The four finished the greeting and were about to discuss what to do next when Weighty Words said with a shift in his expression, “Guys… all of the items in my inventory have been grayed out. What about yours?”
With his reminder, the other three all opened the game menu to check their inventory.
“Me too. They’re all grayed out, and I can’t retrieve any of them,” Autumn Zither confirmed.
“Same with me,” Feng Bujue said.
“This should be the limitation given by the system,” Ambitionist said directly. “But there is not even a hint for this, huh?”
Weighty Words was a reserved strategist. He might not think as fast as his other teammates, and he had a more holistic approach to things, often thinking thrice before making a move. After hearing what Ambitionist said, he realized another problem. “Then what if… there’s another limitation? Like…”
“Time,” Autumn Zither said. “Assuming this scenario only gives us the quest and gives us zero hints and we have to discover all the setting and rules ourselves, then the factor that will most easily cause the team to lose will be time.”
Ambitionist nodded. “There is a chance of it… If this scenario has a hidden time limit and we know nothing about the rules and still take our time to explore the surroundings…”
“If there’s a time limit, we should be able to find a related hint soon.” Feng Bujue chimed in with a matter-of-fact tone.
“Hmm… You’re right.” Ambitionist concurred with Brother Jue seriously. “Rules that cannot be solved don’t exist. If there is really a time limit, there will be related plot or hints, and it will show up early in the scenario. If it shows up when we’re already running out of time, then it would be…”
He stopped before he finished. Ambitionist turned around and pushed on his glasses as he looked at Feng Bujue with suspicion. Autumn Zither and Weighty Words hesitated for a while before they too understood something, and they too turned to look at Feng Bujue.
“What?” Feng Bujue acted dumb. “Did I say something wrong? Actually, I just thought… with you all here, no matter the limitation or rules, they will be found soon, so I just said something random that came to mind.”
“Haha…” Ambitionist laughed drily twice. “No, no, what you said was correct. You have a talent at this. Haha…”
Actually, internally, he was thinking. Tsk… so that’s why. You look so confident when you’re just rambling, and I thought you managed to hypothesize that conclusion in such a quick moment. That gave me quite a shock.
Autumn Zither and Weighty Words both shrugged and had no comments.
Feng Bujue sighed quietly in relief. Can’t stop myself from saying the conclusion that burst into my mind… Thankfully, I didn’t say too much and managed to stay below the radar. I can’t do this anymore. I should assume the attitude of a carried weight. From now on, I should stop thinking and think about something else… Right, I should think about Passing Rain’s illness… Hmm… A beauty in fever…
“Hey… Why is that man suddenly taking on that salacious expression?” Autumn Zither whispered to Weighty Words. “He was just praised once by Ambitionist. Is there a need to react like that?”
Weighty Words swallowed his saliva. “Could he be a ***?”
“That term is derogatory. You have to say homosexual.” Autumn Zither lowered his voice further.
“Well, you got what I meant anyway…” Weighty Words shrugged.
Ambitionist looked at Feng Bujue’s face with drooling saliva and dumb smile and confirmed that this was a useless player meant to drag them down. The title ’Pioneer of Darkness’ was probably because he often sided with the antagonist in the previous scenario or used to do things like sneaking around.
“But… By the way…” Ambitionist mumbled to himself. “Autumn Zither and Weighty Words, did those two know each other before this? It doesn’t sound like it, but why have they been whispering among themselves? And… just now, I saw him mouth the word ’faggot’. Is it possible that these two are… and this is love at first sight?”
In just a few minutes, this group of ’clever people’ with their own intentions created many misunderstandings that would be hard to explain.
“Hmm… In any case, with our current hints, or the cinematic, this ’Detective Club’ should be inside that building,” Ambitionist said, raising his voice.
“if ’Detective Club’ refers to this building, then wouldn’t it be too easy?” Autumn Zither added. “I don’t think something will happen once we cross the entrance.”
“Then it should be pointing to one of the rooms,” Weighty Words concurred.
“Hmm…” The three hummed at the same time, and they all stood like Shinichi in Case Closed. At that moment, Feng Bujue suddenly took out a magazine and said, “Items that are placed outside the inventory can still be used, it seems.”
With that reminder, Autumn Zither remembered something. He took out something from his pocket. It was a bag of chocolate. He tried it and announced, “But the things can’t be placed inside the inventory anymore.”
“Basically, the inventory is sealed,” Ambitionist concluded.
“Then, all the items we find will have to be carried or placed in our pockets,” Weighty Words added.
“Since we have understood this rule, then there is a problem… Do we enter the building directly or explore the surrounding map first?” Autumn Zither asked. “The issue of a possible time limit aside, if we choose to search for items, even if we find anything valuable, we can only carry so much. Isn’t it a bit too eye-catching to carry big weapons with us?”
“And… since the inventory is sealed, it means that if there’s a battle, we can only fight with our bare hands,” Weighty Words added. “Even though I’m not an expert fighter, I can still throw a few punches…”
Ambitionist nodded. “You have a point, but I still think we should at least look around the perimeter. First, we don’t know whether we can exit the building after we enter it. It’s quite common for the door to be locked after entry in-game like this. Secondly, the starting point of this scenario is the entrance of the building, not the inside of the building. That explains that there might be things for us to search outside the building, or else the system would have skipped this step.”
Hmm… This ’Brilliant Strategist’ lives up to his name, Feng Bujue thought. Even though the system didn’t give any hints, he can still come up with so many reasonable hypotheses with knowable information.
Autumn Zither and Weighty Words agreed with Ambitionist, and Feng Bujue naturally followed along. The four had already decided to search around the building and explored the general situation of the world. This general situation included many things like… what the year was, what country and city they were in, if it was based on reality, if there was famed literature or randomly generated garbage. Was there a zombie epidemic in the city? Were there aliens, ghosts, or superheroes?
All of these could be checked. By picking up any random newspaper from the ground or a normal operating public phone, one could check many things. For these few players, completing this kind of information collecting work was as easy as pie. Unfortunately, in this scenario, they were not given the chance to show off. After ten minutes, the four gathered again at the entrance coming from four different direction. Three of them did not look that pleased.
“From the newspapers and the shop signs, this place uses German, but the system doesn’t provide a translation function,” Autumn Zither said.
“There are not many people on the street. They are all Caucasian. I tried to communicate with them in Chinese, but they can’t seem to hear me,” Weighty Words said. “I didn’t dare stop them by force. After all, if we attract the police, it won’t be good of us.”
“From the attire of the pedestrian and the appearance of the public amenities and the cars on the road, this should be the twenty-first century. The location is hard to tell. There are many places that use German,” Ambitionist said. “Due to the language barrier, and because we have none of the local currency, without breaking the law, it’s hard to know anything.”
Feng Bujue was the last to speak. “I borrowed some change and his phone from a youth in his twenties. I tried many numbers like 110, 119, 120, 114, and 10086, but none were connected. Then I used the money to buy some snacks for myself.”
He patted his pocket. “If you want to share…”
“Hey! That’s not the point!” Autumn Zither stopped him. “Since you know German, you should have asked him for some useful information like the exact year and if he has heard of the Detective Club.”
“Who said I know German?” Feng Bujue replied.
“Huh?” Weighty Words was confused. “Then how did you borrow… wait…”
He seemed to understand it. “You shouldn’t have…”
“I stopped the man and tried to communicate with him in English and Chinese but failed.” Feng Bujue relayed the event calmly. “So, I picked up a brick, pulled on his collar, and rambled the limited German I know, like ’F*ck you’ and ’Give me’, and then he surrendered his phone and wallet.”
“My god…” Ambitionist shook his head with his hand on his face.
Autumn Zither’s lips twitched. “So, you robbed someone…”
“Sigh… So, a brick is the real international language.” Weighty Words sighed.
“We should go inside the building… before the police get here,” Ambitionist added.
Feng Bujue shrugged expressionlessly. “Okay.”