Chapter 2055: The First Victim
At this moment, someone inevitably brought up another question: "The Puppet Maker makes three puppets every day, so does that mean the three puppets made tomorrow will be chosen from among us?"
As soon as these words were spoken, the crowd fell silent again. A man in a moon-white long robe adorned with what appeared to be religious patterns spoke gently to No. 2: "I would like to return to my room to rest now. Could you trouble you to show me the way?"
No. 2 called over No. 4 and added that if anyone else wanted to go back and rest, they could come along.
Most people still wanted to stay and look for clues. After a while, only a young girl with a sweet appearance stepped forward, smiling cheerfully at the group. "I think the real start of the Instance might have to wait until tomorrow. It all depends on whose puppet comes out first... I hope the first one made is mine."
After she finished speaking, she followed the man in the long robe and No. 4 as they left.
The remaining people continued to observe the display room. Unexpectedly, someone actually spotted something else among the puppets.
A male player named Zuo Yu recognized one of the puppets. "This person is very famous at the wormhole point I'm from. He often causes trouble wherever he goes. He once had a record of destroying a small country every month for five consecutive months. And he was an A-Class player."
He then looked at the time plaque standing next to the puppet. "No wonder I haven't heard any news about him in a long time. So he's already dead..."
The actual content revealed in the Instance introduction was actually very sparse. Regarding the Puppet Maker, everyone only knew his profession and his crafting habits. The listed rules were basically aimed at the players, and they were still very ambiguous rules, such as "Disobedience will be punished." What exactly "disobedience" referred to, and what form the "punishment" would take—these were things the players had to figure out for themselves. Therefore, some players were bound to be lost in the early stages due to trial and error.
Cautious players wouldn't actively make mistakes. To test things out, of course, they would push others to do it.
As for the puppets that appeared in the display cabinets, everyone tacitly assumed that the people they corresponded to were already dead.
The last time Xu Huo had seen a scene of a collection obsession similar to the puppet display cabinets was at the Bauhinia Flower Restaurant, where the Raincoat Cleaner's room had a collection of badges. The puppets and the badges both represented people from different districts. The difference was that the puppet Instance was a Ticket Instance, where players would come and go in waves, while the Bauhinia Flower Restaurant was a mobile random Instance that moved between different wormhole points to hunt for prey.
The puppets in the display cabinets couldn't be taken by the players. Continuing to look at them would only increase their psychological burden. So, another group of players proposed touring other parts of the castle, such as the tower, guest rooms, study, recreation room, and so on.
No. 1 and No. 2 were accommodating and led the players to visit all the places they wanted to see.
However, aside from the cartoon drawings that could be seen everywhere or some puppets used as decorations, there were no other special clues. The servants had cleaned every corner of the castle very thoroughly, and it was even less likely to find any clues left behind by players from the previous Instance.
Soon, the players each returned to their rooms.
With over twenty players, they didn't even fill up all the rooms on one floor.
"Is there a midnight snack?" the High Ponytail asked No. 1.
"If you require a midnight snack, you can press the call bell in your room," No. 1 replied.
Zuo Yu also asked, "Can we come out at night?"
"Except for the master's private space and rooms that already have guests, guests can freely enter and exit any other place without time restrictions," No. 1 made it clearer.
After understanding this, the players each went back to their rooms.
The rooms on the edge were chosen by the players who arrived first. Xu Huo settled in a middle room. The Painting Woman chose the room diagonally across from him. Just as she was about to enter, she mouthed to him, "Come out and play tonight."
Xu Huo had no intention of going out tonight. He locked the door from the inside and prepared to sleep.
However, the Painting Woman wasn't the only one who wanted to go out that night. Before midnight, three players had already left their rooms: the High Ponytail, the Middle-aged Man, and the player who hadn't gotten a seat at dinner.
They left first, and then two more followed.
The last one to go out was the Painting Woman. Unlike the others who kept a low profile, she seemed completely oblivious to the atmosphere. She had probably been playing games in her room for a while. Stretching lazily as she came out, she didn't knock on Xu Huo's door but walked along the corridor towards the main long hallway.
The floor where the guests were staying fell silent again for a while. Not long after, the first one to go out, the High Ponytail, returned. She came back at an incredible speed, practically flashing into the doorway and ducking into her room the next second. The Middle-aged Man who came later wasn't so lucky. He had deep, bone-visible claw wounds on his shoulder, and the protective suit he was wearing as a prop was torn in multiple places, as if he had been attacked by a wild beast.
The two escaped back one after another, putting the players who were still in their rooms but hadn't rested on high alert. However, there was no further commotion.
After about another few minutes, just as the players were starting to relax, a loud "bang" came from a distance. It was followed by what sounded like a cat's meow. After a few seconds of silence, footsteps echoed in the corridor, followed by the sound of a door opening and closing.
Most players had placed instruments and props outside their doors for monitoring. They could see the High Ponytail and the Middle-aged Man, and of course, they could also see the Painting Woman, her hands stained with blood, walking back unhurriedly from outside.
As for the player who hadn't gotten a seat, he never returned.
After daybreak the next day, the first person to go to the dining room for breakfast, Fluorescent Pink, discovered the corpse placed on the dining table. It was the player who hadn't returned to his room. His body was also covered in beast-like claw marks, just like the Middle-aged Man's, and the fatal wound was on his neck.
"What's going on here?" the sweet-looking young girl asked the Middle-aged Man in surprise. "Is there a wild beast in the castle?"
The Middle-aged Man didn't answer. Like the High Ponytail, both of their expressions were off, but they both, as if by unspoken agreement, turned their gazes towards the Painting Woman.
The other players wanted to know what had injured them, but the two of them suspected that the thing was released by the Painting Woman. The evidence was the blood on her, because the 25th player hadn't died in the dining room at all.
"It wasn't a beast," the Painting Woman said, raising her communicator. "It was a cat."
She led the players to the painting studio and pointed to the painting she had lifted the day before. The cat in the painting was still crouching there, but the originally intact paper now had two tears—one on the cat's front paw, and one on its ear.
"You mean this cat?" a curly-haired woman around forty years old asked in surprise, glancing at the painting before scrutinizing the Painting Woman's expression. "Are you joking?"
The Painting Woman shook her head, specifically pointing out that the cat's injuries were caused by her. If they didn't believe her, they could ask the High Ponytail and the Middle-aged Man.
The High Ponytail and the Middle-aged Man didn't deny it. The former said, "I did see a black cat last night. It was very large. I think it was some kind of prop."