Chapter 17

Initially, Gu Yi'an had only speculated that they needed to kill the little girl to clear the game.
But with the demon's personal confirmation just now, this method of clearing the game was undoubtedly set in stone.
Gu Yi'an's guess was correct.
The Student glanced at the Witch, then at Gu Yi'an, and finally at the silent Merchant.
He cautiously spoke up, "How do we kill her?"
The Student had hit the nail on the head.
Gu Yi'an and the Merchant simultaneously turned their gaze to the Witch.
The Witch lived up to everyone's expectations, displaying immense confidence in this matter.
"As long as she appears, I have a way to kill her."
With the key step of killing the demon assigned, all that remained was to lure the little girl out.
The little girl was cunning; aware that Gu Yi'an and the others wanted to kill her, she was hiding and refusing to show herself.
After a moment of thought, Gu Yi'an said, "Then we'll summon her. She's a demon now. Let's go to the office building and see if we can find information on summoning demons."
The materials the Merchant had found didn't mention any specific summoning ritual.
Upon hearing this, the Student grew fearful. "We still have to go to the office building? Didn't you already find a way to escape the game?"
Gu Yi'an replied, "If she doesn't come out and we can't kill her, we'll still lose one person every night. If I, the Merchant, and the Witch all die, do you think you can survive the seventh day?"
The Student fell silent; he wasn't foolish, he was the weakest among the four players.
The demon had said the game would end on the morning of the eighth day. He definitely wouldn't make it past the seventh day.
The four surviving players once again stood before the lawn.
Previously, it had been lush and green, but this time, there was an additional corpse, a man with a sharp mouth and monkey-like cheeks.
Gu Yi'an glanced at the body and remembered that they had previously found a note on the butcher's corpse.
She asked, "Does he have any items on him?"
The Merchant replied, "No. Probably sold them. People like him move their goods quickly; they don't hold onto them for days."
Gu Yi'an's heart stirred, and she asked casually, "Mr. Merchant, how do you know so much about this?"
The Merchant said readily, "I'm a Merchant and often deal with them. Generally, goods of unclear origin come at a much lower price."
Gu Yi'an's suspicions eased a bit. Recalling their seating arrangement at the time, she felt she might have been overthinking it. She asked again, "Did you search the real scammer for any props?"
The Merchant replied regretfully, "No."
Then he shifted his tone, comforting himself, "Useful props are hard to come by. It's common not to find any."
The four of them stood there, waiting for the night to fall.
The Student seemed a bit lost. He scratched his head and said, "Is it just me, or does it feel like the game was super hard before? We couldn't even find the door to the main quest, time was always tight, and no matter how hard we searched, we only found scraps of clues. We almost got killed by those ghosts. Why does it feel like we have so much time now?"
Standing idly, the Student didn't seem to have anything to contribute to the other three.
The discussion among the three seemed to have reached its end, and now they only needed to wait for the fourth night.
With his mind blank, the Student thought about what had just happened and came up with a question.
"Um, Sage."
He called out to Gu Yi'an.
The Student said, "I know now that the little girl is the demon we need to kill. So, if from the beginning you had agreed to fulfill the demon's, well, I should say the god's, wish, couldn't we have left earlier?"
Before Gu Yi'an could respond, the Merchant answered for her.
"That was a trap from the start. If we had known from the beginning that we were supposed to kill the demon, what would we have thought? It would have been about Him, Mr. Demon, the one we should call a god.
All our actions would have been confined to the round table. We would have turned on each other until everyone was dead, with almost no chance of survival.
Only by leaving the round table and finding the information we have now did we realize that the true demon is actually the little girl. The little girl who went from being a victim to a murderous demon."
After finishing, the Merchant pondered for a moment and added, "This game is full of traps. If it weren't for Sage going to the security room, all of our thinking would have been limited to the office building. The ghosts in the office building chased us, making us find incomplete clues and hinting that we should dig up the little girl's body.
Thankfully, Sage reminded you. And after I uncovered part of the truth, the ghosts let me off and threw me outside the office building. If I hadn't met Sage, I might have overlooked the hidden dangers in the night and taken other actions."
After hearing the Merchant's analysis, the Student felt utterly overwhelmed.
So they had faced so many dangers.
The Witch strongly agreed with the Merchant. Having regained her previous elegance, she nodded slightly and said, "If it weren't for Sage reminding me, I would have overlooked the clues I found, all of which were discovered under the pursuit of ghosts."
The Merchant sighed in admiration, "Sage truly lives up to her name."
The Witch nodded slightly in agreement.
The Student nodded vigorously, his gaze toward Gu Yi'an filled with deep respect.
Gu Yi'an had nothing to say and no way to respond.
Listening to their conversation, she keenly felt the power of overinterpretation.
They made it sound as if she had seen through everything, and yet their reasoning seemed plausible.
After a moment of silence, Gu Yi'an finally spoke up, "You've guessed wrong. I'm not the Sage. When the second night came, it was Mr. Demon who protected me. That's the only reason I'm standing here now."
Although this incident had just occurred, Gu Yi'an felt as if a long time had passed.
At the time, she stood unsteadily in the fierce wind, and that person touched her, protecting her through the second night.
As soon as Gu Yi'an said this, the Merchant, the Witch, and the Student looked at her with even greater astonishment.
The Merchant said, "One favored by the gods. Rarer than a sage. You are the first I have ever seen."
The Witch smiled, "It's my first time seeing one too."
"And me, same here," the Student chimed in.
After this exchange, the Merchant, the Witch, and the Student's spirits instantly transformed, they were filled with a confidence to survive, even stronger than when they had merely thought Gu Yi'an was a sage.
They were playing a game of the gods.
With someone favored by the gods here, what did they have to fear?
Seeing that she couldn't clear up the misunderstanding, Gu Yi'an let it be. It was good for everyone to have high morale.
Silently, darkness encroached upon Gu Yi'an and the others.
Immediately after, a brightly lit building appeared soundlessly before the players.
A red display screen showed a line of text:
"You will all die!"
The Witch spoke up, "Don't look back. I've got this."
The hissing sound of wind had already reached their ears.
The Merchant charged through the door first, with Gu Yi'an close behind. The Student followed half a step after Gu Yi'an, assigned to protect her as planned.
The Witch said, "Their strength has increased. Be careful not to stray too far from me."
Using some unknown method, the Witch blocked the ghosts, keeping them at a constant distance from the four players.
With the Merchant leading the way, Gu Yi'an and the group quickly ascended to the third floor and burst into an office.
Along the way, the Student glanced at a corner of the staircase and couldn't resist saying, "Right here, they tripped me three times."
Gu Yi'an turned and warned, "Keep quiet."
Her gaze swept over the Student's face, his fair, delicate appearance didn't seem like someone who had fallen multiple times.
It seemed the veteran players each had their own hidden tricks.
The Merchant discerned the tactics used by the ghosts and blocked the physical attacks they created from the front, though this made the office they entered particularly chaotic.
"Good thing I marked it earlier," the Merchant said, finding the spot he had previously marked.
He called to Gu Yi'an, "Sage, take a look, which of these documents is the one we need?"
What the Merchant had found was a stack of students' written self-criticisms, exceptionally thick.
Gu Yi'an pulled one out, checked the date on the self-criticism, and compared it with the date in the log she held.
This was the point in time after the female student's death when a large number of students began to die, and rumors started spreading that she had returned as a demon.
The teachers made the students write self-criticism essays, likely because they were aware of the demon rumors. They wanted the students to reflect on their behavior of spreading such rumors.
Among them, there were definitely restless students who would write about summoning rituals for demons in their essays.
"Are there any from Class 503?" Gu Yi'an asked.
The Merchant frowned and said, "These are arranged by class here."
Gu Yi'an quickly flipped through the logbook and found the page recording the female student's death.
Fortunately, the person who recorded it had noted the deceased's class.
"Third year, Class Five. Find the self-criticism essays from this class."
"Alright."
Gu Yi'an and the Merchant read through them rapidly, while the Student kept watch for them.
"Bang!"
"Thud!"
"Smack!"
The ghosts caused countless objects to crash to the ground.
They were firmly blocked outside by the Witch.
The Witch used all her means to prevent the ghostly apparitions from obstructing Gu Yi'an and the others.
"Found it," Gu Yi'an said, skimming through the stack of self-criticism essays and picking out the one that described the demon-summoning ritual.
Hearing this, the Merchant was about to stop.
Gu Yi'an said, "While the Witch can hold them off, let's search for more. We need to cross-reference them. We can't afford any mistakes in the ritual, or the opportunity will be wasted."
The Merchant nodded and swiftly flipped through the essays from other classes, his hands moving so fast they became a blur.
The Student watched them search, feeling anxious but unable to help.
"I've got one here," the Merchant said.
"I found another one," Gu Yi'an said at the same time.
Without exchanging words, they directly swapped the essays they had found.
"They're the same," the Merchant said after reading.
"Mine are the same too," Gu Yi'an confirmed.
"Time to go," the Merchant raised his voice and called out.
The Witch understood the cue immediately. With a wave of her hand, she appeared beside the Merchant, the Student, and Gu Yi'an.
The Merchant said, "Stay close to me."
He pushed open the window, stepped onto the windowsill, glanced down, and tossed out an object.
"The space is unstable. Hurry up."
After saying this, the Merchant jumped down.
Without hesitation, Gu Yi'an, holding only the self-criticism essay with the demon-summoning ritual, climbed onto the windowsill.
The Student was half a step behind her and said, "Apologies for the intrusion."
This had been discussed before they entered, the Student was responsible for protecting Gu Yi'an.
In an instant, Gu Yi'an felt someone wrap their arms around her waist from behind.
A very cold aura, extremely chilly.
Her body stiffened.
That person carried her as they fell from a great height.
The Student's terrified voice echoed through the sky, "Why did you jump already? Ah! Witch, don't kick me!!!"