My Deduction Is Flawless

As time passed, the thunder grew quieter and quieter, but not only did the downpour show no sign of stopping, it instead grew heavier.

Through the half-broken window on the east side of the hall, sheets of rain poured indoors, mixing with the mottled unknown stains on the walls and the dust on the floor to form a rather disgusting little stream that trickled across the ground.

"These finger marks..."

Shining the Flashlight on the black finger marks around Temperance Gentleheart's neck, Bai Zhi could not help but frown slightly.

Compared to Night Owl, who was just as petite in stature as she was in courage, Temperance Gentleheart—the intellectual Young Girl with glasses and a scholarly air—was clearly much stronger mentally. Although she had been attacked earlier, she herself remained quite calm.

"I don't know what happened either. All of a sudden, I inexplicably found it hard to breathe. If Hu Xu hadn't saved me, I might have just died there for no reason. What, did you figure something out?"

Although the Player with the ID Black&White in front of them had seemed rather unhinged with his previous string of deductions that ignored them entirely, the fact that he had returned unharmed despite bringing along a Dead Weight clearly showed that he was stronger than their group.

As for why she was so certain that Night Owl was a Dead Weight... one only had to look at how she was still hugging that Radio and listening to a whole series of plaza dance songs.

"Mm... I did vaguely figure out a little..."

Moving the Flashlight away, Bai Zhi nodded with certainty.

"The strange entity that attacked you earlier was definitely a male Vengeful Spirit."

"You can tell all that just from those finger marks?"

Standing to the side with his arms folded, Beard Guy looked rather displeased.

"I say it was definitely a female Vengeful Spirit. Girls like strangling people, don't they?"

"But girls love being clean and would definitely wash their hands, so they wouldn't be this dirty!!"

Someone spoke with complete confidence.

Beard Guy: "???"

"When we were searching the Kitchen earlier, we found a dead head in the Refrigerator. Black&White probably deduced it from that. But in the other rooms after the Kitchen, we didn't find any other useful clues."

Clutching the Radio in her arms tightly, Night Owl spoke timidly.

"Our situation was similar to yours. Under the bed in the master bedroom, Hu Xu and I found a Severed Hand. We didn't find anything else elsewhere."

Giving Night Owl a slightly surprised look, Temperance Gentleheart spoke as well.

"Later, while carrying out a routine search of the Restroom, I was attacked for some reason—"

"What were the details?"

Bai Zhi cut her off.

"...Huh?"

"All the windows in our rooms were nailed shut with black wooden strips, and the Mirrors were covered in large patches of unknown stains, making them impossible to see clearly. Was it the same on your side?"

"It was indeed like that."

After thinking back for a moment, Temperance Gentleheart nodded.

"Then what were you doing before you were attacked?"

"Uh... when we were searching the master bedroom earlier, I got Spider Web on my face, so I wanted to use the Mirror to see and wipe it off... the Mirror?"

Temperance Gentleheart suddenly froze.

"Not just Mirrors. It should be all reflective objects."

Stuffing Popcorn into his mouth, Bai Zhi answered casually.

"If you are reflected by a reflective object, you will be attacked. That should be the condition for the Vengeful Spirit to attack people... This is the first mystery to be solved. If you observe carefully, the answer is easy to get."

"The first... there's a second one too... Wait, where did you get Popcorn?"

Night Owl paused in surprise.

"An essential artifact for watching a show. I also stuffed a small Stool, Cola, and a Brick into my Inventory."

Casually shoving the Popcorn in his hand into Night Owl's arms, Bai Zhi stood up from the Sofa.

"Assuming the prerequisite that seeing yourself in a reflective object leads to an attack by the Vengeful Spirit is correct, and combining the corpse fragment puzzle pieces we've Successively found... Mm, we'll talk about that after we find all the pieces. But for now, I have a question."

Bai Zhi solemnly held up two fingers in front of him.

"If it's one question, why are you holding up... Fine, what's the question?"

Realizing that she would lose if she complained, Temperance Gentleheart decisively changed the subject.

"It's simple. How did Beard Guy save you?"

Bai Zhi turned to look at Beard Guy, whose expression was slightly unnatural.

"Everyone is a novice in a Novice Quest. Given that you met the trigger condition and were attacked by the Vengeful Spirit in the Mirror, I don't believe that, as an ordinary person, he could have saved you. If he could, then this Novice Quest would be far too unchallenging—simply easy, relaxing, and pleasant."

"I..."

"What part of this is easy and relaxing, hey!!"

Before Beard Guy could speak, Night Owl hugged her precious Radio and protested indignantly.

"Under the premise that accidentally seeing yourself in a reflective object means being attacked, this place is dangerous everywhere!! Standing water reflects light, Phone Screens reflect light, and when lightning flashes, seeing yourself in glass is also a reflection... Without realizing this at all, it would be entirely possible for the whole party to get wiped out by accident, so what exactly is pleasant about it!!"

"So the hints were given from the start. Didn't you see that the windows were nailed over with black wooden strips? The Mirrors were also covered by large patches of unknown grime. The hints were already quite obvious."

Bai Zhi curled his lip disdainfully.

"Even if you hadn't deduced all that, you would have paid attention to such abnormalities, right?"

"Then what does that have to do with Beard Guy..."

"This is a survival-type Novice Quest. We need to survive for six hours until dawn. Since we'll be attacked by the Vengeful Spirit in reflective surfaces, could we simply sit on the Sofa the whole time and safely get through those six hours? Don't joke around. Maybe when there's only a little over an hour left before we complete the quest, all of that Vengeful Spirit's restrictions will be lifted and it will kill all of us."

"Then we'll find all the corpse fragments in the Villa and lay it to rest. That's how it always goes in movies."

Temperance Gentleheart reached up and pushed her glasses up the bridge of her nose.

"If we carefully avoid those reflective places, we should still be able to... Could you turn off the sound system?"

After her expression changed several times in rapid succession, Temperance Gentleheart finally could not take it anymore amid the brainwashing plaza dance Music Sound and turned to Night Owl beside her.

Oh, right. As an aside, the entire conversation above had taken place with plaza dance songs such as Drunk Butterfly and Moonlight Over Lotus Pond playing in the background.

Beard Guy silently reached down and pressed a hand over his foot.