"Yes. They said there would be an execution, but they never said anyone would definitely die," Schiller said. "That's the narrative trick."
"Don't forget, the previous rounds never had any puzzles that meant certain death, and they never did last-place eliminations. So why would they suddenly start eliminating the last group at the Lantern round?"
"Oh, I get it." Bruce reacted quickly again. "The so-called elimination of the last group was just a smokescreen. It was really to lock the last group outside so they'd go through the Cultist plot."
The plot the last group faced was probably that something went wrong with the execution mechanism, or an insider tampered with it and released the two people in the last group. At the same time, it caused those two to stumble into the Cultists' den and go off on a solo-route mission.
That was not without punishment. First, if the game had been played normally, the group that had been preyed on the most would probably already have lost quite a few parts and been badly injured. Second, the Cultist might not necessarily be easy to deal with. They would either have to break through with force or solve more puzzles, and the last group most likely still would not be able to clear the game. At most, they would get to play some extra plot.
If that group cleared it, they could return here through some passage and give the existing players a hint, telling them not to do the fake stage's tasks, but to go back, correct the mechanism, and find the true route to clear the game.
Of course, if they failed, then Bruce and Schiller's group might have to make some sacrifices in order to clear the game through the Cultist route.
"That's actually a little