"We have to take into account the possibility that something supernatural is involved." Greed thought for a moment and said.
"The atmosphere in the house is really weird, and the lighting is off too. Maybe it's not a murder case at all, but a haunting?"
"That's actually possible." Deathstroke nodded. "But I don't think it's Ghosts or anything like that. If it were Ghosts, we'd be better off sticking together. I think it's more likely some kind of rule."
"A rule?" the agent muttered to himself. Then he said, "You mean, being alone will trigger a Curse? Then how come we're fine?"
"Maybe it's a rule like you can't stay in the corridor too long." Greed thought for a bit. "Or maybe you can't exceed a certain number of people, or you're not allowed to talk to certain designated people?"
"Why don't we go out and take a look." Little Superman was completely out of the loop. He said, "The stairs look like they're usable, I want to go outside and see."
Of course, when Greed came, he also saw that the stairs leading to the first floor weren't blocked off; they looked like you could go down. But in a situation like this, no one would actually go down—who knew what was waiting below?
Little Superman was talking as he stood up and walked to the door. Greed hurriedly grabbed him and said, "Don't go. What if there's a Monster down there?"
"I should be able to run back, right?" Little Superman said.
Knowing Little Superman had never played this kind of game, Greed patiently explained to him, "High-difficulty dungeons have instant-death mechanics. That means if you ignore the rules and do certain things, you're very likely to trigger a bad ending where you die on the spot. You don't want to get knocked out of the game right after you just got in, do you?"
"But going down the stairs doesn't count as breaking the rules, does it?" Little Superman yawned. "Besides, if you play a game strictly by the rules, what's the point? If there really is a Ghost, I'd actually like to see what it looks like."
Greed didn't try to talk him out of it anymore. He knew some people won't learn until they get burned, so he just let him go. Deathstroke, however, was worried he might cause trouble, so he stood up and said, "I'll go take a look too."
"Don't follow me." Little Superman refused flatly. "I don't want someone nagging in my ear."
Deathstroke watched Little Superman's departing back, clearly shocked and confused. He had taken Little Superman for another Clark Kent and couldn't understand why Superman was acting like this.
"You didn't offend him." Greed supplied the answer. "He's not your average Superman; he's got more of a personality."
Deathstroke shook his head, sat back down, and continued to work with the other two on the background setting and plot, mainly focusing on the supernatural phenomena and the murder case.
Suddenly, the light overhead flickered and then went out, plunging the entire room into darkness. The three of them stayed where they were without moving.
Did we trigger an instant death? Greed wondered, a bit puzzled. The three of them hadn't done anything. Was it Little Superman?
But usually, in dungeons that don't acknowledge off-field factors, parties formed by players aren't recognized either; they don't just get their teammates dragged down out of nowhere because of something one person did.
Could it be that we're not allowed to mention supernatural phenomena? But this wasn't the first time they'd brought it up. Back when Little Superman was still here, they'd already talked about hauntings and stuff.
The three of them quickly ran through what they had just said in their heads and didn't find any words that might have triggered danger, so they could only treat this as the beginning of the plot.
"Power's out." Little Superman's voice suddenly came from outside the door. "But I found the electrical room on the first floor. Anyone want to come with me and check it out?"
The three all looked at him. Splitting up now was clearly unwise. If two went to check it out and two stayed in the room, they wouldn't be able to help each other if something happened. The best move now was to stick together.
The three stood up and followed behind Little Superman. As Little Superman walked down the stairs, he said, "It was kind of dark down there when I came down, so I felt along the wall and found this door. After I went in, I realized it was the electrical room."
"Did the power go out when you opened the door?"
"It was really dark down there, so I don't know exactly when the power went out. When I came back up, I saw all the lights were off. That's when I figured there was probably something wrong with the circuit, but I honestly didn't touch anything."
Greed did believe that Little Superman probably hadn't done it on purpose, but whether opening the electrical room was a key node for advancing the plot was another question, and nobody knew whether the story was supposed to progress at this point. Maybe this was just the headache of bringing a newbie along.
Once they entered the electrical room, there was a small emergency light, so it was actually brighter inside than outside. Deathstroke walked over and checked it, then said, "Looks like a fuse blew. We need to replace the fuse."
"So now we have to go find fuses?" Greed seemed to recall something unpleasant. "How many do we need?"
Deathstroke glanced at the breaker box and said, "Looks like four."
"We're going to look for it?" the agent asked.
"Staying in the dark too long is never a good thing." Greed obviously had experience. "Even if the supernatural stuff wasn't that bad to begin with, keep the lights off this long and all kinds of demons and ghosts are going to crawl out."
The agent sighed and said, "Then let's look. It's unlikely to be in a bedroom, should be in some public area. What else is there on the first floor?"
They had already confirmed that the second and third floors were all bedrooms, so the common areas were most likely on the first floor. A fuse box was usually in a storage room, living room, or kitchen.
Little Superman shook his head. "The first floor is insanely dark, I couldn't see a thing. But there seems to be a window up ahead, we can go check it out."
Leaving the electrical room, they walked forward together, but soon ran into a fork. Straight ahead there really was a window, probably the kitchen, but turning left there was another corridor, maybe leading to a storage room or the garden.
They didn't want to split up, but for efficiency's sake they still divided into two groups. Greed and Little Superman headed to the kitchen, while the other two chose to go left.
The kitchen looked just as old, the counter covered in dust, the sink greasy and grimy. The window above provided a faint bit of light, but you still couldn't make out many details.
Once in the kitchen, Little Superman started pulling open drawers one by one. Greed reminded him, "Careful, pay attention to your surroundings. Watch out for someone jump-scaring you in your face."
Little Superman said nothing, just kept rummaging. Greed also began checking, but he searched very meticulously. Besides the drawers, he carefully examined the countertop, and even memorized the floor patterns in the parts he could see. Batman was very likely to use these elements in the puzzles.
"Ah, got it." Little Superman fished two fuses out of the bottom drawer. He said, "Done, let's head back."
"Hold up, you haven't finished checking that drawer, have you?" While busy with his own work, Greed still kept an eye on Little Superman. "Finish searching before we leave. Don't miss some crucial clue."
"You do it." Little Superman said. "I'll go take a look over there."
Greed kept rifling through the drawers while Little Superman walked to the other side of the kitchen. There was a door there, but it wouldn't open—Greed had already tried. He wasn't surprised, though; unlocking a new area needed a key. The key was either on the estate owner or in his bedroom, and since the story hadn't progressed to that point yet, of course it wouldn't open.
But Little Superman seemed weirdly fixated on that door—pulling on it one moment, pushing the next. Shortly after, he went over to the window, apparently trying to yank it open.
"Don't bother." Greed said. "In this kind of box-garden map, stuff like that is definitely sealed…"
He hadn't even finished speaking when Little Superman pulled the window open a crack. Greed widened his eyes and looked over, but he immediately noticed something else—that the snow outside seemed to have no temperature.
Without any air circulation, the wind wouldn't be strong, but there should at least be some chill seeping in. Greed moved closer to the window, yet felt no cold at all. All kinds of possibilities surfaced in his mind.
Is this an Illusion? he thought. If they were inside a dream right now, the lack of temperature sensation would be normal, and this would count as a clue. As for why a window was being used to reveal it, it was probably for the sake of subverting expectations.
Veteran players would never casually try to break past the edge of the map, because it might trigger an instant-death penalty, or just be a waste of effort. Hiding a clue in a spot like this made it genuinely hard to find—very much in Batman's style.
Fortunately, Little Superman wasn't a veteran player, and he belonged to the free-exploration type when gaming. He didn't care what the author wanted him to do; he just did whatever he wanted. He was the sort who, if the main quest was to save the Princess, would still be happily grinding in the Temple until the Princess died of old age.
If this really was a dream, then a lot of things started to make sense. Like why the house's atmosphere felt so off, why such a luxurious estate would be stuck in the middle of a snowy plain, and why so many people would gather here for no reason. But whose dream was this?
There were still too few clues to even begin to guess. Greed only quietly filed this information away, while Little Superman actually wanted to try squeezing out through that crack.
He climbed right up on the counter and kicked at the opened window, but no matter how brutally he treated it, the window would only open that tiny slit. So he stuck his arm out and groped around outside, but felt nothing at all. Unfortunately the window really couldn't be forced open any wider, or he definitely would've stuck his head out.
While he was busy fussing there, Greed finished exploring the kitchen. He came to a conclusion: this place was very likely a dream. Because this kitchen was far too barebones.
If you've never lived in an estate, you can't really imagine what an estate kitchen looks like. An estate doesn't just house the owner; there are servants, maybe relatives staying over, and handymen. To feed such a big crowd, the kitchen has to be large and constantly busy.
But in this kitchen, the pots and pans were basically only the ones on the counter, and the drawers were empty. It looked like there were a lot of things, but it definitely wasn't enough. Once you actually started cooking, five or six people wouldn't even have enough knives to go around. And it was missing tons of sundries and daily necessities—as if, in a dream, the dreamer just couldn't think of that many details.
They say what you think of by day, you dream of by night. If the dream's owner were a tycoon, the kitchen wouldn't be this unreasonable. Only if the person wasn't rich would their dream be this bare.
This counted as an important clue about the dream's owner, and the fact that he even had this estate in his memory meant he must have been here once. Since he wasn't the owner of the estate, he ought to have been a guest invited over. Could it be that he once witnessed something in this estate, which led him to have this dream?
And he, as a Detective, was supposed to find clues in the dream in order to deduce the killer in reality?