Who Are They?

"Second round exam type: Completion"

"Exam objective: Find ?? and, with the help of ??, evade attacks by Species."

"Hint: People have forgotten where the gods came from, but still remember what They looked like."

"Who, exactly, are They?"

"Warning: Find ?? within two hours, or you will be unable to pass the final exam."

"Points for this round: 40"

The exam questions appeared.

In the darkness, everyone breathed heavily. For a brief stretch of silence, no one spoke.

After a while, Hu Jia, the most nervous of them, could no longer hold back and asked first.

"Aren't you... going to say anything?"

"Do we have to find something to survive this round?"

Hu Jia asked cautiously, but as soon as he finished, he noticed He Zheng shoot him an irritated glance.

"More or less."

"For Completion questions, the system won't give us clear options. It's not like the last round, where we could just pick one of two doors. With questions like this, we have to guess first, then work out which answer is right."

"My guess..."

He swiped across his watch and brought up the first round's exam information.

He Zheng voiced his idea with some uncertainty.

"Maybe we have to find a 'god'?"

After speaking, He Zheng looked at Ye Lin first, then at the others.

"What do you think?"

Having learned his lesson, he intended to hear Ye Lin's opinion first.

"He Zheng, that's what I was thinking too. Look at this line in the question: [People have forgotten where the gods came from, but still remember what They looked like.]"

Hu Jia suddenly spoke up, beating Ye Lin to it.

"My guess is that we need to know what the god looks like."

"The god might be a human, or even one of the monsters. They might be hard to distinguish, so we'll have to use the clues to identify Them accurately."

"Otherwise, we'll die if we can't find the god, and we'll die if we mistake something else for the god."

After speaking, Hu Jia looked nervously at everyone. He knew he had performed poorly in the previous round. If he proved useless again this time, he feared they would abandon him.

He Zheng frowned after hearing him out.

There was nothing wrong with Hu Jia's reasoning. It had been his own first thought after reading the question.

But he kept feeling that it was a little too simple.

The others felt the same way. Apart from Lin Ya murmuring her agreement, no one spoke. Faced with their silence, Hu Jia grew embarrassed and could only rub his nose awkwardly.

"Well, if you think that's wrong, then..."

"Maybe we aren't looking for an actual god, but Their weapons or equipment."

An Ke suddenly spoke, her gaze settling on the Fire Axe in He Zheng's hand.

"The most important clue in the first round was actually the Fire Axe. The second round might involve something similar.

"When we saw the Fire Axe in the first round, we should have realized it was meant for chopping through the lock. It was the only thing that stood out in the entire setting."

"By the same logic, we should pay attention to anything unusual we see from here on. The system won't put things there for no reason."

Zhang Tie and the others looked at An Ke with some surprise.

The logic was simple, but useful.

The sulfuric acid that appeared later might also have been a hint that they could use it to corrode the chain.

"You're not wrong, but why the fuck didn't you tell us about the Fire Axe earlier?"

He Zheng challenged her, a trace of wariness creeping into his gaze.

An Ke's guess was useful, but he was more concerned about why she had waited until now to mention the Fire Axe.

He wasn't making a fuss over nothing. He had seen too many bastards who, out of selfishness or self-preservation, kept their ideas to themselves and made things vastly more difficult.

An Ke had barely spoken since coming in, as though she were deliberately trying to keep a low profile.

For some reason, he kept feeling that something was off about this girl.

Noticing the hostility in He Zheng's gaze, An Ke merely tightened her ponytail and spoke calmly.

"Because I wasn't sure. You told us to stay away from the first basement level right from the start, so I didn't know what was down there."

"And even if I'd known then, I wasn't sure you were strong enough to chop through the chain."

"By the time I was sure, Ye Lin had already found the answer. There was no point in saying anything..."

"What do you mean, no poi-?!"

Before the disgruntled He Zheng could press her further, Ye Lin grabbed him.

"Let her finish."

Ye Lin spoke softly, his gaze sweeping over An Ke's hands.

"Do you have any other reasons for thinking we're looking for an item or something like that this round?"

When Ye Lin addressed her, An Ke hesitated briefly before continuing to explain her thoughts.

"Yes."

"There's nothing wrong with Hu Jia's idea, but I don't think the system is likely to introduce something like a 'god' in this exam."

"By the usual definition, gods are incredibly powerful. Even if they aren't on a mythological level, they should at least have supernatural powers."

"If the god helps us, that puts Them on the opposing side to the Species. In that case, why would the god allow Species to remain here instead of wiping them out completely?"

"Unless the Species are so powerful that even the god can't eliminate them all. But if that's true, running into a Species would wipe us out instantly!"

"We have two hours, and we need to search around for clues. I don't believe we can avoid encountering even a single Species."

A line of reasoning that led to almost certain death had no value.

Seeing An Ke overturn his idea, Hu Jia couldn't help arguing back.

"That's not necessarily true. A god doesn't have to be powerful. Maybe They're sealed away and need us to free Them? Or maybe, like in a horror movie, the god can only protect certain places, and we need to hide there to survive?"

"That's possible, but..."