Chapter 72: Indecorum is Forbidden Inside the Castle
Deng Yuan scrambled toward Zhang Katao, her face a mask of terror giving way to the frantic joy of a near-death escape.
"Brother Zhang! I—"
Her voice choked off abruptly.
A cold hand descended, clamping over the back of her head like an iron vice. It was the Butler. He didn't even spare her a glance; he simply closed his fingers, his expression a placid blank.
Squelch—!
With a wet, sickening pop like a tomato crushed underfoot, the back of her head imploded. A grotesque spray of red and white matter erupted, splattering across half of Zhang Katao's face. The warm, viscous spray across his cheek sent a wave of nausea through him, his legs threatening to buckle.
The desperate joy on Deng Yuan's face froze into a rigid death mask. The last thing reflected in her dimming pupils was the profile of Zhang Katao, his expression cold and distant, a silent, brutal declaration: I don't know her. Her body, missing the upper half of its skull, swayed for a moment before collapsing to the floor in a soft, wet heap.
The entire hall plunged into a deathly silence.
Every player, mid-task, froze in place. A fear colder than sweat drenched them, pinning them where they stood.
The Butler slowly retracted his hand. He produced a snow-white handkerchief and began carefully wiping the filth from his pristine glove. His single remaining eye swept over the crowd, and the corner of his mouth lifted into a smile that held no warmth.
"Indecorum is forbidden inside the Castle."
Meanwhile, Haruto was still wrestling with Kaguya. After a brief, undignified tussle, he finally managed to pry her hands away from his eyes.
"What! Are you trying to start a fight?!"
"Did you not say you would treat this one as you would your Ran?" Kaguya declared matter-of-factly, already trying to cover his eyes again.
Haruto dodged, grumbling in annoyance. "So? What's the big deal? Even if this was some R-rated blockbuster, Ran wouldn't try to censor me!"
With that, he turned his head to look at the scene on the floor. A body lay in a spreading crimson pool. What was once fair skin was now smeared with blood and yellowish-white viscera, and the top half of its head was simply… gone.
"Don't look!" Haruto immediately spun around, covering Yotsuya Miko's and Lin Xuelao's eyes with his hands.
Miko's eyelids twitched beneath his palm, while Lin Xuelao weakly raised a hand of her own. "Actually," she said softly, "you don't need to cover mine..."
"Brother Haruto, stop messing around," Miko sighed, her tone laced with helplessness. 'Brother Haruto is wonderful in every way,'she thought,'except that, just like Kaguya, he can't resist being a silly prankster at the worst possible times.'
"You, you, and you," the Butler commanded, his respectful, false smile never wavering, but his voice carried an authority no one dared to question. "One of you will clean the blood from the floor. The rest will drag her to the second-floor stairwell. I will deal with the body later."
Though they bristled at being demoted from "esteemed guests" to "unpaid janitors," no one dared to voice their dissent. The threat of instant, brutal death hung heavy in the air, and the gruesome scene they had just witnessed spurred them into vigorous action.
Haruto and his group, of course, were the exception. More carefree than the Butler himself, he had reclaimed the master's armchair at the head of the hall and was leaning back with leisurely abandon. Yotsuya Miko and Lin Xuelao stood on either side, fanning him gently. Even Kaguya, under some unspoken duress, was rolling her eyes while massaging his shoulders. The scene formed a bizarre, stark contrast to the terrified players scrambling to clean the hall.
The Butler, however, completely ignored them, acting as if Haruto and his entourage didn't exist.
Other players had secretly asked Xie Lin why Haruto wasn't afraid of the Butler, whispering theories about some secret deal.
Xie Lin's answer had been brutally simple: "If you could beat the Butler into that state, you could ignore him too."
That had left them all speechless. If they actually possessed that kind of power, why would they be cowering here like frightened children, living in constant fear?
The Butler stood motionless, his single eye "watching" as two players dragged Deng Yuan's corpse away and another tremblingly mopped the floor. Only after the bloodstains were mostly gone and the body was propped up by the second-floor stairwell did he give a slight, satisfied nod.
"Thank you all for your assistance. Now, esteemed guests, you are free to move about. Dinner will be served at the same time as yesterday."
With that, the Butler ascended to the second floor, effortlessly dragging the corpse with him. He vanished from sight, his footsteps fading into the oppressive silence of the castle.
The hall remained deathly quiet for more than ten seconds before anyone dared to draw a full breath.
"Is... is he gone?" a player asked, his voice trembling.
Zhang Katao wiped the semi-dry blood from his face, took a deep, ragged breath, and glared darkly in the direction the Butler had disappeared. "He's probably gone to feed that monster he's keeping."
There had originally been fifteen players. Two died on the first day. Now, two more had just died on the second.
Eleven remained.
Haruto's group had four people, Xie Lin's had three, and Zhang Katao's hastily assembled team now had four. The number seemed substantial, but this was only the second day. They had to survive for seven days and kill "a certain guy."
The only small mercy was that they didn't have to compete for survival "slots" yet. And with a monster like Haruto in the game, no one believed he would kindly give up a spot. His own companions and Xie Lin's tight-knit team implicitly occupied seven safe positions, meaning the next names on the death list would almost certainly come from Zhang Katao's group of four.
Thinking of this, the four of them relaxed ever so slightly.
"Why did your teammate rush out without any clothes on?" a female college student asked Zhang Katao.
"How the hell should I know!" Zhang Katao snapped, his voice tight with suppressed rage. Losing an obedient pawn had clearly affected him more than the death of a teammate. "Damn it, it was broad daylight! I gave her an item and specifically told her not to be improperly dressed... and the dead bitch still ran out naked for no reason."
There was no sadness in his tone, only raw anger at her dying so pointlessly. The others frowned at his callousness but said nothing; she wasn't their teammate, after all. A few, however, rolled their eyes in silent contempt. It was obvious Zhang Katao had plenty of life-saving items. He'd earned three in this instance alone, and his experienced, manipulative demeanor made it clear he'd tricked many people before.
"She must have seen something terrifying in the bathroom. So scared she ran out without even thinking to put on clothes," a brawny man named Liu Haoran chimed in, his personality as blunt as his physique. He didn't care about sparing Zhang Katao's feelings. "Does that even need to be asked? Are you stupid?"
Being openly scorned by this seemingly simple-minded brute made Zhang Katao's face twist in a brief flash of fury, but he swallowed his anger.
"We can't wait any longer," Xie Lin interjected, seizing the moment. "Let's use this chance to go to the fourth floor and check the surveillance cameras together."
Everyone tacitly agreed. It was only the second day, yet the ghost had dared to climb to the second floor and kill someone in broad daylight while they were all gathered below. By the third and fourth days, when the instance's restrictions on it weakened further, would it not be on a constant, day-long killing spree?
At that point, besides an anomaly like Haruto, who among them could guarantee their own survival?
Xie Lin turned to Haruto. "Are you coming with us? If not, I can share any clues we find when we get back."
"I'll pass," Haruto said, shaking his head. He then turned to Yotsuya Miko. "Miko, you go with them."
Yotsuya Miko gave a gentle nod and silently fell in with the group heading for the stairs.
Only Wu Wenwen was left from Xie Lin's team. Feeling the burning, curious gazes of both Kaguya and Haruto on her, she couldn't help but shrink her neck and take a half-step back.
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