Chapter 225 The Missing Hunter

A little earlier, in Guleggan, Valentine Manor.

The guest room on the third floor of the villa, Professor Mans Rundschneider's room, was dark, and the curtains were drawn tightly.

The Latin girl Selma, wearing monitoring headphones, sat in the office chair that Professor Mans often sat in. The professor's laptop was placed in front of her. This computer was connected to the internal system of Norma, the central host of Kassel College, and could call most of Norma's functions.

On the screen, the picture was divided into four equal parts, just like the surveillance picture of a surveillance camera.

In the first three pictures, the blue lines intersect to form a three-dimensional map structure similar to some kind of three-dimensional modeling. In fact, it is indeed a map. The red dots represent the current positions of the other three members of their team on the map. The rise and fall of the red dots is the frequency of their heartbeats, which means that their vital signs are still normal.

The first screen showed Mans, the second Ye Sheng, and the third Aki. The fourth screen showed the current communication channel between Selma and the professor.

As a freshman at Kassel College, Selma actually had zero experience in missions. She was still a blank slate. Her bloodline was rated B, which was neither too high nor too low in the college. It was one of the most common bloodlines in the college. The reason why she could become the student of the iron-blooded professor Mance Rundschnett was because of the special nature of her words.

Word Spirit: Difference. The name is taken from the Difference Engine, the highest masterpiece of the steampunk era designed by the British scientist Babbage in the 19th century. Although this word spirit is not high in the word spirit periodic table, it has a very practical effect. After activating the word spirit, it can greatly improve the user's brain computing ability.

The higher-level Word Spirit of Word Spirit Difference is the Word Spirit Tianyan owned by the legendary figure of the Secret Party, the "Gravedigger" Karl von Gambet.

Before she realized her bloodline, Selma's dream was to become a dancer. Latin girls are born dancers, with bright, cheerful and passionate blood flowing in their bones. Selma is undoubtedly the best among them.

She is an excellent lead dancer. When she was in middle school, she represented her school in national dance performances as the head of the dance troupe. Standing at the front of the stage, she would dance the passionate "Uabango" barefoot. The difficult tap dance steps seemed light and natural under her feet. When she spun, the hem of her colorful long skirt would fly up due to the centrifugal force.

At this time, the audience's eyes will be attracted by the pair of firm and strong bronze thighs under her skirt. Then the unrestrained Latin girls on the stage will cheer for the singing and dancing with impromptu cheers.

However, after awakening her dragon bloodline and being admitted to Kassel College, she rarely danced. She only showed her amazing dancing talent to everyone at events like the annual Christmas party.

She did not express regret for this, because in her opinion, sitting in the center and coordinating the overall situation is also a kind of leading the dance, but the way of presenting the dance is different. The owner of the Word Spirit like her is obviously very suitable to be the brain of the team to assist the overall situation.

It is also for this reason that Selma was specially selected by Professor Mans to join the mission team going to Portugal, responsible for logistics and scheduling.

Screen four suddenly flashed, and Selma tapped two keys on the keyboard, and the call channel with Ye Sheng was connected through the monitoring headset.

Ye Sheng's voice came from the headset: "'Snake' calls 'Dancer'. Repeat, 'Snake' calls 'Dancer'."

"'Dancer' received."

Selma answered immediately into the headset.

"Snake" is Ye Sheng's code name, and the reason for this name is because his word spirit is "snake". And Selma gave herself the code name "Dancer".

After confirming each other's identities, Selma complained in a low voice: "Come to think of it, do we have to use such troublesome code names? Can't we just call each other by our names? Anyway, it's impossible for anyone to monitor the communication channel established by Norma."

"It's the Knight's habit to not use code names when on missions."

Knight is Professor Mance's code name.

On the other side of the phone, Ye Sheng shrugged and explained, "The Knight said that only by establishing good habits in daily missions can we become independent specialists after graduation. So except for excavation or diving missions, the Knight requires us to use code names in all missions."

Selma pouted helplessly, complaining in her heart that this method of communication seemed like something from a Chinese or Hong Kong police and gangster movie. Was it actually just Professor Mans satisfying his own middle school syndrome?
"Don't worry about these things for now - has Norma's new information been sent over?" Ye Sheng asked.

"Yes, I have sent it to your email. Please check it." Selma said.

"it is good."

The information Ye Sheng was talking about was the information of the hunters who had received their characters on the hunter website that he had entrusted Norma to track. There were thirteen in total. It included but was not limited to the identities, family backgrounds, social relationships of those hunters, and the places where their cell phone signals last disappeared.

In fact, he had entrusted this matter to Norma a few days ago, but the firewall built by this hunter portal whose origin is still unknown seems to be very strong. Even Norma took a long time to break through its firewall.

However, after the attack, the remaining tasks were quite easy. After locking the IP addresses of these hunters who frequently logged in through huge data streams, Norma quickly obtained all the identity information of these people.

It has to be said that the occupations of these hunters are really varied, ranging from local government tax bureau auditors, to semiconductor company executives, to truck drivers.

After obtaining the identity information, Ye Sheng asked Norma to hack into the local telecommunications system in Portugal, use the identity information to query their registered mobile phone numbers, and finally confirm the last place they disappeared by tracing the mobile phone signal.

Just as Ye Sheng expected, these hunters who had lost contact with him had also been missing for many days in reality. Even if one were to assume the best, it was highly likely that these hunters were in grave danger.

Since these hunters basically didn't know each other, there was no possibility that they would be killed at the same time. So Ye Sheng guessed that they were probably discovered by the other party when they were investigating the "Antimony" incident and were close to the truth, and then they were imprisoned.

Therefore, the places where they disappeared were very likely the same or similar. As long as we establish a mathematical model, convert the location where each person disappeared into coordinates, and query the intersection of these coordinates, we can most likely determine which target locations they might be preparing to go to or approaching.

This idea was recognized by Professor Mans and Selma.

However, after receiving the coordinate information of the signal disappearance point sent by Norma for the first time, Ye Sheng was surprised. Because the locations where the cell phone signals of these people disappeared last were distributed in a rather irregular manner, ranging from across provinces to across towns.

The closest to them are in Lisbon and Santarém, and the farthest ones even disappeared in Galicia, a region on the border between Portugal and Spain.

It seems that the other party had anticipated that someone might use IP signals to track the whereabouts of these hunters, so when attacking these hunters, they consciously chose a completely different location.

At this point, Ye Sheng and his team realized why the difficulty of this mission was rated SS. They were likely facing an unknown and experienced hunter.

However, since he had finally broken through the firewall of the hunter portal and obtained the information of these hunters, Ye Sheng had no intention of giving up this clue so easily.

Since these hunters might have been discovered by the other party while they were tracking something, then in reality, for example, in their home computers, there might be some clues left behind from their previous investigations.

Although most people have the good habit of clearing their browsing history immediately after surfing the Internet, Ye Sheng knew that Norma had the ability to restore all the previous data on these computers. Therefore, Ye Sheng asked Selma to entrust Norma to send him all the detailed information of these hunters, including family relationships and addresses.

Ye Sheng logged into his mailbox through his mobile phone. The 2G network speed was not fast, and the loading progress bar advanced for a long time before he logged into his mailbox.

He scanned the densely packed Portuguese names and picked out a few addresses closest to his current location.

"'Dancer', can you help me get into the call channel of 'Knight'?" Ye Sheng asked into the headset.

"I'm afraid not." Selma said, "At this point in time, the Knight may have already gone to the Solomon's Temple branch in Santarém. I can't cut into his communication channel rashly."

Santarem?

Ye Sheng knew that Professor Mans's mission today was to negotiate with the people of Solomon's Temple. Of course, he didn't know the specific purpose. As a sophomore, he probably didn't have the authority to understand such diplomatic events similar to those in the mixed-blood world.

He glanced at the person whose home address was closest to Santarém on the list, and then said, "Can you help me access the call channel of 'Sen Luo'?"

"Sure." Selma replied.

His fingers lightly pressed a few keys on the keyboard, and Jiude Aki's communication channel was connected to Ye Sheng through the computer. The reason why it was so troublesome was that each commissioner's communication channel was absolutely independent. Professor Mans was always so cautious when performing tasks in a foreign country.

"Received a call, this is 'Senro', may I have any instructions?" After waiting for a few seconds, Aki's voice sounded simultaneously in Selma's monitoring headphones and Ye Sheng's hidden Bluetooth headphones.

"This is 'Snake', 'Senro', how is your mission going?"

Ye Sheng did not ask Aki for help right away, but instead asked about the progress of the other party's task first.

"Well, there are some problems," Aki said.

"Problem? What problem?"

"Some things were difficult to explain over the phone. I'll give a detailed report at the meeting after I come back in the evening," said Aki.

Ye Sheng nodded: "Do you have time now?"

"Yes. My mission here has come to an end."

"Well, 'Senluo', please report your current coordinates to me. I may need help here." Ye Sheng said in the headset.

"receive."

After Aki finished speaking, he checked the GPS location on his watch and immediately told Ye Sheng his current coordinates. Ye Sheng opened his notebook and immediately located Aki's current location through the computer map.

"We are now separated by a city." Ye Sheng said, "Can we meet at the Santarém train station?"

"can."

"That's it for now. I'll buy a ticket for the nearest train and meet you at the entrance of Santarém Train Station after I get off the train. I'll tell you the specific battle plan after we meet. If you have any questions, feel free to contact me through Dancer."

"receive."

The call channel was closed, and the sound in Selma's monitoring headphones suddenly disappeared. A minute later, the red light on the computer screen began to move visibly.

……

An hour later, Ye Sheng and Ya Ji met at the Santarém train station. They skillfully circled the streets several times and finally got on a bus that was almost empty. At the back of the bus, Ye Sheng handed Ya Ji the information he had printed out in advance.

"Albret Soter. Male, 38 years old, a tax inspector at the Santarém local tax bureau. His rank is quite high. In fact, he has participated in several large tax inspections. He is married and has two daughters, the older one is years old and the younger one is nine years old."

Ye Sheng said, his tone formal like a news anchor, "He was one of the hunters who took our mission on the hunter portal, and he was the last of these hunters to go missing."

"What should we do?" Aki took the information and looked at it carefully.

"After Albrecht Soter disappeared, his wife immediately called the police. Because of the special nature of Soter's job, many people went to his home to investigate. In addition to the police, many people from special agencies also went to his home to investigate. Your job is to assist me, pretend to be one of the detectives investigating Soter's disappearance, and go into his home to look for relevant clues."

"Disguised as agents?" Aki was stunned for a moment, "The two of us?"

Yaji looked at Ye Sheng, then looked down at himself. With their typical East Asian looks, it was not justifiable for them to pretend to be Portuguese, right?
If it was Professor Mans, a German, who was posing as an investigator, it would be acceptable. Even the little girl named Su Xiaoqiang from the Valentine family had a more Portuguese style than them.

Besides, they barely understood Portuguese.

Ye Sheng introduced his plan to Yaji: "Because of the special appearances of both of us, we may not be able to pass the test by disguising ourselves as ordinary police officers. That's why I chose Albrecht Sote as the first person to investigate. I have already found the local Portuguese executive bureau to make fake IDs in advance. They are SIS IDs. This way, we can communicate with Sote's wife in English without arousing suspicion."

As Ye Sheng spoke, he handed a file bag to Yaji, which contained the ID he had forged for her. Yaji opened the SIS agent ID, and the name on the ID had been changed to a fake name.

"Shall we set off now?" Aki asked.

"Well, now." Ye Sheng nodded and said, "Let's go to the local execution bureau to change clothes first, and then go directly to Sote's house."

……

(End of this chapter)