Tonight was destined to be a sleepless night...
The flickering candlelight danced in the darkness. Though faint, it clearly illuminated the faces of everyone around.
"Pair of 7s." The old man drew two cards from his hand and placed them on the table, a smile on his face as he said, "If you don't make a move soon, I'm going to win!"
"Can't beat that." Dmitri said with a hint of frustration.
His luck wasn't great this round; he still had a large handful of cards, but they were all scattered and disjointed...
Next, it was Wang's turn to play. He glanced at the two cards on the table, pursed his lips, and said, "Pair of Kings!"
"Tsk..." The old man shook his head regretfully but didn't say anything, merely turning his gaze to the next player.
Caleb silently looked at the four cards in his hand and shook his head, "Pass."
Dmitri's eyes widened in shock, "Bro, don't play like that! He only has 3 cards left. If we give him another chance to play, we lose!"
Caleb gave him a reassuring look, "Why so nervous? Don't you know that the trump cards are always played last?"
He then turned and looked at No. 1 calmly.
The old man smiled and shook his head, a look of certain victory apparent in his eyes, "You're going to lose. Pair of Aces!"
He had been observing; the Big and Little Jokers had already been played early on. It was impossible for the other side to have a hand that could beat a pair of Aces now.
Unless someone was lucky enough to have a bomb (four of a kind). But that was simply impossible. If they had one, they would have played it in the previous round; they definitely wouldn't have saved it for last.
Dmitri covered his face in despair, "It's over!"
Wang spread his hands, indicating he had no options left either.
So everyone turned their gaze to the young man sitting on the left, who had been quietly playing with his Caterpie.
Just then, the sound of a struggle came from the darkness outside the room. It seemed things had concluded over there too. The final victor was unknown.
Caleb raised an eyebrow slightly, looked up at the old man, and said, "I'm afraid you've all lost."
He spread his remaining cards on the table, revealing four sixes of different colors...
"How is this possible?" The old man was stunned for a moment, then asked, "Why didn't you play it last round? Weren't you afraid I might have had other trump cards?"
Wang suddenly snapped out of his daze. He noticed his teammate had said "you've all lost" instead of just "you lose"...
Caleb grinned, pointed to his head, and said, "My memory is very good. The Big and Little Jokers were played early on, so the other combinations couldn't form a bomb either."
The old man was taken aback for a moment, then laughed helplessly, "You youngsters..."
But soon, his laughter faded. He just saw the Caterpie on the young man's shoulder slowly begin to change, gradually transforming into a Pokémon similar to Pikachu.
'A Mimikyu?!' The old man sat there dumbfounded, looking at this scene in disbelief.
Caleb directed Mimikyu to attack Dmitri's Gloom, saying, "It's time to end this."
Dmitri's eyes widened. His lips moved, and he said in a trembling voice, "B-bro."
Wang frowned, equally shocked as he looked at Caleb.
"No wonder..." The old man quickly came to his senses and understood everything.
Now that this game of Werewolf was obviously over, and the werewolf faction had won final victory, he wasn't in a hurry to end things. It was just a matter of losing a few hundred points, so he wasn't worried.
"I really didn't expect the second werewolf to be you. But since it's you, then everything that happened before makes sense." After figuring everything out, the old man laughed heartily in relief, "Indeed, this world belongs to you young people now!"
Caleb turned to look at Dmitri and Wang and said, "Don't worry. New players have newcomer protection in their first Instance. So there's no penalty for failure. But don't easily trust other players in the future. After all, not everyone is as friendly to noobs as I am."
Over the past two days, he had taken the time to explain most of the Infinite World's functional facilities and Instance rules to these two, to prevent them from being thrown into a punishment Instance out of ignorance later.
Dmitri and Wang, who had been feeling angry about being deceived, found the accusatory words they had prepared stuck in their throats upon hearing this. In the end, they could only nod gloomily.
Being the victim the werewolf had eliminated in this round, Dmitri was the first to be sent away from the Instance.
At that moment, the voice of the virtual projection rang out. Then all players flashed before disappearing, and the next second, they were directly teleported to the first-floor hall.
Out of the original twelve complete players, only four remained at this moment...
Caleb glanced at the positions of No. 10 and No. 12... Sure enough, as he had expected, No. 12's seat was now empty. No. 10 had killed the werewolf and successfully taken her place.
<.. It's been detected that the number of remaining ordinary civilians is equal to the number of werewolves. Game conditions are not met. This game of Werewolf is over. The final winners are the werewolf faction!..>
<..Thank you all for participating. I wish you all a pleasant journey in your future Instances! Goodbye!..>
With the game concluded, everyone received prompts for task completion or failure.
The old man waved to the three people in front of him and said cheerfully, "Goodbye, youngsters!"
After saying that, his figure was the first to vanish from the hall.
Wang nodded to Caleb and followed closely, leaving the Instance to explore the broader Infinite World.
Caleb wasn't in a hurry to return. He looked at No. 10 beside him and beckoned, "So, tell me about that Instance."
After observing her for the past few days, he had a vague feeling that this woman might be more than she let on.
And based on her previous description of that Instance:
"A very high-difficulty Instance..." "Finding a strong enough teammate..."
&
"Because you're the only player to have come out of a punishment Instance alive..."
Caleb was confident that the Instance was definitely not as simple as he had imagined.
Men die for wealth, birds die for food. If it was too difficult, he wouldn't get involved. He could earn the 100 000 points by running a few dozen more ordinary Instances.
Clara was silent for a moment, then looked up and said, "Let me formally introduce myself. I am Kozuki Yuna."
Kozuki Yuna, a high-ranking player in 2nd place on the player leaderboard, who also possessed several powerful S-rank titles on the title leaderboard... Such as; 'Spectral Phantom', 'Flower of Darkness', and 'Queen of the Night Moon'...
A series of titles that sounded incredibly powerful, along with her ranking, flashed through Caleb's mind. He immediately shook his head and said, "Sorry, I'm out."
He had witnessed the situation in the punishment Instance, so if real danger arose, players might be killed before they even had time to use items. Even with a Super Escape Rope, it wouldn't be absolutely safe.
Yuna looked calmly at Caleb. A faint blue light glowed in her eyes.
Faced with this answer, she merely shook her head gently and said softly, "You will go. I see the connection between you and that Instance. There, a lost star is waiting for you..."