“Nonsense, I’ve already held back a lot! If I hadn’t, all you’d see now would be a pile of fragments!”
Blazing Flame coughed dryly, then kicked aside the iron plate covering the Clown’s body to another spot, defending her earlier actions.
“I know, but right now he’s no different from a corpse—massive blood loss, unconscious. It’s hard for us to pry anything out of him.”
Sapphire stepped beside the Clown, probing his breath with a finger before shaking her head in regret.
“Then… should I call for emergency services?” Blazing Flame asked.
“No need. Meteor will handle this; she’s the expert in situations like this.” Sapphire stood up and said.
“Meteor?” Blazing Flame asked in confusion.
“You’ll see soon enough. Dice! Go find Meteor and tell her help is needed here!”
Sapphire tapped her Magic Staff, commanding her magical fairy.
Dice lazily crawled out of the staff, then stretched forward and replied.
“I know already. See you later, my dear Contractor.”
“Safe travels.”
Sapphire watched as Dice flew out through the hole in the roof, waving farewell before turning to Blazing Flame.
“Blazing Flame, could you go down and calm the missing persons? I want to check if there’s anything else suspicious here.”
“No problem. Leave this kind of thing to me.”
At Sapphire’s request, Blazing Flame readily agreed.
She glanced at the twelve people sitting quietly in the chairs on the monitors, too scared to speak, then turned and quickly walked toward the main hall.
After Blazing Flame left, Sapphire surveyed the room and saw it filled with all sorts of buttons and notebooks, alongside several high-definition monitors.
It looked like this had been meticulously prepared for a long time before reaching its current scale.
Just as Sapphire was about to flip through the notebooks for clues, one of the monitors flashing rapidly changing texts caught her attention.
Curious, Sapphire leaned in and found a barrage of comments streaming across the screen.
【The streamer’s trash, failing at coercion? Must have read too few fanfics.】
【Let’s all disperse. The streamer got kicked to death like a stray dog. Now enjoying 72 Saints in heaven.】
【Did someone just hear another Magic Girl’s voice? Does anyone know who she is? Got any related fanfics? I want to see!】
【Sapphire’s outfit is so lewd! Tonight I’m diving into her comics!】
“A live stream, huh…”
Sapphire looked at the deep web link above the stream, then thought briefly about the workload for the tech team cleaning this mess up and what she might gain by leaving it running.
She closed her eyes, took a deep breath, then dropped into a horse stance.
Her right hand slammed forward in a piercing punch, smashing the monitor and successfully interrupting the absurd broadcast.
“Crack… crack…”
When the monitor began sparking and leaking electricity, Sapphire withdrew her hand and walked over to the large table, flipping through the stacked notebooks.
Her luck held out; the topmost notebook without any markings turned out to be the plan book for this entire operation.
“Selecting twelve werewolf experts to play a real-life Werewolf Game, appreciating humanity’s ugliness, and spreading the fame of their God…”
“What kind of nonsense is this?”
Just reading the first page of the plan book made Sapphire frown deeply.
She glanced back at the Clown lying on the ground like a corpse.
Was this guy mentally deficient?
He’d grabbed twelve normally law-abiding citizens into a secret base to make them play this mutually murderous game, all under the pretense of showing the world mankind’s most primal malice.
Has his brain gone soft?
Thinking this, Sapphire looked again at the twelve people on the monitors, peaceful and intact, and couldn’t help but shake her head with a bitter smile.
So stupid, this guy.
In a game where you probably have to risk your life to win, once both sides agree on mutual survival, they’ll keep peace until the balance is broken and fighting starts.
And he didn’t even consider this simplest of logic? What an idiot.
But considering he dared to organize such a thing, maybe he really is an Asperger.
“…If you want to see people hurting each other, why not choose a non-zero-sum game? Even something as old as the Prisoner’s Dilemma would do.”
“Sigh, forget it. Judging by him, he probably doesn’t even know the book ‘How to Win Friends and Influence People’ is really called ‘Human Nature’s Weakness’.”
Sapphire muttered a few complaints, then continued flipping through the notebook, searching for other important clues.
Near the end of the notebook, she found something strange.
“After the game ends, the surviving players are forcibly kept in the hall to play other luck-based games until only one remains alive.”
“When the sole player emerges, the necklace on their neck is removed. They are given their bank card and allowed to leave, to safely see the sun outside.”
“Then, as they revel in their new life, spending the money I’ve given them recklessly, when the timed bomb explodes, the final Trial is completed…”
Sapphire read aloud the messy handwriting in the notebook before falling into silence for a moment.
After a while, she closed the notebook and looked at Blazing Flame, who had just arrived in the hall, complaining.
“You really hit him too hard, Blazing Flame.”
“After that punch, I don’t dare kick him again. If he dies, the others lose a ton of clues.”
“Sigh…”
At this moment, Blazing Flame, now in the hall, didn’t know what strange thoughts Sapphire was having.
She looked at the twelve people sitting intact and safe in the hall and nodded at them.
“Good morning, everyone. You’re safe now.”
“Safe meaning…?”
A young man wearing glasses sitting in the middle looked at Blazing Flame suspiciously and asked.
“The lunatic who brought you here has been subdued. You don’t have to worry anymore.”
“…Really? You’re not lying to us, Miss Blazing Flame?”
“Of course it’s true. You’re free now. You just need to give a statement, then you can go home.”
Blazing Flame smiled, thinking they were worried she was working with that lunatic, so she spoke again to calm the twelve people’s nerves.
But unexpectedly, after hearing Blazing Flame’s answer, they exchanged glances, nodded in tacit agreement, and then asked each other.
“Wanna play?”
“Play!”
Under Blazing Flame’s watchful gaze, the twelve suddenly became serious.
They looked at the cards on their tables, then all turned their eyes toward her and said.
“Miss Blazing Flame, could you please be our Judge?”
“…Huh?”
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