Chapter 64: Hidden Rules

Raive paused to think.

After all, this time he hadn’t saved at the beginning of the trial, but "outside" of it. There was no guarantee the traitor would stay the same after he restarted from his last save.

’At times like this, I really wish I could save at my own discretion.’ Raive gritted his teeth bitterly.

This meant he couldn’t take the easy path of killing everyone, then himself, to see who the traitor was. Technically, he could spend two loops checking it out, but he suspected he’d have died for nothing if it randomized each time.

He could use that plan as his last resort, though.

"A-AAAAAGH!"

"...!"

Only when a loud groan echoed did Raive return to his senses.

He looked toward the sound and found someone stabbing another. A long sashimi knife peeked out from the man’s chest, red quickly spreading across his white shirt.

"Haaa... Haa... Y-You bastard! You’re a traitor!" The one who’d stabbed him roared, yanking the knife out aggravatedly. "You think I don’t know how you slept with my Aria?! I know!!!"

Hearing him rant, Raive could tell the root of it was personal conflict.

He had no intention of figuring out who this Aria was, or her relationship to either man. Instead, he watched as something strange happened.

The stabbed man died from bleeding out, clutching the grass hard as he took his last breath.

And the moment he did—

"A-Ack!"

The man who’d stabbed him clutched his own heart and fell face-first.

"Mister!" Hershey rushed to his side, acting on instinct.

She began healing him without hesitation.

But her eyes soon widened in shock. "He’s... dead." Hershey whispered, sadness in her voice.

Watching this, Raive noted something quickly. But he needed proof before he could be sure.

To get it, he walked over to the man who’d been stabbed in the heart.

Without hesitation, he pulled a dagger from his thigh and cut the man’s chest open until he could reach the heart.

Aside from the wound running through it, it looked like any ordinary heart.

But Raive remembered the archangel’s words.

He cut the heart in half, checking inside.

"It’s... not hollow." He muttered.

He could see the flaps and all membranes separating the heart into different sections. Although his knowledge of anatomy was mostly through books, he knew that it looked like any heart would.

He wasn’t surprised after seeing this.

He’d expected as much.

Under everyone’s frightened, judging stares, he did the same to the other man. Once he confirmed that heart wasn’t hollow either, he was finally convinced.

"Looks like if you kill someone who isn’t the traitor, you die too."

A hidden rule that the archangel hadn’t bothered mentioning.

And if one hidden rule existed, there were surely others. If he could figure them all out, he might find a way to tell the impostors apart from everyone else.

For the first time, he was starting to see a path forward.

Since Raive hadn’t held back his voice, nearly everyone nearby had heard him. And having watched it happen themselves, nobody bothered doubting his conclusion.

It was plain as day, after all.

But once people realized that killing an innocent meant dying alongside them, the urge to start swinging blades dried up fast.

Doubt and distrust thickened instead—everyone wondering whether the person next to them might still risk it.

CLAP!

But none of that fazed Raive.

He clapped his bloody hands, pulling everyone’s attention his way.

"Alright, everyone. Listen up!" He said, raising his voice. "We’ll figure out who the traitors are later. First, let’s figure out how we’re protecting the crystal from the monsters!"

Right.

This wasn’t just a trial about hunting down traitors. They had monsters to fight and a crystal to protect somewhere inside the castle, too.

They had a lot on their plate.

"Everyone, move as you see fit for now." He said.

Not that he was appointing himself their leader by calling the shots. There were a thousand of them—998, now, after the first two deaths—so it wasn’t like he needed to run the whole thing himself.

He didn’t have time to, either way.

"First, I need to study the whole castle town’s layout."

A mental map of the place would make defending it far easier later. For that, Raive asked Therese to do what she’d done before—though for "this" Therese, it would be her first time.

He asked her to lift him into the sky with her swords.

It was more stable and safer than getting carried directly by Hazel’s skill, after all.

"As for the rest of you, find the crystal for now." He commanded, settling onto his sword-made throne. "We need to know where it is before we can protect it."

"Got it!"

With that, everyone split up, leaving only Hershey and Therese behind with Raive.

Once everything was ready, Raive nodded to Therese.

"Alright, do it!"

"Please hang on tight." Therese warned, waving her hand gently. "Then, here I go...!"

The throne of mana blades rose quickly into the sky. After about a hundred meters, it stopped—the limit of Therese’s control range.

"This is good enough." Raive nodded to himself and began observing.

The castle town was square-shaped, about two kilometers long on each side. The castle itself took up roughly 25% of the land, sitting right at the center.

Four main roads ran from it toward the cardinal directions, each ending at a gate in the outer wall. Houses were scattered everywhere, so the roads swerved left, right, back and forth instead of running straight—a layout built with defense and invasion prevention in mind.

But while it might make the city easier to defend in wartime, it made things chaotic for Raive and the rest.

Monsters wouldn’t stick to the main roads, after all.

They weren’t a marching army.

"No way..."

What shocked Raive even more, though, was—

"T-There’s people here?!"

Right.

Below, civilians were going about their business like it was any normal day.

Knights patrolled the streets, manned the gates, and stood guard along the walls.

Strangely, despite a thousand "invaders" standing in their castle’s courtyard, not one of them reacted at all—almost as if they couldn’t even see the people going through the trial.

"Who’s there?!"

Or so he thought.

Because down below, a few knights had already surrounded Hershey and Therese.

Long spears and shields pointed their way, leaving the two looking anxious and worried.

Raive didn’t hesitate. "Therese! Bring me down!"

The presence of NPCs in this trial space caught him off guard. It wouldn’t just make identifying traitors harder—it could make defending the place harder too.

Therese pulled him back down without delay.

Then he stood, walking forward with his hands raised in surrender, smiling.

"Greetings, soldiers." He said. "We... come in peace."