Am I the only one streaming Sword Art Online on the entire internet?

That's what they say, but the names of these keys clearly distinguish their uses: key number 1 is used to open doors, key number 2, which is smaller than key number 1, is used to open drawers, and key number 4 is obviously used to open the bed.

He walked back to the bed and used key number 4 to open the bed frame. Beneath the bed frame wasn't the secret passage to the lower level he'd imagined, but rather a control lever.

You pulled the lever and then sensed something unusual.

The staircase leading to the first floor has been unlocked.

“Okay, that’s how we get to the first floor. Let me make a note of what we missed on this floor first.” Solin got out of bed and clapped his hands. “The workshop is missing a drawer, and the master bedroom is missing an oil painting. Okay, let’s go.”

The two staircases on the second floor lead to the kitchen and the main hall, respectively. He was coming down the stairs from the main hall, which was furnished in a fairly basic manner, clearly showing that the former city lord was a hardcore gamer.

You have completed mission objective 1: Proceed to the first floor.

[Mission Objective 1 Updated: Leave the villa in Paisagros]

"This hall should be his showroom or exhibition room or something. We can see that it is full of all kinds of game props... To be honest, I suspect that whoever is good at playing these things can become the city lord. It gives me the feeling of a card game king."

Generally speaking, in an escape room game, it's rare to find a room completely useless. Although the lobby isn't strictly a room, this setting should still have some purpose. However, after looking around, Solin found that there were no containers to hide anything in, and not even a single interactive object.

"That's strange... Should we go check the kitchen first?"

103. Escape Room (Final)

After a similar search, Thorin also thoroughly searched the kitchen, obtaining "Key 5, which is the same size as Key 2" and two other proverbs: the "Guru Proverb" which reads "Brute force cannot solve problems" and the "Serenia Proverb" which reads "Even the most unbreakable alliance can crumble on its own."

"This Serena proverb feels like it's criticizing a certain alliance, it's really annoying," Sorin commented at the time. There were also some unopened rooms on this floor, including one on the right side of the initial entrance, and the last drawer in the second-floor workshop could now be opened. So Sorin decided to collect everything he could first.

He went back to his workshop and used key number 5 to open the third drawer. Inside this drawer was a stack of Paisagros's diaries, another red and white one with the family crest inscribed below: "Military expansion may bring temporary dominance, but not eternal dominance," and... the target of this mission: the Golden Cube.

What puzzled Sorin, however, was that the golden cube wasn't stained with blood. And logically, given the hardness of gold, it should have been the gold, not the head, that suffered in a head-on collision with a skull. But judging from the skull's condition, it was definitely the head that suffered this time.

"There are only two possibilities now. One is that this thing is called the Golden Cube but is actually a chromium-plated alloy block. The other is that the murder weapon is not a Golden Cube at all!"

Solin weighed the cube in his hand. The familiar weight told him that it was indeed a solid block of gold, which was one of the reasons he was able to come to this conclusion.

The situation is now quite delicate. All the intelligence gathered from this villa indicates that the old city lord, Paisarus, is not the kind of thug who would kill someone in a fit of rage because he couldn't answer a question, nor would he go mad after the murder and die alone in a foreign land.

“Recently, Theron’s attitude has become increasingly abnormal. I have taught my students many times that brain games are just a way to improve one’s intelligence, but he has started to worry about whether he can answer more questions.”

"I'm starting to get a little scared of him, and I'm questioning my previous decision. Should I let him succeed as the city lord?"

This is the content of the third diary entry. After reading the third diary entry, a task prompt suddenly appeared on Sorin's screen.

You have deciphered all of Paisagros's diaries. As you finish the last section, you begin to have doubts about the whole affair. However, your actions in the room have disturbed a spirit who should be sleeping, and he decides to see who has disturbed his slumber.

[Mission Objective 3: Deciphering Pisagros's Diary - Completed]

[Mission Objective 3 has been updated: Let him rest in peace!]

When Sorin saw this, he initially thought it was a battle, but after trying it, he found that he still couldn't draw his weapon. He looked towards the master bedroom and saw a grayish-white spirit floating out of the oil painting that he had always been curious about, heading straight for him.

"Sorin? What's wrong... What's that?!" Yuna looked at Sorin who had stopped in place and asked in confusion. Then she saw the wandering spirit floating out of the master bedroom and was so frightened that she shrank behind Sorin.

"WDNMD! How do you play this game, teacher? Teach me!" In his excitement, Sorin immediately tried to pull Yuna away and run away, but the spirit seemed to have the ability to move regardless of the terrain and floated in a straight line in front of Sorin.

"Are you the ones who came here to wake me up, young adventurers?" The spirit's voice was ethereal yet weathered, sounding like that of a middle-aged man. "Over the years, you are not the first adventurers to come here, but you are the first to discover so many people."

"Don't try to fool me, I believe in Marx." Solin stood in front of Yuna, pretending to be calm. "Although I don't understand what happened, the fact that we were able to wake you up means you weren't sleeping very soundly."

"Excuse me, I should have introduced myself first, but unfortunately I forgot who I am." The wandering spirit didn't seem to have any aggressive intentions, and from Sorin's perspective, the symbol above its head was also green. "I wanted to experience a problem that could trouble me, but none of the people before me succeeded, so I left them to sleep in the basement."

"So... if we haven't been able to ask such a question either, then you'll have to send us to the basement to rest in peace," Solin replied calmly. He had glanced at the staircase leading to the basement while searching the kitchen earlier and found it completely locked, without even a door. Now it seemed that was where the wandering spirits hid their corpses.

"Thank goodness Yuna didn't see it..." Sorin couldn't help but feel relieved. But now there was still a problem facing him: he had to come up with a question that could stump the wandering spirit.

"Don't worry, Yuna, the difficulty isn't at the point of instant explosion. You'll be fine," he reassured Yuna softly, then fell into deep thought. He had said on the fourth floor that "the Supreme God will not issue missions that are guaranteed to result in death." If this law still holds true, then even if he hadn't successfully raised such a question, there must still be a solution.

"Okay, good luck," Yuna whispered in reply. She was nervous too, but she had faith in Suolin and believed he could solve the problems before him.

After a moment of contemplation, he slowly began to speak.

"Once upon a time, there was a puppet named Pinocchio. This puppet was a very magical little fellow. If he lied, his nose would grow longer."

"Hmm, sounds like the protagonist in those fairy tales, and then what?" The wandering spirit's voice was flat, making it impossible to discern his true thoughts.

"So, what would happen if our Mr. Pinocchio said, 'My nose will grow longer soon'?" Thorin suddenly grinned mischievously and said.

"Then of course his nose will grow longer... No, if that's the case, then he wasn't lying, his nose won't grow longer. But if his nose doesn't grow longer, then he's lying, his nose will still grow longer..."

Actually, Sorin was using the game rules, or rather, the game's mechanics, here. If a real ghost had asked him that question, that ghost would probably have figured out the loophole after a moment's thought and pointed it out. However, this is Sword Art Online, an online game. And this ghost, while seemingly very intelligent, is actually an AI.

AI doesn't think like a brain, but rather like an algorithm. When this algorithm loops infinitely, some very strange things often happen. For example—it crashes.

Sorin watched as a large number of purple "errors" floated out of the ghost's body, then instantly collapsed into a small dot and fell to the ground.

He picked up the object from the ground and discovered it was a gray-white key.

[Mission Objective 3: Let him rest in peace - Completed]

You have obtained the "most unique Key #6".

104. The Curse of Pisagros (Part 4)

Actually, the difficulty of this ghost mission isn't high. You just need to pose a reasonable question, and after answering it, it will say, "Although it's not very exciting, it still satisfies me. You can leave now," instead of actually throwing the people who come here into the basement to hide their bodies. It will even provide the player with some follow-up information about the mission later on.

However, Sorin directly used a circular paradox to crash the AI ​​of this spirit entity, causing it to explode instantly. This meant he only received the key to leave the villa, without any further clues. Of course, any further clues were no longer important now, because he was certain that the wandering spirit he had just encountered was indeed Paisagros himself.

He then used key number 3 to open the room on the right, found the remaining [Ten Alliance Maxims], and placed them on the 10-sided Rubik's Cube. After flashing for a while, the cube transformed into a special piece of equipment with the same name as the quest item.

【The Maxims of the Ten Alliances】

[Effect: Gain a buff that lasts for ten seconds. This effect will cycle between ten different buff types.]

[Complete optional objective 1: Find the "Proverbs of the Ten Covenants"]

You subdued the wandering spirit with your wisdom, sending it back into a longer slumber. You suddenly have a premonition that the curse itself has been lifted. But more questions remain in your mind. You decide to take the golden cube back to Theon, but you're still wary; Theon might not be as simple as he seems.

"What the hell is this about using intelligence to subdue wandering spirits? They just used an algorithm loop and then crashed."

After making a self-deprecating remark, Suolin walked to the door and unlocked it with his key. The long-awaited warm sunshine and fiery red sky returned to his view, and the oppressive atmosphere that had been hanging over him vanished.

"How about that? I'm pretty good, aren't I?" Sorin looked at You Na smugly. "Now let's go back. It's time to see that city lord again."

"But I still don't understand what this mission is about?" While delighted, Yuna was still confused. She didn't even know what Sorin had deduced to complete the mission. "Didn't they say that the curse was given by the traveler? Then the wandering spirit just now was the traveler? Why was he in the villa of the previous lord?"

“To put it simply, in our first wave of investigation, apart from the one who sent us to find the tavern owner who had some conscience, the rest were all part of the same group. The only progress we made was following the owner's instructions to go here, and deducing from those abnormal reactions that the current city lord is problematic.” Sorin omitted the reasoning process and explained to Yuna in a more straightforward way, “Note that the name of this questline is ‘The Curse of Pisagrius’, not ‘The Traveler’s Curse,’ and the wandering spirit we just saw was actually Pisagrius. In fact, before encountering my paradox, there had never been a problem that could stump him.”

"That traveler..."

"From the beginning, there were no travelers. Theron bribed everyone around Pisagross, killed Pisagross, and hid his body here. Then he fabricated a story of a traveler, concealed everything, and became the city's lord for ten years. But now, the curse left by Pisagross before his death has threatened the city's survival, so he decided to send adventurers to solve the problem. That's why we received this quest."

"Is that so..." Yuna exclaimed in sudden realization, "So that city lord was actually a bad person?"

"A bad guy... I think he might just be blinded by something. Maybe it's his greed, or something else. In any case, now that we know everything, let's expose his conspiracy. Although we don't know the specifics, we may have already found the hidden solution to this mission."

Solin opened the map, marked a few spots, and then pointed to a towering mountain peak.

"Let's go, do you still want to ride the roller coaster?"

"In no mood!"

------

The same three people were still sitting at the table, and the same pot of black tea was still there. Theron still looked worried, but in front of Thorin, who knew the whole truth, this act was nothing more than that of a professional actor.

“We have retrieved the Golden Cube, Mr. Theron,” Sorin said, taking out the Golden Cube to show Theron. “You must be referring to this.”

“That’s right! That’s right… This is it! As long as we use this to worship the traveler…” Theron still looked apprehensive, but before he could finish speaking, Sorin interrupted him.

"The Traveler? I've already confessed to the Traveler... or rather, the soul of the former city lord, Sagros. And now... it's your turn." Thorin sneered, then put away the golden cube and questioned, "The old city lord can no longer favor you; he's even decided to let you inherit the position of city lord. Why did you still turn against him?"

"I didn't expect you to see through me... No wonder you're a hero from the lower realms." Theron stiffened, then stopped trying to hide it, his entire demeanor suddenly becoming arrogant. "Guards! Stop the gate!"

From Sorin and Yuna's perspective, the city lord's mansion had become an independent entity from the main city. At least... this was no longer a safe zone. And the Seron and the guards blocking the mansion's gate appeared as red, hostile figures to them.

"I don't like to solve problems with force, after all, this is the City of Wisdom. I'll give you a chance. You can choose a game of strategy. If you can beat me, I'll let you leave, you just need to leave the golden cube behind. But if you lose..."

“Sure,” Sorin said confidently. He had just glanced at the guards blocking the door; their rank wasn't very high. He and Yuna together should be able to handle nearly ten of them. He was clear that he was likely facing an AI, and humans couldn't compete with AI in board games. But if it were cards, he wasn't sure he could match the computer's card-counting skills.

To increase the chances of winning, the only option is to maximize the information asymmetry between the two sides. In intellectual games involving information asymmetry, regardless of what others are thinking, Suolin can only think of one particular game at this moment.

In addition... he was confident that he wouldn't lose in this project.

“Very courageous young man. So… state your choice. In which project do you want to compete against me?” Theron stood up, looking down at Sorin who remained seated, his tone full of arrogance and confidence.

“I want to play a card game with you.” Sorin stood up, looked directly into Theron’s eyes, and slowly uttered three words.

"Magic The Gathering."

105. The Curse of Pisagros (The End)

[You selected the project: Magic The Gathering (modern format, best of three), January 2022 schedule]

Please use the search tool to find the cards you need and build a 75-card deck.

May you defeat Theron and truly confess the soul of Sargerus.

Yuna looked at Solin nervously. Solin and Lord Seron were currently inside a barrier that was absolutely undisturbed, excluding her from the outside. Of course, she and Solin could still communicate.

She watched as Solin's right hand moved rapidly. Although there were as many as seventy-five cards to choose from, Solin managed to select all the cards in about three minutes.

"Solin! Keep it up!"

“If I can’t even beat an AI, I don’t need to play this game anymore. Don’t worry. Roll a 20-sided die, the higher number determines who goes first, no problem, right?” Sorin smiled at Yuna, and then, while speaking, brought up the D20 option from the menu.

Theron didn't speak, but nodded. He casually tossed a die, which landed face up as an 18. Sorin also threw his virtual die, but unfortunately only rolled a 12.

"Looks like Lady Luck isn't on your side from the start," Theron smirked. Seven cards suddenly flew up from his deck, hovering in an arc in front of him. Meanwhile, seven cards also floated in front of Thorin.

"Received." *2

------

"Kirito, are you sure that mission is still one that everyone can accept?"

Asuna was the one who asked the question. She and Kirito were currently standing at the gate of the lord's mansion. However, Kirito had already tried many times, but each time he tried to enter, the guard's reply was always, "The lord is busy with official business and doesn't have time to see you. Leave here immediately."