Inside the guest room, Jin was still asleep.
Yi Chen, Lorien, and Regan sat around the suite's living room, combining their different memories to run a sand-table simulation, trying to find out why they had fallen into the trap.
They soon obtained several key pieces of information.
The confusion in everyone's memories had begun before they regrouped, after they killed the Rain Man. This meant that "the Rain Man's death" had clearly caused some kind of influence.
Had the Rain Man cursed them before his death,
or had the Rain Man's death served as some kind of lure, allowing an even more terrifying evil to find them?
The reason it had not attacked them directly was probably that daytime in this world belonged to a "safe time zone." At most, the other party could guide them in some way, with the result being this unknown hotel.
Nightfall—meaning now—was when the danger had officially arrived.
Regan offered his thoughts. "If we can escape the hotel, perhaps we can break free of all this."
Lorien, however, looked disdainful at this idea.
"We're already in the game. Do you really think we can still get out unscathed? As someone who uses Moon Phase Illusion Arts, I certainly can't let someone who has entered the game escape so easily.
"Based on my experience in setting up illusions, some kind of rule is operating inside the hotel. The time we're experiencing has been constantly looping. Only after we trigger some condition will the real danger officially begin.
"Right now, it's more like a preparation period.
"From my observations, accepting the 'manual' provided by the bellhop is very likely the trigger condition.
"If we keep refusing to accept it, we'll be trapped in this time loop, endlessly repeating the same three hours and never able to