Free Web NovelChapter 569: Chapter 569: Reality Based on the Novel_1
A quarter of an hour later, a stack of "The Adventurer" fiction magazines appeared on the desk.
Aiden flipped through the magazine, speed-reading the serialized story "The Hound Hero" by "Fantasy Home."
The series of "The Hound Hero" was typically serialized in the magazine first, completing an entire volume, before being published as a bound book.
In sequence, the current serialization should be the content of the seventh volume of the main narrative. When the protagonist was first introduced in the first volume, he was a young man, and by this volume, he was already nearing forty.
After scanning two volumes, Aiden discovered something worth paying attention to.
In this volume, a new character was introduced. ƒrēewebnoѵёl.cσm
A girl named Daisy, a slum-dwelling young girl who starts off cheating in a gambling match with the protagonist, only to be seen through by him; afterward, she attempts to steal the protagonist’s wallet but is caught by him on the spot. Because she envies the protagonist’s extravagant gambling, she begins to idolize the lifestyle of the Bounty Hunters and starts pestering the protagonist to take her on as an apprentice, to his great annoyance.
Just by skimming a few articles, Aiden had determined that the character of "Daisy" was modeled after Deborah—the similarities were too many.
When Daisy couldn’t find the protagonist she was seeking because of his evasion, she inadvertently encountered the chameleonic thief Liv. Unaware of her true identity, she received guidance from Liv, who, out of a sense of play, helped her track down the protagonist time and again, even supporting her backstage to handle the tests the protagonist had casually set up to discourage her.
Eventually, Daisy naturally became the protagonist’s apprentice, and together, they completed one case after another. However, she also interacted in private with the disguised identity of the thief Liv, accepting guidance from her.
In the letters to the editor and voting sections at the back of the magazine, it could be seen that the character was quite popular, with readers affectionately calling her the "daughter" of the protagonist and the chameleonic thief Liv.
Now the story of this volume seemed to have reached the middle stage, with the protagonist and Daisy starting to tackle the double identity murder case they came across. This case appeared to be the main storyline of this volume, and the current plot had progressed to the protagonist using his connections to investigate and discover that the earliest victim of the double identity murders seemed to be a witch. Further investigation led the protagonist to the surprising discovery that this witch was actually Daisy’s biological mother.
In other words, this double identity murder case clearly had an intricate connection with the character of Daisy.
After finishing the latest issue, Aiden pulled his attention away from the book, reflecting on his own experiences of the past few days, and felt a chilling sensation on his back.
If Daisy was modeled after Deborah, then the script of this volume... seemed somewhat similar to his current experiences.
Deborah’s proactive approach and the double identity murder case she brought before him made Aiden feel as if he had been dragged into this script, becoming one of its characters, and it seemed he might even be playing the protagonist.
Another trick of the Goddess of Conspiracy?
Indeed, ever since he began to dabble in authority, Melissa had tirelessly set up "tests" for him to put him in the protagonist’s mold, gradually getting him closer to power. Before this event, Melissa had also made a prediction.
But Aiden still had a vague feeling that the style of this script was completely different from the Goddess of Conspiracy’s usual schemes. freewebnσvel.cѳm
If Melissa’s intention was simply to let him get close to power and observe how he would overcome tests, then this script seemed overly complicated, with quite a few "unnecessary" characters.
"So a real incident like this actually happened, huh," Tony’s voice brought Aiden back from his thoughts.
"Did you finish going through those documents?" Aiden asked. "What do you think?"
While he was looking at the stack of fiction magazines that Tony had helped organize, at Tony’s request, he had also shown Tony the materials he had gathered on the double identity murder case.
"’Fantasy Home’ must have seen this event and gotten inspiration from it, then added it to the novel, right?" Tony offered the most natural conjecture.
No—Aiden almost immediately rejected that speculation in his mind.
He first tried to switch his way of thinking.
Eliminating that possibility, he assumed that the script he was experiencing was deliberately arranged by someone, and then speculated on their motive.
Doing so, he could feel that their purpose tended more towards completing a novel script, rather than designing it solely for him to approach power.
The most suspicious person... was clearly "Fantasy Home".
The story serialized in the magazine was basically keeping pace with reality.
According to Deborah, "Fantasy Home" was acquainted with the Phantom Thief Liv, and had no particular connection with the Hound Duboman or Deborah. But now that Phantom Thief Liv was in the Northern Continent, even if she corresponded with Deborah by letter, the news would probably be delayed by ten days to half a month.
Therefore, the possibility of "Fantasy Home" taking inspiration from Liv’s letters to write the novel was not high. Instead, it was more likely that the event currently arranged in reality was actually drawn from the story in the book.
It was not a novel based on reality, but a reality based on the novel.
"Fantasy Home" was clearly connected to this script.
And "Fantasy Home" was definitely not the Goddess of Conspiracy. With Aiden’s understanding of the Goddess of Conspiracy, she would never write such a passionate letter.
But since Melissa had made a prediction, then she clearly had a connection with "Fantasy Home". Whether they used each other or cooperated was beside the point for now. If these assumptions held true, then Aiden himself was now in the midst of the "Bounty Hunters’" story.
Duboman, the original Hound, had now devoted himself to the revolutionary affairs of the Northern Continent frontier. Therefore, Aiden, who was currently entangled by Deborah in a case of mistaken identity, actually occupied the position of the protagonist.
What exactly was the arranged ending of this story? In any case... it shouldn’t go as far as to kill off the protagonist.
As Aiden was contemplating, Tony suddenly spoke up, "Warden, this matter... can I help?"
"You?" Aiden didn’t expect Tony to suddenly make such a request.
"Yes, although I definitely lack experience in investigating cases, I can follow your instructions," Tony said cautiously.
"This is very dangerous, it’s completely different from resolving cases in stories!" Aiden warned seriously.
He judged that Tony was obsessed with the Bounty Hunters’ story, hence, on a whim, wanted to emulate the protagonist’s righteous acts of solving cases.
Such ideas can sometimes be very dangerous.
"I was thinking, maybe I could gain some experience..." Tony said softly, "I don’t want to be a burden when facing my enemies. I’m an adult now, and I’ll take responsibility for my decisions."
Aiden was slightly taken aback, as Tony had given it more thought than he had expected. For his part, Aiden’s main goal in dealing with Mister Blood was survival, while Tony was driven by the desire for revenge for his father’s murder—a matter in which Tony was likely to be far more serious than Aiden.
"...Alright, I’ll consider it," Aiden said, nodding after a moment’s thought.
