Who told you I am an NPC

Chapter : 31

Building E was the most remote dormitory building in this academy.

When Yan Yunqing found this place, he couldn't believe it was actually a student dormitory?

It was too gloomy, completely shrouded in the shadows of other buildings.

As he stepped into the building, he could hear the creaking of the dilapidated floorboards.

There were water stains on the walls, and greenish moss peeked out from the corners.

Perhaps when it rained heavily outside, a light drizzle also fell in this corridor.

Could people really live in a place like this?

Yan Yunqing watched a squeaking mouse run past him, leaving him with a view of its back as it disappeared in the dust.

No, it should be said that it was unbelievable that the magic academy even had a dormitory like this.

Didn't they say the tuition was very expensive?

People paid so much tuition to live in such a dilapidated building?

Lilian was so frightened by the squeaking mouse that she buried her entire elven self in Yan Yunqing's fluffy hair.

"By the great Elf King, this is too terrifying for an elf!"

Yan Yunqing stepped over the corpse of a dead squeaking mouse without changing his expression.

"What are you afraid of?

Those squeaking mice can't fly up and bite you."

Lilian's face was pale.

"But they are damn well twice my size! Damn it, I need to find a way to enter adulthood quickly.

I've had enough of this childhood body size!"

"Shh." Yan Yunqing made a hushing gesture and pointed to the door number.

E-409. Below it was a small piece of paper with the scrawled name 'brook' handwritten on it.

Brooke's little yellow dot was quietly staying inside the room.

This dormitory was in a remote part of the entire dormitory building.

Yan Yunqing could tell at a glance that this room definitely didn't get any sunlight.

The whole environment seemed damp.

Would a person really not get sick living in a place like this for a long time?

If it were him, he would definitely go crazy.

Yan Yunqing thought for a moment and decided to be polite and knock on the door.

After all, this Brooke was not a bad person. He couldn't just illegally break in like he did with Dean, right?

Without considering how disturbing it was to come knocking on the door before dawn, Yan Yunqing knocked twice on the door.

Yan Yunqing wasn't worried that the sound would attract the attention of others.

He had checked the minimap beforehand.

This floor only had one occupied room; the others were empty.

The entire corridor was quiet, with the occasional sound of squeaking mice running past and the patter of dripping water.

There was no movement from inside the room.

If Yan Yunqing hadn't seen the little yellow dot move slightly, he would have doubted if there was anyone inside.

Yan Yunqing reached out again and knocked twice very politely, then said courteously, "If you don't open the door, I'll have to take matters into my own hands, you know?"

As he said this, he took out the longsword Old Jason had given him from his backpack again and gestured with it at the rickety wooden door that looked like it couldn't withstand a single chop.

The person in the room: ...

Sure enough, after a while, there was a rustling sound from inside, and a muffled voice came from behind the door.

"Who are you?"

The voice was low and somewhat muffled.

If one didn't listen carefully, one wouldn't understand what he was saying.

Yan Yunqing smiled, "Me?

I'm a hero of the night, a righteous vigilante who punishes evil and promotes good at night.

Open up, I have a few questions to ask you."

If the current scene wasn't so unsuitable, he would have wanted to shout: FBI open the door!

The person in the room looked at the sky that was about to brighten and hesitated, "Night?

Punish evil and promote good?"

However, Brooke indeed did not feel any malice from Yan Yunqing.

After some hesitation, he gently opened a crack in the door, revealing a small section of a pale face and a pair of dark eyes.

The pupils were a deep black, surrounded by a ring of clear yellow, like an owl on alert in the dark.

His gaze swept over Yan Yunqing's body, landing on his masked face, and he couldn't help but frown.

Yan Yunqing knew what the other person wanted to say without even thinking.

He adjusted the mask on his face, "A masked vigilante, please forgive me.

I'm afraid that if my identity is known, the masses will be too enthusiastic and come to surround me during the day."

Brooke: ...

No one wanted to ask you that question.

Lilian, buried in Yan Yunqing's hair, pouted: A silver-tongued little cat.

Yan Yunqing placed his palm on the door and pushed it inward without giving him a chance to object.

The thin and weak Brooke couldn't resist Yan Yunqing's strength at all.

The half-open door was pushed open by him. Yan Yunqing slipped into the room and closed the door behind him.

Brooke staggered for a moment.

Seeing Yan Yunqing, who had already found a chair in his room and sat down on his own, the corner of his mouth couldn't help but twitch.

"Who are you? What are you looking for me for?"

Only then did Yan Yunqing get a clear look at Brooke's true appearance.

He was thin, with messy, slightly curly hair draped over his forehead, as if it hadn't been cleaned in days.

He was wearing a loose black robe, and his face was pale from lack of sunlight.

When Brooke spoke, his fingers were tightly clutching the hem of his clothes, as if he hadn't interacted with people for a long time, so he was extremely nervous now.

Even his voice trembled imperceptibly.

Hmm... compared to a student at the magic academy, Brooke looked more like a sewer rat, a notorious necromancer.

How interesting. Wouldn't the teachers at the academy suspect that this guy was secretly practicing some forbidden magic?

"Brooke, can I call you that?"

Yan Yunqing scanned Brooke from head to toe, making some preliminary judgments in his mind. He took out a stack of documents from his backpack.

Brooke took a closer look and saw that they were all report cards.

"You entered this school ten years ago, but your talent was mediocre, and you were a commoner without a lot of resources to practice your studies, so your grades were always mediocre, even considered lower-middle."

Hearing Yan Yunqing's words, Brooke's expression twisted slightly, and his temples throbbed. He didn't understand what this uninvited guest who had suddenly appeared wanted to do.

Could it be just to humiliate him to his face?

"Seven years ago, you were at risk of being expelled for some reason."

Yan Yunqing pulled out a draft expulsion notice from the student files and showed it to the other party one by one.

"It says that if you continue to maintain a lower-middle level in every subject, you will be expelled from the academy."

Brooke's face was grim. He took a deep breath, "So what exactly are you..."

Yan Yunqing interrupted Brooke's attempt to question him and continued, "You had to find a way to stay.

I'm not sure about the specific reason, but in order to stay in school, you had to improve your grades, and you had to volunteer at the magic plant garden—according to the records, you didn't do any work-study jobs in the three years you were enrolled, except for this volunteer work."

"Why is that? Because your talent is too low, and you don't have enough resources.

For courses like pharmacy that require real money to practice, you have no way.

So you inquired around and set your sights on Teacher Adelaide."

"This is a teacher from a commoner background.

She takes great care of students from commoner backgrounds and is very willing to help them study—so you volunteered at the magic plant garden she was in charge of, hoping to get her guidance and use her resources to practice.

It would be even better if she took a liking to you and accepted you as her student."

Yan Yunqing laid out his speculations and the materials he had found in the data room one by one, and casually tapped the name at the top of the pile, on the magic plant garden volunteer duty sign-in sheet.

Brooke.

A very common name. Perhaps if you shouted "Brooke" on the street, eight out of ten people would turn to look.

But Yan Yunqing was sure that this Brooke was the person in front of him.

The last 'k' on this signature sheet had an upward stroke, the same as the handwritten nameplate on the door of this dormitory, a special writing habit.

If Yan Yunqing was still a little unsure when he made these deductions in the data room, after coming to this dormitory and seeing the person himself, he was sure that his speculation was correct.

Mentally patting himself on the back, Yan Yunqing showed no hint of anything unusual on his face.

"You did this, and you also got Teacher Adelaide's guidance as you wished, improving your assessment scores for that semester and avoiding the expulsion crisis.

It's just that because your aptitude was too mediocre, you ultimately failed to become Adelaide's student. Am I right?"

Brooke's expression had turned quite ugly by now.

He seemed somewhat annoyed, but facing the forceful Yan Yunqing, his slender frame had no ability to resist—he worried that he would be pinned down the moment he tried to make a move.

He closed his eyes, and surprisingly, his anger was suppressed, his face becoming calm once more.

"I don't know what your purpose is in saying all this.

I can only tell you that your speculations are all wrong and ridiculous.

My acquaintance with Her Excellency Adelaide was merely a matter of a few encounters—I haven't even attended a single one of her classes."

"As for volunteering... you got one point right. It was indeed because I had no money, and that place allowed me more contact with expensive magic plants." Brooke completely denied Yan Yunqing's speculations.

Yan Yunqing studied Brooke's expression, and that gaze made Brooke's hair stand on end.

He suppressed his unease and met Yan Yunqing's eyes, looking back calmly to avoid revealing any flaws.

However, his performance only made him seem more like he was bluffing.

Yan Yunqing, wearing leather gloves, propped up his chin, his fingertips tapping lightly.

After a long silence, he suddenly spoke, "You're hiding the fact that you knew Adelaide?

Why? Are you also investigating the truth of Adelaide's death?"

Brooke's pupils constricted for a moment, not obviously.

Anyone else might have ignored it, but Yan Yunqing had been staring into Brooke's eyes all along, not missing a single change in emotion.

That momentary change was quickly captured by Yan Yunqing.

Brooke met Yan Yunqing's dark red eyes, which seemed to have fresh blood surging within them.

For a moment, he felt a chill down his spine, his hands and feet becoming stiff, not knowing where to put them.

He vehemently denied, "I don't know what you're talking about! Teacher Adelaide's death?

Didn't she apply to leave the academy on her own? I don't even know where she went!"

"You're lying, you know?"

Yan Yunqing stood up and approached him, leaning down close to his face.

His dark red eyes locked onto him, and his leather-gloved hand pinched his chin, leaving Brooke nowhere to escape.

"You know, Adelaide is dead, murdered by someone."

"You want to find the truth and avenge Adelaide, but those students who also wanted to avenge Adelaide all died one by one... Are you scared?

So you're running away, locking yourself up in this dark and damp place."

"You think that way, those people won't find you, but you're constantly tormented by your conscience, in agony..."

"Is that it?"

Yan Yunqing's voice was very soft, each word exploding in Brooke's ear like a magic spell.

Brooke's whole body tensed up, his jaw trembling uncontrollably.

He could clearly feel the temperature transmitted from the leather glove to the skin on his chin.

Icy...

Bone-chilling...

It was as if some invisible force had completely suppressed him.

Brooke couldn't even swallow, his breath completely taken away, his whole body stiffly rooted to the spot.

"I..."

He could hear fragmented syllables being squeezed from his throat, as if responding to a demon's invitation.

"It is"

"I'm sorry..."

A slight smile appeared on Yan Yunqing's lips, not at all surprised to see his quest progress jump forward another small notch.

It seemed he had found the right direction again.