novelhk Chapter 467 Resolution Chapter - Sunset Under the Woods
Chapter 467 Resolution Chapter - Sunset Under the Woods
Chapter 469 Resolution - Sunset Under the Woods
Although Leclerc had retired, his title of Earl was retained. The newly enthroned Prince Hugo was clearly quite pleased with the former regent's swift retirement and was not in a hurry to settle scores, instead giving him ample dignity.
As dusk fell, when the heavy mud-drawn horses hired by the count were harnessed and all the belongings were loaded onto the carts, and the entire procession was about to leave the capital in the twilight, a familiar figure suddenly appeared in front of the mansion, almost making Leclerc think it was a hallucination caused by his exhaustion from days of work.
"I hid in a shantytown outside the city for a few days."
The former "king" sat on the steps of the count's mansion like an ordinary vagrant, his rough fake beard unable to conceal the bitter smile that Leclerc was all too familiar with on his face—
"Seeing the city gates reopen, I wanted to come and say goodbye. Won't you invite me in for a while?"
It was only at this moment that Leclerc suddenly realized an ironic fact—all these years he had respectfully addressed the other party as "His Majesty Hugo," but now that the monarchy was gone, he found that he had long forgotten the other party's real name.
In silence, the count pushed open the heavy oak door.
Although Leclerc no longer needed to reside in the capital, his mansion was not sold; however, the half-empty rooms appeared particularly spacious in the twilight.
To be fair, the years I've spent working with this stand-in have been quite pleasant—after all, most people in this world are wise compared to the real Hugo XVI.
"Those travelers don't seem to have discovered Luna's existence yet?"
The stand-in asked softly, settling naturally into the study. It must be said, his acting was still superb; even now, he still looked like a king visiting a subject's residence.
"Luna must have been acting on your orders, right? I thought they had already guessed it."
Leclerc put down the teacup he was serving, raising an eyebrow slightly. "Because of your order regarding that cider, it flew from the Crocodile Tavern into the palace gardens with a barrel of cider as soon as it left the palace, then returned to the tavern with an empty barrel containing a human head, right? After all, it's obvious. With Luna, a Flying-type Pokémon, around, anyone would have thought of that method. The palace isn't far from the Crocodile Tavern, and similar transport operations have been carried out using Pokémon in the palace before. Even if someone witnessed it, they wouldn't suspect anything."
The noisy bird is indeed a creature blessed with unique advantages.
Their tongues are remarkably similar to those of humans, allowing them to accurately mimic any spoken words. These master mimics can not only use the same calls as their opponents to mislead them into thinking they are their own kind and thus avoid danger, but even more terrifyingly, as they age, they can actually understand the meaning of those words.
"Won't they become suspicious? That's not necessarily true." The Stand's lips curled into an enigmatic smile. "People often overlook what's right in front of them."
He slowly adjusted his cuffs—
"Luna Silvia—that's a perfectly normal name. As the most vocal of birds, she earned the dual titles of 'gardener' and 'spy' in the court thanks to her uncanny talent for mimicking sounds. Anyone who has only heard her name but never seen her would probably imagine her as a capable but slightly clumsy young lady-in-waiting, wouldn't they?"
"Even so, the anomalies in these clues are obvious enough." Leclerc shook his head.
"Although granting official titles to the Pokémon in the palace was indeed one of the many absurd ideas of the late King Hugo."
But the so-called "Night Rose Squad's spy" was just because it always patrolled the corridors with its companions late at night; the "gardener's" job was simply to drive away the Bug-type Pokémon that stole the berries; as for its past job as a "palace guard"—
The count tapped his fingertips lightly on the table: "It's purely because it always loves to stick close to you. You should know that better than anyone, right?"
He raised his eyelids, a weary, bitter smile in his eyes as he looked at the stand-in—
"In reality, how could anyone possibly hold so many positions in the palace at the same time? Besides, isn't it obvious at a glance what that noisy bird really is?"
"Travelers are, after all, outsiders and are not familiar with the political rules of the royal palace."
The stand-in moistened his throat with tea, but still said dismissively—
"You can imagine those three travelers as beings from another world who can only perceive the world through written and spoken descriptions. In their eyes, these common sense facts that we take for granted will coincidentally weave into an invisible trap, thus creating a bias that only people who do not belong to this world can feel—after all, no one would point to a noisy bird and specifically introduce its identity."
"Even if they can't see through that, wouldn't they notice the unusual footprints when they investigate the garden?" Leclerc calmly retorted. "If Luna were human, and there were only five sets of footprints in the secret passage, your stand-in would have no way of leaving."
He didn't question the far-fetched assumption about a body double, but instead continued to delve into the details—
"The reason Luna was able to distinguish between the real and fake His Majesty Hugo is because the noisy bird species has developed an extremely keen hearing in order to imitate calls, and can identify identities from the most subtle differences in timbre. That is why it screamed in terror when it first heard the real king's voice."
"As for the secret of the garden's secret passage, it must have been discovered by chance by Luna the chattering bird when she was banished to the garden and looked down from the air, right? That secret passage is indeed hidden from the perspective of humans who are limited by ground view, but it is clearly visible from the perspective of flying. The architects who built the palace a hundred years ago could not have foreseen such a situation."
"And most importantly," the count added, as he poured himself another cup of tea and sat up straight again.
"Luna Silvia usually speaks incoherently and always imitates lines spoken by others, a fact that anyone who has come into contact with her would notice. How could those three intelligent people, who could even solve the case of the late king's murder, possibly overlook such obvious anomalies?"
"Your Excellency, you are underestimating the power of preconceived notions."
The stand-in gently shook his head.
"Those people assumed from the beginning that Luna Silvia was human. Under that premise, these anomalies would naturally be subconsciously interpreted as eccentricity or a slip of the tongue. As for the footprints in the secret room, they can also be explained by other reasons, such as the fact that all five sets of footprints were forged by you, Earl, afterward."
He paused meaningfully—
"After all, you were the first to arrive at the scene, the one with inside information. You had both the motive and the ability."
"If you want to find fault, you can always find a pretext."
Leclerc spread his hands, looking sharply at the other person.
"You came all this way to see me today, surely not just to say goodbye and discuss these far-fetched hypotheticals?"
"Of course there are things that really matter."
The stand-in nodded calmly.
"Just as travelers are blinded by a leaf because of noisy birds, I, as a character in this play, also have some questions that I hope you can answer."
Leclerc's fingers paused on the rim of the teacup. "Then you might have the wrong person. Perhaps you should ask that female monk's master about this."
"Quite the opposite." The Stand's gaze flickered like the flame of a candlelight. "Only you can answer my question."
He leaned forward, his voice low, like the whispers of a schemer—
"Whether it's me or the three travelers, we all know that we are in a role-playing game, and the controller of this world is our mutual friend Wanlong. She and her rulebook define everything in this small world. As created characters, we can only receive information through sound and text, and the success or failure of our actions is determined by the roll of the dice."
The count's eyes widened in confusion, but the double—or rather, the real Hugo—continued speaking without a care.
"Including the king's beheading, all these plots were created by the novelist Wanlong for the game."
"I can even guess where she got the inspiration for this plot—just seeing the name of the Black-Eyed Crocodile Tavern and the use of that narrative trick, I knew that the case, at its core, borrowed from the kidnapping of the rich man that I had mentioned to her." The same escape plan being exploited, the "possessed by an evil dragon" rumor spread by the true king in the tavern, is practically the same as that threatening letter sent to the rich man.
"I think Wanlong must have done some research on this. After all, the image of that king is exactly the same as that vain real estate tycoon I once encountered. He vividly portrayed that arrogant and ignorant nature through indirect description alone—I can only say that he is truly a professional novelist."
Leclerc frowned, seemingly bewildered, but to Hugo he looked like a carefully manipulated puppet.
"I thought only the former king was a madman," the count said softly. "Could this face itself be cursed?"
"I don't have any aversion to the game itself—but the real problem is that this world, constructed purely from words, is too real."
Hugo ignored him and continued, "Although the core narrative trick in this story has blinded us all to the point that we are unaware of the chattering bird's presence, or even hearing it flapping its wings beside us, everything else has already surpassed the scope that a game host could construct."
Hugo pointed behind Leclerc, where the twilight through the window gilded every piece of furniture—
"I'm not talking about the realism in the details, but the contradictions in the motivations behind the actions—a good writer can certainly depict in detail the details of an empty count's mansion, and set up the feelings of a loyal minister of the late king when he retires behind the scenes, but she simply cannot control the players' senses."
"Right now, Yueju, Lianwu, and Gadria are drinking heavily in a guest room at the Black Crocodile Tavern branch. But what's the point of doing this? In the game settings that Wanlong follows, drinking doesn't increase attributes. If you want to increase reputation, you have to hold a banquet at the tavern. The three of them closing the door and drinking to celebrate is simply absurd behavior in a pure game."
"There are many other similar suspicious points. For example, when investigating clues in the King's murder case, the three players, who were sitting together at the bar, chose to split up—which should have increased the workload for the game master, but their actions were completely unaffected. Even more suspiciously, after the three reunited, they still needed to exchange information with each other again—wasn't that information shared by the players while sitting together in front of the screen?"
"Furthermore, there's the standoff between Blueberry and you, Earl, in the attic. I simply can't imagine what number to roll on the dice to achieve something like grabbing your arm and forcing you to listen to their reasoning." At this stage, the subtle manipulations blur the lines between game and reality.
Hugo finally shrugged. "In the end, the fact that the three kings of the Unova Alliance could set aside their duties and so happily immerse themselves in a late-night board game is strange enough, even now that the Alliance crisis has been temporarily resolved."
It was like a wonderful and sweet dream.
"Let's assume for now that everything you've said is true," Leclerc said, taking a deep breath to calm herself. "Why would you think I hold the answer to this problem?"
"First of all, you are the most important plot character in this detective story."
Hugo's fingertips lightly touched the air—
"Hugo XVI, who was murdered, is already a dead man; Luna and I are just guest characters, and we don't appear much; as for Emily, the waitress at the Black Crocodile Tavern, and Lopa, the bodyguard, they at most only played the role of introducing the plot and providing clues. Compared to us, you, Earl Leclerc, who is not only the one who issues the quest, but also an accomplice in the case, and ultimately the one who helps the player solve the case, are the one who truly dominates the entire plot."
"So what if you control the plot?"
"Generally speaking, such a pivotal role in the plot must be played by Wanlong herself. After all, only she has all the settings for the character of Leclerc—however, judging from your current reaction, you are clearly not that Ghost King of the United States Alliance."
"Then who do you think I am?"
"What kind of being could create such a flawless world based on Wanlong's script? And who could extract the ideas from the game host's mind without anyone noticing? And why is this world so bizarre that players, while mistaking it for reality, also smoothly follow Wanlong's settings and ignore the simple fact that Luna is actually a Flying-type Pokémon?"
Hugo looked at Leclerc's face beneath his silver hair and smiled—
"The answer to all this can be found in your title and name—Earl of the Black Moon, Ducham Leclerc."
"This was done by the late king on my behalf—"
There is no such thing as a black moon.
Hugo interrupted the other person's explanation, asserting—
"Although it may be little known in this day and age, the moon actually reflects light from the sun."
When the sun's rays are blocked by the Earth's shadow, the moon disappears from the night sky; this phenomenon is called a lunar eclipse. However, regardless of its phases, a completely dark moon will never appear in the sky.
The man, dressed as a stand-in, spoke softly, "Perhaps—only when the stars begin to shift and the crescent moon hangs like a hook, that void yet untouched by light is closest to the imagery in your name."
At this point in Hugo's speech, Leclerc, who had been trying to argue just a second ago, suddenly froze.
"Aside from the cameo character Luna, none of the characters in this game have a designated surname. Even with the parody name 'Hugo' appearing so many times, the royal surname still hasn't surfaced—this is likely a deliberate omission by Wanlong to reduce the cognitive load for players. Throughout the entire game, the only character to use a two-part name is you, Earl Duccam Leclerc."
Is this some kind of hint, meant to be fair? — A detective smiled as if he knew everything.
"I've heard that when people want to conceal their identities, they often use the name of their enemy as a disguise."
Hugo's fingertips lightly traced the rim of the glass—
"For example, an illegal organization I know once misappropriated the name of a regional energy giant to carry out smuggling. In this way, even if they do something wrong, they will only cause trouble for the people they dislike."
His gaze suddenly sharpened like a needle.
"You agree, don't you, Cresselia? — It's been over a decade since the incident at the Full Moon Island Festival, hasn't it? What brings you to Unova this time?"
A crisp snapping sound rang out.
The entire capital shattered in an instant, like a dream awakened from a nightmare.
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