Overlord: Start from the Goblin Lair.

Chapter 205: The Thief Among the Shapeshifters

"Quiet, everyone, be quiet!"

Kalade led Ron and others into the hall and shouted loudly, and the noisy voices inside suddenly quieted down.

Ron stepped over a mat at the door and looked around. There were about twenty to thirty people in the hall. Some were standing, some were sitting, and some were lying. They looked at Kalade with contempt, but when they observed Ron and the others, they couldn't help but reveal curiosity.

These people do not look like "refugees" in the general sense. They are dressed and groomed quite decently, cleanly and tidyly. It is hard to imagine that any of them would engage in theft.

Among these people, Quest, who was wearing a black short shirt, was the most eye-catching object, not only because of his identity as a tiefling, but also because his clothes seemed too plain among his compatriots.

"My Lord, you are back!" Quest shook hands with Ron enthusiastically, smiling a little embarrassedly, "I'm sure you have heard about the situation here from Lord Kalade. I apologize for my negligence in choosing my companions..."

"You really know how to cause trouble for Ron," Ivy snorted. "I'm a little curious, aren't you a shapeshifter yourself? Can't you tell which of them is the thief?"

"I……"

"We are not thieves! This is a blatant slander!" Before Quest could say anything, a shapeshifter in the skin of a dwarf immediately shouted, "I have been a craftsman in Yungang for thirty years. If you don't believe me, go and ask around. Everyone knows that I am an honest and trustworthy person!"

"Those compatriots who are used to petty theft, not to mention that Quest will not accept them, even we will not allow them to come!" A citizen who looked like a middle-aged man said immediately. He looked at Ron with expectation in his eyes, "You are the lord here, right? Quest has praised your character and virtues to us many times. You can definitely give us a satisfactory answer!"

"Yes," a turtle man nodded slowly and said in a slow voice, "Perhaps in your mind, we are all experts in stealing, robbing and cheating, but in fact not every doppelganger is like this. We have spent most of our lives as ordinary people, and we just want to have a settlement with our compatriots where we don't have to live so hard."

"Think about it, what if we are not the shapeshifters you are talking about? Is it possible that those merchants stole the money and then pushed the blame on others?"

Ron looked at them without saying anything, but he knew that every stranger present here could read his surface thoughts. This was the racial talent of the shapeshifters.

"Let's continue with Ivy's question," Ron looked at Quest, "Can't you read each other's thoughts? Just exclude your own people first, and then read the memories of those stolen passengers, right?"

"This may not be so easy for other races, but it should be easy for you, right?"

"We have certainly tried this method before," Quest glanced at the turtle man, "but it's actually not that easy."

"I can be sure that those merchants did not steal from the company, but the doppelgangers are very sensitive about reading each other's thoughts, and everyone resists doing so."

"Just because of this?" Ivy expressed her incomprehension. "So you would rather be put under house arrest together than find the culprit?"

"Miss Half-elf, please be careful with your wording," the turtle man said slowly, "In our culture, there is no such thing as a 'culprit'. Everyone lives a life of impostorship and has their own secrets and little thoughts. If the thief's memory is found out by the method the lord mentioned, the thief can also use this to find out the problems of other people." "You can't check everything, right? You can't be sure what you will find, right?"

As soon as this was said, the shapeshifters present all nodded in agreement. It was obvious that none of them wanted their fellows to know their secrets.

This "tradition" seemed a little unreasonable to Ron: the shapeshifters, including Quest, could read other people's thoughts at will on the street, but he thought this practice was totally unacceptable.

"I don't mind that," Quest smiled bitterly, "but it's no use trying to read my mind. If I knew who did it, I wouldn't be so embarrassed."

"Okay, what about the physical evidence?" Ron found a chair and sat down, looking at Quest and Karad, "Did you find the lost items?"

"We did find it," Karad said helplessly, "under an empty bed on the second floor. The thief must have changed his appearance, so it's difficult to locate the thief by fingerprints or footprints."

"Fortunately, because the things were found, the guests did not pursue the matter further. I arranged for them to go to Andre's village. Now we just need to find the black sheep."

"...Even so, you still rounded up everyone?" Ron scratched his head. "Why not let go of those who haven't transformed during this period? Wouldn't it be more confusing if they were all rounded up here?"

"Quest, among the people you brought here, who has recently changed their appearance before or after the theft? Do you remember this?"

"Got it!" Quest understood and started reading out the names. "Tom, Troben, Witt... Those of you who don't like to stay in a single form, come over here. The rest of you go to the other side. Stand still and don't run around!"

The shapeshifters on the ground immediately took action. Ron discovered that the dwarf who claimed to have worked as a craftsman in Yungang for thirty years was not called by name, and it seemed that what he said was indeed credible.

The turtle man was not called, but the middle-aged man was a little nervous. But after hesitating for a moment, he still stood next to Quest.

Quest's view of his compatriots may not be 100% accurate, but it is certainly not 100% inaccurate. There are naturally some shapeshifters who really want to live a stable life. If they are picked out, that would be a different story.

"Okay, let me see..." Quest began to check the number of people. "Yes, yes... the number of races and the number of people all match. It's still those people - Sir Ron, those who have changed their appearance are all here with me."

Ron's suggestion was indeed useful. It now divided up half of the people. According to common sense, they only needed to interrogate the shapeshifters that had recently transformed one by one and confirm their reasons to further narrow the scope.

However, just as Ron was thinking about how to ask the question, a halfling standing next to Quest suddenly shouted:

"My Lord, there's something wrong with that turtle man! I was transformed into a turtle man before, and if my memory is correct, there might also be a lightning-shaped crack on the back of his shell!"

(End of this chapter)