Based on the hint given by the werewolf, the four soon found the tower and climbed the ladder that led out through the skylight. The corridor outside the room was split. Perhaps there were ways that did lead to the middle of the castle, but Brother Jue’s group did not have the time to explore them because the werewolf had given two clear hints. One, Red Riding Hood was very powerful and hostile; two, she could return at any moment. From the game’s perspective, when the NPC had given such clear information, if the players still refused to take the advice, they would be in great danger, perhaps even getting insta-killed. Thus, they shot out of there quickly.
The four climbed the ladder for five minutes. After crossing through a pile of immobile clouds, they saw the end of the ladder. There was a circular black hole, and the end of the ladder was laid gingerly at the edge of the hole. The hole was ’painted’ into the sky, just like the hole that characters could climb out from in old school Disney animations. When they got closer, they realized that the hole was not that small. As long as they were not morbidly obese, they should be able to go through. Of course, it was still too small for the werewolf. Due to the overly large shoulders and torso and the angle of climbing, he was limited to the space beneath the fifth floor.
Feng Bujue was the first to step onto the ground of the fifth floor. He picked up the broom that he had used to poke around the hole before going through it and said, “Hmm… Yet another dark floor.”
Ambitionist, Autumn Zither, and Weighty Words followed behind him.
“At least we know now, this building… if it still qualifies as a building, has seven floors in total,” Ambitionist said. “In other words, so far, we have gone through at least four sevenths of the scenario.”
“That might not be correct.” Weighty Words was a patient and absolutely rational person. He argued, “As they say… the closer we are to the end, the more cautious we need to be. Take for example injury time in soccer. If all the players believe that it will be over soon, the danger of losing the game will greatly increase.”
“I agree with that,” Feng Bujue said. “In many scary movies, it is often the carelessness of the last characters in the final moments that cause everyone to die.”
As he spoke, Brother Jue took out the flashlight and switched it on. Brother Jue did not ask for the flashlight that he had handed over to Ambitionist. When they reached the fourth floor, the thing had been left with the man, so at that moment, Ambitionist also took out the flashlight in his pocket and switched it on.
The first thing that they did was the same; they used the light to shine around and then aimed it above them. The ceiling and ground of this floor had returned to the state of the ground floor. The floor was made of marble tiles, and the ceiling was only four meters tall. With the light from the flashlight, they temporarily could not tell the situation with the walls, but it looked to be a very spacious room.
“How about… we follow the old rules and I go around…”
Before Feng Bujue could finish, a voice coming from the dark interrupted him.
“Sirs.” It was a young girl’s voice.
This one sentence caused the three players to break out in cold sweat. All of their Terror Points jumped up to more than fifty percent. Even though Feng Bujue did not feel fear, he knew things were not looking swell.
Has Little Red Riding Hood been waiting for us here?
Tsk!
With a hiss, a small flame suddenly danced in the darkness. Initially, it was only a small flame, but for some reason, it grew rapidly in seconds until it could light up the entire floor…
Before the group’s eyes, a small figure in a brown cape appeared. Her cheeks were red, her clothes were old and thin, and she was barefooted. At that moment, the girl was holding a basket in her left arm, and in her right arm… was a burning match.
“This doesn’t appear to be Little Red Riding Hood but…” Autumn Zither lowered his voice and gave his speculation.
“Ah… we can see it.” Feng Bujue cut him off. From the eyes of the two other members, they naturally recognized who this was as well.
“Sirs, would you like to buy some matches?” The girl took several steps toward the group.
The four players looked at each other and did not know how to answer.
“Please buy at least a box of matches,” she repeated in a pleading tone.
Then, Autumn Zither appeared to have an idea. He walked forward and took out the magic heels from his pocket. “Can I exchange this pair of shoes for one box of your matches?”
The girl looked at the silvery shoes and hesitated. “Are you sure, sir? These shoes look very expensive.”
She appeared to be an honest child.
“It’s alright. I think it is a fair trade,” Autumn Zither replied.
“Alright then, thank you, sir.”
At that moment, the match in her hand went out, and the whole floor sank back into darkness. Autumn Zither was swallowed by darkness, but thankfully, his teammates reached him swiftly. The flashlights lit up the surroundings, but the girl was already gone, and the shoes in Autumn Zither’s hands had already disappeared.
“Over there.” Feng Bujue with the sharpest eye spotted the clue first. On the spot where the girl first appeared sat a box of matches. On the tile, there was a line that seemed to be smoked onto it. It looked to be written in Latin. The system translated it as ’A true kind act asks for no reward.’
Weighty Words added, “So, this is how we use it… And I thought we would run into something like Cinderella.”
Autumn Zither picked up the match from the ground. “I was inspired because I saw she was barefooted.”
“So, a foot fetishist we have among us…” Feng Bujue scratched his chin.
“What is this uncanny ability of yours to turn even the most innocent incident into something unscrupulous?” Autumn Zither groaned.
“In the few seconds when the environment was lit, did you guys manage to observe the surroundings?” Ambitionist pulled the topic back.
“Ah, I did. The whole floor is empty, only that direction has a door,” Weighty Words said, raising his arm to point
“Er… same as my observation,” Ambitionist said. “Then… shall we head there directly?”
“How about I light up another match for us to take another look?” Autumn Zither said as he opened the match box. To everyone’s surprise, there were only four matches inside…
“Ha! That saves the need to discuss. We’ll take one each.” Feng Bujue glanced at the situation inside the box and concluded thus. The other three did not say anything. They also understood the meaning when the plot item had just enough to fit the number of players. Since it was this situation, they would not waste the limited item to light up the room. The four relied on the flashlights and the direction given by Weighty Words, and soon, they reached the door.
“Is it an elevator?” Weighty Words observed as he studied the metallic door. From the appearance, it looked just like the elevator used in the log-in lobby. There was a button next to the door, but the function was unknown.
Ding!
After Ambitionist pressed the button, the doors opened. The four walked into it, and when they were inside, they realized that there was no control panel inside the elevator. Five seconds later, the doors closed on their own. Then the elevator started to move up. They were unsure whether it was remotely controlled or it worked on its own based on the weight inside it. In any case, in this strange scenario, it was not out of place for an elevator to possess consciousness. After some time, after moving up for about a floor, the elevator stopped, and the doors opened again. The players entered the sixth floor safely.
“Hmm… Looks like my initial prediction of odd and even floors was super mistaken,” Ambitionist said as they walked out the elevator.
“Yes,” Autumn Zither said, “but… from the ground floor until now, the difficulty level has remained quite low. Other than SCP 233, there is no puzzle that is particularly hard. There is not even any forced combat.”
“Untrue.” Feng Bujue denied it. “Perhaps we have already walked past several insta-death traps, but we managed not to trigger them, and that’s why you thought things are overly easy. Aside from the SCP, the werewolf from before was a formidable enemy that could have easily wiped us out. Other than that… we know it was the correct choice to hand the shoes over to the girl selling the matches, but… if we did something wrong, like giving her the wrong thing or failing to answer her pleas before the match ran out…”
“He has a point,” Weighty Words concurred. “During this seemingly safe process, there might have been a setting that can wipe us out in seconds. We can’t let our guard down…”
As they spoke, they had finished observing the entirety of the sixth floor. This floor had a similar setting to the fourth floor, but the environment was hugely different. The sixth floor had a swampy ground, and there were limited places to stand. On the four walls, there was a dark forest and heavy mountains. On the ceiling, it was a night sky, and other than few wisps of cloud, there were many sparkling stars. In the corner between two walls and the ceiling, there was a paper moon, waxing the swamp with its cold glow.
The way that led up from this floor though was quite obvious. It was on the wall opposite from the elevator. A winding stone staircase was painted on it, and the lowest six steps of the path reached out from inside the wall. On this floor, the space where players could move around was quite limited. There were not many choices. They had to skip over the few dry patches as they jumped toward the stone staircase.
“Mind your step.” Ambitionist walked in front and warned them. “We do not have any items, so if you fall into the swamp, it’ll be hard to drag you out.”
“Hey… guys, did you hear that?” Feng Bujue suddenly said as he looked up.