Conan Rick's Investigator

[An hour and a half later, Professor Rick's team received another briefing]

[10:05 PM, after the snowstorm, we observed the highest mountain range we have ever seen in front of us. It may even be comparable to the highest mountain range known to mankind, the Himalayas.]

This is a crazy discovery!

Chapter 268 Pentagram Creatures and Shoggoths

It was a mountain range whose peaks were all black, with no snow at all at the extremely high altitude. There seemed to be two smoking craters in the mountains on both sides of the view.

At the time, I, along with Professor Dale and many others, regrettably could only sit by the radio and listen to Professor Lake's descriptions, satisfying our inner thirst for adventure, as that was the highest point in the world, potentially surpassing the Himalayas.

If I can follow Professor Lake and become the first Showa man to climb that mountain, then my news will spread back home, and my father, mother, brothers and sisters will all be proud of me!

[But at the same time, I will also become a martyr...]

The next day, January 1th, the snowstorm intensified, and we lost contact with the secondary expedition team led by Professor Lake.

A violent storm raged across the frozen Antarctic soil, and many people, including Professor Dale, began to speculate direly about the fate of the secondary expedition.

January 1, 25:7 AM. The storm subsided. We decided to quickly head to the longitude and latitude coordinates sent by Professor Lake to conduct rescue operations.

After four and a half hours of flight...

Qin Zhibo experienced the perspective of Mr. Mamiya, riding in an old-fashioned plane from the 1930s and looking into the distance.

It was a jagged mountain range made up of countless ugly peaks, and the gloomy peaks were silhouetted against the shimmering ice crystal clouds.

The bare, incubus-like peaks are like the gateposts marking the entrance to the abyss of hell, vicious and dangerous...

Continuing to fly forward, the plane gradually approached the black mountains. The icy white sky suddenly melted quickly like ice cream, forming a strange mirage.

The mirage is located among the chaotic ice crystal clouds above the mountain. In the vaguely emerging strange mirage, you can see some strange spire structures and a chaotic maze formed by fortresses and high walls.

If you look closely, you can even see a large number of buildings with five-pointed star domes in the maze, like some large starfish covering the beach at low tide...

[It has no beauty, it is a mirage so sinister that it makes people shudder]

[It was later proved that my evaluation of it was not wrong]

Next, we will enter into some trivial memoirs of Mr. Mamiya again.

After cruising in the sky for several hours, we finally located Professor Rick's camp after the blizzard.

[In Professor Rick's situation, what awaits us is...]

Qin Zhibo once again returns to the perspective of Mr. Mamiya.

In the ruined camp left after the blizzard, what was found were not humans frozen to death, but some people and dogs whose bodies were twisted to the limit.

Torn tendons jutted out from beneath torn skin, and there were even humans severed in half by some delicate object...

The men were treated like livestock, piled with the sled dogs, who were also twisted and torn.

[I believe that Blizzard cannot do such delicate work]

Qin Zhibo looked at the scene in front of him and knew that this was a hundred times worse than any corpse he had encountered at any crime scene so far.

Fortunately, after being dried for a day or two, the bloodiness on it has been reduced a lot under the cover of ice and snow.

In the sight of Master Mamiya, some of the nervous people around him ran to the side and vomited.

Mr. Mamiya just stood there in a daze, probably frightened silly.

The remains of these bodies are so indistinguishable from one another, not to mention from another, that even humans and dogs are hard to tell apart. Therefore, we can only put aside the idea of meticulously separating the flesh and blood and continue searching the camp.

[In the half-collapsed tent, we discovered Professor Rick's body...]

Qin Zhibo looked at the curly-haired man in the tent who was hung on the beam like pork in a slaughterhouse. His head looked a bit like Benedict Cumberbatch, and this reminded him of the old abbot in the Mist Dog case who was hung on the beam of the training room like a sausage.

However, this curly-haired man, called "Professor Rick" by Mr. Mamiya, was not treated as a human being at all, but a beast to be slaughtered or an experimental subject.

His clothes were stripped off and his flesh was carefully dissected with dissecting tools. Some of the tissues inside were scattered on the ground, while some fragments were placed on the kerosene lamp nearby and roasted into charcoal.

Judging from the horrified and distorted expression on his face, he was not anesthetized when he was treated like this, but was alive...

There were many other strange phenomena in the camp, such as the disappearance of an assistant, a large amount of supplies, and a sled dog. However, when we discovered some strange five-pointed star cemeteries near the camp, all the strange things seemed to be solved.

[Those terrifying grave mounds were piled with ice and snow in the shape of five-pointed stars, six in total.]

After we dug up this strange vertical tomb, we finally saw the strange creature that Professor Lake mentioned in his report two days ago.

Qin Zhibo looked at the creature in front of him. Although he could not feel his body, his self-awareness could experience the shock of seeing something so shocking.

This is a winged creature with a torso like a spindle-shaped barrel, with some relatively slender tentacles extending horizontally from the middle of the torso.

The top of this creature is a limp five-pointed star structure, from the center of which extend five siphons with cilia, and at the bottom are axe feet like shell creatures...

If Qin Zhibo had not seen it with his own eyes, he would not have been able to construct a reliable image of a creature based on a single description of these strange structures.

But when Qin Zhibo read through Mr. Mamiya's memories, he found that this strange and complex creature had a sense of déjà vu.

This feeling comes from the strange creature Mi-Go found near the temple where Mist Tengu appears.

However, Mi-Go is still active in the unknown dark corners of the world, and has left behind derivative legends such as "Mist Tengu".

The origin of this creature may be too ancient, and no one had ever seen its existence before the Miskatonic expedition.

[Next, Professor Dale decided to continue searching for the only missing member of the camp with his assistant Danvers]

The remaining team members, including me, followed Professor Dale's instructions to bury the bodies in the camp and bring the unknown biological and rock samples found in the Pentagonal Grave back to the southern base.

[As for the adventures of Professor Dale and his assistant Danvers in the Black Mountains, I have no idea.]

[However, the poor fellow Danvers went insane less than a month after returning to Arkham Town after his adventure and was admitted to Arkham Asylum.]

I visited him in the mental hospital before leaving the United States after completing my studies abroad. However, he was already having trouble communicating, repeating phrases like "all eyes," "creeping black," and "Tekeli."

According to his psychiatrist, during his rare moments of recovery, he would claim to have seen a "Shoggoth."

Chapter 269 The victim is Conan?

What is a Shoggoth?

[I still don't understand the meaning of this word to this day, but perhaps Professor Dell, who took the same adventure with me, knows all about it.]

Speaking of Professor Dell, his will is much stronger than that of young people.

[As far as I know, after completing his Antarctic adventure, he is still continuing his adventures around the world, such as visiting a desert ruin in Australia...]

Professor Dell was able to successfully escape danger every time he took an adventure. He died at the age of 70 in the 94th year of his life. This is truly admirable.

[Because the teammates who followed him on the adventure either went insane or never returned...]

If you ask me where the biological samples obtained after the Antarctic expedition can be found now, the only thing I know is that all the biological samples were taken away by the Amanda Foundation, which sponsored the expedition.

[Ms. Amanda Hughes, the founder of the Amanda Foundation, has never made these biological samples public, so the outside world will never know the truth]

In 1979, I heard that Amanda Hughes was murdered in New York, USA. I was worried that this part of history would be completely buried, so I wrote this manuscript.

[If you feel that the content is too crazy and unreliable...]

[Well, just think of it as a unique and weird story written by an elderly "Egg head".]

-

[Reading completed, total loss of 8 Willpower points, current Willpower: 82]

[Gain 800 points of mysterious myth knowledge and skills]

[Congratulations on the upgrade of the Mythology Knowledge Skill! ]

Current Level 3

[Congratulations on completing the hidden mission and unlocking the main achievement mission]

[Achievement Mission: Personally observe the unknown creatures recorded in the manuscript]

[Task requirements: no time limit, no location limit, no limit on the life or death of the creature]

[Quest Reward: 10000 General Skill Proficiency, 500 Mythical Knowledge Skills]

After reading Mr. Mamiya's manuscript, Qin Zhibo's consciousness immediately returned to his body.

In the familiar study, Mitsuru Mamiya, who was leaning over the desk, had just finished drafting the contract and called Qin Zhibo over.

"Mr. Qin, do you think this contract is okay?"

Qin Zhibo glanced at the contents of the contract and signed his name directly without asking Matsumoto Ryohei to be the notary.

And Mitsuru Mamiya also signed his name.

After finishing the contract, Qin Zhibo turned around and saw a golden badge placed on the bookshelf.

Noticing where Qin Zhibo was looking, Mamiya Mitsuru, with a hint of pride in his eyes, immediately introduced: "Father-in-law was the first Japanese to reach Antarctica, and was posthumously awarded the 'National Honor Award' by the government."

Qin Zhibo nodded and at the same time saw the Miskatonic University emblem placed next to him.

The badge is real, and it seems that the contents of the manuscript are also true.

Including that unknown creature with a five-pointed star head...

A new mission was unlocked by reading Mr. Mamiya's manuscript, and the mission required you to see with your own eyes the five-pointed star-headed creature described in the manuscript.

I can't possibly go to Antarctica myself, right?

Although there are no restrictions on the time and location of this achievement task, it seems to be hinting at going to Antarctica.

But going to Antarctica is not an outing for elementary school students. There are too many restrictions in all aspects. Even if a person prepares for his whole life, he may not be able to go to Antarctica.

Therefore, a more reliable way to complete this task is to use the six biological samples brought back by the Miskatonic expedition.

According to the contents recorded in the manuscript, these six biological samples were taken away by the foundation that sponsored the expedition team, and their existence was never announced to the outside world.

The founder of the foundation was Amanda Hughes, who was murdered 17 years ago.

It seems this task cannot be rushed, it is better to take a long-term view...

Qin Zhibo put Mr. Mamiya's manuscript back into the wooden box, picked up another manuscript left by Mr. Zhen Zhao, and asked, "Excuse me, can you lend me this manuscript to read?"

Mamiya Mitsuru glanced at the manuscript and said, "Of course, you can, as long as you don't take it out of the castle..."

"Thank you."

Qin Zhibo took the second unread manuscript in his hand, ready to continue his unfinished business, which was to search for the treasure in the castle.

Just now, in the last paragraph of Mr. Mamiya's manuscript, Qin Zhibo discovered that Mr. Mamiya used the word "Egg head".

According to Qin Zhibo's initial understanding, this word means nerd, and may refer to the study.

But now it seems that Egg head is actually a self-deprecating term used by Mr. Mamiya, referring to himself.

Qin Zhibo remembered that in the hall of the ancient castle, a huge portrait of Master Mamiya was hung on the wall of the second-floor stairs facing the gate.

Perhaps that's where the code on the chessboard lawn refers to...

When Qin Zhibo and Mamiya Mitsuru walked out of the study and came to the second floor of the castle, they happened to meet the Junior Detective League and a young man named Mamiya Takato.

According to Mamiya Mitsuru, Mamiya Takato is the child of his wife and her ex-husband Mr. Sadaki, and he has recently returned from studying abroad.

Qin Zhibo and Mamiya Mitsuru learned a piece of news from these people.

Conan is missing...

"Could that guy be hiding somewhere, wanting to suddenly jump out and scare us?" Yuantai said with a naughty look.

Mitsuhiko also agreed: "It is indeed possible. Conan is quite childish sometimes."

"Uh-huh!"

Ayumi nodded in agreement.

The three clever guys quickly turned the child's disappearance into a prank by the child, leaving Qin Zhibo speechless.

You are the real children, right?

Conan is missing, so he must be really missing...

Could the victim this time be Conan?

If it really is Conan, then my loss will be huge...