God's Imitator

A series of clicking sounds rang out as the mouth restraints on all the inner room players unlocked simultaneously. The ten-minute countdown for the preparation phase also began.

This meant they could now communicate freely.

Everyone looked at each other. No one spoke for the moment.

Deng Xiao picked up the board in front of him, and his eyes immediately went wide, pupils contracting.

Because on the upper half of the board, his offence was written out clearly.

He glanced around at the others in a slight panic, then adjusted the angle of the board to make absolutely certain no one else could see its contents.

The other players’ expressions varied. Some showed the same obvious alarm as Deng Xiao, while others looked entirely calm and unaffected.

But on the whole, everyone spent a considerable amount of time reading through their own offence.

After a somewhat long silence, Lu Bingjun was the first to speak.

”Everyone should have read through it by now. According to the rules, confession is actually the best solution in this game.”Whatever the volume or the content, Lu Bingjun’s words were impossible to ignore. Sure enough, a dissenting voice came almost immediately.

”Confess?

”What are you talking about? That would trigger an instant-death penalty. Of course, if you want to confess, I have no objection.”

The speaker was a young man in his mid-twenties with a few streaks of dyed blonde in his hair. His clothes and accessories, however, did not look like something a reckless young troublemaker would wear, and suggested a comfortable economic background.

Deng Xiao glanced at his name badge: [Community 7 - Li Hui].

As a fellow community member, Deng Xiao instinctively wanted to say something in support of Lu Bingjun, but held himself back.

Lu Bingjun did not appear to need his help anyway.

”The key point is this: an instant-death penalty can be cancelled out by an immunity voucher.

”We come from three different communities, and we’re already in the Second Stage. The vast majority of communities will have activated immunity vouchers by now. The only question is whether they’ve finished their cooldown.

”As long as any one of us is willing to confess and produce an immunity voucher, the game can end immediately with no risk to anyone.”

Li Hui was dismissive, ”But why would the community holding an immunity voucher waste their precious voucher just to help everyone else clear the game?

”The normal way of thinking is to keep playing and only use the voucher when you’re genuinely facing a risk of death.”

Lu Bingjun shook his head, ”It’s probably not that simple.

”Think about why the Imitator introduced the ’Confession’ rule only after explaining all the other rules.

”It was specifically to make us fully appreciate how dangerous this game is.

”The rules only say that players who receive a ’Sudden Death Vote’ will face a penalty, but don’t specify what that penalty is. At the same time, the rules clearly state that deaths can occur, and the visa time of deceased players will be distributed.

”So I believe this game will result in deaths, and most likely not through the instant-death penalty mechanism.

”The carving on the back of these boards is the hint.”

Everyone had already noticed the carvings on the back of their boards, and each reached back to touch it instinctively.

Lu Bingjun continued, ”The heart carving on the back pulses at exactly the same rate as our own heartbeats. Combined with the name ’Sudden Death Vote,’ the penalty is almost certainly applied directly to our hearts.

”If you die that way, an immunity voucher cannot save you.

”Because according to the item description, immunity vouchers can only cancel out ’instant-death penalties’ as defined in the rules.

”In other words, if we miss this confession window, even an immunity voucher won’t protect anyone later on.”

Li Hui’s expression shifted, ”What? That’s ridiculous. If an Imitator can bypass immunity vouchers this easily, what’s the point of the item in the first place?

”I think you’re just trying to trick another community out of their immunity voucher.

”Of course, if you want to use your own and confess yourself, that’s another matter entirely.”

Lu Bingjun let out a sigh, ”Our community’s immunity voucher hasn’t finished its cooldown.”

Li Hui spread his hands with an expression of ’as I suspected.’

”What a coincidence. Neither has ours.”

Another silence fell.

Lu Bingjun’s suggestion sounded appealing in principle, but was unworkable in practice.

His expression, however, was not one of defeat. After a brief pause he accepted the reality without much difficulty.

”Alright. This outcome was to be expected.

”I was simply making everyone aware of the possibility. Whether to use an immunity voucher is ultimately each person’s own choice.

”Looking at the game rules, this game is probably far more dangerous than any of you are imagining. Playing through to the end will almost certainly result in significant casualties.

”But since this is everyone’s collective decision, so be it.”

No one spoke further.

Before long, the countdown ended and all the inner room players’ mouth restraints locked shut again.

New information appeared on the large screen.

[No player has confessed. The game begins. Good luck!]

The timer on the central platform reset.

[Round 1 - 14:59]

[Writing Time - 1:59]

During the confession countdown, Deng Xiao had already been thinking carefully through the game rules.

While all the players could speak freely during that period, he could not simply consult Lu Bingjun openly about strategy. That would have amounted to plotting out loud.

He had no choice but to think through the options on his own.

”The rules aren’t too complicated. In simple terms, everyone writes one sentence on their board, takes turns speaking, and then the voting is based on two criteria: ’most severe offence’ and ’highest risk of sudden death.’

”The more votes you receive, the closer you are to death.

”In the best case, maybe only one person needs to die for the game to end. If the Impostor dies, it ends immediately. If someone else dies and the Impostor chooses to end it, that works too.

”But in the worst case, everyone except the Impostor could die if the Impostor keeps refusing to end the game.

”So the most urgent thing right now is working out what to write on the board.”

In the white room, the scratch of markers on boards was clearly audible, which only made the silence feel more unsettling.

Some players had already started writing.

Once Deng Xiao had sorted his thoughts, he quickly turned his attention to the board.

The entire board functioned like a special display screen. The upper half showed specific information, and the lower half was for writing.

The offence content that had appeared there before was gone. In its place were two sentences, both in clean printed type.

[1. I have a clear conscience toward all of my gym members.]

[2. I regularly engage in high-intensity vigorous exercise.]

At the sight of those sentences, Deng Xiao’s expression shifted.

He immediately understood that these two sentences corresponded to his ’offence’ and his ’health’ respectively. Writing either one could give other players a reason to come after him.