“And did that elder of yours succeed?” it seemed unnecessary to ask such a question. If he hadn’t, then how come these dens matured so fast?

“He didn’t,” but to my shock, Loran sighed, “and he died in the middle of his attempt. So as far as I know, no one ever dared to copy his doings again.”

“This… But there isn’t just one den that evolved to such a degree! I know of hundreds of dens right now matured to bring forth high levelled zombies. How can you explain that?”

When I said it, Loran’s face twitched. I could see another wave of shock traversing over his face. “I… Can’t explain this,” he paused, “but if that’s true, then the old ancestor did succeed. And that means…”

He didn’t need to speak anymore. I could see through what he wanted to say. If his elder was successful and in the end he died, then someone or something must have devised all these lies to cover the theft up.

That tech was stolen, and by some means it was brought all the way to my time and appeared in front of me.

I tried to recall, but I didn’t find any record mentioning the presence of high grade dens from the beginning of the fifth quest. All the high dens appeared later on after the passage of long years.

When I thought more about it, I found it quite interesting. The angels were the one linking all these incidents happening here together. And I knew they were treacherous, without any loyalty or code of honour.

So it wasn’t impossible for them to side with an enemy. And suddenly I had one person in my mind as the best candidate; that mysterious clone who kept bothering me over and over again.

Dammit! Every single time I clashed with that bastard I was faced with weird things. I fought with that dude many times already, and suffered lots of losses.

Even if I ended up killing the clones sent by him a few times, he still gave me more headache than what the angels ever did.

Sigh! It seemed this fifth quest was going to spin out of my plan. But that didn’t mean I was going to back off. If he dared to come at me, then he should prepare his neck as he was going to fail and fall under my hands like it always happened.

“What do you know about these dens then?” I asked and when his face changed, I added, “even rumours will help.”

I knew the official story said that the old man failed and died amidst his failed experiment. So getting to know any information about this from official records was nonsense.

The only way to try and understand anything useful would be through asking about legends and rumours. Perhaps bits of the truth merged with many fictitious stories and elements, ending up forming rumours and legends.

“But rumours and legends can’t tell us anything worthy of note,” Loran seemed to dislike my idea. I also didn’t like it, but what other choice did I have?

“Just tell me what you know,” I demanded without blinking, and he sighed before telling me lots of weird stories.

I always thought that humans had the wildest imagination in the entire universe. However after listening to the myriad of legends and tales he told me, I knew zombies were a bit better than us.

He told more than fifty legends and tales, all accompanied by the great deeds of their ancestors and how mighty and heroic they were.

He also gave me many tales about mythical gods who proclaimed to play a role in their race uprising and glory in the past.

I knew all this was just fictional, and none of his mattered. If there were caring gods and heroic people amidst this race, then how come they ended up getting destroyed and forgotten from the entire universe?

However I kept such thoughts to myself, not planning to hurt the feelings of my trusted subordinate.

At first I couldn’t get anything useful from the tales he told. The things the rumours and legends spoke about were all crazy and unbelievable.

But gradually a common thing started to appear in front of my eyes. Most of the tales and legends he said were related to a crazy experiment of hastening the development of dens.

If I was told these before, I’d surely take them as some sort of lame joke. But now I knew they were real, or had part of the truth within.

In a few tales, things were described in a more detailed way. If I took them for granted, then the process of accelerating the dens would be really troublesome.

“Like you heard, nothing of this is going to be of use,” Loran shrugged and said in a helpless tone. But I didn’t show any sign of getting disappointed.

In fact, I saw one den getting created in front of my eyes. And from what he just said, I could see things beyond what he could understand.

“Is there something wrong?” As I kept my silence and didn’t show any sign of regret or frustration, Loran grew suspicious.

“These tales are interesting, but they have bits of the truth,” my eyes shone and Loran gave me a look filled with shock.

It was indeed shocking when the formal records and trusted intel told some sort of lie, and the untrustworthy legends and rumours told the truth.

If I didn’t witness the transformation of the den in front of my eyes, I would have missed that piece of truth hidden within many lies.

The truth I knew was indeed unbelievable, but I had already found it and luckily it was going to help me in the upcoming challenge.

“What did you discover?” Loran asked in eagerness while his body shivered slightly. It seemed such a thing was indeed much more worthy than I ever expected of their race.