Thriller Paradise

"None of you belong to my world, and you're not under my command, so you don't need to call me boss," the system-like voice said. "My name is… the Count of Script."

"That sounds like a super powerful boss," Autumn Zither whispered. The cautious Weighty Words pulled out a gun from his inventory and switched the safety off. He looked around with alert.

"Put away that useless weapon, traveler from another world," the Count of Script said calmly. "Bullets cannot harm me."

Then, a mercury-colored metallic ball about one meter in diameter appeared before the paper. The ball floated between the top of the shelf and the ceiling, and it slowly moved to the space above the hexagon the players were in. The voice that was similar to the system notification came from inside the sphere. "I ask that you do not use that blasé weapon to ruin my collection."

"You are the owner of this Detective Club?" Feng Bujue lifted his head. "At the start, we were trapped inside your psychological world, right?"

"Haha… Saying that you were trapped there is not that accurate," the Count of Script said. "You make it sound like it was me who dragged you in there and refused to let you out. In reality, you barged into that place with the strength of your determination, did you not?"

The players could not deny that. After all, they voluntarily queued up to join this scenario in the game.

"Fine, we're considered uninvited guests then." Ambitionist looked at the metallic sphere and asked, "So, what do you plan to do now?"

"I'm here to take away some things," the Count of Script said. "Then I will politely request you all leave this place."

It lowered from the sky. The four players were separated at the corners of the hexagon, and the metallic sphere circulated around the iron cage and slowly landed in the middle of the four. The next second, the Count of Script changed. It turned from a sphere into an old man in a wheelchair. The man wore a black suit, had white hair, and looked old, but he radiated a presence of peace and brilliance.

"This appearance and voice…" Count of Script's voice also turned into a tone that was soft and fluttery. "Perhaps they might make you all feel more comfortable."

"By 'comfortable' you mean… lower our guard, right?" Autumn Zither warned.

"Humph… You know, the two qualities about you travelers from another world that I hate the most are suspicion and lust for battle." Count of Script scoffed. "If I really wanted to kill you, you would have been torn into pieces when your consciousnesses arrived here."

"You said you're here to claim something," Ambitionist said. "What do you mean? I don't think we have anything that belongs to you."

"That's where you're wrong…" Count of Script shook his head with a smile. "Each of you has a key on you, yes?"

The four's expressions shifted.

"I did get a key in my memory space," Weighty Words replied. "But when I arrived here, the key was no longer with me."

Feng Bujue looked at his teammates and asked, "Huh? All of you got the Cursed Key in your memory space?"

"Cursed Key?" Weighty Words replied with confusion. "That's not right… Mine was the Key of Salvation."

"I also got one," Autumn Zither said. "It was called the Blessed Key."

After hearing the three, Ambitionist did not say much but concluded succinctly, "Key of Regret."

Feng Bujue thought about it and then turned to the Count of Script. "After we came to this real world, all the items that we gained returned to their initial state. The keys that you want have already disappeared."

"Disappeared? Haha… Even after knowing the 'truth', none of you have understood anything." Count of Script laughed. "Here, there… reality, illusion… where is the line separating them?"

"You're trying to tell us… that world is also real?" Feng Bujue said with some thought.

"What if I told you… the psychological world constructed from the brain of an organism and the actual world that he resides in are actually two parallel universes," the Count of Script replied. His eyes scanned every player. "Then, which world do you think is the real one?"

"Based on your assumption," Ambitionist said, "doesn't that mean each sentient creature can be a creator?"

"Why not?" Count of Script answered. "One sand, one world; one flower, one heaven; one tree, one Bodhi; one leaf, one Buddha. Perhaps you and I are just the creations of another sentient being, and our existence itself is just a part of a 'scenario'. We are trapped inside the endless circle of conflict and contradiction, death and rebirth."

He seemed to be reminded of something interesting and paused for a smile before continuing. "Perhaps you might not understand it now, but it doesn't matter. We have time. After my detailed explanation, we can talk about the keys."

After the Count of Script said that, his head suddenly changed. His head turned into Sherlock Holmes, and his voice changed. "As Shakespeare says, there are a thousand Hamlets in a thousand people's eyes."

He raised his hand to point at his face. "This Mr. Holmes that you saw earlier is the one in my eye."

Honestly, this scene at least from the player's perspective was quite unusual…

But the Count of Script did not find it out of place and continued. "This man is calculated, has a dark sense humor, and is alert and collected. He has a facet that is childlike, but most of the time, his determination is steely. He has a long face, dark brows, black hair, an aquiline nose, and thin lips. He speaks with a typical British accent, very fast and with a high pitch… and the smoking pipe and his staff are part of his identity."

At this point, the Count of Script's head turned back to the old man. "But in the mind of another person, the image of Holmes must be different. In fact, in Conan Doyle's own mind, Sherlock Holmes must have been constantly changing. He was first a talented private investigator, but later, he became an illusion that was idolized by the passionate readers and greedy publishers. Even if he was no longer as sharp as before, no one cared."

"So," Feng Bujue said, "every character that we've met in the experiment zone was a 'Hamlet' that you constructed after you have read the source material?"

"No, each of them has their own consciousness," the Count of Script said, waving his hand. "I am not their creator; I am merely the creator of the world they are in. Just as Moriarty, Holmes, and Little Red Riding Hood told you, that world has its own set of rules. For certain things… even I would have some trouble should I wish to intervene."

Autumn then cut in. "In a way, this is like a long serial comic, but it has gone on for so long that the author himself cannot control the development of the plot anymore."

"Haha… Not bad. Your power of understanding is much better than those on the same level of dimension as I am." The Count of Script smiled.

His answer jolted the players' hearts. It was not that surprising for a character in-game to say some weird stuff, but that sentence proved that this Count of Script knew that he was just a set of data. Feng Bujue, who had interacted with Anomalies multiple times, was the most shocked. He thought, Can all these high-level data beings retain memory? Then, doesn't that make them similar to the Anomalies?

And the thing that worried Feng Bujue the most was… if these AIs really 'understood' the situation they were in, what would they do?

"But you are actually not as in control as you might think," the Count of Script said. He revealed a meaningful smile. "You have many questions, and I have many answers. But from your perspective, you might understand some answers but not the others… For example… at this moment, the question that you should be most desperate to know is… how do you clear this scenario?"

The players were rendered speechless. They did not know how to respond to this hidden boss; they did not even know whether the Count of Script counted as a hidden boss…

"I'll explain it in a way that you can understand and present you with a simple and direct choice, leading you to an inevitable result," the Count of Script said. "I can also give you the answer you cannot understand, but what kind of result will that lead to?

"Unfortunately, even I don't know that. Only creatures with second-rate intelligence—in other words, human beings such as yourselves who are imperfect but highly arrogant—can find the answer."

"You are the most impressive scam artist I've met in my life. Please accept this bow…" While Autumn Zither was joking, his body did half bend to bow.

"Hahaha…" The Count of Script laughed. "That's more than enough chit chat. It's time for you to leave."

The wheelchair turned on its own, so he now faced Feng Bujue. "Billy wanted me to send you a message."

Feng Bujue was startled before he confirmed, "The puppet Billy?"

"The one and the same. He said, this time, it counts as the repayment for the aid you gave during the prison break," the Count of Script said.

Feng Bujue thought for few seconds before asking, "You personally came to let us go because of that?"

The Count of Script nodded. "Otherwise, the few of you would have had to figure out a way to materialize the keys and find the exit from this place."

He snapped his fingers, and four distinctly shaped keys appeared before the players. After a moment's pause, they flew to gather in the hands of the Count of Script. The players naturally recognized these as the keys that they had obtained when they were in their memory space.

"I've taken back my stuff." The Count of Script pointed at one of the shelves. A book dropped on its own. "The backdoor of the Detective Club… is now open for you."

Then, the Count of Script shifted his appearance again into a white crane. It flapped its wings as it flew up and echoed down in its shrill voice, "I hope you will not return here again, humans."