The mont they read this text, a notification chi rang in the ears of all five people.
[Side Quest "The Witch's Diary" has been triggered.]
[Quest Requirent: Find all volus of the Witch's Diary.]
[Quest Reward: ???]
Bai Mu continued flipping through the pages, but a large portion of the diary's middle section was completely blacked out. Only the final paragraph contained new, legible content.
"I signed a contract with that guy and beca the master of the Witch's House.
It can only devour dead souls and cannot kill humans directly, which is why it sought out as a collaborator.
I beca a witch."
With that, the diary's contents ca to an abrupt end.
"Did you all hear that? The Side Quest?" Great Northern Wilderness asked.
"Collecting diaries, right?" Yan Yu replied. "It just popped up in my quest log. This looks like a team Side Quest. As long as we finish it, everyone will get a reward."
Scattered Fireflies chid in, "Looking at it this way, the girl in that painting must be the portrait of the witch."
"No wonder that painting looked so incredibly eerie. The person depicted seems like a little girl, but who knows, her true age might be hundreds of years old, making her an ancient crone," Yan Yu remarked. "That black cat is probably the demon she signed the contract with. In many dieval legends, demons often make their appearances taking the form of black cats or crows."
"However, the difficulty of obtaining these diaries feels a bit high," Great Northern Wilderness noted. "I just hope the next few volus aren't hidden too deeply." "We don't need to go out of our way to search for them," Bai Mu said, snapping the diary shut and tossing it into his inventory. "The Main Quest is to explore the Ancient Manor anyway. We should be able to complete it along the way."
"Let's keep moving forward. There's nothing else of value left in the main hall."
"Brother Bai is right," Great Northern Wilderness nodded in agreent. "In my opinion, the experience we gained in the Village of Mist probably won't be of much use here. The authority to command should be handed over to Brother Bai. What does everyone think?"
The four of them turned their gazes toward Bai Mu in unison. Naturally, no one voiced any objections. After all, Bai Mu had dealt with that armored monster almost single-handedly, and triggering the Side Quest was entirely due to his top-tier maneuvers.
Bai Mu had no objections to this arrangent. He was here to clear the Script and claim his rewards, so he would naturally pursue the thod that yielded the highest success rate.
No one in the team was stronger than him. Taking over the command was a matter of course, and it was also highly beneficial for him.
And so, the five of them set off once again, traversing through that gloomy, oppressive corridor.
Scattered Fireflies kept a cautious, unwavering eye on the armor's every move, but it had seemingly reverted back into an inanimate object. It stood stock-still, entirely devoid of any aura of life.
Bai Mu noticed that the blood-written words on the wall had dried up. He had spent roughly ten minutes dealing with the armor. The temperature inside this Ancient Manor was around fifteen degrees Celsius—neither too hot nor too cold, but rather perfectly temperate. Under these conditions, a normal bloodstain would dry to exactly that state in ten minutes.
Looking at it this way, the bloodstains had genuinely manifested right on the spot.
Passing through the corridor, they arrived in a room that closely resembled a study.
The candlelight flickered to life once again, illuminating the space for them.
Bookshelves lined the room, sparsely stacked with various tos. Having learned their lesson the hard way earlier, they explored with extre caution. They tested the floor with every step while constantly scanning their surroundings for any newly ford blood letters.
However, no blood letters surfaced this ti. At first glance, the area also lacked any hostile decorations or hidden traps. This made sense—who would place dangerous artifacts inside a study?
The five Players scattered to browse the books resting on the shelves. All the volus Bai Mu found were incomprehensible potion manuals. It wasn't that he couldn't read the words, but rather that the contents were clearly not actionable in reality.
The listed potion ingredients were things like toad, goat eyes, or viper fangs. They felt like archaic witchcraft recipes that required magical assistance to brew properly.
Furthermore, flipping through the pages did not prompt any system notifications for learning a new skill. These were just ordinary books. After skimming through a few, he quickly lost interest. The items the others found were largely the sa—utterly useless. The only exception was a book titled "The Witch's House" resting on the main desk. It recorded the peculiar traits of the Witch's House, serving as a blatant hint to the Players that the witch's residence had been enchanted and would alter its layout entirely according to her will.
Inside the desk drawer, they discovered a door key, which was evidently the ticket granting passage to the next room.
Besides the key, a stuffed bear was also tucked away in the drawer.
It was a brown stuffed bear, only slightly larger than an adult's palm. If one had to na the strangest object in the room, it would undoubtedly be this stuffed toy. Its two arms bore distinct, crude stitches of needle and thread, as if they had been violently torn off for so reason and later sewn back on by soone. Such wear and tear on a child's toy wasn't particularly strange on its own, but the disturbing part was the blood-like stains sared across the stitching.
They were old, thoroughly dried bloodstains. Judging by the dark color and brittle texture, the blood had to be at least several months, if not years, old. It eerily resembled real blood pouring out when the toy's arms were severed.
"This thing... it looks like a cursed item..." Yan Yu murmured. "I think it's best we don't touch it. Who knows, maybe just grazing it will slap us with so negative debuff like weakness or blindness. Though, looking at the state it's in, it might curse soone to lose all strength in their arms, effectively crippling their hands as if they were amputated."
[Na: Stuffed Bear]
[Type: Item]
[Remark: A nded stuffed bear.]
As Players, this was the only information they could glean at first glance.
Bai Mu suddenly recalled the Appraisal Mirror he had obtained earlier. He pulled it out and shined its reflection onto the toy.
Consequently, he uncovered one additional piece of information: Every stitch and thread represents heartfelt devotion.
'Does this an the person who nded the doll cherished it deeply?' Bai Mu pondered.
"We've pretty much finished exploring this place. How about we head to the next door?" Great Northern Wilderness suggested.
"I want to bring this stuffed bear with us," Bai Mu declared.
"That might not be a good idea, Brother Bai." Great Northern Wilderness cast a wary sideways glance at the doll. "This thing looks incredibly ominous. But since you've made your decision... forget it, do as you see fit. However, I think we need to make so preparations, just in case this stuffed bear springs to life the sa way that armor did."
Taking a deep breath, Great Northern Wilderness drew his sword.
"All of you, stand by the door," Bai Mu instructed. "I'll give you a heads-up before I grab it."
He actually wasn't too afraid of a potential curse. He could always summon Lucy and use Lucy's Soda to cleanse a negative status effect once. Furthermore, there was an item in his dical kit specifically designed to cure abnormal statuses.
At the absolute worst, he still had the Survivor's Supply Bag. This item dynamically generated resources based on the Player's current state. Therefore, even if he were poisoned or cursed, he would be able to pull sothing useful out of it to save himself.
As a reward item from a highly difficult quest, he firmly believed the supply bag possessed enough sentience to provide exactly what he needed most in a crisis.
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