The night wind blew into the cavern through the opening to the sea, its mournful whistle stirring the campfire and setting wisps of orange-red flame dancing.
Xia Lun sat before the campfire without rushing to speak. Naturally, the other survivors did not urge him on. They simply watched him with equal parts anticipation and anxiety, and for a moment, the cavern fell silent.
"..." Xia Lun took a sip of coffee and continued reflecting.
Had he really never been good at reasoning his way out of a predicament?
Thinking back carefully, that did not seem to be the case.
Before he had contracted his terminal illness and started playing "Investigator," he had been quite adept at seeing through other people's schemes in business dealings and turning them to his advantage. During his first Scenario, he had also quickly discerned the plans of the Mole Sailor and the Abyssal Hand and countered them.
But ever since he had obtained Transcendent Regeneration and raised his Swordsmanship Specialization to Mastery, his ability to reason his way out of trouble seemed to have deteriorated. Once he had mastered Final Ash Pilgrimage and could combine it with explosives to unleash a firestorm, that ability had plummeted even further. He was almost catching up to White Line...
Xia Lun blinked, and another thought struck him. He recalled his experiences in "Special Memory: Secret Art Apprentice." In that Special Memory, he had lost his super strength, and then, sitting in a wheelchair, he had been able to deduce the full scope of the Tribunal's operation from nothing but publicly available information in newspapers...
Huh, who would have thought? I was the armchair detective all along!
At this point in his reflection, Xia Lun was stunned. He had finally found the culprit behind his poor reasoning!
His super