If the role played by one of the seven died ahead of time on any layer, then an ascender descending from a higher layer would skip one layer and jump directly to a lower one--
"This means judging the layer number by the number of descents is no longer accurate."
Pure White said calmly, "In other words, each descent could cover any number of layers. Therefore, we can only know the relative order of the layers above and below us."
The Old Inspector drew an Elven short sword from his waist, then picked up several empty cups from beside the round table.
With practiced ease, he used the tip of the sword to carve several names in Elven Language around the rims of the cups.
Fox. Pure White. Jacaranda. Living Silver. Detective.
The writing was tiny, but exquisite and clear.
"Based on everyone's testimony, the current situation is this."
Pure White spoke softly as he began arranging the cups, starting with the one farthest from him.
In order: Living Silver, Detective, Jacaranda, Fox, Pure White.
"Detective and Jacaranda killed Living Silver twice in between. So he descended at least three layers directly, jumped to Fox's layer, and then came to my layer together with Jacaranda.
"Jacaranda also descended twice, but only went down two layers.
"Detective, meanwhile, descended three times in succession—to Jacaranda, Fox, and me."
"Three times..."
Iver sighed. "There's no way to patch this up for you. How could you make such a simple mistake?"
Under everyone's gaze, Iver looked at "Detective."
"When we first met, what you told me was... 'Jacaranda came down from a higher layer to my layer before.'"
--Have you seen the couple arguing in Room 204? The woman is Jacaranda, but she isn't yet. She came down from a higher layer to my