Chapter Eight: Discovery

[Prompt: Level 5 Perception allows you to notice the crumpled paper ball in the corner of the room.]

Yujin felt suspicious. When he first entered the room, he had deliberately observed the surroundings; there was no debris in the corner. This meant that the crumpled paper ball had appeared later. He recalled that while he was checking the scattered documents and photographs, Kalie had stayed nearby, even falling down in fright due to the anomaly in the photos, and Nina had walked straight into the cubicle to look for the key. Therefore, the only person who had the opportunity to leave the paper ball was Anna.

Interesting!

Anna, who had shown nothing out of the ordinary from the beginning until now, had quietly left a paper ball at this moment. It was truly thought-provoking. With guarded vigilance, Yujin unfolded the paper ball and found that its contents were simply the class roster of the four people: Yujin, Anna, Kalie, and Nina were all on the list.

"Anna leaving this roster must have a purpose!"

Yujin concluded that this roster should possess a special function; otherwise, Anna would not have left it intentionally. After careful observation, he indeed detected a slight clue. Sensitive to colors, Yujin noticed that the characters for "Kalie" had a grayish tint, differing slightly in print specifications from the others. With a gentle swipe of his finger, Kalie's name instantly vanished into nothingness, leaving only traces of ash!

This...

Yujin's gaze turned sharp, instantly linking this to the legend of the Snow School—those people who inexplicably disappeared, whose faces and names were forgotten by others. Now, this abnormal phenomenon had actually occurred on Kalie, making Yujin instantly realize that the real Kalie had likely died in the heavy snow, and some unknown entity had disguised itself as him, replacing him silently and unnoticed.

The transformation process was rapid and natural, virtually flawless. If not for Anna's reminder, Yujin would still be kept in the dark until now. However, another question immediately surfaced in his mind: since Anna knew the truth, why didn't she publicly expose it? Could she have unspeakable difficulties?

Recalling the astonished look Anna gave him when he displayed his power, Yujin felt that perhaps because of this, Anna chose to reveal the situation to him. Her purpose was none other than to give a warning or seek help. But then again, Anna's behavior was somewhat strange. No matter how one looked at it, public exposure was the safest method, yet she chose to silently head toward the fourth floor of the teaching building. Could it be that what she needed most was hidden there?

In a split second, his mind raced, and Yujin determined that he had to take action. However, just as he left the director's office, the glass of the adjacent conference room suddenly shattered, and roaring flames spewed out, forcing Yujin to halt his steps and detour to investigate the situation in the conference room.

"This dungeon has implicit time requirements. The outside snow limits the total game duration, and if one wants to clear the stage as quickly as possible, they must appropriately handle emergencies. The various benefits brought by wise choices often outweigh blindly rushing straight to the theme. Given my speed, dealing with the conference room issue first and then heading upstairs should be more than enough!"

Having made up his mind, Yujin braved the fire at the window and reached the doorway. Grabbing the scalding doorknob, he pushed hard and immediately saw that the windows on the other half were all wide open. The gale blew snowflakes into the conference room, releasing an incredible, surging heat that ignited the carpet and caused a terrifying fire. The dancing fire serpents made it difficult for Yujin to venture deeper.

However, given his perception level, he could immediately spot the crux of the matter. The fire in the conference room was certainly astonishing, burning the carpet like a sea of flames, but the tables and chairs in the room were still relatively intact and wouldn't catch fire immediately. This fortuitously provided Yujin with footholds, allowing him to leap all the way to the far end of the room, where a kettle was placed on a desk.

[Prompt: Level 5 Perception makes you realize the necessity of retrieving the kettle!]

Actually, without the prompt, Yujin intended to do just that. Because a circle of white snow had fallen around the kettle, yet it showed no signs of burning. Clearly, its existence possessed a suppressive effect against this heavy snow.

However, according to the game mechanics, landing steadily at the far end of the room required level 5 Agility; otherwise, random checks might cause a accidental fall, resulting in fire damage!

"Although my remaining important attribute points can raise Agility to level 5 right now, is it really necessary?"

Sixteen attribute points seemed like a lot, but in reality, they were far from enough. Distributing them among the three major attributes quickly depleted them. To wear his equipment earlier, Yujin had allocated 6 points to Strength, 5 points to Perception, and 2 points to Agility, leaving only 3 free attribute points. If he poured all of them into Agility, he would become a well-rounded polygonal warrior whose stats were neither high nor low. While he wouldn't have obvious shortcomings, he would also struggle to handle harsh, demanding emergencies, which didn't quite match Yujin's intentions.

Therefore, he decisively used the skill card he had crafted himself.

Pressing the card against his leg, the skill pattern successfully adhered, granting Yujin the buff for ten consecutive leaps. Fixing his eyes on the location of the kettle, his legs slightly bent and he exerted explosive force, launching his entire body into the air instantly. The eight-meter-long jumping distance landed him right on the office desk, bypassing the agility checks of multiple short hops. However, because there was too much accumulated snow on the desk to avoid, Yujin triggered a health check instead.

[Prompt: Abnormal contact causes you to suffer health damage with an intensity of "8". A natural number within "8" will be randomly drawn to determine the range of damage you will sustain!]

[Prompt: The draw result is "3". Since your health level has reached level 7, you successfully avoided this damage.]

[Prompt: If you continuously contact abnormal objects, you will undergo a health check every five seconds!]

Just as Yujin expected, snowflakes concealing flame energy needed to be resisted with health levels. A health level of 7 ensured he remained in a safe state, at least for the present stage. Picking up the chilly kettle, Yujin jumped out of the sea of fire. The whole process took less than five seconds, and the true effect of the kettle proved that his decision was extraordinarily wise.

...

[?? Icy Water]
Type: Single-use consumable item
Function 1: Consuming it grants immunity to snowflake damage for thirty seconds.
Function 2: Deals massive damage to special targets.
Description: Due to the addition of special materials, the water quality inside the kettle has undergone a special change. Used wisely, it will be of immense help to you.

[Prompt: This item can only be used once.]
[Prompt: This item cannot be brought out of this examination space.]

...

The special effect of the unknown icy water gave Yujin an effective means to deal with emergencies. Clearly, this was an auxiliary prop intentionally left behind by the designer. Under normal procedures, players would have to brave the risk of falling into a sea of flames and carefully hop across tables and chairs, but he used a cheat-like method to brute-force through, saving time while preserving attribute points. It could be called killing two birds with one stone.

"Time to go!"

Stowing the kettle into his waist pouch, Yujin flashed away. As for the rest of the offices, he had no intention of searching them thoroughly; he merely opened the doors to check for fire hazards before running upstairs. Anyway, the items placed here were unlikely to be destroyed, and his top priority was to check on Kalie's condition.

Little did Yujin know that his choice had once again led him in the correct direction. Even if he searched the first-floor offices inside out, he would ultimately only find his own class roster and once again discover the anomaly concerning "Kalie."

The reason for the overlapping clues was that the paper ball from Anna was not a mandatory prompt. Only when a player personally opened the director's office would they have the chance to obtain the paper ball; otherwise, Anna would become the one opening the door, ignoring the player's role and existence.

Therefore, the designer had left the roster in another office to prompt the player that Kalie's identity was problematic. This meant Yujin completed the search of the first floor in almost the shortest possible time, strode up to the second floor, and ran right into Kalie, who was lingering there.

Kalie was looking up toward the third floor. Catching sight of Yujin appearing out of nowhere, his dull expression flashed with a moment of panic: "Yujin... you finished searching so quickly? Did you find anything special?"

"Unfortunately, no." Yujin calmly appraised the other person. "Why are you staying here? Could it be that you've finished searching the classrooms too?"

"N—no..."

Kalie stammered in reply, pointing toward the hallway with a terrified expression: "I just came upstairs and found that the windows on the hallway side had been opened by someone, and snowflakes drifted in. I didn't dare to go over, so I could only come to find you guys. But just as I got here, I suddenly heard someone screaming in our classroom! Yujin, do you think there might be other classmates who also got in?"

"That's possible. Let's go take a look together!"

With a normal expression, Yujin took the lead, seeing that the hallway glass had indeed been completely opened by someone. Yet before heading downstairs, he had personally closed the only window that was open. At this moment, although snowflakes had fallen into the hallway, relying on his perception level, Yujin easily discovered that the snow layer became shallower from afar and there were no footprints on the ground, indicating they had been pushed open sequentially rather than being an abnormal phenomenon.

Without a doubt, Kalie was the culprit. Following behind Yujin, Kalie's expression gradually turned ferocious; the grayish-black stains remaining on his body suddenly flared with fire, and his eyes seemed to spew crimson flames...