Chapter 399 Eliminating Unsuspecting Prey
Looking at the description for the puzzle, it seems like they had to read out runes while a designated person would enter in the password.
The way this works is that there is a central platform and four rooms. Each of the rooms will have a small wave of monsters and one of the adventurers would need to protect someone while they read out the rune and its position in the password.
Once all four runes are collected in the right order, they'll be allowed into the next level of this stage.
The slayer would need to either A, delay the situation and let the monsters eliminate the people or B, they do it themselves.
Since they're moving in pairs, the slayer would be revealed should they sabotage too obviously. This also forces them to be the ones that have to think about what they're doing in order to pass successfully. Then again, the reward for succeeding is a free pass to the next round so the task must be hard.
However, for Shiro, this was easy to bypass.
"Right then, who's going to be in the centre platform?" Shiro said with a smile.
Instantly, the people on the team became wary since they can't have the slayer be in the centre platform or else they can lie about the order of the sequence and use the time to eliminate one of the people without anyone else realising.
"Since we don't know who the slayer is, why don't we take a gamble and assign someone random. I'm going to spin my sword and whoever it points towards will be in the centre platform. Of course, you guys can keep a watch on me so that you know I haven't tampered with the spin with my mana." One of the warriors suggested.
"Sure, I'm fine with that." Shiro nodded since this didn't really affect her. Regardless of who was chosen to be in the centre, Shiro can take three people with ease.
Spinning the sword, the warrior stepped back and waited for it to finish.
Eventually, it landed on Shiro's group which caused Shiro to raise her eyebrows.
"Welp it seems like it's us then." Shiro smiled while looking at Summer.
"Mn." Summer nodded but said nothing else.
'Heh~…. This girl is a quiet one.' Shiro thought to herself.
"Alright, now that the teams are sorted, let's go."
Walking over to the teleport circle that seemed to have appeared behind them, Shiro watched as her other party members were also teleported in their respective teams.
'Good luck.' Shiro muttered in her mind as they flickered from their spot. When her vision cleared, they were on a stone platform that seemed to be surrounded by the empty void.
Nodding to each other, they jogged towards their spots as Shiro and Summer readied their bow in case the 'slayer' were to make a move now and eliminate three people quickly.
Arriving at the main console, Shiro saw that it was a holographic rune board that housed all the runes with four empty slots in the centre.
"Do you want to be the one using this or shall I?" Shiro asked.
"You can." Summer replied since the one using the keyboard would be in more danger. They wouldn't be able to react as easily to a sneak attack and Summer knew that she couldn't trust anyone but herself during this test.
"Sure, I don't mind." Shiro nodded.
"Centre platform ready!" She called out.
"Team 1 ready!." Lorenzo shouted out since he was the 'guardian' of team one and he would need to clear the wave of monsters.
This was perfect for Shiro since she could get a clear view of his position. Though it wasn't as if it was too important since her nanobot could give her his position to begin with.
Receiving positive responses from the other teams, they started to test.
Looking over at team 4, where Silvia was, Shiro realised that she must have been the one to read out the runes.
'Well that makes things a bit easier I suppose.'
As the monsters started to spawn, Shiro narrowed her eyes slowly as her lips curved into a smile.
Just before the first rune was shouted out, she flexed her finger a little and detonated the nanobot hidden on Lorenzo's body.
*BANG!
All of a sudden, his body was flung up into the air and all the other guardian's snapped their attention towards team one.
"Found the slayer!" Shiro shouted out before nodding towards Summer.
Dashing towards team 1 with her bow drawn, the two archers had the same intention of eliminating the slayer quickly.
Little did Summer know, Shiro was in fact the slayer.
Seeing the two centre archers dash towards team one, the rest of the guardians called out to their partners and had them come out since they were going to regroup.
Vaulting over the monsters with ease, she twisted her body and pulled back on her bowstrings.
Looking at the frightful face of the one who was supposed to shout out the rune, Shiro couldn't help but look at him with pity.
'Sorry, it's nothing personal.' Shiro thought to herself before firing her arrow.
*BANG!
Exploding into a burst of flames, the adventurer was eliminated before he could even shout out that he was innocent.
"Seems like we're done." Shiro called out to summer with a smile.
Furrowing her brows, Summer nodded and started to make her way back to the centre.
However, just as she turned her back, she felt a burst of mana slam into her back as she was sent flying forward from the impact.
Turning around to look back at Shiro, she saw that Shiro had an apologetic smile on her face.
"Crap…" Was all Summer could mutter before she was eliminated.
Walking out of where team one was supposed to be, Shiro looked at the other teammates that were instantly on guard since they realised that they've been played.
"Aiya~ don't be so on guard. I've already got three of them so I'm done with this round." Shiro waved her hand nonchalantly before narrowing her eyes.
"Unless you want to fight some more? Regardless, I've already passed so anything after this is just for fun." She grinned.
One of the assassins seemed to be annoyed as his body disappeared and reappeared beside her.
However, before he could even attack, Shiro had already spun around and slammed her foot against the back of his head.
Cracking his body against the ground, Shiro pulled back on her bow and eliminated him.
"Anyone else like this f*ck wit over here?" She smiled.
Flinching a little, the rest of the teammates stepped back a little while Silvia had a frown on her face.
Despite the intimidation she felt from this Kasumi, she wanted to stand her ground.
Raising an eyebrow, Shiro kept her eye on Silvia.
"Some backbone huh?" She smiled.
"Maybe. But since you've already eliminated three, I doubt there was a need to provoke the rest of us no?" Silvia smiled while preparing some of her spells discreetly.
"Hm, I suppose so. However, we still need to complete this round so if you want, I can just watch as you do it or I can help." Shiro chuckled.
Seeing as though there were only five of them left, it meant that there were on guardians to help them should they choose to not receive her assistance.
"It's fine, miss Kasumi can just sit by the side. Everyone, I'll be on the centre console and set a barrier on everyone so that you can read out the runes." Silvia proposed as they nodded.
"But what about this girl here, are you sure she won't attack you since she basically has a free pass." One of the teammates gestured towards Shiro.
"Don't worry, I promise I won't interfere anymore. Like I said, if you want, I can even help out." Shiro chuckled.
"No need." Silvia shook her head.
Giving out roles once more, Silvia stood at the console while Shiro watched from the distance with interest. She wanted to see how Silvia was going to help everyone else out.
Slamming her staff against the ground, a wave of mana pulsed outwards as a quadruple layered barrier wrapped around everyone else apart from Shiro.
Activating her analysis skill, Shiro saw that the barrier gave them a health boost, attack boost, speed boost and a barrier that was equal to around 60% of their health from what she could tell.
'Well damn, she's gotten quite a powerful spell in the time I was gone huh?' Shiro mused to herself.
{Well it has been two months. A lot of things can change.} Nimue chipped in.
'Very true.'
With Silvia's distant support, the team was able to reach the runes without much trouble and complete the task with relative ease.