“This staircase should be able to lead to the fourth floor… or somewhere else. In any case, it will move us forward.” Feng Bujue shone his flashlight upward. Before the four was a spiraling staircase. The steps were made from stone, and they were a strange shape. From an architectural standpoint, this kind of staircase was impossible to build because there was not enough support, but considering this was virtual reality and the scenario itself was non scientific, no one really cared…
“Hmm… Indeed, there are footprints on the steps too.” Weighty Words leaned over to look.
“And they are only going up,” Ambitionist added.
Autumn Zither said, “Assuming they did not walk backward down to this floor… the tin man and scarecrow haven’t returned since they got up to the fourth floor.”
“I have walked around the entire third floor and calculated its size. This floor is twice as large as the two floors underneath. There is an obvious issue with dimensions, and I believe the lack of lighting is aimed to hide that fact,” Feng Bujue said. “I believe that the clue on this floor was the smell. As long as we followed the smell of dead bodies, we’d be able to find one of the two crime scenes, and then following the bloody footprints, we’d find the other scene and this staircase.”
“In other words… you believe that other than these three locations, there are no more clues on this floor, right?” Ambitionist asked.
“At least, that is what I think. Of course, it is fine if we want to give this floor another thorough search, but to do that without ample light will require a lot of time, and we might end up with nothing,” Feng Bujue said. “Currently, we have no idea how many floors there are above us and how many of them are lit… I believe we should be rationing the batteries of our flashlights.”
“I also think there is no need to explore this floor anymore,” Autumn Zither said. “Brother Feng has already looked around and found these three locations that are perfectly linked. If we continue the exploration, with just two flashlights, we will have to split up, and one group might be slower than Brother Feng.”
“I concur,” Weighty Words added.
“I have no issue with that, but…” Ambitionist lifted his head to look at the end of the spiral staircase where there was a rectangular wooden door that was embedded in the cellar. “Who would open that door? What if there’s an axe waiting for us?”
“Just have Autumn Zither poke it open with the broom,” Feng Bujue said. “Then the axe will at most fall on the broom.”
“You are bloody brilliant,” Autumn Zither said. The adjective that sounded like a curse was not banned by the system. After grousing, he still led the way up the stairs with a helpless sigh. Feng Bujue shrugged. He glanced at his other two teammates. The three did not speak. They just smiled and followed Autumn Zither.
The stairs were not that long. After a circle and a half, Autumn Zither reached the top. He used the broom and pushed upward with the wooden end, and the wooden door creaked open. Some light filtered through. Through the opening, the fourth floor appeared to be a rather tall space. Since the light came from the side, they could not tell what the light source was.
“Hey…what is that smell?” Autumn Zither stood at the front, and he was hit by this strange smell once he flipped open the wooden board.
“It’s probably another body.” Feng Bujue calmly stood behind him.
“Is it really safe for me to go up like this?” Autumn Zither hesitated.
“It’s already dead. What are you afraid of?” Feng Bujue retorted. Well, that really depended. Even though most people were afraid of dead bodies, quite a few thought that the living were the truly scary ones.
Autumn Zither took a few deep breaths, gathered his courage, and slithered upward. He knew that if there was an axe waiting at his blind spot, sneaking up with his head poking through first would be more dangerous. It was safer to burst through the opening and stand straight up on the ground. Feng Bujue followed behind him, but the man was as at ease as before. Ambitionist and Weighty Words were following behind Brother Jue, and they were influenced by his attitude. After the four reached the fourth floor, they finally got a clear view of what was beyond the wooden door.
This was the inside of a windmill.
The four walls were made from bricks and were circular in build. The light… appeared to be sunlight that came in through the small window above the windmill. That strange smell… well, that came from the scarecrow. Leaning against one of the walls, the four players found his body, and the state of his death was as strange as could be. There was a rusted spear that poked through the windmill from outside, and it happened to pierce through the scarecrow, who was inside the windmill. The scarecrow’s body dangled on the wall like a clock. Since his straw head was stuffed with the witch’s brain, and the spear pierced just so through his head. The brain matter splattered all over the scarecrow.
“I don’t even know what to say now,” Autumn Zither commented as he looked at this.
“We’ll find out more when we go out,” Feng Bujue said as he walked to the door of the windmill and prepared to push it open. His teammates did not stop him but followed behind him. Outside the windmill was a theater stage. The size of this fourth floor was about as big as the ground floor. The ceiling was ten meters tall, but there were no pillars to support it. On the ceiling, clouds and blue sky were painted… On the further four walls, other than the clouds and sky, there were also green mountains and rivers painted.
In a corner between two walls and the ceiling, there was a ’sun’ that was hanging from four iron strings. The thing was about three meters in diameter, and it seemed to have been made from papier mâché, but for some weird reason, it was indeed glowing… and the glow was no different from the glow of the actual sun. It warmed the bodies of those who were under its gaze.
“Each floor is stranger than the one that precedes it…” Weighty Words sighed.
Feng Bujue walked around the windmill and discovered the truth to the scarecrow’s death. “Well… with one glance I know this is the culprit…”
The three all looked that way. On the outer wall of the windmill, the lower half of spear that had killed scarecrow was still dangling in midair, but the ’knight’ who used it to strike the ambush was already dead on the ground. The dead victim was wearing a quintessential middle-ages suit of armor, and his head had been hacked off along with the helmet. The cutting wound was even. It looked like the work of a particular axe.