Chapter 320
After saying that, Professor Moriarty paused for about two seconds before he continued. "Oh, regarding the question you asked."
His face showed a crooked smile as he turned to look at Ambitionist. "Obviously, we are not going to answer that."
When he made that announcement, one of the question cards sitting on the table turned itself over and moved to stop before Ambitionist. The front of the card had the word 'exemption'. After that, it was Autumn Zither's turn.
"Hmm… let me think about this," Autumn Zither said and fall deep in thought.
Weighty Words reminded him from the other end of the table. "For this round, I think it is best that we all choose 'question' so that we can draw an exemption card for insurance first."
Ambitionist agreed with Weighty Words' point of view, so he added, "He's right. Currently, we know too little information about the game. It is way too dangerous for us to go for conjecture, and selecting assumption will have a high chance of triggering the punishment."
It was at that same moment that Professor Moriarty chose to speak. "At this point, I feel like I have the obligation to explain something. In terms of lethality, the punishment for hints is set between light and medium, while the damage of the punishment for question and conjecture will be between medium and serious, but the punishment for assumption will be between serious and fatal."
"According to the normal set of tactics for this game," Holmes added, "after the participants who do not know the truth join the game, they normally spend the second round choosing questions so that they can get the chance fight for the exemption cards. And finally, in the third round, they will try for the assumption. That way even if they are wrong with the assumption, they can use the exemption card that they collected from second round to nullify the punishment."
He took another puff of smoke. "Huff… Of course, if you gentlemen here have enough confidence in your critical analysis skills, you can also choose to go directly for a conjecture in the third round, but if your conjecture has nothing to do with the real truth, the exemption card will be wasted for no reason… And finally, when the fourth round arrives, you will have no choice but to conduct an assumption without any security measures to provide the extra layer of safety for yourself."
"Hmm… That is a very effective tactic for this game… Wait a sec!" Autumn Zither was simulating the scenarios on the basis of what Mr. Holmes had said, but then he suddenly realized something. "Hey… aren't we supposed to be enemies? What is the meaning of this? Are the two of you so kind to help us analyze so many things? That does not appear to be beneficial for you."
"Haha… I just want to make the game more interesting. Moreover, what I was briefing you on was just the simplest of tactics." There was the faintest trace of a smile on Holmes' face. "I do believe that any of you here will have come to the same arrangement to deal with the first four rounds and select a hint, question, assumption, and conjecture in this order for the first four rounds after some simple analysis."
"But if you feel like the kind reminder that Mr. Holmes and I have given to you are a kind of misdirection, feel free to ignore it. You do have the freedom to not follow our advice." Professor Moriarty pause for few seconds with that confident smile on his face. "It is your choice to do so."
"They are not wrong." Weighty Words turned to Autumn Zither after some thinking on what Mr. Holmes had told them. "My main goal is to live and survive until the fifth round. And for all the tactics I can think off, the tactic provided by Mr. Holmes is the safest and most accurate."
"They merely gave us the tactic that we could have come up with on our own and will most likely put into practice. It's not really significant help that they have given us." Ambitionist pushed on his glasses. "But if you rebel against their advice due to a fear of reverse psychology, it is sad to say you will have officially fallen into their trap."
After Autumn Zither heard both sides of the argument and gave it some thought, he said, "Question."
He looked the professor and Mr. Holmes. "Other than the death of all the non-knowers and unlocking the rules of this dimension, is there another way of ending this game?"
The two bosses shared a look, and this time, they chose to answer.
"Yes, there is. You can try to kill the professor," Holmes answered with a smile.
"But if you can kill me, then this game and all within this room will disappear," Moriarty added.
Their answer was over. After a moment of silence, a question card on the surface of the table moved to stop before Autumn Zither. Autumn Zither took a deep breath to calm his uneasy breathing and then turned the card over. The front of the card was blank. The look on Autumn Zither's face was as if a heavy load had been removed from his shoulders.
"Haha … You should have more confidence in yourself, young man." Professor Moriarty praised him. "That was not a bad question you asked."
Autumn Zither gave a long sigh after hearing what Professor Moriarty had said. "Looking at how at ease and confident both of you are, I was naturally apprehensive…"
He looked at Professor Moriarty and Mr. Holmes, and then he turned his gaze to his teammates and pondered for few seconds.
"It is obvious that with our ability, we are definitely unable to harm much less kill the professor. But let's assume that we can figure out the rule monitoring this space, then we will have the chance to do that…" Ambitionist picked up where he left off. "But… if we have already figured out the rules of this dimension, there is no need for us to take the risk of conducting a battle anymore. Hence, we could win the game directly through the method of 'assumption' and saying the rules out loud."
"That does not preclude the possibility that… of the four of us, some of us refuse to make the assumption even though we already know the truth and insist on killing the professor," Feng Bujue suddenly said. At that moment, his other three teammates tossed him a shocking but meaningful look.
Feng Bujue leaned against the back of the chair and opened both of his arms to ask, "What? Why are you all looking at me like that?"
"Brother Feng, I just think that only you would do something like that," Weighty Words said. Both Autumn Zither and Ambitionist also nodded, showing that they agreed with what Weighty Words said.
"Then let's stop this stupid game and let me try out some killing methods." As Feng Bujue spoke, he took out something from his inventory.
"What!" When the other three saw Feng Bujue reached his hand into his inventory, they were all shocked because their inventories had become sealed again when they entered this room. Theoretically speaking, they were all players, so Feng Bujue should not have been exempted from this limitation. But they saw, with their own eyes, Feng Bujue raise the anti-gravity gun and used the Nokia phone that he had taken out from his pocket as the bullet, aiming it right at Professor Moriarty. "Any last words? Professor."
"Hahaha…" Holmes guffawed next to the professor. He even put down his pipe and gave Feng Bujue a round of applause.
Moriarty was still unfazed and collected. He sat at the table unmoved and calmly replied, "Incredible… It is only halfway through the second round, but you have already completed the analysis."
"Adversaries who are too weak or too strong will deprive the game of its joy, wouldn't you agree?" Feng Bujue smiled.
"What is really going on?" Ambitionist said. "Brother Feng… How did you…"
"The rule governing this dimension is…" Feng Bujue said in a very confident tone. "If you believe it is true, then it will be true."
"What the… How did you even come up with something like that?" This time, Autumn Zither could not even follow Brother Jue's train of thought. Feng Bujue put down the gun temporarily and explained, "First, think back to the most basic hint. Language is a kind of power."
He tapped his temple lightly with his finger twice. "Do you still remember the five messages?"
Without waiting for the response from his teammates, Feng Bujue said, "These messages are not comments on the aftermath of the incident but the reason behind the occurrence of the incidents."
"In other words… the messages that we saw during the process of climbing the building…" Ambitionist was the first to catch up.
And Weighty Words continued his sentence. "… were left there first before the tragedy actually happened."
"When we leaped into the waterfall at the top of the sixth floor, those five sentences became a part of our 'memory'," Feng Bujue said. "Therefore, the experience that we faced in our memory space in part corresponded to the messages that we'd seen."
Brother Jue's eyes scanned the rest of his teammates.
"If I am not mistaken, the items that we all carried, the match, the witch hat, the broom, and the apple, they were all used in the memory space to either solve the puzzle or push the scenario forward, yes?"
The three of them nodded slightly. It was true that they had all used up the plot items in their own separate memory spaces.
"There are two similarities across all these items. First, we obtained all of them within the 'experiment zone'; secondly, due to various reasons, they were all expended or used before we entered this room. Haha… With that, I could not help but come to a hypothesis. Is there someone who doesn't want us to bring these things into the room?" Feng Bujue said as he pointed at the phone that floated before the firing device. "Look, the phone, folding knife, and notebook that I gained outside the experiment zone… I've managed to bring all of them in here with me."
"This is the final room. Isn't it totally normal for the 'plot items' to be exhausted before we arrive here?" Weighty Words said. "And Brother Feng, the items that you have like the knife and notebook, they are tools or equipment that can be taken out from the scenario and not plot items that are necessary to proceed with the plot."
"Yes, that explanation might make some kind of sense, but…" Feng Bujue smirked coldly. "But the one sentence that professor told me earlier has been stuck in my mind. He said… 'This is not a world inside my brain, but a space constructed by a collective consciousness.' Combined with the situation that is happening before us and the interlude of the events inside the memory space, I understand that the main reason for that is for us to exhaust the items that we should not have brought in here with us."
"But why?" Autumn Zither asked.
"Because those few items are the 'creation' of other consciousnesses, and their appearance here will have an impact on the professor," Ambitionist said with a slower tone. He believed that he had finally caught up to Brother Jue's train of thought.
"Professor, you are not going to deny that, are you?" Feng Bujue said with a smile.
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