(Unedited)
Word Count: 2437
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"Tag has simple rules. You run and I tag. Getting touched is an instant elimination." Lawrence's voice echoed around them. "The game will last for three hours."
"Tag? What did you guys get us caught up in?" Pomegranate grumbled.
"Lawrence's games I suppose?" Li Bao suggested.
Lola was a bit nervous and used the bottom of Li Bao's shirt to hold onto. His cousin seemed to be a particular attraction for newbies to stick onto. Elise's face was a bit pale, but she did not make any moves to rely on others.
"Does elimination mean-?" Lola nervously asked. "Not death right?"
"Or else? A party?" Pomegranate sneered. Unlike the patient Li Bao, he was never a fan of guiding novices.
The fog that was previously around them cleared allowing them to see their surroundings. It seemed to be a place outside of the mansion in the backyard. They were all standing next to a massive water fountain, seeming to be in the middle of a garden. All around them were rows of bright purple roses, and they were situated in the dead center of all of it. The water fountain had four stone benches surrounding it in a square shape and there was a stone pathway in between the rose bushes leading off from the central area.
From where they were standing there were four paths stretching out from the corners of the circular stone ground that the fountain was situated in the center of. One of the paths led to a gardening shed, another led to a greenhouse, one led to a forest area, and the last seemed to lead back to the mansion.
"So many paths?" Lola asked, her body more stiff than before. "Should we just run into a random one?"
"After three hours have passed, the game will automatically go into hide and seek mode. Due to it being more convenient, the same area will be used for both."
No one knew where Lawrence's voice was coming from, but they all heard it clearly. Li Yan looked around at the open fields of roses a bit apprehensively.
"Is there a boundary?" Li Yan asked aloud, not knowing if Lawrence could hear. Apparently, he underestimated him. "If you turn around and try to go down the path back to the mansion you will know."
After that, no one bothered to test it knowing it would probably lead to death. Lola was a bit curious, but she was quite cowardly and refused to go down it first. Like most novices, she had yet to experience the true consequences to the rooms so while her heart was fearless her body was not.
"Any more questions?" Lawrence kindly offered.
No one spoke so Lawrence let out a wretched laugh before starting his countdown.
"One."
"Two."
"Three."
"Go!" He cheered, and Li Yan took the lead in running off along with Pomegranate. Li Bao didn't fall short behind them, and noticing Li Yan's increase in speed and stamina she gave him a thumbs up while running. They all had similar plans of running towards the gardening shed first. Of course, it would have been better to split up, but no one gave each other a heads up on where to go so out of urgency they all ran the same path.
The two novices were at a disadvantage because of their lack of upgrades, so they naturally fell behind. They still tried to follow the three more experienced players but lacked that extra fitness to catch up completely.
At this point, the group still had no idea what would be chasing them. But, unfortunately Lola and Elise heard a horrible crunching noise behind them. Elise clenched her teeth and refused to look back, continuing to run even faster than before. Lola did not follow the same rules as her and looked back only to let out a loud scream, attracting the attention of the three in front.
Behind them was not Lawrence, but instead a group of undead animals. There seemed to be one for each person, meaning that everyone would always have a tagger chasing them. It seemed to animals were experimented on because most of their limbs were a mix of many other different animals, but obviously these experiments were not too serious considering how uncaring the stitches were. Some even looked as if their bodies would collapse in the next second, but the rooms proved to be exceptionally unrealistic in the fact that they all managed to stay intact.
"That's so scary holy shit!" Li Bao yelled. "Scarier than the bears with axes?" Li Yan asked.
"No, I just have a fear of horses." Li Bao pointed to a creature that looked like a mix of a horse, turtle, and chicken.
Li Yan felt that if he looked at those creatures any longer he would gain some type of trauma towards those animals, so for the sake of his future animal life he would look the other way. Although Blice was also technically two cats stuck together, they were very pleasing to look at unlike the animals currently chasing them.
They all made it to the gardening shed, with Pomegranate in the lead. The shed was a wooden shed that was slightly aged, it looked out of place from the main mansion, but it was far enough away to not stand out too obviously. Plus, it was surrounded with the eye-catching fields of purple roses, also covering its age.
The shed was definitely not large enough for all of them, so Li Yan and Pomegranate went inside it while Li Bao led the others to try to distract the undead animals chasing them. Li Yan and Pomegranate were both relatively fast searchers, and they found nothing of too much importance.
The only notable thing was one of the large shovels was missing from a spot. It was quite conspicuous since there was a neat row of three and the one in the middle happened to be gone. It left a clear imprint on the wall of the shed, obviously having not been used a lot. But for some reason, it was gone.
"Hurry up!" Li Bao shouted. "We can't hold them off anymore!" Li Yan and Pomegranate also knew they didn't have time to fully search until hide and seek, so they both quickly left and ran.
"I'll go to the greenhouse!" Li Yan shouted and Pomegranate gave him a thumbs up before running the opposite way towards the forest.
The undead were quite close to them now that they had searched the shed, so Li Bao hastily followed Li Yan while the two novices both followed Pomegranate. They felt that it would be easier to run away in the forest than in a closed-off area like a greenhouse.
"Will we even have time to search? They're closer now." Li Bao asked. "I don't know. I wish I could have asked what would count as the tagger." Li Yan sighed.
"You're saying that these undead might not be it?" Li Bao asked. "Well, it's not certain but it could be a possibility. Don't let just anyone casually touch you just in case."
"Got it."
Instead of running on the path, they decided to just go and cross the rose fields because the undead were on the path. The roses had a few thorns, and Li Yan was sure that if they were not wearing pants it would be a pain to run across this field.
The animals had split to chase the others so now only two were left chasing them, it was the horse mix mentioned by Li Bao earlier and a weird bird mix. One was on the ground and the other had the advantage of the sky. There were many close calls where Li Yan had to dodge.
Luckily, the game was not too unfair and the animals were quite slow. But this only gave Li Yan a bad feeling rather than relief.
They reached the greenhouse after a few minutes and at this point the game had been going on for around 20 minutes. They still had a lot of time left and they certainly could not run for hours.
Li Bao was ahead of him and opened the door first, but when she turned around the animals were much closer than before. She was a bit worried.
"Do you still want to go in? It might be a dead end."
"Go in. There's another exit." Li Yan stated to which Li Bao no longer hesitated and started to search. Li Yan reached her quickly and shut the door, the animals seemed to stop for a moment before turning around and going around the door in circles.
This was a bit odd. Li Yan thought for a second and asked Li Bao. "Do you suppose there are safe rooms?"
"Um now that you mention it, probably?" She shrugged while searching. The greenhouse walls were see-through, letting them keep an eye on the disfigured animals easily.
"I think we might be in one?" Li Yan questioned. They did not close the door for the shed, so they were not able to figure out if the animals could open doors or get through them.
"Well, whatever it is, we should search for clues and leave quickly. I don't think it is good to stay still."
Li Yan agreed and started to look around with her. The greenhouse stored many types of vegetables and fruits, most likely for the Coles to have fresh meals. It definitely was well taken care of by the workers because it was huge, it took them awhile to look through it all.
"I don't see anything." Li Bao said. Li Yan was about to agree, but he saw a pair of shoes lying down beside one of the pots. He quickly called his cousin over and they both decided to look at the same time in case of danger.
"A body perhaps?" Li Bao suggested. Li Yan shrugged and walked over to where the lone shoes were. They were a pair of school shoes, but it was unknown who it belonged to.
Li Bao hesitated, but in the end still picked up the shoe and examined it. "On the bottom it has an L." She stated, showing him the bottom of the shoe.
The L was cursive and in gold, showing off how expensive the shoe probably was. "It is likely to be Lawrence's." Li Yan concluded, to which Li Bao nodded.
"But why would they be here?" Li Yan questioned. "Lawrence definitely does not seem like the gardening type."
"Hey, why judge?" Li Bao joked. She started to move the pots around from where they found the shoes, but she suddenly came to a stop.
"What is it?" Li Yan asked. He bent down to look and saw what caused her reaction.
A pair of short legs were seen behind the pots, the clothes were dark and covered in dirt making it hard to see. Especially with the pots covering it, the body was practically camouflaged.
Li Bao and Li Yan both looked at each other before moving the pots and looking at the body at its fullest.
The boy was easily recognizable. It was Lawrence. Except, a shovel was inserted where his neck should have been, making a clear slice between his body and head.
It seems like the second murder had occurred.
"The greenhouse, with a shovel. No motive known." Li Yan noted. "Murderer also unknown."
"Sir Cole would be arsenic, the dining hall, also with no motive known." Li Bao added. "Murderer also not known."
"I think the arsenic should be right. The room wouldn't make it that difficult, but something still feels off. I don't know what?" Li Bao stated. Li Yan nodded.
"A glitch?" He asked.
"It may seem not rare to you since you've had it happen in your first room, but glitches and bugs are really rare." Li Bao said. "It's not likely to get one in every room."
Li Bao was about to search the body, but the head of the body opened its eyes, startling the two. "Huh?"
Li Yan's bad feeling suddenly picked up and he dragged her quickly. "Run!" They quickly made their way out of the greenhouse and shut the door. Behind them they saw a headless body running toward them and banging at the door. The head was nowhere in sight, but the body didn't seem to need it at all to function.
Before they could relax, the undead animals suddenly made an appearance. Li Yan saw the situation was not good and frowned. They both tried to run, but one animal was on their left and the other was on their right. In front of them was a tall bush of roses, most likely the boundary. They didn't dare take the risk, leaving them with a choice of the two animals. Li Yan decided to pick the direction of the woods to meet up with the others, but the horse mix stood in the way.
Li Yan quickly dragged Li Bao to go around, but in the process Li Bao slightly tripped over some of the gardening tools left outside the greenhouse's back door. There was no time, so Li Yan pushed her out of the way ahead of him. The horse mix was originally aiming to bite Li Bao, but ended up biting Li Yan's arm instead.
"Li Yan!" Li Bao yelled in a panic, quickly dragging him while running in the rose field. She felt her heart warm that he helped her, but in distress because of his pain. At the beginning of meeting her cousin in this world, she was honestly quite happy but she was still very nervous of betrayal. But now, she felt like she could completely trust him and that he would not hurt her.
Li Yan felt a sharp pain running through where he got bit, traveling throughout his whole body. The bite spot felt painful, and he quickly used part of his shirt to cover the bleeding. He pressed his other hand to the wound to apply pressure, trying to not fall behind Li Bao.
"Li Bao." Li Yan said, slightly out of breath.
"Yes? Are you okay?"
"Yes, but the issue is the animals. They aren't taggers." Li Yan said. Li Bao heard this and also let out a sweat. Although this meant Li Yan was not in danger of elimination, it also left a big question.
Who are the taggers? Lawrence?
They both felt dread overcome them and they hurriedly ran towards the woods.
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Noooo, waiting for more.