Death Game: Starting as a Trickster, Pretending to Be a God

As Fern had said, if only considering ”survival rate,” without obvious ”forcing” elements, the optimal solution for this game was actually ”stalling.”

Winning only shortened the time, while losing could mean instant death—though having the mine tunnel blown up might not necessarily be fatal, it still sounded like a difficult punishment to deal with.

However, for the two of them, the current situation truly couldn’t afford to stall.

Leaving aside that Moss was now in an unknown condition that made them extremely uneasy... even ignoring the emergency caused by Grass’s operation, they didn’t have twelve hours to waste!

In reality, their physical bodies were still ”bleeding”—perhaps this was also why Grass had directly taken Moss on this risky venture.

”Let’s go, skeleton.”

The second round of the game began.

The eight bowls spun again and soon stopped.

This time, Fern immediately spoke up to ask.

”Between five-six and three-four, which side has more?”

The skeleton raised its head, remained silent for a moment, then spoke: ”The group with bowl three and bowl four has more mine rats.”

”Good, then what is the total of five and six?”

”The difference in the number of mine rats between these two bowls... is zero.”

The skeleton’s tone carried a slight fluctuation.

”Hah, see, this time the luck is even better. Two questions have already locked in the victory.”

Fern said with a smile toward Algae, then looked at the skeleton.

”Do I really have to ask the last question? Can I make my choice directly now?”

The skeleton spoke with difficulty: ”Of course you can.”

After it finished speaking, Fern then spoke with a smile.

”Then I choose bowl five.”

The skeleton lifted bowl five, revealing it to be completely empty.

Fern chuckled lightly: ”Now I believe it. You really didn’t cheat... truly honest enough.”

After Fern finished speaking, the skeleton silently waved its hand, and the hand shaking the lever sped up again, the mine cart also accelerating once more.

……

Ten minutes later, the mine cart, which had accelerated to nearly breakneck speed, slammed into a wall with a bang, coming to a stop just like that at the bottom of the spiraling descending mine tunnel.

During the final descent, the skeleton had already stopped and left early, so in the end, only Fern and Algae arrived here.

However, both of them were nearly shaken to the point of vomiting by the end, and now they were leaning over the edge of the mine cart, panting.

Algae recovered first, jumped out of the mine cart, and dragged out Fern, who had nearly been knocked unconscious, discovering that the two had arrived at a place resembling a ”rest room.”

A low table held a xenon lamp much brighter than the previous hanging lights, and surrounding the low table were several wooden barrels serving as stools.

At the same time, there was a scattered deck of playing cards on the table.

Sitting beside the table were Lin Yu and Moss. Seeing the two approach, Lin Yu greeted Fern and Algae with a smile.

”Yo... you came pretty fast.”

”As I guessed, with a ’Fraudster’ present, you could indeed see through the ’trap’ in its game and find the fastest way to solve it.”

Fern was stunned: ”What trap?”

Lin Yu also found it strange: ”Of course, it’s the ’any bowl’ it mentions each time... This is a very shallow wordplay. Although at first glance, the biggest problem with its question seems to be that you can’t use a single question to lock in the exact value of a specific bowl, its ’any’ doesn’t specify that it’s any bowl within this round of the game, nor does it necessarily refer to the bowl numbers. So you could ask something like whether the number in bowl eight equals the number in a bowl containing one mine rat.”

”That way, the question becomes a ternary logic puzzle—each time, for your first question, you arbitrarily choose two bowls and ask about the difference in their numbers. The answer has three possibilities: 0, 1, or 2. If the answer is 2, for the second question, directly ask if one of them is 0, guaranteeing a win.”

”If the answer is 1, for the second question, ask if one of them is 1. The one that isn’t 1 is definitely either the winning bowl or a tie.”

”If the answer is 0, then ask for their sum. If it’s 0 or 4, choose either one. If it’s 2, then ask if either of them equals any other bowl. If they’re not equal, choose directly. If they are equal, choose directly from the remaining ones. This is the least ideal situation, but it still eliminates three wrong options, leaving only a one-in-five chance of answering incorrectly—and even if you answer wrong, it’s actually not a big problem, because if the mine cart is already fast enough before the track is destroyed, it’s not fatal.”

”I tied six times, won five times, and lost once.”

Fern fell silent: ”I didn’t think of that...”

”Then how did you get here? It couldn’t have been luck, right?”

Lin Yu asked incredulously.

Algae sat down opposite Lin Yu: ”Grass, you also said that guy is a ’Fraudster,’ so what she relies on naturally isn’t ’Puzzle-solving,’ but ’deception.’”

”Although that skeleton shook the bowls quickly, the sounds of putting in two, one, or none are of course different. Even though I couldn’t tell, Algae could,” Fern said, pursing her lips. ”And since they were lined up in a row, at the very least, Algae could confirm whether the two empty bowls were in the middle, on the left, or on the right... narrowing it down to the range of two bowls.”

”Knowing that one of these two must be empty, I could then ask questions with the answer already in mind.”

”The two of us just needed to act a little, as long as we didn’t let the skeleton discover I was cheating using Algae’s hearing, we could keep using this trick to cheat.”

After listening, Lin Yu remained silent for a moment, then gave a thumbs-up.

”Impressive.”

He only then realized that his own ’Fraudster’ class was sometimes still inferior to a genuine ’Fraudster.’

With the skeleton being honest and not cheating, Lin Yu had forgotten to actively deceive and cheat, instead genuinely focusing on finding the optimal solution to the game.

If cheating, even the worst-case one-in-five failure probability could be avoided—after all, Lin Yu’s plan still had flaws.

If you lost once at the start and didn’t quickly win several times in a row to build up speed, it could still be dangerous.

”Indeed, my thinking is sometimes too rigid... Unless the situation is very urgent, I generally don’t choose methods that break the rules.”

”But as the persona of ’Grass,’ I really shouldn’t use unconventional methods so frequently either.”

Lin Yu reflected and analyzed inwardly.

Essentially, it was still because Lin Yu knew he wouldn’t die in this dream—unlike Algae, Fern, and Moss, Lin Yu had the means to leave the dream at any time.

The first time he entered the dream was because he was caught off guard.

But this time, Lin Yu had actively entered the dream, with Old Zheng and Hannah watching over him.

And as Lin Yu was thinking...

Another mine cart came clattering along.

”Screech—”

Accompanied by the sound of an emergency brake, a vehicle that was less like a mine cart and more like a luxurious small train came to a stop.

The door of the carriage, painted in bright red, opened, and a figure wrapped in a cloak stepped out.

Lin Yu took one look and recognized the other person.

”Well... the real mastermind has finally shown up.”