Super Righteous Player
Chapter 96 - 95: Big Hammer Brother and the Fragments of the Diary_1

Chapter 96: Chapter 95: Big Hammer Brother and the Fragments of the Diary_1

"Yikes, that was a brutal death..."

Annan smacked his lips with relish.

He was now in Roth Fort, watching a live stream while guarding a corpse.

Salvatore had already gone to sleep—his active hours were limited, and he couldn’t afford to first take Annan for a tour of the corpse exhibition to establish authority before catching up on sleep during the day...He was already severely sleep-deprived and had to sleep by three in the morning.

So Annan could only follow him and stay, for the time being, in the viscount’s mansion at Roth Fort.

While Salvatore went to sleep, Annan accompanied the Lord Viscount through the night.

—And incidentally watched a live stream of a horror game.

Although the exterior was scorched black, the Viscount’s mansion was large enough that living inside wasn’t a problem.

With one hammer blow, the boy god turned into boy paste.

And the death effect was particularly shocking—

In the moment the wandering child turned his head, he saw a massive hammer break through the glass window, accompanied by a thunderous roar...landing squarely on his own face.

His vision instantly blurred and shattered, and his consciousness disappeared.

That intense shock of dying could even be felt by the audience through the live stream.

Even the comments stopped for a while.

Because the viewers were similarly stunned.

After several seconds of silence, sparse comments slowly resumed:

"—Damn, that kind of felt awesome!"

"—This is triggering a death flag, isn’t it? I don’t think the boy god even tried to dodge."

"—Grab the note and run! Don’t bother with the things behind you, don’t look back...This must also be a chase scene."

"—I think that makes sense. The Hammer Bro looks like the guy from the second floor."

"—During the second floor, if you get caught, you’d probably get the same execution animation, right...?"

This must be the first significant back-turning kill of this nightmare.

Unlike the players, Annan knew about the "don’t look back" warning from the start.

But clearly, the warning wasn’t "turn back and you’ll die instantly," but rather "you can’t turn back at certain points."

After all, Annan’s strategy was inherited from Priest Louis.

In this instance, if you fail, you lose all memory. That’s why Louis had to plan his behavior before entering the instance...Then summarize the commonalities in his behavior after clearing it.

So his strategy was bound to be incomplete and imperfect.

Annan didn’t share this strategy with the players to avoid restricting their creativity. Otherwise, they would definitely try to follow Annan’s strategy to advance, and only after clearing it would they look for the easter eggs...which would effectively limit their thinking.

To make full use of the players’ immortality, they have to die several times.

Lacking talent, time compensates. What doesn’t kill me only makes me stronger...This is the advantage of the players.

Every life sacrificed—as long as it’s not in vain, always yields some gain.

Take the wandering child, for example.

The letter he picked up by the window was actually crucial.

Annan hadn’t gone to take that letter then.

It was a clue Annan had missed.

If everything had gone smoothly, if he hadn’t lingered in place, triggering the chase...Then, following the normal process, the wandering child would probably encounter Hammer Bro again at the end of the corridor and then enter "Nightmare: Elle Morrison."

That way, when he saw Elle’s diary, he would realize right away that the letter was a part of the diary...the part she tore off. He would notice that Elle’s diary was key.

The reason I say "torn off" is that Annan clearly saw the diary had only a single page—it was quite unnatural.

Normally when you write a diary, you fill both sides, not deliberately avoiding and only using one page to write. And when Annan had seen Elle’s diary earlier, she indeed filled two pages.

This meant that Elle, before writing her next entry, felt this wasn’t right and tore it off.

So whose hands did it end up in?

The diary fragments inside the envelope were neatly folded. The person who mailed this letter must have cherished it a lot.

Annan also noticed that Big Hammer Bro’s eye color was the same emerald green as Elle’s.

Connecting this to what Amos said right before entering "Elle Morrison’s" dream, "Baccara... please..."

A thought flashed through Annan’s mind.

— Elle Morrison, formerly known as Eirelle Backer.

This was news he had read in a newspaper from forty-five years ago, something the players couldn’t know.

So, could Big Hammer Bro be Elle’s biological father?

But wasn’t he dead?

Did he actually not die... or did he come back to life after death to settle scores with Amos?

...Come to think of it, Annan actually sympathized with Big Hammer Bro’s revenge.

After all, both his wife and daughter had relationships with Amos, and his daughter almost had a child with Amos. It was completely understandable that Big Hammer Bro would want to come and smash Amos’s dog head...

The piece of the diary torn off by Elle was also crucial.

Only by receiving this letter could one understand why "Dad was painting in front of the garden, but he couldn’t continue halfway through, and then he tore up the painting."

The Amos Morrison of today needs to start painting from bones to have that demonic charm—his paints could only be used to paint people. So when he painted landscapes, he could feel "a violent, intolerable regression."

It was the diary entry from that day that truly reflected the bizarre state of Amos. Combined with the content of the diary from the last day, "June 10," the wandering child could realize there was crucial information in the "study."

— Only then could the information for the entire instance be linked together.

This puzzle was similar to the password lock puzzles commonly seen in horror games.

A set of numbers written on a wall somewhere or on a piece of paper in some place would be the password for a certain lock.

Of course, if the password wasn’t too long, one could figure it out by brute force...

When Annan was tackling nightmares by himself, he relied on his quick search ability, scouring the entire room to ensure only the diary contained clues—and he headed straight to the study simply because it was mentioned in the diary. He didn’t hesitate at all in his decision.

This was purely relying on Annan’s strong initiative to compress his action time.

Annan suddenly realized what the most critical element in this instance was... in fact, it had been hinted at from the beginning.

— Time.

Initially, the player impersonated an injured, bleeding Amos. His liver or kidney was damaged, and he couldn’t move for too long. The frequent invasions by Big Hammer Bro that led to chase sequences further pressed the issue of time.

In the "Elle Morrison" stage, whether one could finish reading the books in the study before Amos got home directly decided what would unfold next. And objectives like "surviving until dawn" still emphasized time.

"Don’t waste time... huh."

That was the core mechanic of this instance.

Annan had some enlightenment.

If Annan wasn’t mistaken, the true mechanic of this layer of nightmare wasn’t "don’t look back," but "don’t stop."

The wandering child almost had it right...

If he had walked straight here, triggered the window opening at the door, went over to take the letter, read it, and then sprinted directly... at that point, Big Hammer Bro should have just been breaking in through the window.

This was probably why, in the CG, Big Hammer Bro randomly appeared behind Annan.

According to the internal logic of this nightmare, Annan was supposed to have finished reading the letter and triggered the chase before fleeing into the alley, triggering that section of "CG."

Amos knew someone was trying to kill him, which is why he shouted, "Baccara, don’t kill me." He took the unlit path to shake off his pursuer, intending to lead the other person into a well-lit area while he hid. In the end, however, he was cornered into a dead end.

— Thus, the entire logic was connected. Every detail was logical...

"It really was worth having players run instances..."

Annan muttered, rewinding the child’s live stream.

If nothing unexpected happens, he should follow the barrage guidance and make another trip to the third floor.

"Let me see how the others are doing..."

He wanted to see...

What the other layers of nightmare were like.

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