huaien looked at each other in silence for a while.

She suddenly spoke:

"I'm sorry for dragging you into such trouble."

"Nothing." Lin Huaien shook his head.

If he hadn't seen the information about Yomo City before, forget it. Now that he knew Katrina's origin, he wouldn't blame the crew and Hara Yumu too much. After all, if Katrina's purpose was really what he guessed , then as long as he is still in the dungeon, he will meet her sooner or later.

At that time, there was no crew or anyone else, so it was hard to say what reason she would give to order Windrunner's explorers to besiege him to death——

Some Windrunner explorers have confessed that Catalina asked them to hand over Mu En's pass and Lin Huaien's pass to her after killing Mu En.

And when she gets the passes for the two of them, she has the final say whether to hide them or destroy them.

She could even swap two people's passes without revealing their identities, and she could also destroy the existence of the two people without anyone noticing - at least Lin Huaien's existence.

And such a vicious enemy is actually lurking next to him——

This was something neither of them could have imagined.

"Do you think this is Ark Holdings' intention?"

Hearing Lin Huaien say this, the black-haired girl seemed to be relieved, and her tense shoulders relaxed slightly: "To tell you the truth, I have always been confused about the reason why Catalina locked up the animal trainer. very clear."

As she spoke, she revealed the light-taking goblin: "I have been controlling the goblin to investigate this matter."

"I know that the tree leopard incident was caused by Catalina... I filmed her conversation afterward when she was comforting the trainer..."

"But I thought that the reason why she let the tree leopard attack you was just to teach me a lesson and make others realize that leaving Ark Holdings and finding other explorers as bodyguards is not a good thing for Ark Holdings. What I saw..."

"But I didn't expect that her purpose was to kill you, so I didn't have time to tell you..."

Yuan Ximu looked quite annoyed and her head lowered.

But Lin Huai'en thought about it for a while, then stretched out his hand and rubbed Yuan Ximu's head:

"Don't mind. In fact, Li Muen told me in advance the day before the duel that Catalina had evil intentions towards me - around that time, he had already learned that Catalina was going to kill me in the duel."

"However, I didn't pay too much attention to it. I didn't react until they showed up."

"After all, Catalina's thinking is different from ordinary people..."

Lin Huai'en was silent for a moment. He knew exactly what this sentence meant.

In the eyes of normal people, this is a symbol of "madness".

But from his perspective, he could only see a "cloud of conflict."

A gap between stance and philosophy.

The deep explorers represented by Yomo City have a strong hostility towards the surface society that still maintains the laws of surface civilization. And this is also the series of changes caused by the existence of underground cities, which have a reverse impact on surface civilization.

This reminded him of the Salt 10 shelter and the conflict between the Salt Goddess and Terraris.

He didn't know if this meant that there was a "higher Holy Spirit" who represented their will behind Yomo City, but he knew very well that even if Catalina didn't want to kill him, he had already stood on their opposite side. .

However, he still doesn't know for what reason Catalina decided that the value of killing him was greater than training Li Muen to become an ace explorer-or was it that her purpose from the beginning was to make Li Muen Die with him while weakening the power of Ark Holdings and the Upper City Dungeon Association.

Lin Huai'en didn't know, he could only guess.

Although all the above content is just his guess.

[Okay, nothing has changed. Take your time and take a look. If you have any questions, please ask. 】

[I should have mentioned the Teeth Leopard piece. I was very happy to be able to add this section freely. At that time, the Yomo City and Catalina lines had already been officially launched. 】

[The struggle against the explorers of Yomo City will probably run through the entire three-volume story of Shallow Dungeon. 】

[No surprises in the next chapter, it should be 22 o'clock]