Gamers Are Fierce-Chapter 579 - 577 Time

"You must be Alice."

Li Ang nodded, sweeping his gaze over the woman in the black dress from head to toe. "Nice Lolita skirt. It's not a knockoff, right? The KC design is a bit outdated, and it doesn't match the color of your necklace. The gauze over the Fish bone Skirt is too thin, revealing the frame beneath. The shoes are too Earthling. As for the overall Fullset quality, I'd say it's passable. Out of a perfect score of 100, I can only give you 82."

"?"

Alice tilted her head, not understanding what he meant.

"Anyway," Li Ang waved his hand, "what is the current time?"

Alice nodded slightly. "It's 10:20 p.m."

"That I know," Li Ang said with a smile. "I'm asking about the month and the date."

Instead of answering directly, Alice just stood there smiling, her gaze seemingly piercing through her mask as she stared at Li Ang's face. "You've already heard it in the corridor. Today is March 7th of the 121st year of the Kingdom of Amezdolis."

"Wrong!" Li Ang said coldly. "The correct time should be 10:20 p.m. on March 4th. One hour and twenty minutes have passed since I woke up."

Alice fell silent for a moment, then slowly asked, "...Why do you think so?"

"Ever since I woke up, I've felt that something is very off here," Li Ang said calmly. "The password decryption was torturous, the level design is inexplicable, and then there's the terrifying figure that looked just like me, appearing and disappearing suddenly. If this corridor were a commercial escape room project, the designer would probably be fired on their first day just for stepping into the company with their left foot, or they'd be directly transferred to Africa, probably to count grains of sand."

He shook the few sheets of letter paper in his hand and continued calmly, "The most suspicious thing is that every time I enter a room and start reading the envelope, conversations precisely begin to sound from the ceiling—always on time, never late.

"At first, I suspected there were surveillance cameras in the corridor monitoring my every move in real-time. When I entered a room, someone behind the scenes would give the order for actors upstairs to perform their scripted dialogue, or perhaps they'd just press a button to activate a recorder hidden in the ceiling and play a pre-recorded audio. However, given my understanding of covert surveillance, despite searching the previous rooms, I found no sign of cameras. In Room E, I deliberately didn't read the letter on the floor immediately. Instead, using a special technique, I covered the letter from Room E with the one from Room B and pretended to read. Yet, the conversation still came from the ceiling."

Li Ang spread his hands. "There are a few possibilities. First, the dungeon's mastermind didn't see or didn't care about my little trick. Second, the walls or doors were embedded with motion capture sensors, and the mastermind issued commands based on when I entered the room. Third, there might be GPS locators in my clothes or under my skin—though considering this world has just begun researching alkylating agents, GPS seems somewhat unrealistic."

He looked at the woman in the black dress, took out the family photo, and said with a smile, "If we discount the less plausible explanations, only one possibility remains: all the conversations upstairs were happening in real time. The Alchemist and his wife in the photo, including you, were all talking normally, without any manipulation. And these conversations, by sheer coincidence, were overheard by me down here."

Alice didn't appear particularly surprised. She tilted her chin up slightly and said softly, "That does sound strange." 𝚏𝕣𝕖𝚎𝚠𝚎𝚋𝚗𝐨𝐯𝕖𝕝.𝕔𝐨𝕞

"Indeed, quite strange," Li Ang nodded. "Let's review the timeline.

"Assuming the conversation in Room C between you and your father was accurate, the time was 9:30 p.m. on the 7th. Working backward from that, I would have woken up at 9:00 p.m. on the 7th in the bed in Room A. At 9:15 p.m., I entered Room B and heard the couple conversing upstairs. The Alchemist was complaining about the samples being destroyed, and his wife was consoling him that everything would improve.

"After that, I left Room B. At 9:20 p.m., I heard a noise, ran to the end of the corridor, and saw someone wearing the same kind of rubber suit as me entering the stone wall next to Room F—right where you're standing now.

"At 9:30 p.m., I entered Room C and heard the Alchemist talking with his eldest daughter, Alice—that's you. He believed he had completely failed, unable to produce the correct potion and incapable of saving his wife and daughter. Comforted by you, he decided to go down the well to carry out his final plan.

"At 9:40 p.m., I heard another noise and left Room C. I saw a figure entering Room D. After an unsuccessful chase and pressed for time, I rushed to Room A to solve the puzzle. However, upon leaving Room A, I saw the man in the rubber suit carrying a Deformed Monster and entering the area behind the stone wall.

"At 9:45 p.m., I entered Room D and heard your conversation with the Alchemist. He said all was lost; someone who looked exactly like him had deceived him and trapped him in the tunnel. This impostor had somehow lured you and your mother away at 9:15 p.m. and had taken Siri, your younger sister, at 9:40 p.m., which led to the death of your mother, Triss.

"At 9:55 p.m., I entered Room E and heard the Alchemist talking with his wife. They were discussing Siri having another nightmare; she felt as though someone climbed out of the cabinet at night to give her medication. Afterward, the Alchemist gave the Alchemist Badge to his wife.

"At 10:05 p.m., I entered Room F, obtained the sugarcane, produced the Energy Battery in Room A, and finally met you here."

Li Ang held all the sheets of letter paper in his hand, fanning them out like a deck of cards, and said indifferently, "There are two problems with this timeline.

"The Alchemist's wife died around 9:40 to 9:45 p.m. Yet, at 9:30 p.m., the Alchemist told you he couldn't produce the potion, wouldn't be able to save his wife and daughter, and had to carry out a certain plan. Note, it's the younger daughter who is sick; his wife was perfectly fine. Judging from their 9:15 p.m. conversation, the Alchemist's wife didn't seem to have any health issues.

"Secondly, the Alchemist's wife died before 9:45 p.m., but at 9:55 p.m., she 'came back to life' and calmly discussed her younger daughter's nightmares with her husband."

Li Ang paused for a moment, then said slowly, "Resurrection, of course, is impossible. Except for online game planners, who seem to exist in a perpetual Schrödinger's state of being dead or alive, no one can go from death back to life. If the information provided by this dungeon is accurate and reliable, then there's only one possibility: the conversations upstairs did not occur on the same timeline."