The next day , everyone gathered " It looks like everyone is here " " So the witch didn't target anyone , maybe they are aware of our stats " they looked at Yuni who remains silent keeping her mouth shut , they all think of her as a pushover due to her willingly giving up the rewards just to not incite anger .
" If we could keep up with this , we might be able to survive " " But there is no time limit ? " " so if we survive , we could win eventually "
' That is true , but I only did this to give them some breathing space and as for what the information will reveal ' Yuni takes out two more people that night , the next day and the villagers got some information .
[ Witches know some of the villagers' information ]10Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡvqpuAsh3T9
[ May not be limited to stats ]
Tension grew as they wondered why the game gave such a vague clue but they thought of the thing that would get them killed if that part of them was known to others ' Doesn't that mean '
They each thought of the murders and thought they might be next , unaware that the rest are just as bad ' If so , then wouldn't Yuni be spared because she has the mercy challenge ? Even if the others haven't killed , she's the one with the best chances with that challenge '
They all knew that witches win with an equal number of witches and villagers . Which means that the villagers who survive until the last witch will survive . But the information that they were given , as well as Yuni having the mercy challenge , gave each the impression that the witch wouldn't go for her .
' What's more , they didn't stop the killing and got two people last night ' " We need to do something " all the murderers felt death creep extremely close to them , these wolves in sheep's clothing thought they needed to get rid of the do-gooder witch .
" This is so ironic " " I know right , the wolves are the sheep and the sheep is the wolf " the viewers watched the ironic game unfold as the wolves started to point fingers "Why are you all pointing fingers at each other ?"
Yuni asked and she was only answered " The witch could be after us after we got rid of one of them and might kill hastily " "Yes , but they must be picking from the weakest and to strongest right ?"
They all were careful with their mouths as until now they were all strangers to each other , none of them knew that every one of them is a murderer , excluding Yuni " That's why we are trying our best to defend our case so that we don't get voted out "
"Maybe it's possible for us to determine who will be next ? If the Witch knows our stats , they might aim for the weakest logically unless they have a different kind of goal in mind seeing as the game did say that the information isn't limited to stats"
Yuni said , trying to remain unaware of the witch's advantage but inadvertently causing more tension among the wolves who think they'll be next because of their murders .
' But it's weird that the game says it's not limited to stats . There is skill information , but isn't that part of the stats ? Are the admins interfering or is this being streamed and viewers can make changes through donations ? ' they all knew how hard it was to tell who the witch was without enough evidence .
' We can't find out the witch in any conventional way . We already got some support with Sobriety , but it gets hard to stay awake all the time and we can't exactly train during the day with all the sleep rotation ' they all thought .
" the wolves are at a standstill " " Not much of a choice , if the witch is impossible to find and none of them could even share information to prove their innocence like the real witch " " Meanwhile the person who is supposed to be the safest from the killing rule they thought was the witch "
" Can they make some kind of twist already ? There is no way this is going to be interesting if this keeps up , she just wins by keeping up with her "killings" "
Yuni watched with other villagers as the rest went to sleep " Hey Yuni , do you know any way to detect the witch ? " "I thought you wanted rewards" " Yes , but you have contributed a lot , so it doesn't matter anymore , is there a way ? "
' If I confess ' "not that I'm aware of , it's too bad not everyone could show their status window like I do , if you spoke our stats aloud , then the witch would know you lied and the witch could also lie ."
A player thought of the lie and drank a drink that Yuni handed . They quickly coughed out the contents and saw the notification .
[ Sobrierty challenge failed ]
" THIS IS POISON !!?? " Yuni pretended to be surprised and with the lack of sleep " YOU'RE THE WITCH " the other villagers joined them together after some ridiculous screaming and pointing of fingers .
" EVERYONE WAKE UP " "Wait I" Yuni was quickly ensnared by a trap before she could defend her case " What happened ? " " Yuni , she's the witch " the poisoned quickly got an antidote and gave it to everyone .
" Hey , this is interesting ? " " What is happening " " The real witch is being accused and she was the one who incited it " The wolves grabbed the fire and took it to Yuni as she was tied " BURN HER "
" it's like a real witch burning " As Yuni's body was burned a notification appeared .
[ One active witch remaining ]
Despair hit everyone as they realised that they had the wrong person " Why did you burn her ? " " She lied about the sobriety challenge . I was poisoned , so I thought back about how the witches are immune to the sleep-inducing mist "
" And we still picked the wrong one and there are still a lot of villagers " ' All according to plan ' Yuni walked inside the underground tunnels that she has been making in her free time at night ' Although the update is pretty slow , they should've said one active witch during the first voting no ? '
Meanwhile , at the chatroom for viewers " I'm a bit late . Can you tell me what happened ? " " It's an interesting game , it was very ironic where everyone was a killer except for her , the actual witch "
" She successfully got rid of the other witch by trapping them in her basement and what the villagers don't know is that the fire they used to burn was enchanted by the Witch's Warmth part of the compensation package the sheep got " " What was the original fire supposed to do ? "
" It was supposed to burn in different colors if it was a witch , if it's just a village , it would've burned like normal " " And get this , she made a poison to slowly attack all of the villages to cloud their judgement so that they burn her , allowing her to "kill" through votes . she practically wins the game "
" How did the system react to it ? " " It didn't react much since nothing was being burned or permanently removed , it just said how many witches are remaining if they decided to use the fire , which helped her "
" It's funny , the wolves are all sheeps while the sheep is the wolf " " What about the second witch " " They're the same as a wolf , but they lose to a sheep , therefore , no point talking about them "
" So right now ? " " The sheep is cunning like a fox , she tricked everyone into burning her and now she's at the underground tunnel " " Is that what she did at night ? " " You think she was pretending to be tired ? "
" I barely watched when it was night , there's usually nothing occurring other than killing " " You should because after she taught everyone sobriety , you can watch them fight inside a closed room " the chatroom was flooded and many viewers read the chats as they understood the situation .
" The game doesn't see this as balance-breaking since she has to be merciful , so they let it slide and it raises the game difficulty for her , so there are a lot of changes , maybe more to come "
" But to the villages , they still think they will die right ? " " Yes they do , but I think they're giving them a chance now that she decided to remove herself from the voting "
...
[ Game balance has been destroyed ]
[ Conditions changed ]
They all looked at the notification " Look a twist " the viewers watched silently as the three dots blinked back and forth . The game balance found a new condition , one that suited the murderers and Yuni .
[ Burn the merciful witch ]
All wooden material starts to burn , which caused the tied-up witch and villager to be freed " So she was the witch the whole time ? Why did the game say one witch remaining " " She's probably still alive "
They looked around the burning houses and looked at Yuni's " She must be in here " they kicked the door open and Yuni watched through her window .
[ Your mercy is being challenge , prove that you can keep it ]
She cleans her floors and hears the foot steps . The door slams open and she kicks it back , hitting the second villager and trapping the villager in the room " DIE " Yuni used a rough towel to block and push the blade and used it to whip their face .
Another villager came in and she shut the door again to limit the number ' They're pretty disorganized , probably cause of panic poison that eventually stacked up in their water supply '
She threw the alcohol in her room and grabbed the lighter ' Witch's warmth ' " Ahh I'm on fire " ' Take note it doesn't kill villagers ' they quickly ran out causing the rest of the villagers to panic while Yuni beats the one in her room and three more came , but she threw the beaten up villager on them .
She jumped out of her window and the villager who was on fire ran out " WATER " ' Those kids are good at setting up challenges ' Yuni ran into the forest ' But since they made this game , I have to make sure they are doing well , so this mist better have some reasonable explanation behind it '
She spotted a witch's hut with smoke coming out and knocked . Footsteps were heard and a witch wearing wool appears " Hmm you weren't supposed to be here " Yuni smiled and the witch looked at her and noticed her mercy challenge .
" So you didn't kill any of them ? " Yuni nodded ' Truly a befitting game made by the servers ' " I heard they were all murderers . I was gonna give a good reward just because they were , but you didn't even kill them ? Maybe this mercy is pushing you to do too much , but if you show mercy to this killers , what about the innocents they will kill ? "
Yuni continued to smile " I see you have your decision " " THERE SHE IS " the witch looked at the villagers who ran towards her ' If she dies , the other witch will either kill everyone or die , they're all murderers , but this one isn't . However my influence is only limited to this sleeping mist and providing skills '
The witch noticed Yuni was gone and turned to see Yuni throwing some ingredients inside ' Oh that's right in exchange for not getting any magic from me I gave her books of my knowledge she must've learned about all of them ' the sleeping gas spread through as Yuni completes the recipe and it spreads throughout the land of villagers and witches .
[ The merciful witch has won ]
' How unexpected ' the witch looked at Yuni " Congratulations , merciful witch " ' How nice of them ' " You have won without killing anyone , something witches would've done " she walks to the cauldron and removes the contents .
" You have done great in being merciful , feeding on the stories that witches are innocent and that the villagers are mad " she packs her things and leaves the hut .
" This hut is now yours , merciful witch . Do keep up with the image and you might gain enough power to spread these stories " she takes the broom and leaves while Yuni looks at hut ' How do I move you ? '
She looked at the murderers outside , wondering what to do and sees another challenge of mercy ' Keeping them in check is hard , especially now that I learned they are murderers '
She receives the reward of her mercy challenge ' Another chance to show mercy , it's something that progresses the challenge , but also makes sure I can keep it '
She tries to open it , but it failed ' Huh isn't this an opportunity to use the reward ? ' Yuni looks at the villagers , thinking of how she could keep them from attacking others . A notification appeared after she spammed the claim button too much , it accepted and showed a prompt .
[ The greatest mercy is mercy on self ]10Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡfgAKvrcyXJ
[ You've unlocked some of the witch's teachings ]
' What the hell ? Are you kids trying to teach something ? This better be the admin's handling my character ' she thought , ignoring the other reward prompt ' Maybe it's possible ' she cast some magic and traps them in bottles .
' How do I bring this ? ' the house starts to tremble , It rose off the ground and Yuni sensed that it grew the legs of a swan and wings appeared beside it . She rushed inside and the house took flight , reaching the sky ' This isn't so bad , although I wish I wasn't blind so I could see what's below '
She decided to take some time to learn the witch's teachings and the house finally arrived in a forest . The house retracted its wings and the legs dug into the small island inside a swamp , burying itself ' Oh we're at ground ? Did they only give the players a one-way ticket ? I guess there could've been some proper worldbuilding they could've done , but why '
[ The Witch Sabrina has given her hut to Yuni ]10Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ4NRpdnHn9S
[ Stage has been cleared ]10Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡm98eESlx19
[ Return back to the start village on your own ]
' How did she do that ' Haggis wondered why that occurred and more notifications appeared ' So that's their plan to fix the game balance ' Haggis quickly packed his things and headed back while Yuni was already resting inside her new home .
' But where am I exactly ? ' she checks the map which tells her .
[ Current location : The mad forest ]10Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ3BPEmwezSL
[ This forest is untouched by civilization ]10Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡiAjPPoPAtU
[ Your quest will start here ]
' What quest ? ' she turned to a window , which told her the quest she must complete .
[ Due to high stats quest difficulty is increased ]
' At least they're good at balancing although it's weird that they're making me do these weird quest '
[ Defend the house ]
' It's not as entertaining as the previous mission , a boring quest like this is just for brutes who has no class '
[ From the endless horde of monsters ]
' Hold up , the hell do you mean endless ? ' the map shows lots of monsters running towards Yuni's location and upon hearing the stampede , she understood the problem .
' Well , let's make use of the hut then , but flying is not good , they might balance it making the house stay here , so how about I find the source if they want to be realistic , these hordes should have a source but '
Monsters start to appear and Yuni thinks of the mercy rule while a notification appears .
[ The mad forest name originates from the maddening miasma ]10Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡbjTbp7WWcu
[ Death is a form of release from the cruel lifeforms ]
' That's a bit sad ' she enchants witch's warmth and enchants the swamp ' that should keep them from being near ' she thinks of how to keep out the monsters and thinks of the challenges .
' Since this place has a maddening miasma , that means my sobriety challenge could be in danger , although it's also an opportunity , that progress bar on sobriety is pretty small '
She thinks of the witch's hut likely having some books about it ' This is the maddening forest , maybe there's some recipe in here that can cure the madness ? ' she went to the bookshelf and with the guidance of the system , she found the book .
' It's locked out ' she was going to pry open the book , but had to shake the thought away ' guess it makes sense for the system to lock out all these books ' the majority of the shelves were locked out , excluding the books that were part of her compensation package .
' But the book would be the solution , but it's a reward from the sobriety challenge . And that's different than mercy , I have to not get any status effects . I've been careful wearing this veil to limit poisonous air but if I'm gonna beat up the endless horde source , I'll need more air to breathe but the problem is '
She opens the status screen ' Yo admins , can you at least give me some advice ? '
[ drink alcohol and stay sober ]
' I see so I need to not feel the effects ' she thinks of the fastest way to reach that point and decided ' Time to eat I guess ' she takes out a lot of food from her inventory and starts to eat ' Obviously the primary need to stay sober means I have to be able to process the food . training my body's metabolism is no biggie '
She started eating while training her body and eventually ' Finally got the sobriety challenge who knew trying to stay sober was so hard but I got it , I even shut up the whole time and ate my food quietly which also progressed the silence but if the reward's are given by being related to the challenge then what kind of reward do I get for the blind and silence ? '
' Now that I think about it , the blind is progressing extremely slowly , isn't it ? is it because I've been reading ? Yo system , you better do something about that ? Are you trying to slow down my progress on the challenge of blind ? Ever heard of braille ? It's real easy to read with that ' Yuni complained
[ Making changes please wait ]
Yuni sighed ' Now that I've got the recipes ready , let's get to making it maybe it's preferable if I can induce it like a mist but maybe I should first learn about the forest ' she picks up a few books she could access , which had information on the mad forest .
"The mad forest has a strange miasma that causes any monsters to instantly lose intelligence . There are cures to this miasma however , the source of the miasma is yet to be known . Its massive monster population and size are due to how many enter the mad forest and never exit , as they grow more reliant on its miasma"
' So it makes addicts , Maybe the source of this miasma is a giant tree , the one that benefits from all the deaths . It does make the monsters go crazy and kill each other ' she went to the basement , which lets her dig out of the legs , allowing her to search for the roots .
' I don't even need to make that mist , if I can get rid of the source ' Yuni takes out a strange syringe ' If I want to kill the mad forest , I'll need a lot of resources ' She extracts the nutrients with the syringe and quickly leaves before the mad forest could react .
' If it has a lot of nutrients , their immune system might send them something so I better finish it ' she carried the bottle with the murders and cast a spell to turn them into hungry parasites ' Now you'll have to drink some soups '
In a cauldron , she threw out some stones each with a stat character carved ' this is the result of N/A , my stat points were converted to stones . Guess it makes sense , while you can remove the challenge at the endgame , it doesn't mean you can't lose them halfway . maybe that's why the kids turned my stat points into goodies like these '
The soup was ready and Yuni turned them all into her familiars and gave them some written instructions ' Now make sure to eat up all of them ' she carried a basket down ' they're pretty noisy , but if I scream at them through familiar contract connection , I might lose the challenge '
Yuni left the basket of parasites and commanded them to eat the wood ' I'll eventually turn them back after all this is a form of punishment , so that they could reflect on their actions ' she smiled as she watched the mercy challenge progress further and hoped that she'll eventually get the end of the challenge .
' But why are those things targeting me specifically , even though they all seem very hungry ? Shouldn't they target the ones beside them ? ' she thinks of the witch hut and gets a description ' Oh that makes lots of sense , although it gave me a useful house , it also makes me bait , seriously this is ridiculous '
She decided to handle the maddened anyway , making the potion and releasing it as mist ' this should calm them down . The witch's warmth isn't gonna hold for long anyways ' she waited for the mad forest to be clear , but suddenly felt a great wind .
' Oh looks like there's something , but this wind doesn't feel artificial . Yet it feels like someone or something cast it ' her bugs crawl back to the swamp and Yuni gathers them back in a basket while thinking .
' Dryad , magic tree or a person there are a lot of possibilities and I only narrowed it down to a tree because the plants felt much stronger in strength but lacking in offensive power '
A much more powerful miasma comes in and Yuni breathes it , but quickly offsets the effects ' The difficulty just rose , is it because I directly confronted the boss ? '
[ Alert : Witch hut defense decreasing ]
Yuni drop some healing potions and threw some paralysing venom on to the swamp to stop the hordes from attacking ' I don't have enough offensive ability yet so it's a bit of stretch ' she hears a sudden loud shriek ' Argh ' she didn't scream from the pain and wondered what had just happened now ' No wait this is actually good '
She feels the progress on silence improve much faster ' These noises must be from the maddening forest . They increased their attacks , perhaps this mad forest's source isn't a giant tree but something instead '
She listens attentively and recalls the stories from the witch's hut ' A banshee foretells death from noise , but that kind of fortune telling is stupid , especially if this kind of prophecy is meant to be self-fulfilling , anyone who hears this maddening shriek would go mad and have their ears pop '
The sounds were slowly becoming easier to discern ' the sound of a bird can be heard , there is also the sound of an elephant . Maybe this mad forest only has that because it's the grounds in which banshees start '
She gets inside and hears several thumps and thuds , assuming they were monsters who fainted from the loud shrieks ' But why now ' she grabbed the book concerning the mad forest and reads .
"It is discovered that the mad forest makes people mad because of the banshees that lived inside" ' This wasn't there , maybe the book updates itself when it receives correct information , a clever invention . I better reward the kids when I meet them '
Yuni smiled with satisfaction and started to theorize it using the self-updating book to confirm , while the screams sounded throughout her mind ' Maybe the banshees contributed to the madness by having a proper foundation maybe has to do with the miasma '
The book confirms her words and she continues to think ' Perhaps there are other causes ' a screen signifying her silence challenge reward appears and Yuni finishes her thoughts ' I've got a plan , but first let's see what I got '
[ Reward notes of silence ]
' It's annoying that I can't read properly with those screams , so I should try to tune it out ' she finish the notes and finally cast the spell ' finally , blissful silence ' she breathed a silent sigh of relief and went to the location .
' It took a few guesses and I'm not gonna lie , this book does have its disadvantages . If you aren't creative enough , you won't get answers even guesses require me to make some stuff up ' she arrived at the large tree and could sense something cold and chilly around her ' Must be the banshees '
She searches for any kind of life that could cause the banshees to scream to foretell death and found a weakening flower that was growing on the tree ' Is this the source ' the book updates confirming it and Yuni figured there must be some story behind it .
' Alright book , I'll be making some guesses now ' "The mad forest earned its name because of a flower that grows within it , the banshees that started to appear have an affinity to this flower and their wails were imbued with the madness , further strengthening the flower's strength"
"But the Banshees only wail to lifeforms that have enough intelligence , they are not aware of the flower's ability and therefore they never thought that their wails were bringing the deaths of their own family when they came close to dying"
"The corpses fed the forest and the forest's growth meant growth for the flower" Yuni felt the gas from different points assuming the number of the flower attached to the trees and the book updates "Which allowed it to evolve and gain enough intelligence that the banshees would wail for their upcoming death"
ns216.73.216.79da2
