The First Round of the Game

"Dear Ms. White Crow,

As you wished, I entered the Rose Manor instance to explore it and made some significant discoveries.

I found traces and remnants of that being. Their honorable titles are:

'Lord of Gods, exiled beyond the rules of the world,

Master of Souls, who governs the power of contractual trade,

A great being more ancient than history itself.'

Miss Anna, an NPC in the instance, once made a deal with Them. I'm willing to believe these titles are genuine. I hope our ritual will succeed this time.

Some complications arose along the way. Someone beat me to solving the rules, and I was killed in the instance. That person was very cautious. I never saw his face.

Three players will likely survive: Chang Xu, Qi Si, and Lin Chen. The first two are suspicious, and I recommend the Church keep a close eye on them.

I can no longer return to Xiang City to see you. I can only hope my death will build the first step on the road to Apocalypse.

The eerie will eventually run rampant throughout the world, and the mysterious will eventually descend upon it.

Having seen Their likeness, I can die without regret.

Yan"

In a villa district far from the bustling city, Zou Yan sat at a desk in an elegantly furnished study, typing out one line after another in an email.

She looked it over to make sure nothing was wrong or missing, then clicked "Send."

An automated reply appeared in her inbox: "Received." Zou Yan gripped the edge of the desk and used her arms to push herself up, then staggered toward the bedroom.

Whether from fear of death or the chill of her ebbing vitality, she began to tremble.

Her whole body felt weak. Her teeth chattered uncontrollably, making a clacking sound.

Fortunately, the bedroom was not far from the study. She managed to lie down on the bed before she completely lost the ability to move.

She no longer had the strength to pull up the covers. Lying on her back, she stared at a spot on the ceiling as if trying to etch something into her eyes.

Blood welled from her nose and mouth. She licked some and found it a little salty.

The Eerie Game made players die in the real world in a way that seemed reasonable. Zou Yan's thoughts wandered as she tried to guess which terminal illness had taken hold of her.

She tugged at the corner of her mouth and raised a hand to draw two triangles on her chest, forcing herself into a peaceful smile, but tears still slipped from the corners of her eyes.

There might be people in the world who could face death calmly, but she certainly wasn't one of them.

She knew the sacrifice was necessary and was prepared to die for her cause, but when the end truly came, countless feelings of regret still surged through her.

She still wanted to witness the prophesied Judgment Day and the Apocalypse that would follow; she still wanted to walk in the light, laugh and chat, listen to story after story, observe person after person; she still wanted to visit the Church that had taken her in and see those children again...

She didn't want to die, but what choice did she have?

As her consciousness sank into darkness, a fragment buried deep in her memory, one that should have been erased, grew vivid in the haze between waking and sleep.

It was the first round of the Rose Manor game.

At the start of the Rose Manor instance, there were nine players in all.

When the instance began, the nine players in the first round, like the six remaining in the second round, sat around a long table and introduced themselves.

Two of them claimed this was their third time in an instance. There was also a young girl who, although this was her second time, had an item that could point to clues.

By comparison, Chang Xu, Ye Zi, and the others seemed far less remarkable.

Zou Yan's usual approach was to keep a low profile, and with so many players who might upset the balance, she had even less reason to draw attention to herself too soon.

She used her professional skills to observe everyone and build psychological profiles.

At first glance, she noticed Qi Si, who, like her, had hidden himself among the crowd.

The young man kept his eyes lowered and said nothing, yet his gaze followed everyone who spoke. His deep, unfathomable eyes reflected his careful consideration.

He was thinking, too. Watching, too.

When it came time to choose rooms, with three people to a room, Zou Yan promptly invited Qi Si to join her.

Nine was too many. With the situation so tangled, she needed a rational, levelheaded ally.

Qi Si agreed. The two of them then invited a newcomer and chose Room 1.

On the first night, Miss Anna went downstairs and knocked on the doors of each room.

The newcomer sharing their room was so frightened that he screamed, triggering a death condition just as expected.

Vines surged through the gap beneath the door, spreading everywhere. In the darkness, Zou Yan saw Qi Si's eyes open slightly, his pupils as terrifying as a beast's and as bright as a fire on an ice field.

The cold-faced young man didn't even get up. In just a second, he pulled a spike from the specialized wristband on his right hand and knocked the troublemaking newcomer unconscious.

The vines by the door kept growing and spreading, showing no sign of letting up.

The young man slowly sat up. Without hesitation, he grabbed the unconscious newcomer by the collar and hurled him toward the door.

The vines coiled around the newcomer and dragged him outside. The young man watched without so much as a flicker of expression.

In that moment, Zou Yan realized that this player named Qi Si was like her. He was one of her kind, someone she hadn't encountered in a long time.

"Let's work together," she said.

Qi Si tilted his head and looked at her. After a moment, he broke into a brilliant smile. "Sure."

He looked nothing like the cold-faced young man from before. He didn't seem to feel happy at all, yet smiled so cheerfully. The contradiction amused Zou Yan.

The next three days won't be boring. Qi Si should make an interesting subject to observe.

With such a complicated situation, trying too hard to figure out the world's rules would only cause more trouble. The two agreed without objection to kill the other players and trigger the Minimum Death Quota mechanism.

Things went smoothly. After killing one more person, they formed an alliance with Shen Ming and Ye Zi, giving them the advantage in numbers.

Chang Xu, Lin Chen, and the young girl named Xu Xinyi were no match for them. They were quickly subdued.

Lin Chen and Xu Xinyi only knew how to cry and whine. Chang Xu, on the other hand, was as stubborn as a rock, with a nasty temper to match. He seized Qi Si's specialized wristband and slashed a deep gash across his chest.

The others subdued Chang Xu in time and planned to throw him outside the old castle that night, letting the instance's mechanics kill him.

But Qi Si covered the wound on his chest and stopped them with a smile. "Leave him alive. This guy's pretty interesting."

One person's life or death didn't matter much. Chang Xu had all four limbs broken, but he survived.

On the third day, the four of them chose Xu Xinyi to kill and obtained the item that could point to clues.

A wealth of clues about the instance's world emerged. Zou Yan sensed something was wrong and, after investigating, confirmed the existence of a time loop.

It turned out that killing three people didn't mean they had cleared the instance. The loop wouldn't stop. Those who survived would lose the corresponding memories and return to the beginning, reliving the same events until everyone was buried in Rose Manor.

She told Qi Si what she had discovered. Looking out at the sea of roses, he smiled unconcernedly. "The six-player round is much clearer than the nine-player one. At least, collecting clues in the second round won't be as much of a hassle as it is now. Besides, if you do the math, we still have two more rounds, don't we?"

For a moment, Zou Yan suspected the young man had known all along and had planned to use the first round to reduce the number of players. Maybe even leaving Chang Xu alive had been part of his preparations for the second round.

But she dismissed the thought. How could anyone have laid out a plan like that before I did?

The bell tolled nine times that night. Watching the young man's wavering silhouette beyond the candlelight, she asked on impulse, "If our interests clash later, will you kill me?"

The young man smiled, his eyes curving. "You already know, don't you? We're the same kind of person."

The answer was clear. They had already made their choices in their own hearts. There was no need to say more.

Zou Yan's rational side told her she should get rid of any unstable factor that might cause trouble as soon as possible.

But she hesitated.

Three people were already dead. The six remaining players made up exactly two three-day loops. She wasn't sure whether another death at this point would end the game early, leaving her too little time to figure out the world.

Besides, in the first round, Qi Si had seemed to pose no threat beyond his calmness and coldness. He had few items and had to rely on her. How much trouble could he really cause?

In the end, Zou Yan didn't dare risk the game's mechanics on a suspicion without any real basis.

I can kill Qi Si once the next round begins. It shouldn't be that hard.

Besides, it had been a long time since she'd met someone so interesting. What was the harm in keeping him around for another round?

So she watched Qi Si leave the room and walk out of the old castle. He stood in the middle of the sea of roses, keeping a wary, distant gap between them.

She didn't stop him.

When the old castle's bell tolled twelve times, a new loop would begin. The players would forget their grudges, the bloody sins they had committed would fade away, and they would gather around the long table like innocent passersby, meeting one another all over again.

Zou Yan knew she had only three hours to savor the memories of those three days.

She stood before the enormous floor-to-ceiling window, gazing at the young man standing amid the sea of flowers.

The storm had passed long ago. The moon emerged from behind the clouds, its pale light making the bloodstained white shirt look all the more horrifying.

The young man stood there, still and silent.

Alone, with his back to the old castle, he was as cold as an idol, as solitary as a beast.

Come on, tell me, was this instance worth a monthly ticket? (Hands on hips.) You can toss in a recommendation ticket, too. A few comments or chapter comments would be great. I really want to know how many people have made it this far... Writing to myself every day is making it hard to keep going /sob.