LRAB Chapter 555 Route 85 (4)
Chapter 555 Route 85 (4)
After the truck driver finished picking out the things he wanted to buy, he woke up the sleeping cashier and prepared to check out. Liz stood behind the truck driver with a dozen cans of beer. After the truck driver finished paying, he left the supermarket, returned to the truck, and waited with the truck driver for the third person to return.
When Liz bought her dozen cans of beer, she deliberately chatted with the cashier for a few more words, but it was obvious that the cashier had no impression of her and had no recollection of having been there just a few hours ago. Liz wanted to continue chatting a little to deepen her impression, but Frank, who was standing at the supermarket entrance, waved at Liz and asked her to come over. Liz had no choice but to stop her conversation with the cashier.
"Go back to the car."
After returning to Frank's side, Adenauer, who had been observing the truck outside, quickly came over and told Frank and himself to return to the truck. He then pushed open the supermarket door and headed towards the public restroom. After the two of them boarded the truck, Adenauer happened to enter the restroom. About a minute or two later, the third trucker, looking relieved, left the restroom and returned to the truck. The headlights on the truck's cab made it visible. The three of them exchanged a few words before the truck driver restarted the truck and left the rest area.
Just as the truck left the rest area, Adenauer emerged from the public restroom. He walked straight to the car and waved for Liz, who was about to take Frank's shift and was sitting in the driver's seat, to move to the passenger seat. After Liz climbed over, Adenauer got in. Before Liz could settle down, Adenauer started the car and chased after the truck, which had already left the rest area for a distance.
Adenauer's intention was very clear. He wanted to continue driving along Highway 85 by following the truck. In the first two hours, this method seemed to be feasible. But when Adenauer had driven for three hours, the front of the truck, which was more than 30 meters in front of them, suddenly swayed, as if something had happened. Adenauer was about to speed up to catch up and see, but just as he accelerated, the truck suddenly disappeared in front of the three of them.
"Where's the truck?!"
“Squeak~~!!!”
Just before reaching the spot where the truck had disappeared, Adenauer slammed on the brakes, bringing the SUV to a stop. Fortunately, Frank and Liz were both wearing seatbelts, so they only jerked forward slightly. After stopping, Adenauer pulled out his large-caliber pistol, unbuckled his seatbelt, pushed open the door, and stepped out. Frank and Liz followed immediately after Adenauer left the car.
The distorted tracks left by the truck's front wheels abruptly stopped half a meter before the truck disappeared. The presence of these tracks indicated that the truck had indeed been on Highway 85. Adenauer used both his sensory abilities and the contractor's equipment to survey the area, but found nothing unusual. Even stranger, this location produced no echo.
"What did you find?"
"Nothing at all, that's the weirdest thing."
Frank, Liz, and even the spectators outside were unaware of Adenauer's sensory abilities and the existence of the contractor's equipment, so naturally, they didn't understand the bizarre situation. But they all knew that Adenauer was a meticulous thinker who paid attention to every detail. If even he found this place strange, then there must be something wrong.
"Comrades, it's time to take out your notebooks and write this down."
"What do you want to remember?"
"Adenauer's reaction?"
"Huh? Why do you remember this?"
"You do not know?"
"I don't really understand it. My friend dragged me here to see it. Can anyone explain it to me?"
"Hey, this is pretty simple. Adenauer pays close attention to detail and enjoys observing the environment. It seems this habit stems from his real-life profession. So, in the dungeons he's been through, he often discovers hidden things through small details, including quests, items, routes, and so on. While these discoveries aren't always useful to him, they're a huge help to other players who don't have experience with that dungeon. They're like a partial walkthrough in disguise."
"Does he always go through all those details? It sounds like it takes a lot of time."
"That's not the case. Although Adenauer would notice some details, he would ignore them if they had no necessary connection to what he was going to do. Let me give you an example. Back in Oak City, when the fake Frank entered Liz's apartment, he was carrying a large backpack. Do you remember?"
"I remember that, but I think the backpack is still at Liz's house?"
"After the backpack was thrown into the corner of the living room, no one paid any attention to it, including the real and fake Frank and the real and fake Liz. But I don't know if you noticed, but Adenauer had looked through it several times before leaving Liz's apartment, so he must have known what was inside. However, the things inside were probably useless to him, so he didn't take the backpack with him. And there's another point. When they dealt with the two fake bodies, Adenauer didn't throw away the backpack, so I guess it might contain some kind of mission prop."
"Yes, the guy above is right, so we've made a note of this. If we enter this dungeon in the future, the items in that backpack might come in handy. It might even be useful to players with certain professions or different play styles."
"So that's how it is. I'll make a note of it, too."
"By the way, what did Adenauer do in real life?"
"I'm not sure what they do specifically, but someone posted about it. They were either a forensic pathologist who had served in the military, or a military doctor, or a mercenary with a medical background. Some said they were doctors from the special forces. They seemed to have participated in some kind of battle or something."
"If that's the case, his marksmanship and medical background can be connected."
The discussion among the audience outside quickly devolved into researching Adenauer's profession. Of course, they couldn't figure out, nor would they discover, that all of Adenauer's information was actually fabricated using contractor equipment. Adenauer himself was unaware of this and continued to investigate the location where the truck had disappeared. He even lay on the road, carefully observing the ground, but to no avail, and had to return to the truck.
"Sit tight."
Frank and Liz also understood what Adenauer was going to do. He was going to start the car again and drive past the location where the truck disappeared. So they immediately fastened their seat belts and leaned against the seat backs.
After the two men were ready, Adenauer started the car again and drove straight to the place where the truck in front disappeared. Nothing happened until he drove dozens of meters.
"boom!!"
At this moment, a huge explosion suddenly sounded not far ahead. Adenauer stepped on the accelerator and rushed over. Just two hundred meters away, he saw the truck that had just exploded. The cargo compartment was burning, but the front of the truck was still intact. He could confirm from the same license plate that this was the truck that had just disappeared.
Adenauer stopped the car, and the three of them immediately got out and ran over. The first thing they did was to look inside the cockpit. Both doors were open, but there was still no one inside. The road was surrounded by barren land, and the three of them saw no one, indicating that the three original occupants of the truck were no longer nearby. Before the fire reached the front of the truck, where the driver's seat was, Adenauer rushed in and took a quick look inside.
There was a scattered mess of food and drinks in the back seat, and empty food bags and bottles under the seat. In the driver's door storage compartment was a map with oily fingerprints on it. The center console box between the driver and passenger seats had been opened, revealing a cell phone, a wallet, and an unopened pack of mints.
Although Adenauer wanted to continue investigating, the fire had already spread to the front of the truck. So, Adenauer grabbed everything he had found, quickly left the truck, and returned to the truck. The wildly growing flames quickly engulfed the entire truck again. As Adenauer backed out, a second explosion occurred in the front of the truck, sending parts flying in the shockwave. After stopping the truck in a safe location, Liz and Adenauer followed Frank to the roadside where the fire had reflected light and found the truck's license plate.
"R14MNV, that's the car."
In the country where the dungeon is set, vehicles drive on the left side of the road, with the driver's seat on the right. The truck, which had been driving on the left side of the road just now, disappeared and reappeared, traveling on the right side in the opposite direction. Based on the location of the rest stop and the surrounding road conditions, the three people were able to confirm that they had always been driving on the left side of the road and had not unknowingly changed their route or turned around. Therefore, the problem was not with them, but with the truck's U-turn.
"What have you discovered?"
"A map, a wallet, and a cell phone."
"Let me see."
Frank took the map, which was a map of the state with a route drawn on it in yellow ink. It should be the route of the truck, but what was strange was that there was no Highway 85 marked on the route. Although the route depicted on it was connected to Highway 85 at several locations, there were many vehicles traveling to and from those locations, and there were clear signs. There was also a city nearby at one of the locations, so it seemed unlikely that they had taken the wrong road.
Liz found a lot of delivery documents in her wallet, the earliest of which was at least five years old. The list of delivery personnel on it matched the name on the driver's license in the wallet. Adenauer could recognize that the person on it was the one driving the truck at the time. Since he had at least five years of transportation experience, it could be proved that the truck did not get lost and took the wrong route, but may have deliberately driven onto Highway 85.
"Based on the marked route, it seems this truck chose to travel via Highway 85 to save time. This section of Highway 85 has no traffic checkpoints or densely populated towns. Although the actual distance is longer than the original route, if they drive faster here, they can indeed arrive earlier than this route."
"And without toll booths, you can save a lot of money. If you take the original route, you'll have to go through at least a dozen toll booths along the way, but if you take Highway 85, you can cut the fare in half. Maybe that's why they changed the route?"
"But if it really saves money, why doesn't their company take Highway 85 from the beginning instead of using the original route?"
"Maybe there's something only the locals know about? I'm not familiar with this area and have never been on Highway 85."
"Didn't we find a cell phone? See if we can use it. Maybe we can use it to check."
Adenauer now had the phone. Even without Liz's explanation, he had been planning to test it. Liz explained that it was a relatively new model, released only a few months ago, and it looked brand new, suggesting it had been recently purchased. The phone was functional, except for the half-baked battery. The photo album contained only a few group photos of the three people in the truck, which, judging by the timestamps, must have been taken four days earlier.
Adenauer used the contractor's equipment to calculate the time. According to the route on the map, the entire truck's journey spanned two states, and the one-way trip would take 12 days. If the route was changed to Highway 85, the time would be nine days, saving three days. Including the return trip, the time saved was six days. No wonder the truck changed its route.
Adenauer also looked up information about Highway 85 based on the doubts raised by Liz, and actually found two pieces of news that might be related.
A few years ago, a section of Highway 85 collapsed. While no one was injured, underground power lines were severely damaged, causing power outages in several nearby cities for two weeks. After two weeks, power was restored and the section of highway was renovated. Aside from the financial losses, no other incidents occurred. It was just a minor incident.
The second piece of news was a bit strange, because it contained something familiar to the three people.
"At 9 p.m. on September 23rd, a truck crashed on Highway 85, causing a vehicle explosion. Three men in the vehicle were missing. The accident caused serious..."
"Look at this."
Adenauer found a news report about a vehicle explosion that happened a year ago, and the photos of the scene and missing persons in the news immediately caught the attention of the three people.
"Isn't this the truck? Aren't the three people missing from it the same three people on it?"
"The time on this phone is also from a year ago."
"But the time displayed on our car's central control screen is indeed now, right?"
The three of them looked at each other and couldn't help frowning.
"Is this really a ghost?"