God's Imitator

Everyone fell into silence. No one could give a definitive answer to the question Qin Cheng had raised.

Ye Lin thought for a moment, ”Well, perhaps it simply comes down to this particular Imitator’s personality. Maybe they’re naturally more lenient, or maybe they enjoy testing players through this kind of more extreme approach.

”This kind of question doesn’t need too much analysis, really, because a lot of design decisions may just be things the Imitator came up with on impulse, without any particular deeper meaning.”

Lu Bingjun thought for a moment and looked at Lin Sizhi, ”Lawyer Lin, what do you think?”

Lin Sizhi considered briefly, ”What Ye Lin said is certainly one possibility.

”Under the Gallery’s set of rules, every Imitator has their own ideas. If they happen to be looking at a case where the offences are not severe enough to warrant death, loosening the rules somewhat is entirely plausible.

”That said, looking at the outcome of this game, saying this Imitator was particularly lenient seems a bit of a stretch.

”Personally, I lean toward two other possibilities.

”The first is that the Imitator had access to these players’ records, could make educated guesses about their personalities and their likely standing within their communities, or recognised someone among them as a personal acquaintance.

”So the Imitator calculated that even with only one immunity voucher required, none of the six would be able to produce one. ”The second is that the Imitator used this generous clause to negotiate with the Gallery for stricter rules in the formal game phase.”

Qin Cheng paused, ”Hmm? How does that work?”

Lin Sizhi explained, ”In my previous community, we also obtained some information from an Imitator. One piece of that information was: the standard by which an Imitator’s game design is evaluated and selected under the Gallery’s review mechanism is actually fairly dynamic.

”A design proposal is assessed across multiple dimensions.

”For instance, if a proposal is highly targeted at specific players and is effective at drawing out the darker aspects of human nature, it naturally receives a higher score. Under those circumstances, an Imitator can include certain self-serving elements or somewhat unfair design choices. These bring the score down somewhat, but not enough to prevent the proposal from being selected.

”By the same logic, if an Imitator provides two ways for players to clear the game, with one being relatively straightforward, the other can be made considerably more demanding.

”If there is only one way to clear the game, it cannot be set as demandingly.

”I can’t say with complete certainty that this information is accurate, but looking at the game cases we’ve seen so far, it does hold up to some degree.”

Huang Shengjie’s eyes went wide as he arrived at a conclusion that even surprised himself.

”But it could also be both at once?

”Meaning, this Imitator might even have looked at the records and worked out our three communities’ situations well enough to predict that the community with an immunity voucher ready wouldn’t be willing to use it right at the start, and the one that was willing didn’t have one ready yet?

”So they deliberately designed this generous escape clause.

”The benefit of doing that is not just humiliating the players and creating the illusion of ’I left you an exit but you chose not to take it.’ It also lets them balance the overall difficulty and make the formal game phase more severe.

”For instance, increasing the damage from cardiac blockage and chest pain so that players die more easily?”

Yao Yuan was quiet for a moment, then cut in, ”Let’s not go too far down that road. Without solid evidence, making this kind of speculation is more likely to mislead than help.”

Lu Bingjun looked around the table, ”I think we have a reasonably clear picture of this game by now.

”’A Single Word to Settle a Case’ was clearly designed by someone with an interest in deduction. Its foundation is one-sentence reasoning, with the preparation phase having three audience players extract additional information through the victim’s words, and the formal game phase having players use what their opponents wrote on the boards to attack each other and make accusations. ȒåΝＯʙÈś

”From a strategic perspective, players can choose to keep their offences concealed throughout, as Shi Guoliang did, or expose something they consider relatively minor to protect something more damaging.

”Or they can try to shift attention by going on the offensive against other players.

”I don’t think we need to analyse the specific details too deeply, because most of the strategies in this kind of game are improvised in the moment and can’t really be studied as a framework for dealing with future games.

”If anyone is interested, feel free to revisit it in more detail on your own.

”That said, I spent quite a bit of time thinking during my rest period, and I’ve decided to use this game’s conclusion as an occasion to establish two things within the community.

”The first: based on Lawyer Lin’s performance across the two most recent games, I believe he is more than qualified to serve as a core player.

”If no one has any objection, that can be decided right now.

”Of course, the community now has fourteen players in total, and we don’t yet know whether any group game we encounter will divide players into groups of four the way the First Stage did.

”As we discussed before, three core players may still not be enough, so a fourth might need to be designated in order to handle certain special situations.

”Players who have shown strong performance can continue to work toward that.

”What does everyone think?”

The others looked at each other, then each gave a nod.

”Yes. Agreed.”

Some of those present clearly still had reservations, which could have stemmed from various things: perhaps a feeling that Lin Sizhi’s performance in the Pain Game had not been perfect, or a sense that as an outsider he might not be entirely trustworthy.

But regardless of all that, what he had demonstrated across the two games had been genuine and undeniable capability, particularly the critical role he had played in ’A Single Word to Settle a Case.’

So no one could find any particularly compelling reason to object.

Lu Bingjun continued, ”The second thing: I have decided to donate the full earnings from this game.

”Primarily to purchase an immunity voucher.

”The community’s current immunity voucher should finish its cooldown in another day or two. We’ve also discussed before that games with unusual causes of death are probably a minority of cases, and immunity vouchers will still be able to save lives in most situations.

”This money was earned by Deng Xiao and myself together. I think this is a fitting way to honour him.”

Yao Yuan nodded, ”In fairness, we’ve had many players leave in the First Stage too. In a place like this, we should probably have come to terms with life and death long ago.

”And yet, when death happens again, it’s still difficult to accept in the moment.

”Looking back over everything from the First Stage, Deng Xiao was never the most brilliant player, but he was always a good friend and partner within the community, and he consistently played a steadying role in the games.

”So I agree with Lu Bingjun’s thinking.

”Remembering Deng Xiao this way is another way of keeping him present in Community 2 forever.”

Lu Bingjun stood, ”Then I’ll go and make the donation now.

”Please, everyone, come and bear witness.”