Book 4: Chapter 19

Shut Up, Malevolent Dragon! I Don’t Want to Have Any More Children With You

“Looks like this is an item card that can help you turn the tables when you’re cornered.”

Noya said, “In most cases, if it comes down to one wolf and one good player, the wolf wins right away. But with this card, it’s basically a chance to flip the outcome.”

In the family-style Werewolf games Noya had played, the good side could only eliminate wolves by voting or by using special roles’ abilities.

So most of the time, when it became one wolf versus one good player, the wolf was always the one who won easily.

But this live-action immersive game was still different from Werewolf.

It offered so many intel cards and item cards precisely to increase the players’ mind games and clashes—and to make everyone feel more immersed.

“Then Noya, you should keep this card.”

Helena said, “The ‘Princess’ role is crucial. Everything we do on the good side revolves around the princess, so you have to survive to the end. And if there’s still a wolf at the end, you can use this card to try for a comeback.”

“Yeah, yeah, Sister, you take it,” Mu’en chimed in.

Noya nodded and put away the “Reincarnation Deadlock” item card.

“Then let’s keep looking for more clues.”

“Okay.”

The three little dragon girls set off again.

The next few tasks only gave them some lukewarm intel cards—mostly used to flesh out each role’s background.

But the direction was extremely vague, like a thin thread: even if you grabbed it, you couldn’t really pull out anything useful.

The entire evening, the three of them kept running around completing tasks.

With two hours left before the 8 p.m. meeting, Noya suggested they go back to their rooms, eat something, and then continue.

Mu’en and Helena had no objections.

But just as the dragon girls were about to return, the memory stone in Helena’s pocket suddenly played the NPC notification:

“‘Guard,’ you have been killed. ‘Guard,’ you have been killed.”

The voice echoed down the corridor, like the Grim Reaper striking a funeral bell again and again.

A second ago, the Meierkwei sisters were happily discussing what to eat for dinner.

Now, all of them froze in place.

This wasn’t the first time Mu’en had witnessed a “crime scene” up close, but after that eerie kill announcement, she still immediately hid behind Noya.

Noya’s pupils trembled slightly as she stared at her best friend in disbelief.

Helena was just as lost, as if her brain hadn’t caught up with what had happened.

“I… I got killed?!”

“But how is that possible… We’ve been doing tasks all afternoon. We didn’t meet a fourth person even once. How could you possibly get killed…?”

Noya rarely got frightened by anything—especially not in a game.

But after A-Guang, Helena had now been killed for no reason as well…

That wolf was like a ghost: unseen, untouchable—yet capable of lurking behind anyone at any time.

Soon, a staff member arrived.

“Miss Helena, you have been eliminated. Please follow me to the God’s Observation Room for rest.”

Helena followed the rules and left with the staff.

When she reached the corner of the corridor, Helena stopped, turned back, and looked at Noya.

“Sorry, Princess… I can’t protect you anymore.”

Noya gave a bitter smile.

“Your duty is fulfilled, Guard.”

Helena smiled, nodded, waved lightly, then stepped forward and disappeared around the corner.

After Helena left, Mu’en tugged at Noya’s sleeve.

Noya directly reached out and held her sister’s hand.

“Sister, what… what do we do now? It feels like that wolf could kill us at any moment.”

Noya frowned, biting her lower lip in thought.

After a brief pause, she said, “Let’s call a temporary meeting. We can’t wait until eight. If we do, someone else might get killed again.”

“Okay.”

……

Ten minutes later, everyone gathered in the meeting room once again.

“So… the one who got killed this time was Helena?”

Claudia had naturally noticed right away that her daughter wasn’t present.

Noya nodded.

“Yes. I called the temporary meeting. All afternoon, Helena, Mu’en, and I were doing tasks together—we never ran into a fourth person. But just now, Helena was killed for no reason, just like A-Guang.”

“Just like I guessed,” Leon said. “That wolf really does have long-range killing ability.”

Claudia rested a hand under her chin, analyzing.

“But when A-Guang and Helena were killed, Mu’en was present the whole time. Could it be that…”

“It wasn’t me, Aunt Claudia. I was doing tasks properly the whole time.”

Mu’en’s tone was extremely sincere, but the content of her words wasn’t exactly convincing.

Still, she was a child. Everyone was here to have fun—no one would push her too hard.

In the end, Leon explained for his precious daughter.

“Mu’en is in the ‘Friend Group.’ She’s on the good side. She can’t be the one who killed A-Guang and Helena.”

Claudia nodded.

“Mm. That’s true.”

Isha’s gaze swept over them, and then she spoke.

“So now we can confirm one thing: this wolf has a long-range killing skill, and we have no countermeasures at all—no clear clues either. Right?”

The two remaining little dragon girls quietly shook their heads.

Claudia’s silence was also an answer.

Leon and Rosvithar exchanged a look—like the couple were using their private “team voice chat” to communicate.

Isha caught the little movement immediately.

Her red dragon eyes narrowed slightly, but she didn’t linger her gaze on it.

“Actually, Rosvithar and I found a clue earlier—one related to the ‘Queen.’”

Leon spoke up.

“Me?” Claudia’s voice was calm.

“Yes,” Leon said. “That intel card said the Queen loves her daughter, but seems to have another purpose.”

Leon continued steadily.

“And after that, I teamed up with Mu’en and A-Guang to complete a three-person task. We got another intel card that said, ‘That thing is a curse. It must be destroyed.’”

“That thing should refer to the Black Holy Stone.”

“And based on the game’s background story, aside from the late King and the current Princess, the person who should understand the Black Holy Stone best would be the Queen.”

“So the line ‘It must be destroyed’ is very likely something the Queen said.”

“Plus, the intel card says the Queen has another purpose… so I have reason to suspect that Aunt Claudia, you’re in the wolf faction, aren’t you?”

Leon didn’t slam the verdict down that Claudia was a wolf, because all of the above was still his inference based on two intel cards and the story background.

There was no concrete proof.

But this was also the only relatively useful lead they had so far.

With two good players already dead, if they didn’t share clues and analyze together, that long-range killer wolf would probably become the game’s “King of Kills.”

After hearing Leon’s reasoning, everyone turned their eyes to Claudia.

The beautiful woman remained calm and composed.

After thinking for a moment, she answered in an unhurried tone:

“Since that wolf has long-range killing ability, there’s no need for me to keep hiding things so cautiously anymore.”

“First, let me be clear: I’m not a wolf. But I’m also not completely on the good side.”

“The intel card you and Rosvithar found said, ‘The Queen has another purpose’—but don’t ignore the first half: the Queen also deeply loves the Princess.”

“I am indeed on the Princess’s side. I will help her recover the stolen Black Holy Stone.”

“But after finding it, I have my own hidden objective: to destroy the Black Holy Stone.”

“In the eyes of the ‘Queen’ role, the Black Holy Stone is a generational curse. It draws factions into conflict, gets countless people killed, and even her beloved ‘Princess’ could one day be framed or harmed because of the struggle for it.”

“So the ‘Queen’ wants to destroy it after obtaining it.”

“My task card says this:”

“If I successfully help the ‘Princess’ find the Black Holy Stone in the end, then the entire good faction—including the ‘Queen’—wins, and the ‘Queen’ receives the faction reward.”

“But if the ‘Queen’ finds it ahead of time and uses an item card to ‘Destroy’ it, then the ‘Queen’ becomes the true winner and receives the final game reward—the ‘Black Holy Stone’ made from Nightspirit Crystal.”

“And once the ‘Destroy the Black Holy Stone’ ending is triggered, besides the Queen winning, the Princess’s faction will also be judged as victorious and receive corresponding prizes.”

At that, Claudia slowly let out a breath.

Then she looked at Leon with a faint smile in her eyes.

“Simply put: yes, I have my own purpose—my hidden objective. But I can choose not to complete it. As long as Noya wins in the end, I’ll still get other rewards.”

Leon had reasoned based on the role background, and his deduction wasn’t wrong: as the Queen, Claudia really did have the goal of destroying the Black Holy Stone.

But because of the information gap between roles, there was no way Leon could have known her alternate win condition.

That couldn’t be helped.

The fact that Leon managed to get Claudia to reveal her hidden objective at all was already impressive.

“Alright. I misunderstood you, ma’am,” Leon said.

“It doesn’t count as a misunderstanding,” Claudia replied lazily. “After all, I couldn’t exactly lay out my entire objective the moment the game began.”

She smiled languidly, crossed her long legs, and looked at Noya.

“So then, my dear Princess—you now know my hidden objective and win condition. Are you going to vote me out?”

Noya met those sea-blue eyes.

She could tell: Aunt Claudia wasn’t trying to steer her toward a choice.

She wanted Noya to decide for herself.

After a brief moment of thought, Noya said,

“I won’t vote you out, Aunt Claudia. The good side has already lost two players—I can’t afford to lose a crucial role like the Queen. And…”

“Your hidden objective can help us secure victory at the critical moment.”

Destroy the Black Holy Stone—equals victory for the good faction.

Snap—

Claudia snapped her fingers, leaned forward, and pinched Noya’s soft cheek.

“Smart little one.”

“So we still haven’t found the wolf who’s doing the killing,” Rosvithar said.

“But at least we narrowed it down.”

Noya looked toward Leon and the others.

“It’s not Mu’en. It’s not Aunt Claudia. That means the remaining two lone wolves can only be among Mom and Dad, and Aunt Isha.”

“Three people, pick two… that doesn’t seem difficult, does it?”

“Not difficult, Noya,” Leon reminded her, “but don’t blindly believe what Aunt Claudia says either.”

Noya blinked, then nodded thoughtfully.

“Got it, Dad.”

“Well, confirming the target range is progress,” Isha said, slowly standing up with a smile.

“It’s better than running around like headless flies.”

“Then let’s leave it at that for now. When someone gets killed again, we’ll call another temporary meeting. That’ll narrow it down even further.”

Leon watched Isha’s expression and tone as she said this.

Why did it feel like… Isha really wanted to hold meetings?

Could it be that she’d been a leader for so long in real life that she just liked calling small meetings?

“Mm, okay.”

Everyone else stood up too and left the meeting room one after another.

Two consecutive good players being killed remotely forced the remaining players to stay even more alert.

Even though they knew vigilance wouldn’t help much—if that wolf wanted to keep killing, they still had no warning mechanism.

But just as Leon had said, a skill that overpowered had to have limits.

Now Leon wanted to find what those limits were.

Only by identifying the opponent’s weakness could they counter it.

And—

Leon was the last one to walk out of the meeting room.

Hands in his pockets, he stood alone in the vast first-floor hall.

Slowly, he raised his head and looked at the huge wall clock.

“Six thirty…”

“There’s less than two hours until the next full meeting.”

“I have to find that guy… before the next meeting.”

…

Footnotes:

1. jué chù féng shēng

   Meaning: “To find life in desperate circumstances”; turning a hopeless situation into a chance to survive.

2. bù tòng bù yǎng

   Meaning: “Neither painful nor itchy”; describes something insignificant, bland, or not worth attention.

3. liú yǐng shí

   In-story item meaning: a “memory stone” used for recordings/notifications (fantasy tech/magic device).

4. pán yì pán

   Gaming/internet slang: “to analyze it together,” “to break it down,” often used in deduction contexts.

5. méi tóu cāng ying

   Meaning: “headless flies”; describes acting blindly without direction.

6. chāo mó

   Gaming slang (from “over model/over tuned”): something “overtuned/overpowered,” beyond normal balance.

7. duì nèi yǔ yīn

   Internet/gaming phrase: “team voice chat,” implying private coordination between allies.