Chapter 239
The Second Examiner
Eivass suddenly shot and killed the reporter, and everyone else looked at him in shock.
“You are truly decisive.”
Quicks, standing beside him with his arms crossed, whispered in admiration, “Whether he’s Merlin, a reporter, or a detective who came down early, as long as this isn’t the zero layer, this shot is justifiable.”
“I just wanted to save everyone some time,” Eivass said calmly, wiping the muzzle of his gun.
If he were Merlin, Eivass wouldn’t worry. Merlin would only cause them trouble, but the real Jacob would personally deal with his own grandson, Eivass.
At this time, the Noble Red had not yet been established. The Serpent Hand was still a reputable Ritualist organization among the common folk.
Even though they were wanted for cursing some wealthy and powerful individuals, their reputation among the public was very high.
Under such circumstances, if Jacob realized he had been wronged, he would most likely directly reveal his identity as the founder of the Serpent Hand.
Eivass didn’t know who Pure White and the others were yet, and such secrets couldn’t be revealed to them. From this perspective, Eivass was essentially silencing a witness.
“If not for the intel Lulu diligently brought us, this layer could have been a fatal trap,” Eivass said in a deep voice. He stepped over the reporter’s corpse, walked to the round table, sat down, and crossed his legs.
He looked at everyone and slowly said, “The other layers were like storms in the dark. Suddenly arriving at this layer, with bright sunshine, fresh air, and singing birds and fragrant flowers… If they haven’t awakened their memories and found their true mission, they would immediately think they’ve reached the reality layer.
“——Because this layer is different from every other dream layer.”
Isabel had initially thought the same way. She had fainted after giving the information and hadn’t heard Eivass’s deduction at all.
“But after such a large-scale storm, things wouldn’t be so clean. Whether it’s a forest, grassland, or lake, nothing would be this clean.
“Branches, fallen logs, debris scattered everywhere, even fish from the lake falling on the ground. This is clearly just the imagination of a little girl who lacks experience with storms.”
“Heh.”
Suddenly, Pure White let out a laugh. “These are all just excuses… It’s because of Topaz, isn’t it?
“Because of the information Miss Lulu brought, and after cross-referencing with others—as long as we exclude Merlin’s information, you’ll realize that Topaz wasn’t present in the layers you descended through.
“So you suspect we were actually on the second layer all along. And Topaz was on the first layer… Only then can it make sense.
“But have you considered a possibility? Perhaps Topaz killed everyone?
“Just like me—killing everyone and then descending to the next layer.”
Pure White slightly raised his head and declared, “Admit it, Mr. Fox. You made a mistake—because of your arrogance and my lies, you personally eliminated the bodies carrying your teammates.”
“Oh? Is that so?”
The Fox looked at Pure White with a smile. Lulu nervously clenched her fist and looked at the Fox.
Pure White sneered and said without hesitation, “Of course.
“Although I don’t know why you entered this ritual before me, you clearly don’t understand the basic principles of the Nine Pillar Gods constructing a ritual.
“When the Nine Pillar Gods construct an Ascension Ritual and prepare plot points and bonus items for the ritual, they only consider the absolute rational decisions of the Ascenders. This means that the optimal solution for each ritual is based on the premise that ‘everyone is intelligent and rational, and everyone knows that everyone else is also intelligent and rational’ and ‘everyone acts according to their own Path drive.’
“So, in this situation, what is the optimal solution? Naturally, it’s for everyone to kill everyone in their current layer.
“If everyone kills everyone in their dream layer and then commits suicide, they will immediately and precisely fall into the zero layer. Not only that, everyone will fall into the zero layer. This is the most tacit and efficient cooperation! No matter how many people or layers there are, at least six people can be ensured to win.
“From the perspective of the question setter, what’s the problem with me killing everyone in my layer?”
Pure White spoke effusively.
The more Lulu listened, the paler her little face became.
She looked at Eivass with some apprehension, but saw an increasingly obvious smile on Eivass’s face.
“Who are you?” Eivass suddenly retorted.
Pure White narrowed his eyes, looking somewhat disappointed. “You still think I’m Merlin, trying to sow discord?”
“You’re not Merlin, but you are lying and deliberately trying to sow discord,” Eivass said slowly. “So I’m asking… who are you in reality?”
“You’ve crossed the line, Mr. Fox,” Pure White narrowed his eyes and warned.
“You’re the one who crossed the line,” Eivass retorted without hesitation. “Why are you helping Merlin?”
Upon hearing this, the surroundings fell silent.
Pure White looked at Eivass with some surprise. “When did you find out?”
“Ever since I proposed the Sure-Win Method. But thinking back, you already showed a flaw when we first met,” Eivass snorted. “Think about it carefully, ever since you first met me… everything you’ve said, while seemingly questioning Merlin, was actually helping him escape suspicion.
“After we met, you suspected that one of us two might be Merlin.”
—You can believe me now, right? I’m the detective, and that burly guy is the Fox.
This is what Merlin said when Eivass first met him.
This sentence seemed fine, but something was wrong everywhere.
–The first point is, if Merlin was the true ‘detective’ at that time, he wouldn’t need to explain to you why he was the detective. Because you two didn’t know each other previously. If it’s just through conversation, why couldn’t Merlin do what a detective could do?
“So his sentence was actually meant for me, implying ‘the content of our previous conversation was about you suspecting me of being Merlin.’ And you subconsciously gave a wrong response—”
“–To be precise, now we can only be sure that at least one of you two is not Merlin,” Pure White said at the time.
Eivass intertwined his fingers and softly recited, “You chose to follow Merlin’s topic. But that’s a completely nonsensical statement… Of course, neither of us can be Merlin, because there’s only one Merlin.
“You would instinctively say this precisely because you knew the reporter was Merlin, but you didn’t dare to explicitly reveal that you knew this.
“You directly believed he wasn’t Merlin, which isn’t reasonable and would make you suspicious. To avoid suspicion, you pretended to remain vigilant towards him. But you were worried that I would actually suspect him of being Merlin, so you didn’t push too hard. So you just said something lightly, merely to state your position.
“From that moment on, I began to suspect you a little. But at that time, I didn’t expect you were cooperating with Merlin, so I conducted two tests…
“I explicitly suspected you were Pure White, yet you didn’t show hostility towards me. You have four people, and we have three—and frankly, the detective and I are the main force, which you must have seen clearly.
“And we told you through our conversation that we had already gathered in the previous layer and verified each other’s identities. Yet you didn’t try to stop us, nor did you try to find your teammates.
“If you truly acted from the stance of an Ascender, serving absolute rationality, you should have tried to divide us at that time.
“For example, trying to make the ‘detective’ suspect I was Merlin from the very beginning, or providing false evidence and deliberately misleading me into suspecting him. Because if we had already gathered together, it’s highly likely we’d stay together. And if there were no Merlin among us, it would mean your three teammates would most likely be replaced.
“In other words, from that moment on, you were already at a disadvantage. So how did you respond?
“——You ignored the logical loophole in Merlin’s ‘rapid descent theory’ and accepted the three-person team-up. You still didn’t show hostility towards Merlin.”
Eivass said calmly, “At that time, I realized something. You’re definitely not Merlin, but something is not quite right with you either.
“Because you didn’t want to win that much. But if you didn’t want to win, why come to the Ascension Ritual?
“Later, Merlin suddenly proposed a guess—that you might have killed an entire layer. And what was the purpose of this statement?
The answer was simple: to swallow a layer.
But such a decision had a flaw. The number of layers could be one less, but people wouldn’t suddenly decrease by one.
“I was thinking then… could it be that Topaz is actually on the first layer? So I proposed the ‘Sure-Win Method’… that was bait. But it wasn’t to catch Merlin, it was to catch you.”
“The Sure-Win Method is based on two premises: Topaz has directly entered the zero layer from a higher layer, and you really killed an entire layer. In that case, including the real detective who hasn’t descended yet, we were previously on the first layer. In this situation, if you had indeed died, it would have been victory.
“But you did not choose to die. And now you are proposing this idea again… backtracking on your own words, saying you did kill a layer. And you claim Topaz also killed a layer.
“If that’s the case, then counting Topaz’s layer, the detective’s layer, and your layer, we would indeed have reached the zero layer. But unfortunately, that’s not the case… We are still in the dream, and have not reached reality.”
“If you don’t believe me,” pure white sighed helplessly, “you can call out the dancer and see.”
“——Not bad, Mr. Fox.”
Hearing this, the dancer walked over from the turn of the stairs.
She smiled and said, “You were fooled by me too. Actually, I am Topaz… I have been all along.”
“If that’s the case,” Eivass retorted, “when did you come here, sister?”
“In my memory,” the dancer said, “I came here last night to take shelter from the rain… but this memory is definitely not right.”
You’re a faker.
Eivass couldn’t help but laugh.
You don’t even know what “here” I’m asking about—
“Then it adds up.”
The corners of his mouth curved up, and he said without hesitation, “You are Merlin.”
Then, Eivass pointed to the corpse at the reception desk. “He is Topaz—
“It was because you saw Topaz on the first layer commit suicide that you deliberately killed the receptionists on the second and third layers as well.
“Pure White deliberately tried to mislead me, adding the receptionist but excluding Daiya. You wanted to exclude the Topaz at the reception by making ‘Daiya as a participant.’
“That’s why I said, you could make Merlin admit his identity in front of you and cooperate with you… Who are you?
“Merlin said that this ritual is being watched by the Nine Pillar Gods… Is your identity related to this?”
“It’s best not to ask that,” the Old Supervisor, who had been silent all along, suddenly warned.
Hearing this, Pure White stared at Eivass for a long time.
The Old Supervisor finally sighed helplessly and closed his eyes.
“No, it’s fine…”
Pure White opened his eyes and suddenly changed to a calmer tone. “This is a pop quiz that a certain Pillar God asked me to add for you when I entered. He wanted to see if you could change your bad habits under extreme circumstances—
“You are quite suspicious, find it hard to trust others, always keep a distance with others out of vigilance, yet lack discernment for those close to you, always subconsciously wanting to believe the words of kind people; Miss Lulu is kind and brave, but because she has been too protected, her personality is a bit soft, and her willpower is not strong enough to bear her talent; Mr. Detective is intelligent, calm, and rational, but always likes to steal the spotlight, with a strong desire to perform and curiosity, and also an excessively strong desire to win.
“I am your temporary examiner. I was originally going to test your ability to withstand deception… but you actually exposed me. Well, this can also be considered a form of answer.”
“…Which inquiry gave you this test? Who are you?”
Listening to Pure White’s words, Eivass hesitated. “Are you… the Eternal Saintess?”
He had initially thought Pure White merely knew Merlin and thus chose to cooperate with him.
He didn’t expect to have received a private message directly from a Nine Pillar God…
Holy crap, who is this person?
“You guess?” Pure White smiled slightly, neither confirming nor denying.
The Old Supervisor placed the gun in front of Eivass, and his gaze, which had regained its calm and profoundness, looked at Eivass. “My test is over, but the ritual is not over yet. But you’ve basically won.
“Merlin told me that Topaz has fallen into the negative first layer. After all, he was born on the first layer and has difficulty distinguishing between dreams and reality. In other words… the required eliminator has appeared.
“Now, as long as we all reach the zero layer, then the six of us will all win…”
“——Apologies, Your Excellency Pure White… and Merlin. I’d like to interject.” Eivass suddenly spoke. “If I’m not mistaken, falling into the negative first layer doesn’t mean immediate death, right?”
“What do you want to do?” Merlin retorted. “Do you want to disperse the Earthbound Spirits and rescue Daiya?
“In principle, it’s not impossible… As long as you return to reality, your power will return. But you are just a second-level Priest.”
“Don’t underestimate Priests, Merlin,” Eivass smiled, then brought Daiya closer and embraced her.
“…What are you doing?” Daiya squirmed uneasily in Eivass’s embrace. “How about I just give up this time… You go down with them. I’ll just wait here to maintain the dream…”
“No.”
“It’s only half a month anyway, I can just go to the New Moon Ritual myself in two weeks…”
“No.”
Eivass said softly and gently, brushing aside Daiya’s hair and placing the muzzle of his gun behind her ear.
“I don’t believe that an Ascension Ritual would have one participant inevitably die. There must be a way to survive and win.
“If you can’t find it, I’ll help you find it—consider it a reward for your perseverance after enduring the pain of killing yourself so many times.”
One shot. Two shots.
When Eivass woke up again, he heard the excited voice of the Butterfly beside him.
“…Brother… you’re finally awake!”
“Yes, I’m awake,” Eivass said softly.
Opening his eyes, golden-red radiance, like the morning sun, suddenly lit up from the depths of his pupils.
Chapter Two, a total of 4,500 words! Already 6,000 words!
But there’s still Chapter Three (hands on hips).
Cat will go have lunch, and then continue writing, but Chapter Three might be in the evening.
Will Cat hit ten thousand words today?
