Kaidan Game Train: Abide Rule or Die!

At this time, someone inevitably brought up another issue, "The Puppet Maker creates three dolls every day, so will the three dolls made tomorrow be chosen from among us?"

After these words were spoken, the group fell silent again. A man wearing a moon-white robe with some kind of religious pattern gently said to Number 2, "I want to return to my room to rest now, could you please lead the way?"

Number 2 called Number 4 and suggested that if anyone else wanted to return to rest, they could join.

Most people still wanted to stay and find clues. After a while, only one sweet-looking young girl came out and said with a smile, "I think the real instance may start tomorrow, we’ll see whose doll comes out first... I hope the first one made is my doll."

After speaking, she left with the man in the robe, following Number 4.

The rest of the people continued to watch in the Display Room, unexpectedly someone did see something different among the dolls.

A male player named Zuo Yu recognized one of the dolls, "This person is very famous at the Wormhole Point I was at, often causing trouble wherever he went. He once had a record of destroying a small country every month for five consecutive months. Moreover, he was a Rank-A Player."

He then looked at the time card standing beside the doll, "No wonder there hasn’t been any news from him for a long time, turns out he’s already dead..."

In fact, the actual content revealed in the instance introduction was very sparse. All people knew about the Puppet Maker was his profession and his crafting habits. The rules listed were mostly aimed at players and were very ambiguous, for example, "Disobedience will result in punishment," but what does "disobedience" mean, and in what form is the "punishment"? These are things players have to figure out, so in the early stages, some players are bound to be lost in trial-and-error.

Cautious players won’t actively make mistakes, to test it out naturally means pushing others to do so.

The dolls in the display cabinet were all understood to be people who had already died.

The last time Xu Huo saw a scene like this with a collection fetish was in the Bauhinia Restaurant, in the Raincoat Cleaner’s room, where badges were collected. Puppets and badges both represented people from different districts, but the puppet instance was a ticket instance, where players would come out one after another, whereas the Bauhinia Restaurant was a moving random instance, moving within different Wormhole Points to hunt for prey.

The dolls in the display cabinet couldn’t be taken by the players, and keep looking would only add mental burdens, so another group of players proposed to tour other parts of the castle, such as the tower, guest rooms, study, entertainment room, etc.

Number 1 and Number 2 obliged and took the players to see all they wanted to see.

But aside from cartoon drawings everywhere or some dolls serving as decorations, there were no other particularly special clues. The servants had cleaned every part of the castle thoroughly, making it impossible to find any clues possibly left by players from a previous instance.

Soon, the players returned to their rooms individually.

More than twenty players, and barely even a floor of rooms was fully occupied.

"Is there a midnight snack?" High Ponytail asked Number 1.

"If you need a midnight snack, you can press the call bell in your room," Number 1 replied.

Zuo Yu also asked, "Can we go out at night?"

"Other than the owner’s private spaces and rooms already occupied by guests, guests can freely enter and exit all other places, without time restrictions," Number 1 clarified even more. 𝒻𝘳ℯℯ𝑤ℯ𝒷𝘯ℴ𝓋ℯ𝘭.𝑐ℴ𝑚

Understanding this, the players each returned to their rooms.

The rooms along the edges were chosen by the earlier players, Xu Huo settled in the middle, while the Girl in the painting chose the room diagonally opposite, and mouthed to him before heading inside, "Let’s go out and play tonight."

Xu Huo had no plans to go out at night, so he locked the door and settled in to sleep.

However, the Girl in the painting wasn’t the only one intending to go out at night. Before midnight, three players had already left their rooms: High Ponytail, a middle-aged man, and the player who hadn’t found a seat at dinner.

They went first, and later two more followed.

The Girl in the painting was the last to leave. Compared to the other’s low-key departure, she seemed oblivious to the atmosphere, probably having played some game in her room first and stretching as she came out. She didn’t knock on Xu Huo’s door but casually strolled along the corridor heading towards the great hall.

The floor where the guests stayed became quiet again for some time. Not long after, High Ponytail returned first, her speed was so quick it was almost like she appeared at the door and then darted back into her room the next second. The middle-aged man who followed wasn’t as lucky; he had claw wounds so deep the bone was visible on his shoulder, and his protective suit worn outside had multiple tears, as if he’d been attacked by a beast.

Their successive returns alerted players who weren’t resting yet, but the noise didn’t continue after that.

A few more minutes passed until a distant "bang" broke the silence. Then came a meowing sound, followed by footsteps in the corridor, then the sound of doors opening and closing.

Most players had instruments and props monitoring their doors, and they could see High Ponytail and the middle-aged man, and naturally, they saw the Girl in the painting, hands stained with blood, leisurely walking back from outside.

As for the player who hadn’t sat down, they never returned.

The next morning, the first person to go to the dining room, Fluorescent Powder, discovered a body laid out on the dining table, it was the player who hadn’t returned to their room, his body covered with the same claw marks from a beast as the middle-aged man, the fatal wound was on the neck.

"What’s going on?" The sweet-looking young girl curiously looked at the middle-aged man, "Are there beasts in the castle?"

The middle-aged man did not respond, and like High Ponytail, both of their expressions were off, yet both of their gazes simultaneously turned to the Girl in the painting.

The other players wanted to know what had hurt them, while the two of them suspected it was something the Girl in the painting had unleashed, as evidenced by the blood on her because the 25th player was not killed in the dining room.

"It’s not a beast," the Girl in the painting raised the Communicator, "it’s a cat."

She led the players to the art studio, pointing to the painting she had unveiled yesterday, the cat in the painting still crouched there, but now the previously pristine paint had two slashes added to it, one on the cat’s front paw, and one on the ear.

"Are you talking about this cat?" A curly-haired woman in her forties glanced at the painting in surprise, then scrutinized the Girl in the painting’s expression, "You’re not joking?"

The Girl in the painting shook her head, specifically pointing out that she had made the cat’s wounds, if they didn’t believe it they could ask High Ponytail and the middle-aged man.

High Ponytail and the middle-aged man did not deny it. The former said, "We really did see a black cat last night, it was quite big, I think it should be some kind of prop."