Having agreed to cooperate, they exchanged introductions as a show of good faith.
Hat Man’s name was Max, 39 years old, formerly a stock exchange trader.
Glasses Man’s name was Ken, 27 years old, an ordinary office worker.
Max believed the vanished princess was the key to the game. The castle was enormous, and with so few of them, conducting a thorough search was difficult—so the priority now was to rally the remaining companions and search for the princess together.
Only by finding the princess could they find the sword.
Ken deferred to Max’s lead.
Tan Xiao had no ideas of his own, so he followed Max’s direction as well.
Then Max used the dresses in the wardrobe to roughly estimate the princess’s height and build, combined with the golden hair as a distinguishing feature, so they’d at least have something to guide the search.
They returned to the banquet hall on the first floor and found the group had thinned.
Max stopped one of the remaining members. “Didn’t we agree? Search the nearby area and regroup here.”
“We came back, but someone went missing, so a few people went to look for them.”
Max frowned. “Who went missing?”
“That big tall one…”
Before the words were out, several of their companions came sprinting back, every face a mask of panic. “Quickly—that guy—he’s dead!”
Max’s expression changed instantly. “Where is he?”
“Just up ahead!” One of the women in the group was shaking with fear. “Someone killed him—there’s blood everywhere!”
“That’s impossible!” Max couldn’t believe it. “The rules of the game don’t allow killing!”
The group immediately rushed to the scene. In the corridor not far from the banquet hall, they found a white man’s body lying on the ground.
Just as the woman had described—blood pooled across the floor, the deep crimson striking against the dust-veiled castle.
“How can this be…” Max crouched down, examining the body carefully. The man was unmistakably dead. “This shouldn’t be possible. Why would something the rules prohibit happen?”
Everyone looked at each other.
Max raised his head and asked, “And the other one? Is he dead too?”
“No… but he’s fallen asleep…”
“Take me to him,” Max said, rising to his feet.
—
The one who had fallen asleep was Curly Hair.
He had already been fighting the urge to sleep earlier, barely holding on. During the subsequent search, he hadn’t lasted long before the drowsiness overtook him again. The others had been preoccupied with finding the missing person and hadn’t been there to wake him in time.
Now, even if they wanted to wake him, there was no waking him.
Max looked over his remaining companions.
Ten people had entered. The game had no resolution in sight, and now only seven remained.
“Who was moving with the one who died?” Max asked.
“What are you implying?” one companion frowned. “It was me and Lucia. Are you saying you think it was one of us?”
“Everyone has seen it,” Max said. “Every person in this castle is asleep. Now one of us is dead. Isn’t anyone curious how that happened?”
The woman named Lucia shook her head urgently. “It wasn’t us! Killing a companion would do us no good!”
“If there’s a killer, it must be that guy!” someone else said angrily, jabbing a finger at Tan Xiao. “He’s our only enemy! Who else would be attacking us?!”
“Hey! I was upstairs the whole time!” Tan Xiao shot back.
The man snorted coldly. “Maybe you used some kind of item! Everyone knows this game has items with all sorts of strange effects. Long-range kills are nothing unusual!”
Once he put it that way, the others began to think it sounded plausible.
“Exactly! We were searching nearby the whole time and besides those people sleeping like dead pigs, there was no other living soul around! I’d bet nine times out of ten it was this guy—trying to pick us off one by one and take the king’s sword all for himself!”
Tan Xiao hated being falsely accused. He rolled up his sleeves and looked ready to brawl.
Max let out a cold laugh. “And then what? Even if you’re convinced it was him, what can you do about it? Break the game rules and kill him too? Anyone willing to try?”
—