Easy Clearance
Xu Huo didn't hurry to meet up with Duan Cheng and Li Kun. Instead, he took Yan Jiayu away from the Castle using Go to Destination.
Once they'd found a place to settle down, he told her what he'd seen in the rose garden.
"The artisans who disappeared from the Castle must have been killed by the King," Xu Huo said. "Their 'bodies' were buried beneath the rose trees."
"He blamed the murders of his subjects on the puppets?" Yan Jiayu said. "Is he really that afraid of the deal being exposed? Everyone who saw the puppets is gone, and most of the people in Gemstone City are none the wiser. I don't think the deal could have had that much of an impact."
"Maybe the King thought it was best to be careful," Xu Huo said. "In the story he told, the Black Gemstone that brought the puppets to life was given to him by the puppets. If they really played the role of the violent villains the King described, the deal was hardly fair. Besides, the puppets also brought artifacts."
Considering the number of artifacts that had been collected, they couldn't all have been taken from executed Players. Besides, the King couldn't even identify artifacts.
He pulled a not particularly new-looking piece of clothing out of the bag. "The cuff is an artifact, too. If the King or anyone in the Castle could identify artifacts, they wouldn't have left it behind. They simply took whatever items the Players were wearing that looked like they might be artifacts."
"I don't understand," Yan Jiayu said. "By your reasoning, the gemstones might not have come from the puppets, and the puppets used artifacts to buy those living puppets. But the King can't use artifacts, so why would he want