Chapter 172: The Portraits Assembled

"If you go kill someone tonight, we might be able to gather all the portraits," Wu Hui said to her. "But you need to figure out who to kill."

Number Two was silent for a moment. "Tell me first why we are collecting these paintings, and why we have to put them up."

"Why do you kill people?" Wu Hui countered.

*Because of this crappy game's crappy rules...* Number Two thought to herself, while also understanding Wu Hui's goal.

Placing all seven portraits in their corresponding positions might just be the start of the game. If someone were here alone, they probably would have finished it long ago.

It was precisely because there were too many people, holding all sorts of false clues and constantly holding each other back.

Saying that they needed to wipe out the others wasn't entirely wrong. Because only by doing so could they shake off this scheming, wretched game and focus on solving the local puzzle, which wasn't even all that complicated.

Wu Hui had also prepared himself to eliminate Number Two, but she had chosen to cooperate, so the two of them each took some items—which could be considered a decent outcome.

Number Six had already agreed to bring out the painting from his room. The paintings in the rooms of Number Four, the fat man, and Number Seven, the woman with dark circles under her eyes, were more troublesome.

He didn't care who obtained the items, but he hoped to put up all seven paintings as soon as possible. Even if that didn't end this game round, it would at least advance them to the next stage.

Since the Overlord wanted to stir up discord among them and make them fight, they had to unite.

Only after a conflict would they realize that there was no need for them to fight each other at all. Instead, cooperation was required to accomplish certain things. Therefore, Wu Hui still advised Number Two not to kill casually, though killing one or two probably wouldn't matter.

The Overlord's purpose was to inflict pain, regret, and suffering. If survival required everyone to live, people wouldn't feel pain at all; instead, they would think it impossible.

So Wu Hui estimated that there should be a requirement for a specific number of survivors, but it wouldn't be all of them. Alternatively, there might be specific requirements for each person regarding who needed to survive—for example, Envy needing Pride to survive (just an example, not real), or something similar.

Number Two began to ponder whether she should continue killing. As one of the relatively stronger players among Level 5 players, she truly had the highest combat power present.

Yet the battle from last night had also taken a toll on her. Taking into account some of the reasoning Wu Hui had mentioned...

Tonight, she would temporarily suspend the killings.

The beautiful woman suspected of being related to Wu Hui retreated to her room and closed the door. Meanwhile, Wu Hui sat in the lobby, closed his eyes, and began to rest as well.

A new day arrived.

No one had died yesterday. The people who woke up came to the lobby, saw Wu Hui, and noticed the four paintings hanging on the wall.

Number Six: "So, the paintings are used here?"

"That's right. And putting the paintings up is beneficial to you," Wu Hui said, looking at everyone.

As an ally who had discussed it with Wu Hui early on, Number Six didn't ask any more questions. He directly took out the painting from his room and, after a brief moment of thought, hung it opposite Number Seven's position.

The fat man fell silent for a moment, returned to his room to retrieve a painting, and after some thought, hung it up as well.

Both of them had acquired an item. The specific effects remained unknown.

Everyone else looked at Number Seven.

"Hah," Number Seven sneered. "Suddenly getting united, are you? You people..."

She didn't do anything overly uncooperative either; she turned around, went back to her room, and retrieved her own painting. Since only this one remained, if she didn't take it out, the others would probably just snatch it by force.

Those who submit to circumstances are wise.

Whether wise or not was unclear, but at least none of the people present were stupid.

Number Six was still looking thoughtfully at the handwriting left by Wu Hui with a marker on an oil painting. Clearly, he too had begun to doubt the authenticity of this information, just like Wu Hui.

Logically speaking, if they were really supposed to carry out the contents described on these oil paintings, the system would have just given a direct prompt. There was no need to hide it.

Therefore, the handwriting on the paintings, much like those slips of paper, was probably purely misleading.

Number Two sat nearby, still feeling somewhat apprehensive. If the text on the portraits was true, and she failed to complete it, she would die or...

All seven portraits had been gathered.

Having already collected four, and with Number Six taking the lead, the remaining two people taking out the portraits from their rooms was the expected outcome Wu Hui had anticipated.

If they had been unwilling to give them up, he would have had to resort to seizing them by force.

Once the portraits were gathered, a sound echoed from the end of the corridor. Everyone looked toward the direction of the sound and saw a door connecting to a staircase appear out of thin air.

The door was open, seemingly inviting them in.

"Let's go," Wu Hui said. "We've basically passed the first stage. You can forget about those previous tasks."

He was the first to get up and walk toward the staircase.

Number Six looked at the downward-leading stairs and sighed, "Ah, it kind of feels like heading toward hell."

"Perhaps so," Wu Hui said, pushing up his glasses. The group began descending the stairs at a moderate pace, each harboring their own thoughts. A very simple hunt for paintings had managed to drag on for over two days. A few lines of text written by an unknown author and some utterly useless room settings had resulted in two deaths.

If Wu Hui hadn't discovered the situation in time and prevented it from worsening, five or six people could easily have died here.

They reached a new floor, and the stairs behind them vanished bit by bit, cutting off their retreat. Wu Hui reached out a foot to test it, confirming that the stairs had truly disappeared rather than merely becoming invisible.

It seemed there really was no way back.

Placed before everyone were seven masks, each inscribed with the name of one of the Seven Deadly Sins.

"Ding. Please put on the corresponding mask within thirty seconds. Masks that are not worn will transform into monsters and attack."

"Put them on," Number Six said after a moment of thought. "We might be able to handle one or two monsters, but we definitely can't beat all seven at once."

"Two people died, so there are two fewer masks. If you really kill everyone off... Heh. So insidious." Number Seven shook her head and picked up Sloth. The others also hurriedly picked up their respective masks. Thirty seconds left no room for hesitation.

The masks of Pride and Envy had no owners and sat there empty.

Wu Hui, having put on the mask of Wrath, felt a surge of fury welling up from the depths of his heart. The people beside him also experienced various desires rising from within; Number Two's breathing became heavy, Number Seven looked entirely drained of strength, and Number Six's expression beneath his mask shifted constantly.

These were still acceptable and wouldn't make them completely lose their sanity.

Meanwhile, the unclaimed masks of Pride and Envy had already begun oozing black substance, eventually forming humanoid shapes. At their stage, they still had a basic understanding of strength levels; these two monsters were clearly quite troublesome, but if the five of them joined forces, winning shouldn't be a problem.

Number Six activated his Nightmare Chess Piece, directly transforming into a knight clad entirely in black armor. Several peasant chess pieces appeared around him and were subsequently sacrificed to empower the Black Knight.

Wu Hui glanced at him and silently summoned over a dozen human-sized soldier-ant spell beasts.

Battle commenced.