Chapter 195: You... You're the Monster!
"Come on, then," Kaguya chirped, a razor-sharp grin spreading across her face. "Let's see which one of us is better at staying alive!"
She stared down the Long-necked Woman, who was still seated at the mahogany table. With deliberate, theatrical slowness, Kaguya bared her teeth and contorted her body into a bizarre, unsettling pose—a grotesque parody of a vengeful spirit rising from its grave.
"Impossible… it's impossible…" the Long-necked Woman stammered, her voice cracking. Her spectral composure shattered completely. "Monster… you are a monster…"
She couldn't take it anymore. With a choked scream, she shoved herself away from the table, her chair clattering to the floor. She landed in a heap, then scrambled backward on all fours, her eyes wide with a terror that had eclipsed her own ghostly nature. Like a cornered animal, she clawed her way to her feet and charged blindly for the tent's exit.
But she didn't get far.
The giant, disembodied hands materialized from the shadows once more, snatching her from the air and dragging her back into the center of the room.
What followed was a scene of silent, brutal efficiency. Under the players' horrified gazes, countless more hands erupted from the floor and walls. They swarmed the struggling spirit, pinning her, wrapping around her, and then… kneading. The sickening sound of compressed flesh and snapping bone filled the tent for a brief, awful moment.
When the hands finally dissipated, all that remained on the floor was a wet, indistinct puddle of meat and a set of neatly folded, empty clothes.
'She's… dead?'
The woman with the high ponytail and the other players stood frozen, their faces masks of utter disbelief. They had spent the entire morning scheming just to earn a few meager stamps, yet they had just witnessed a member of the circus staff—a supernatural entity in this game—be scared to death and then unceremoniously obliterated.
Why did that girl come back to life? Hadn't her head literally fallen off her shoulders?
A deep sense of bewilderment washed over them. It felt as if they weren't even playing the same game.
Feeling their suspicious gazes, Kaguya lifted her chin proudly. She pushed open the glass door of the booth and strutted back to Haruto's side, every inch the victorious princess. She was just about to launch into a boastful tirade when she noticed the grim look on Haruto's face.
"What's wrong?" she asked, her triumphant smile faltering. "Didn't we win?"
"What did we come here for?" Haruto asked quietly.
"To get stamps," Kaguya blurted out instantly. Her words hung in the air for a second before the realization dawned. Her gaze drifted down to the gory puddle on the floor, and she fell silent.
"Maybe…" she offered weakly, "we should try to find that Troupe Leader for a replacement stamp?"
"That's one option," Haruto conceded with a nod. Then, as if suddenly remembering something, he pointed a finger at the pile of clothes on the floor. "Search through those. See if there's a stamp."
Kaguya's eyes lit up. She quickly found a stray wooden stick, crouched down, and began gingerly poking at the remains. Sure enough, after a moment of prodding, she flipped over a piece of fabric to reveal a small, ink-stained stamp.
"There really is one!"
At the sight of the stamp, a flicker of greed ignited in the eyes of the players huddled by the door. With that single item, they could not only stamp their own cards but also charge exorbitant fees to stamp for others. It was a golden ticket.
If the woman with the high ponytail hadn't shot them a warning glare, and if Kaguya's casual resurrection hadn't left them completely unable to gauge her power, they would have undoubtedly swarmed forward—if not to snatch it, then to wheedle, cajole, and trick their way into using it.
After a moment's hesitation, the woman with the high ponytail stepped forward. "Could you… help us get a stamp, too?" she asked, her voice cautious. "We can pay for it."
Kaguya didn't answer. She turned to look at Haruto for guidance, only to find his expression had grown even more grave. This just confused her further.
"What is it now?" she huffed. "We found the stamp, didn't we?"
"Do you really think it would be this simple?" Haruto asked in return. "That killing some half-human, half-ghost creature would be the key to clearing this instance?"
"It is… a bit too easy," Kaguya admitted, frowning in thought.
"I think so, too," Youmu chimed in from the side.
The woman with the high ponytail couldn't help but weakly interject, "Could it be that you guys are just… ridiculously overpowered?"
Beside her, her teammates nodded their heads in vigorous, unified agreement. Kill a staff member? The circus performers here were all practically ghosts themselves. They felt lucky just to avoid being slapped to death by one, let alone turning the tables.
"Incorrect," Haruto said, shaking his head again. "If this were an instance for only five or six people, that might be a reasonable assumption. But this time, there are a full one hundred players. Given that scale, if everyone were to group up, dealing with a single half-ghost would be easy. You could kill a true ghost just by having everyone sacrifice one spectral artifact at it. And that's not even considering the possibility of high-level experts hidden among the players."
Hearing his analysis, the woman with the high ponytail and her teammates finally sensed that something was deeply wrong. Following his logic, this instance was indeed… too simple.
So simple it felt like a trap.
Was this a bug in the game? Or was it, in fact, a carefully designed snare?
An uneasy silence fell over the group.
Just then, Haruto spoke again. "And have you done the math? The number of people, the time limit, the number of stamps… Even if each performance only takes fifteen minutes, and even if you somehow managed to win every single round without fail, to collect all eighteen stamps…"
He trailed off, but his point was painfully clear.
The expression on the woman with the high ponytail grew increasingly grim. "It's impossible to complete," she murmured, the realization hitting her like a physical blow. "There are too many people, and we'd have to constantly re-queue. The vast majority of players could never collect them all." She shook her head forcefully. "No, impossible. The game never gives a task that players absolutely cannot complete. The blood-word hints never make mistakes."
"The blood words indeed don't make mistakes," Haruto nodded in agreement. "They might set traps, but as a core clue, they won't provide false information."
Kaguya, standing to the side, picked up the thread. "The blood words aren't wrong," she said with a sly smile. "But on those so-called 'tourist rules,' there was never a single line stating that the task is to spend three days running around collecting eighteen patterns to form a clown."
The players' pupils shrank as understanding dawned. The so-called task had been verbally relayed to them by the Circus Troupe Leader, who had appeared out of thin air on the very first night.
A cold sweat broke out on the back of the woman with the high ponytail. If they had really done as he said, pouring all their energy into collecting those patterns… even if they had succeeded, it was certain no good end awaited them.
It was clearly a trap. That so-called Circus Troupe Leader had exploited their preconceived notions, taking the initiative to provide "task information" to build credibility. He had made them take it for granted that he was the quest-giving NPC and that collecting eighteen stamps was their primary objective.
"Then… are these tourist rules all fake, too?" the woman's voice was tight with tension. "Are the rules on them meant to mislead us?"
Haruto nodded, then shook his head. "Not entirely. If all of it were false, it would be too easy to see through."
Kaguya chuckled darkly. "If I were designing it… I'd only change two or three of the rules. But every single one of those changes would be an instant-death violation."
At that moment, Youmu returned from a corner of the tent, handing a stack of paper pamphlets to Haruto.
He took them and looked at the assembled players. "Actually, there's an even simpler way to verify this. As we all know, true blood words cannot be destroyed or modified, correct?"
The woman with the high ponytail had already guessed his intention, her gaze locked on his hands.
Haruto took one of the "tourist rules" pamphlets and walked over to the puddle of gore on the ground. He casually wiped the paper through the viscous remains a couple of times, then walked back to the table and held it up.
The entire sheet was smeared with filth, and the so-called "blood words" printed on it were now a blurred, illegible mess.
He didn't stop there.
He picked up a second pamphlet. With a sharp rip, he tore it straight down the middle. Then he folded it, and tore it again, and again, shredding it into tiny fragments that could never be pieced back together.
The tent fell utterly silent.
The two simple experiments were proof enough. These so-called "tourist rules" were fakes. They hadn't even seen the real blood words yet, let alone received the true task to clear the instance.
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