Chapter 5 The Fifth Floor

Following the werewolf's clues, the four quickly located the attic and climbed up the ladder outside the skylight.

The corridor outside the room had forks in the road, perhaps indeed leading to the middle section of the castle. But Brother Jue and the others didn't explore, because the werewolf's clues indicated: First, Little Red Riding Hood was strong and unfriendly; second, she could return to the castle at any time.

From a game perspective, if an NPC gave you two such clear pieces of information, and you still acted contrary to them, you would definitely face great danger, even triggering an instant-death scenario, so they decided not to linger.

The four climbed the ladder for more than five minutes. After passing through a patch of stationary clouds, they saw the end of the ladder. There was a circular black hole there, with the top of the ladder resting on the edge of the hole.

This hole was "painted" in the sky, like the kind that's drawn out of thin air in a Warner Bros. cartoon.

Up close, they found that the hole wasn't narrow. Anyone who wasn't too overweight could get through.

Of course, the werewolf still couldn't get through. Due to the forward curvature of his neck joints, the gigantic size of his torso, and the posture when climbing the ladder, he was destined to be confined to the space below the fifth floor.

"Well… another dark floor," Feng Bujue said as he stepped onto the fifth floor first, picking up the broom (he had thrown the broom up to test the way as he climbed to the top of the ladder).

Honghu, Qiufeng, and Ji Chang followed closely behind, entering the fifth floor in turn.

"Now we know that this building… if it can still be called a building, has only seven floors in total," Honghu said. "That is to say… so far, four-sevenths of the script's progress has passed."

"Not necessarily," Ji Chang, a very patient and absolutely rational person, replied. "As the saying goes… the last leg of a hundred-mile journey is the hardest. The closer you get to the end of anything, the less impatient you should be. It's like the stoppage time in a football match; if the whole team has the mindset of 'it'll be over soon', the risk of conceding a goal will increase significantly."

"I agree with that," Feng Bujue said. "In many horror movies, it is the carelessness of the surviving characters in the last few minutes that leads to a total annihilation ending."

As he spoke, Brother Jue took out his flashlight again and turned it on.

Feng Bujue had not asked for the flashlight he gave to Honghu back. After arriving on the fourth floor, it had been kept by the other person. So, at this moment, Honghu also took out the flashlight from his pocket and turned it on.

The first thing they both did was the same: they first swept the surrounding area with the light, and then immediately shone it directly upwards.

The ceiling and floor of this level had returned to the state of the first floor. The floor was tiled, and the height of the ceiling was only a little over four meters. With just the light of the flashlights, they couldn't see the walls around them for the time being. It seemed that this was also a quite spacious area.

"How about… the old rules, I'll go around by myself first…" Feng Bujue hadn't finished speaking when a voice came from the darkness, interrupting him.

"Gentlemen," a childish, girlish voice sounded.

These words made the three players break out in a cold sweat, and their horror values all soared to over 50%. Although Feng Bujue didn't feel scared, he also knew something was wrong. He thought: Is Little Red Riding Hood waiting for us here?

*Chah*—

With a soft sound, a small flame suddenly appeared in the darkness.

The light was initially the size of a grain of rice, but for some reason, it rapidly expanded in a few seconds, until it lit up the entire floor…

In everyone's sight, a small figure in a brown cloak appeared. Her cheeks were red, her clothes looked old and thin, and she was barefoot.

At this moment, the little girl was carrying a basket in her left hand, and in her right hand… she was holding a burning match.

"This doesn't seem to be Little Red Riding Hood, but…" Qiufeng lowered his voice, wanting to say his deduction.

"Ah… I see," Feng Bujue interrupted. From the looks in his, Honghu's, and Ji Chang's eyes, they naturally knew who it was.

"Would you like to buy some matches?" the little girl asked as she walked a few steps closer to the players.

The four players looked at each other, not knowing how to respond.

"Please buy a box of my matches," she repeated in a pleading tone.

At this moment, Qiufeng seemed to have thought of something. He stepped forward and took out the magic shoes from his pocket: "Can I exchange these shoes for a box of matches?"

The little girl looked at the silver magic shoes offered by the other party and hesitated: "Really? Sir, these shoes look like they're worth a lot of money." It seemed she was an honest child.

"It's okay, I think this is a fair trade," Qiufeng replied.

"Okay then, thank you, sir," the little girl replied.

Just then, the match in her hand went out, and the entire floor returned to darkness.

Qiufeng's eyes were instantly pitch black. Fortunately, his teammates quickly ran over. Flashlights illuminated the area around Qiufeng, but the little girl had disappeared, and the shoes in Qiufeng's hand were also gone.

"Over there," Feng Bujue still had sharp eyes and quickly found the clue.

Where the little girl first appeared, there was a box of matches. On the floor tile, there was also a line of text that seemed to be scorched on, looking like Latin, which the system translated as: [Sincere good deeds, without expecting anything in return.]

Ji Chang said after reading it: "I see… the magic shoes are used here. I thought there would be a 'Cinderella' type of plot."

Qiufeng picked up the matches on the ground, "I just had a flash of inspiration when I saw she had no shoes to wear."

"Loli and ankle fetish, huh…" Feng Bujue said, stroking his chin.

"Why can everything be distorted by you until it has no moral integrity left…" Qiufeng said.

"Did you guys observe the environment during those few seconds when everything was lit up?" Honghu brought the topic back on track.

Ji Chang said: "Ah, I saw it. The whole floor is empty, except over there…" He raised his arm and pointed in a direction, "There's a door."

"Hmm… same as my observation," Honghu replied. "So… are we going straight over?"

"How about I strike a match and we take another look?" Qiufeng said, opening the matchbox.

Unexpectedly, there were only four matches inside…

"Ha! No need to say anything, let's each take one," Feng Bujue said directly after glancing at the contents of the matchbox.

The other three didn't say anything either. They all understood what it meant when the number of the same kind of plot item was equal to the number of players.

Since this was the case, they wouldn't waste the limited items to illuminate the surrounding environment. The four of them relied on the light of the flashlights and walked towards the direction Ji Chang pointed. Before long, they arrived in front of the door.

"An elevator, huh…" Ji Chang said, looking at the metal door.

From the outside, this door was exactly the same as the elevator door in the login lobby. There was only one button next to the door, and its effect was self-evident.

*Ding*—

After Honghu pressed the button, the elevator door opened to both sides.

The four entered one after another. After entering the interior, they discovered that there was nothing to operate in this elevator.

After waiting for five or six seconds, the door closed automatically. Then, the elevator began to move upwards. It was unknown whether it was remotely controlled or automatically operated based on the internal load. Anyway, in this fantasy script, it wouldn't be strange even if the elevator had its own consciousness.

It didn't run for long, probably only the height of one floor, before the elevator stopped and the door opened automatically again.

The players safely stepped into the area of the sixth floor.

"Speaking of which… my initial guess about the odd and even floors seems to have been completely wrong…" Honghu said as he walked out of the elevator.

"That's right, but…" Qiufeng continued, "From the first floor to here, the difficulty seems to have been very low. Apart from the ***-233, there haven't been any particularly difficult puzzles, and there hasn't even been a single fight."

"Not necessarily," Feng Bujue denied. "We may have already encountered several 'instant death' traps, but we just haven't triggered them, which is why you think it's simple." He said, "Putting aside ***, the previous werewolf was obviously also a monster that could lead to a team wipe; also… now we know that we should give the shoes to the little match girl. But… what if we made the wrong move at the time, such as giving the wrong thing, or not responding to her plea before the match burned out…"

"That makes sense…" Ji Chang replied. "In the seemingly almost danger-free script process, there may be many hidden settings that instantly kill the entire team. We can't be careless next time…"

While the four were talking, they had all observed the whole picture of the sixth floor.

The setting of this floor was similar to the fourth floor, but the environment was very different.

The ground on the sixth floor was a muddy swamp, and there were very few places to set foot. On the murals on the four walls, there were black forests and heavy shadows of mountains. And on the ceiling directly above, there was a night sky painted, with sparse long clouds and many stars dotted in the air.

At the corner of the ceiling and the two walls, a paper full moon was hung, and the cold moonlight shone on the swamp.

The path to the upper floor on this level was relatively clear, right on the wall opposite the elevator. There, a winding stone staircase was painted, and the bottom five or six steps of the staircase extended out of the wall, connecting with this three-dimensional space.

On this floor, the area that the players could walk on was restricted, and there weren't many choices. They had no choice but to step on the relatively dry footholds and move towards the stone steps by the opposite wall.

"Watch your step," Honghu, who was walking in the front, reminded. "We don't have any props now. If we fall horizontally into the middle of the swamp, it will be difficult to pull people out."

"Hey… did you guys hear that?" Feng Bujue suddenly said, while also raising his head.