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

After Little Fire Dragon meticulously repeated the phrase, ”Our three-player team’s clearance condition in this dungeon is ’Reach Willow Town,’” Lin Yu felt a brief sound emit from the [One-Statement Lie Detector] tucked in his pocket.

This meant what the other party said was indeed true.

While the [Mind-Peeping Eyepiece] and spiritual sense perception could also assist in lie detection, and Lin Yu could even rule out most deception scenarios through observation alone, this [One-Statement Lie Detector] required no judgment or operation—it determined truth or falsehood from the level of causality.

Therefore, at such a critical moment, Lin Yu naturally wouldn’t begrudge using an [item] charge and chose the most reliable method to confirm the other party wasn’t lying.

Lin Yu let out a sigh.

”Good, now there are no doubts.”

Deadshot nodded. ”It seems Your Excellency Clozapine used some kind of lie detection method to verify the truth of our words, correct?”

”Of course.”

Lin Yu didn’t hide it either.

Squirtle suddenly looked at Lin Yu warily. ”Then should we also test this guy for lies...”

”No need,” Little Fire Dragon said after thinking. ”He was the one who first mentioned the condition ’Reach Willow Town’ earlier—if he were deceiving us, how would he know what our clearance condition is?”

Lin Yu, however, refuted Little Fire Dragon. ”That’s not necessarily true. Because if my clearance condition were something like ’Prevent anyone from entering Willow Town within five days,’ it would be easy to deduce that players opposing my faction likely have a clearance condition of entering Willow Town.”

As Lin Yu spoke, Little Fire Dragon nodded in understanding. ”I see.”

Deadshot spoke up. ”Since you put it that way, I might as well test it too!”

With that, he holstered his gun and took out a black crystal box with a shimmering, flowing surface.

He opened the box, and a small white bat with tiny wings flew out.

Deadshot said, ”You repeat it too.”

Lin Yu also repeated the phrase, ”Our three-player team’s clearance condition in this dungeon is ’Reach Willow Town.’” The white bat then flew over to Lin Yu, circled him twice, and returned to Deadshot.

Deadshot put it back in the box and explained, ”This is a variant of the ’Heart-Devouring Bat Demon’ from the Night Valley Realm. It feeds on the insincerity people produce... Since it didn’t react to you just now, it means your statement earlier was truthful.”

After both sides had confirmed the other’s words were not false, they finally became certain of one thing...

”This really isn’t a ’Competition dungeon’ after all...”

Li Nian exclaimed incredulously.

”That’s great news,” Squirtle also sighed in relief. ”At least we don’t have to face the [Master Thief].”

As he said this, Lin Yu shook his head.

”No, that’s not necessarily good news either.”

”If you’re teaming up with the three of us, it means this [dungeon]’s difficulty is designed based on the combined strength of all six of us,” Lin Yu said calmly. ”The three of you are probably all [Second Tier], right? Although I’m [First Tier], I can responsibly say I should be considered to have [Second Tier] strength.”

”Six [Second Tier] players, and formed from two three-player teams... This means if it’s not a [Competition] dungeon, then the pressure we’ll face from the dungeon itself will be greater.”

”And the main reason we judged this dungeon to be of the [Competition] type was largely because the condition ’Reach Willow Town’ and our current situation seemed too simple, leading us to assume more difficulty might come from other players... This suggests this dungeon might harbor more dangers and challenges than what we currently understand.”

Lin Yu analyzed everything logically, and Little Fire Dragon nodded repeatedly.

”That makes sense. Perhaps compared to [Survival], this current [dungeon] is closer to the [Puzzle] type... At the very least, it should incorporate many puzzle-solving elements!”

As Little Fire Dragon said this, his two teammates agreed.

”So, we’d better exchange information about our respective experiences,” Li Nian said, resting her chin on her hand. ”It just so happens we’ve actually encountered some... rather bizarre situations.”

Li Nian then briefly recounted how they ended up with this Escort Team, informing them about the monster’s abnormal attack, the abnormality of the ”goods” the Escort Team was transporting, the living dead inside Chen Family Fort, and the peculiar incidents of the two dart masters disappearing just now.

Listening to these experiences left Little Fire Dragon, Deadshot, and Squirtle utterly stunned.

”It feels like this dungeon already has considerable difficulty,” Little Fire Dragon remarked with feeling. ”Those who seem dead but are alive, those who seem alive but are dead... and people who vanish inexplicably.”

”These all sound very troublesome to deal with.”

As Little Fire Dragon spoke, Lin Yu looked at them and asked, ”Was your journey really that smooth then... Oh right, I haven’t asked yet, how did you find your way to this Chen Family Fort?”

Hearing Lin Yu’s question, Little Fire Dragon honestly explained, ”Our three-person team’s starting location in the dungeon wasn’t at the Escort Team’s rendezvous point, but in a dilapidated Taoist Temple. Inside the temple was a skeleton that looked like it had been dead for a long time—though now that you mention it, we didn’t examine it closely. Maybe that skeleton was alive too.”

”Anyway, the clothes on the skeleton were quite tattered, so it was easy to see he had a tattered map in his arms, marking several routes leading to different human settlements.”

”One of those routes led to this Chen Family Fort—and it was the closest one, so we came here first.”

As Little Fire Dragon spoke, Deadshot also nodded and added, ”The basic situation is just as Little Fire Dragon said. However, I want to add that we didn’t choose Chen Family Fort randomly. It’s because that map didn’t mark a direct route to Willow Town.”

”So, our goal was to reach a human settlement as quickly as possible and then ask for directions—the unexpected part was running into you all directly here.”

”The old man at Chen Family Fort said an Escort Team had already taken up residence in the stone houses ahead of us, and there were three people in the team who, like us, didn’t seem like locals. We guessed they might be the remaining players, so we came over intending to negotiate.”

After Deadshot finished his addition, Lin Yu nodded and raised a question.

”Can I take a look at your map?”

He took the map and, based on the routes marked, deduced the location where Little Fire Dragon’s group had initially entered this [dungeon].

The location of that Taoist Temple seemed to be about the same distance from Chen Family Fort as his own starting point was from the fort.

This puzzled Lin Yu.

”That’s strange, why did you arrive later than us?”