Chapter 58: Guarding the Aegis, Number 11's Nightmare!

[Close your eyes when night falls]
[...]
[Guard, please open your eyes]
"Please select the target you wish to protect."

The mask on Wang Changsheng's face vanished.
His gaze locked onto Number 1.
There was only one wolf left on the field now.
If Number 11 wanted to survive, he could only pray that Number 1's investigation wouldn't land on him, and that he could successfully slash the guard tonight and kill him.
Because from the perspective of both the werewolves and the good players, Number 1 could only be the Seer.
Based on this, the Guard would most likely choose to protect Number 1 tonight, allowing him to report all his investigations from the past three days and clear several positions for the good team.
In that case, the wolf pack could not possibly attack Number 1 and would have to hunt for the Guard in an outer position.
Otherwise, if he successfully shielded Number 1 and secured another peaceful night, the wolf pack would have no chance of winning at all.
Now that two gods had left the stage, this was his only chance.
"But what if this guy tries to out-psych me?"
Wang Changsheng glanced at Number 11, Gael.
Through his observation of Number 11, Wang Changsheng judged that his opponent was an extremely arrogant person.
Otherwise, he wouldn't have firmly directed the kill towards Number 10 for two consecutive days.
And he had gambled correctly; Number 10 was indeed the Witch, and there was also a Guard on the field who was as "risk-taking" as he was.
Starting from these details, Wang Changsheng believed that Gael would very likely assume the Guard would give up protecting Number 1 tonight, shield himself instead, and switch to directly attacking Number 1.
Therefore...
[The target you wish to protect is]
[Number 1]
[Please close your eyes to confirm]
[Werewolves, please open your eyes]
"Please select your target for elimination."

Number 11 opened his eyes.
A displeased look crossed his face, a gloomy expression highlighting his dissatisfaction. His thick brows were tightly knit, and angry flames flickered in his eyes.
The corners of his mouth were slightly twisted, exuding rage like a thundercloud on the verge of bursting.
"Dammit!"
The wolf pack was facing a massive defeat at this point; all the other werewolves had been eliminated, leaving all the pressure squarely on his shoulders.
His move tonight was absolutely critical!
Life and death, victory and defeat, success and failure.
All rested upon his shoulders!
Number 11 Gael's face shifted from unsightly to profound, exceptionally solemn.

"Following normal logic, the Guard will definitely choose to shield the Seer Number 1 tonight. I must slash the Guard to death, but..."
Number 11 Gael's gaze narrowed.
His sight swept across the entire field in an instant, finally landing on Number 7.
"That guy during the day phase argued that 4 protected 10. I felt he looked like the Guard back then, otherwise where did he get his vision? It's just that Number 10 could also have been the Guard in the previous round. If he was the Guard, he could only have guarded Number 1 yesterday, so I had to slash him. If he was the Witch, and the Guard had shielded him, I still would have had to slash him last night."
For the wolf pack, Number 10 had claimed to be a plain villager yesterday. In the eyes of the other werewolves, they didn't want to drop their killing blade on Number 10 again, and it was solely because of Number 11's directive that they targeted Number 10 for two consecutive days.
"And today, although the Guard should still theoretically protect Number 1, if he already guarded him yesterday, there's no way I'd slash him today. If he didn't guard him then, today..."
Thoughts churned wildly in his mind, and Gael with difficulty made a hand gesture.
[Your target for elimination is]
[...]
[Please close your eyes to confirm]
[Seer, please open your eyes]
"Please select the target you wish to investigate."

It was Number 1's turn.
The eerie bronze mask on his face disappeared, and his gaze landed on Number 7.
Last night, the Witch had poisoned Number 4 and tricked Number 2 into self-爆 (exploding), but Number 2's parting words claimed that Number 4 was the Guard?
"However, Number 4 was a werewolf I exposed, and Number 4 thought Number 10 was either a wolf or a god. Even though Number 10 looks a lot like the Guard, Number 7 bringing this up so abruptly makes it very hard for Number 10 to hold the Guard card."
"Yet Number 2's response to Number 4's statement made it look like he was pretending not to know him, talking nonsense and forcefully pinning a Guard identity on him. In reality, it was to hide his wolf teammate's identity, confuse the good players' vision, and lower everyone's favorability toward Number 7."
"Or perhaps he was simply passing a message to his wolf teammate, guiding them that the Guard is dead and to come kill me tonight... Though that doesn't seem very likely... But if that's not it, is his move simply meant to confuse my vision? Such a low-level play doesn't fit Number 2's style at all."
Number 1 frowned in deep thought.
Ultimately, he chose to investigate Number 7.
"On the surface, Number 2 speaking like that makes me want to suspect Number 7's identity, but I certainly wouldn't fall for that. In truth, Number 2 was exploiting this psychology of mine, meaning Number 7 is actually his wolf teammate! He's trying to shift my focus away from Number 7!"
"And what if Number 7 turns out to be clear (jinshui)?"
Number 1 sighed.
His vision this round really should have been focused on an outer position.
It was actually very difficult for Number 7 to be a wolf in this spot.
Yet as the Seer, he had to factor this in.
The more he couldn't judge a situation, the more he had to use his ability.
[The identity of your investigated target is]
[Clear / Jinshui]
[Please close your eyes to confirm]
[Witch, please open your eyes]
[...]
[Dawn has broken]

The light in the entire virtual space gradually shifted from dim to bright.
The bronze masks on everyone's faces faded away.
Number 1 and Number 11 still looked calm on the surface.
Yet if Wang Changsheng observed closely, he could see the outer edges of both men's eyebrows drawing slightly closer, forming a horizontal line.
Clearly, both of them were carrying a certain degree of tension and anxiety.
In fact, let alone the two of them, even Wang Changsheng had felt a bit chilled with apprehension when Number 11 made his move.
After all, as the Guard making the first move, it was difficult to gauge the true intentions of the werewolves.
He and the wolf pack had to engage in hand-to-hand combat, bare-knuckled.
Fortunately...
The moderator's deep and magnetic voice rang out.
The news of last night's casualties was announced.
[Last night was a peaceful night.]
"What?!"
Clearly, the announcement was only five words long.
Yet it made Number 11 Gael's heart feel colder and more piercing than biting into an ice pop in the dead of summer.
As a grandmaster in the werewolf community,
almost ever since he debuted, he had never been toyed with like this.
Only three days had passed by now.
Yet Gael felt as though three years had elapsed.
How on earth could the Guard manage to protect through two peaceful nights?!
Gael felt a chilling aura, like a bone-eating maggot, burrow straight into the soles of his feet.
Tracing his bone marrow, it surged straight up toward his brain.
Number 11 felt somewhat dazed.
The scene before his eyes gradually grew illusory.
How could this be?
How is this possible!
By all rights, why would the Guard choose to protect Number 1 yesterday?
Even if the Witch card had been eliminated the day before, and his perspective knew the werewolves had targeted the correct person, the wolf pack would most likely attack Number 10 again at night rather than choose to guard Number 1.
Putting that aside,
did he not consider out-psyching the wolf pack at all?
Does this Guard even know how to play Werewolf?!
Number 11's gaze involuntarily locked onto Wang Changsheng.
He had a premonition that this guy was that damned Guard!