Chapter 207: Trap

Chapter 207: Chapter 207: Trap

Seraphina Sinclair took a deep breath. Her hands gripped the edges of the Stone Tablet, and she unleashed her full Strength in a sudden burst!

The Strength boosted by her attribute points was not to be underestimated. The heavy Stone Tablet let out a GRATING sound as she forced it upward, creating a gap!

A musty stench surged out from below.

Victor Warner immediately stepped forward to help push the Stone Tablet completely aside.

Beneath the Stone Tablet was a shallow pit. Inside, just as expected, lay a few yellowed, curling-edged scraps of paper, and a box of matches!

Seraphina Sinclair carefully took out the torn pages.

The three of them immediately huddled together.

The handwriting on the scraps was even more frantic and desperate than at the end of the log, as if the writer had been on the verge of extreme terror and collapse:

"...Will... Will was sacrificed! Those damn people, they violated the taboo! They knew the flower would wither, so why did they use it a second time... Will... Will withered along with it..."

"...Reinforcements will come. As long as we enter the door... reinforcements will come..."

"...Will kept repeating ’key’ and ’door’... We all saw the door... but no one dared to go near it..."

So it turned out that Will, the one who was locked up in the log, wasn’t just a simple victim. He was...

a sacrifice to the Clear Kill vote.

The implication was staggering: using the Sunflower’s Clear Kill function for a second time had actually caused the corresponding survivor to wither away, too.

This piece of information undoubtedly shook the trust between the three of them once again.

But Seraphina Sinclair possessed absolute power, and the peace they currently enjoyed was built upon that very fact.

So while this news could certainly cause panic, it couldn’t shake the foundation of their cooperation.

These torn pages revealed quite a lot of information. They saw the door but didn’t dare approach. So where could this door be?

Seraphina Sinclair looked up, her gaze sweeping across the first floor before moving to the second.

She had the layout of the second floor memorized. Because of this, she realized almost instantly that the so-called "door that could summon reinforcements" was very likely not inside the outpost.

Seraphina Sinclair flipped to the next scrap of paper:

"...Those words keep ringing in my head... I can’t wait any longer..."

"There’s no other way... Food, water, firewood, it’s all gone... If this keeps up... I’m definitely going to die here..."

"...The door is too far... It’s surrounded by those monsters... monsters... Don’t come in..."

The key piece of information was still that the door was too far away.

But what about the key? What was the key?

She flipped to the next page. The handwriting was even more illegible, suffused with an overwhelming sense of despair:

"I’m the only one left, I’m the only one left, I’m the only one left..."

"The door... the door is wide open... We were all tricked! All tricked! Why is the door like this! Why?!"

"Tricked?" Selene Lawson frowned. "What does that mean? Is the door’s appearance strange?"

"It drove the poor guy mad!" Victor Warner yelled. "It must be something completely different from what we’d normally expect!"

Seraphina Sinclair didn’t say anything, but she gathered up the torn pages.

’I hate these kinds of riddles the most,’ she thought. ’If you’re going to give clues, give real clues. This is written like one of those lateral thinking puzzles, but without an NPC to say yes or no. Do they just expect us to guess?’

A moment later, she scoffed lightly and slowly stood up.

Victor Warner’s eyes lit up. "Boss Sinclair? You’ve got a plan?"

Selene Lawson also looked at her with an expectant gaze.

Seraphina Sinclair looked perfectly composed, as if she really did have it all figured out, but she shook her head and admitted frankly, "No."

Victor Warner: "..."

Selene Lawson: "..."

The expectant expressions on Victor Warner’s and Selene Lawson’s faces froze instantly.

"No?!" Victor Warner nearly jumped to his feet. "Then... then what do we do now?"

Seraphina Sinclair glanced at him, her tone flat. "Wait."

"Wait?" Selene Lawson asked, confused.

"Wait for the next wave of monsters," Seraphina Sinclair said, her gaze drifting to the ever-thickening fog outside the window. "And wait for the door to reveal itself."

She walked over to the fireplace, watching the flickering flames as she calmly analyzed the situation:

"The pages said the door is too far and that it’s surrounded by monsters. That tells us the door is outside the outpost, heavily besieged by monsters."

"And the later entries imply the door may not be the symbol of rescue we imagine it to be. It might even be something more dangerous."

"But the most crucial point is, ’As long as we enter the door... reinforcements will come.’"

Seraphina Sinclair turned to face them. "Therein lies the contradiction. Entering the door can summon reinforcements, but the door itself is extremely dangerous—so terrifying in appearance that it can drive a person to collapse."

"So, what we can do now is continue to hold our ground. On one hand, we accumulate defended waves and improve our Evaluation. On the other hand..."

She paused. "I suspect the door may have appeared from the very beginning. It’s just that as we defend against more waves, it gets closer and closer to us."

"Or perhaps, when the monster assault reaches a certain critical point, the door might be forced to appear."

"At that point, we’ll be able to see for ourselves just what it is. Then we can decide whether to take the gamble and enter that door."

Victor Warner listened, dumbfounded. After a long moment, he mumbled, "So... what we’re doing now is... wait and see?"

Selene Lawson pondered for a moment, then nodded. "That makes sense. With Boss Sinclair here, the pressure to defend is high, but we have a fighting chance. If we rashly went out to search for that unknown door, we’d more likely end up in a hopeless situation."

She looked at Seraphina Sinclair, her eyes firm. "We’ll follow your lead."

Victor Warner also quickly chimed in, "Right, right! If the boss says wait, we wait!"

The third wave of monsters appeared soon after.

This wave wasn’t much of an escalation from the previous one. Once again, Seraphina Sinclair tore a Heavenly Light Rune, and after the monsters were weakened, the three of them each handled their roles.

They didn’t even need to consider using the Sunflower’s Clear Kill. Everyone was much more familiar with the routine than during the last wave, and the three of them didn’t even get injured.

After the wave ended, the panel popped up as usual.

[The third wave of attacks has ended.]

[The fourth wave of attacks will begin in 10 minutes.]

This time, the pop-up was identical to the previous ones—and that was precisely the problem!

"What’s going on?" Victor Warner stared intently at the panel before him. After confirming it contained only those two lines of text, without a single extra punctuation mark, he finally couldn’t hold it in any longer. "Didn’t they say we’d complete the instance after beating three waves? What is this? Why isn’t there an option to exit?"

Selene Lawson just gave a cold laugh.

Seraphina Sinclair, of course, was not surprised. The Sunflower had three Clear Kill charges, and completing the instance supposedly only required defeating three waves of monsters.

This was a silver-rank instance, after all. How could it be that easy?

The rules were explained at the beginning. It was true that there was an opportunity to choose to exit after each wave, but it never specified from *which* wave that option would become available.

Just because it mentioned three waves of monsters, everyone just assumed they could leave after beating three waves?