Who Am I?

Iver knocked on the Dancer's door first.

Generally speaking, the gender of the person being promoted is the same as the gender of the person in the ritual, their personality is similar, and their path is as similar as possible.

However, this is not 100% certain. This is because the allocation of roles in the Full Moon Ritual is not random, but rather manually assigned by the Ritual Host.

The Ritual Host will not specifically assign a role that the promoted individuals cannot play, because that would be unfair—although officiants may have some personal bias due to their different paths, personalities, and stances. But at least on the surface, they should try to maintain fairness and not deliberately target any particular path.

After all, the ceremony was offered to the Nine Pillar Gods at the same time.

In other words, you will only be assigned to a role if the host believes you are capable of playing it or are competent to perform the tasks required for that role.

Just like in the ceremony where Iver and Isabel met— Iver might be able to play the role of Little Iver's mother, but Isabel certainly couldn't play the role of Little Iver's father.

A catastrophic mistake by one participant can turn the ceremony into a complete mess and a farce, rendering all the analysis, reasoning, investigation, and risk-taking meaningless—a situation that the facilitator must strive to avoid.

—If you can't assign him a suitable role, then assign him a role that's dangerous enough in the early game so he dies quickly and doesn't affect others.

From this perspective, bringing Isabel along to the Promotion Ritual doesn't entirely increase the difficulty.

Because of Isabel's naive personality, lack of life experience, and somewhat social anxiety, she is unlikely to be assigned to particularly difficult or complex roles. In other words, the roles that Isabel is best suited for are those that Iver can easily identify.

Iver, who is best at playing roles and has outstanding personal abilities, is the one who fills in the gaps—because he can play any difficult role that is hard to play, so he may be assigned any role by the host.

Merlin's willingness to kill the receptionist proves that the receptionist was not a candidate for promotion. There are only seven people left in total.

Merlin wouldn't tell meaningless, easily exposed lies. Therefore, the woman in the couple is Jacaranda, and the Old Inspector is either Living Silver or Pure White—let's assume he's Pure White for now. The reporter is most likely the detective... only the detective is currently on another level.

Based on Sherlock's meticulous investigation of promotion practices, he might even have been deliberately assigned to the highest level. In this way, Merlin could stall Sherlock for a long time without doing anything, preventing him from coming down to meet with Iver in time.

Isabel can only appear in two characters.

—Either Dancer or his own daughter.

Isabel is All-rounder, and she is also skilled in dance, so she won't cause too much trouble playing Dancer; her daughter is running a high fever and is almost unable to move, and it wouldn't be difficult for Isabel to play a naive little girl.

After Iver a few words with the Dancer, Iver quickly updated his intelligence—

Isabel can only play the role of his daughter.

Because Merlin's use of the term "Dancer" is a more euphemistic way of putting it.

In fact, the guest in Room 205 was a promiscuous Dancer. Or to put it more bluntly, she was a self-employed woman who worked in the sex industry.

"Anyway, I didn't hear anything, and it's raining so hard outside."

Perhaps because one of them was an observer, the Dancer fearlessly let the three of them into the room.

She sat cross-legged on the bed, her short skirt, which only covered a third of her thighs, barely covered anything in this position.

The Dancer looked to be in her twenties or thirties, smiled and looked at the reporter with an ambiguous expression, "However... I can also make some noise."

"It might even be louder than the sound of rain."

Compared to the terrifying-looking "teacher" and the elderly "inspector," the young and handsome reporter was clearly more to her liking.

"I'm just here to ask you some questions, beautiful lady..."

The reporter pulled out Pure Silver Pen from his pocket, skillfully twirling it while simultaneously flattering the other person. "Let me introduce myself. I am Jacob Alexander, chief reporter for the 《Cow and Harbor》 newspaper. You can call me JA."

To be fair, while the Dancer had a great figure and good skin, her face was at least not beautiful; it was merely average.

And that is indeed the case. People who do business like hers, especially since she is a "self-employed" individual and not subject to many constraints, would naturally move to big cities if they had better capital.

Mubay County is mainly engaged in agriculture and fishing, and its inhabitants are mostly farmers and fishermen. They have practically no money.

The Dancer had seen many people, so she naturally knew this was flattery. But who doesn't like to hear nice things?

Especially when the person saying nice things is a young and handsome guy.

"Oh, you're JA! Just as handsome as I imagined... no, even more handsome than I imagined!"

The Dancer's eyes lit up. "I often see you in the newspaper, and my mother loves your writing—I mean, so do I!"

"That's wonderful, young and sexy lady. You probably already know why I'm here..."

Upon hearing this, the reporter smiled broadly and flattered him.

"Ah, let me guess."

The Dancer laughed and asked, "Are you here to investigate the Haunted House? This Haunted Inn?"

"That's right!"

The reporter snapped his fingers and pointed at the Dancer: "You're so clever!"

"It's a pity we were caught in a storm," the Dancer said.

"Yes, it's just a pity we were caught in a storm," the reporter added.

The two then looked at each other and smiled.

While the reporter was trying to get information out of him, Iver paced back and forth in the room.

With the help of the small mirror the Dancer had placed on the table, Iver finally saw his own face clearly.

He finally understood why other people's first impression of him was one of fear—

The "teacher" played by Iver is at least 1.95 meters tall, with black hair, brown eyes, and deep-set features. His hair is wet and messy from the rain.

He had a dignified, square face, thick, slightly cracked lips, and a strong physique with visible pectoral muscles. Standing there, he resembled a double-door refrigerator.

If that's the case, it might only make people feel a sense of authority and oppression.

However, his right cheek bore obvious burn marks, the flesh twisted like a worm. There was also a dark scar running from above his eyebrow down to his cheekbone, covering the burn marks. Even so, he was not blind in his right eye.

Although you can't judge a book by its cover... just seeing such a terrifying face and being stared at by such a tall and strong man would make anyone instinctively feel a chill.

... A teacher? Ha.

What kind of teacher carries Demon Hunting Pistol, with so many scars and such a robust physique? More like the Godfather.

It's good enough if we don't scare the Children.

Daya looked to be a girl between nine and twelve years old. She might look older than her age, or younger, but that was roughly the age range. She wasn't a four or five-year-old toddler, but rather a young girl who had just graduated from elementary school and was starting middle school. She wasn't particularly light either.

And "Agni" carried her with one arm, a bag slung over her shoulder, and an umbrella in hand, braving the storm for so far...

What kind of teacher could this be?

A PE teacher? A private shooting instructor, right? — I think I had a nightmare... I dreamt that my dad was swimming naked in the river.

The voice of "daughter" Daya suddenly echoed in Iver's mind. Iver stopped pacing, looked at himself in the mirror, and frowned slightly.

If he is not a teacher.

Could it be that he wasn't Daya's father either? Or that both he and Daya's memories had been altered by some force?

Merlin wouldn't deceive him in such a pointless place.

This is most likely the "real me," which is the requirement of the task "remembering one's true identity."

So, who am I?