When the plot-skips players into the game world

"After meeting you, I suspected that one of us might be Merlin,"

—Now can you trust me? I am the Detective, and the brawny man is Fox.

When Aiwass first met Merlin, Merlin said so.

This statement seems fine at first glance, but in fact, everything about it is wrong.

"Firstly, if Merlin at that time was the real 'Detective,' he wouldn't need to explain to you why he is the Detective. Since you two didn't know each other originally, just by word of mouth, if the Detective could do it, why couldn't Merlin?

"So his words, in fact, were telling me that the content of our previous conversation was about him suspecting me to be Merlin. And you subconsciously gave a wrong response—"

—To be precise, we can now only be certain that at least one of you is not Merlin.

Pure White said at the time.

Aiwass crossed his fingers and said softly, "You chose to follow the topic thrown by Merlin. But that was completely nonsensical... Of course, neither of us could both be Merlin, since there's only one Merlin.

"Your instinctive response was because you knew the reporter was Merlin, but you dared not openly reveal that you knew this.

"You readily believed that he was not Merlin, and this was not rational; it would make you appear suspicious—so you pretended to stay cautious toward him. But you were also afraid of truly making me suspect he was Merlin, not daring to press him too hard. Thus, you gave such a noncommittal response, merely to make a statement of position.

"I began to suspect you since then. But at that time I didn't realize you were cooperating with Merlin, so I conducted two probes…"

"I openly expressed my suspicion that you were Pure White, but you showed no hostility toward me. There were four of you and three of us—and pardon my bluntness, but the Detective and I were the main force, as you must have realized.

"Moreover, through our conversation, we informed you that we had already gathered on the floor above and verified each other's identities. Yet, you didn't try to stop us nor seek out your teammates.

"If you truly approached things from the perspective you claimed, serving absolute rationality, you should have tried to divide us at that time.

"For instance, you could have tried to make the 'Detective' suspect that I have been Merlin from the very beginning, or create false evidence to mislead me into suspecting him. Because since we were already together, it was very likely we would continue to be together. And if we didn't have a Merlin among us, it would mean one of your three teammates was very likely to be replaced.

"In other words, from that time, you had already fallen into a disadvantage. So how did you respond?

—You ignored the logical flaws in Merlin's 'quick descent theory,' and accepted forming a trio. You still did not display any hostility towards Merlin."

Calmly, Aiwass said, "At that moment I realized something. You definitely were not Merlin, but something about you was off.

"Because you didn't seem eager to win. But if you didn't want to win, why come to the Ascension Ceremony at all?

"Later on, Merlin suddenly posed a hypothesis to you—that perhaps you had killed everyone on an entire floor. And what was the purpose of this statement?"

The answer was simple, to swallow a floor.

But such a decision had a flaw. The number of floors can be one less, but there wouldn't suddenly be one less person.

"I was thinking at the time… could Topaz actually have been on the first floor? So I proposed the 'Surefire Method'... It was bait. But it wasn't for Merlin, it was for you."

"The Surefire Method was based on two assumptions: that Topaz had directly entered Floor Zero from the higher levels, and you truly killed people on a floor. Thereby including the real Detective who was yet to descend, we were previously on the first floor. In that case, you just needed to die then to win.

"Yet you chose not to die. And now you bring up this view again... reneging on what you said before, claiming that you indeed killed everyone on a floor. And you even said Topaz had done the same.

"If that were true, including Topaz's floor, the Detective's floor, and your own floor, we indeed would have reached Floor Zero. But unfortunately, it's not the case... We are still in a dream and haven't reached reality."

"If you don't believe it," Pure White sighed helplessly, "you can call the dancer to have a look."

—Not bad, Mr. Fox.

Upon hearing this, the dancer walked over from the stairwell.

She said with a smile, "You were fooled by me as well. In fact, I am Topaz... right from the start."
Enjoy new chapters from empire

"So then," Aiwass asked back, "when did you come here, sister?"

"In my memory," the dancer said, "I came here last night to take shelter from the rain... but surely that memory isn't quite right."

You're such a hammer.

Aiwass couldn't help but laugh.

You don't even know what the "here" I'm asking about refers to—

"Then it fits."

His mouth curled slightly upwards, and he said without hesitation, "You are Merlin."

Following that, Aiwass pointed to the body at the reception: "He's Topaz—"

"You murdered the receptionist on floors two and three on purpose because you saw Topaz commit suicide on the first floor.

"Pure White deliberately tried to mislead me, insinuating the receptionist into the equation, yet excluded Daiya. You wanted to rule out the receptionist Topaz by the fact of 'Daiya being a participant.'

"That's why I said, being able to make Merlin admit his identity in front of you, cooperating with you... who exactly are you?