Chapter 517: Island of Devil’s Maw (23)
This third stone room had the same size as the ones preceding it, the only difference was this room was empty.
“Well, this save us the time to explore the room…” Uncle Worthless raised his flashlight to look around and said, “There is nothing of interest, not even a door that leads downwards…”
“Could this be a dead end?” Pegasus asked.
Atobe added, “There is such a possibility…” he paused. “When we were aboveground, didn’t we see many towers? Perhaps only one or a few of them can lead to the bottom of the shrine and the rest leads to a dead end.”
“Hmm, that makes sense.” Uncle Worthless nodded in agreement. “The chance of that is very high…” He thought about it and added, “We were too rushed when we entered the shrine, we didn’t take the time to observe the surroundings at all, we merely picked a random tower to enter so… it’s not unusual for us to have picked the wrong path.”
“Agreed.” Ambitionist also concurred. “I suspect… there should be some kind of hint outside the shrine—that we can use to pinpoint which or which of the tower will lead us to the right path.” He sighed. “Phew… thankfully we found out this path is a dead end after only 3 floors, we have not wasted too much time. Let’s hurry back to the surface and inspect the surrounding area…”
“I say…” At that moment, Feng Bujue interrupted them. He stared around with his pair of dead fish eyes as he pointed above them and added weakly, “The entrance that we used has already disappeared…”
“Ah?” The group was shocked and they whipped their heads to look up. At that moment, their Terror Points all jumped.
“Sorry, I didn’t see when did it disappear either.” Feng Bujue continued in a casual manner. “When I landed, my attention was distracted. It was not until you guys mentioned the need to ‘return’ that I looked up subconsciously and then realized… there was nothing on the ceiling anymore.”
“Erm… The door has been removed without a trace or a sound in such a short amount of time.” Ambitionist used a not so obvious action to wipe away the cold sweat at his temple, “One really can’t let one’s guard down at all…”
…
“No, I do not think this has anything to do with caution at all. The most common setting in nightmare scenario that is used to scam players can be summed up as ‘novel and unexpected’.” Feng Bujue continued, “use our situation as an example… this room that we’re in has no light source so it depends on our own lighting device to light up our surrounding…” He said as he waved his gun around. “And our gaze will naturally follow these rays of light.” He paused. “In contrast, the darker places will be easily neglected.” At this point, he shone the light at the ceiling. “The ceiling of this room is rather high, normally no one would purposely raise their head to look at it. Therefore, there would be a period of time… where none of our line of sight would be attracted to the door. And during that period of time, anything could have happened…” he chuckled. “Actually… even in a split second, an N possibility could have happened and the disappearance of the door is just one of them…”
“That’s enough! I have a feeling you are starting to spin a yarn to scare people again.” Atobe quickly stopped him. “Even though I know you are just trying to scare us, I will still be scared by you, so please shut that mouth of yours.”
“Au contraire, to have your imagination run wild will be the real the source of fear and your biggest enemy.” Feng Bujue countered, “In fact, it would be better if you let me analyze the situation and clarify everything…”
“How about this… I shall use a shot of Pegasasu Ryūsei Ken at the ceiling or the ground.” Pegasus chimed in, “And then we will have an opening, so we can end this conversation.”
“Ah… honestly…” Feng Bujue shook his head. “I believe… if you use Pegasasu Ryūsei Ken at this place, there is a 50 percent chance you won’t be able to do anything to the wall, 30 percent you will cause the room to collapse on itself, 10 percent chance to have the damage bounce back against the wall and cause your own death and finally the last 10 percent chance of… being successful.”
“Perfect! Then I’ll give it a try!” Pegasus lowered his head and assumed the pose.
“Hey! Do you not understand human language? There’s a 90 percent chance you will fail!” Feng Bujue shouted.
“Don’t worry, a hero is a man that will change impossibility into possibility!” Pegasus responded with tone befitted a man infected by the Sophomore Syndrome and then resumed his action.
“Wait a minute.” Uncle Worthless suddenly cried out.
“Do not stop me, I have already made up my mind…” Pegasus raised his arm and then began, “Pegasasu… Ryūsei…”
Pa!
Pegasus’ words stopped in his throat. Because… a powerful hand strangled his neck and halted his action.
“Told you to wait, did you not understand that?” Uncle Worthless used a single arm to pick Pegasus up. This event shocked both Ambitionist and Atobe but Feng Bujue only raised one of his brows and uttered a light ‘Oh?’
The next second, Uncle Worthless stomped under his feet and lunged out like a feral tiger. He darted forward with Pegasus’ neck still in his grasp. 3 steps later, with a bang… Pegasus was slammed into the wall.
“Who, are, you?” Uncle Worthless stared at ‘Pegasus’ and asked word by word.
“Help… help me…” This ‘Pegasus’ expression twisted. He was standing on tip toe and he had difficulty breathing but he still tried his best to force out, “He has gone mad… He has been controlled by some monster… Quick, kill him or I’ll die!” Hearing that, the other three looked at each other and were silent for few seconds. Then they surrounded the duo and stood in absolute ease as they studied this ‘Pegasus’. They then questioned one after another, “Tell us, who are you and where is the real Pegasus?”
“I… am…” The fake Pegasus was still trying to struggle.
“You have 3 flaws in your performance.” But Feng Bujue cut him off directly as he raised 3 fingers. “One, you tried too hard with your disguise. Pegasus is one passionate idiot but he is not an illogical person.” He put down one finger and then continued, “Two, under most situation, we (the players) are unable to attack each other but Uncle Worthless managed to attack you successfully, this proves that… you are not Pegasus and Uncle Worthless managed to see through your disguise with his own method.” He put down another finger. “And three…”
“And… this is the most important point.” Ambitionist added and said coldly, “The real Pegasus will never plead at others for help.”
After a short silence…
The thing that was held in place by Uncle Worthless put away the painful expression and replaced it with a wicked grin.
“Hmph… such laughable excuses.” It said, “From how I see it, they are so unconvincing…” Even so it had given up the disguise and revealed its true from. The clothes melted into the body to transform into a black humanoid lifeform. From the frame, it was hard to tell its gender. It seemed to be bald and had a pair of normal human ears on the side of its head; The face also had clear outline of eyes, nose and mouth.
“Oh… could you be…” Feng Bujue sharpened his gaze.
“Hmph… indeed, I am…” The thing continued in a rather prideful tone.
But Feng Bujue finished it with, “…the thing that has helped Conan sent several hundred innocent citizens into jail… the thief, the murderer, the trafficker, the sinner—’The Culprit’!”
“Cul your Uncle!” Atobe roared. “is now a time for joke?”
“Atobe is right.” Ambitionist added, “Now should be the time for a swift interrogation to knock the thing off a peg and determine Pegasus’ location. That is the most imminent objective.”
“Sheesh, you guys sure are humourless…” Feng Bujue grumbled casually but in reality… his untimely joke was actually also another test. Mainly he wanted to see whether there was another fake persona mixed among his other three teammates from their reaction.
“of course I know who this is.” Feng Bujue very naturally picked up where the conversation dropped. He turned to the thing, “Am I right? The Spirit of Mimicry?”