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THE PLAYERS WERE ON the final level of the car park, facing the final puzzle.
"To unlock this door and complete the game, you must answer this question: take 9 from 6, 10 from 9, 50 from 40 and it leaves 6. Why is this? A hint can be given but will add a physical challenge to the game."
"This one is easy!" Someone exclaimed, "They told us the answer!"
Akuji shook her head, "Yes, but the equation does not make sense. The answer to the equation is 20, not six."
"What? Then how is the equation even possible?"
"They're cheating! We can't even beat the game!"
'Cool Headed' called out to calm the frantic players, "Maybe we have to do it with minus numbers or certain decimals and they didn't mention that."
Still, they tried that but did not come up with the answer of six. It seemed, like the players had said, that the game was impossible to beat and completely rigged against their favour. So, they asked for a hint.
"Using roman numerals will solve the puzzle." It said.
Instantly after, a soft hissing sound was heard. The players glanced around in attempt to find the source, but there was nothing to be seen. It seemed their added physical challenge was something to psych them out and not at all an actual threat.
'Cool Headed' frowned at the noise but soon went back to trying to solve the puzzle. "Since it said we must use roman numerals, we should convert all the numbers into roman numerals. We need the diary again, where is it?"
The players looked around for the language professor but could not find them. They realised that they must have been killed by the spikes. Akuji felt a moment of sadness for them and for the fact that they had not been remembered or cared about, even though they had saved everyone's life. But she pushed that away as she volunteered to go get it and rushed away.
Whilst she was at the previous level, she made sure to check for pressure plates, not putting it past the game makers to try kill her, and managed to grab the diary and pen without being harmed.
Heading back down to the final level, she suddenly began to cough violently. It lasted for half a minute. Her lungs burned and she felt light-headed. She wondered if this was an after effect of being hit by a grenade, but she didn't have much time to think about it as she had reached the final level and now had to focus on the puzzle again.
"Thank you." 'Cool Headed' said, pausing to let out a particularly harsh cough. Then, they began to convert the numbers into roman numerals. They showed their workings to the group and everyone stared, dumbfounded, at it.
"Maybe you have to–" One of them started before they fell into a coughing fit. They grabbed their chest as if they were having a heart attack, hacking up blood onto the floor.
Gasps swept through the group. They took steps away from the person as if their illness could be transmitted –and it seemed like it could be, as the person closest to Akuji started to do the same coughing.
"What is going on?" Someone demanded, clamping their hand over their mouth after they spoke to try save themself from the disease spreading.
"This must be the physical challenge." 'Cool Headed' deciphered, "That hissing sound has to be some sort of gas to make us like this."
"But we can't see it! Or-or even smell it!"
"None of this matters!" Akuji snapped, desperately holding back a coughing fit so she could speak. "We will all die if we do not solve this puzzle. We need to focus on solving it."
The group nodded in agreement, stepping forward to crowd around 'Cool Headed' so that they could see what had been written in the diary.
"Maybe you have to take away the letters?" Someone suggested, voice raspy.
'Cool Headed' did so and gasped, "You're right! This leaves us with the letter I and X. We just need to figure out how to get the S now."
"Give me that." Akuji demanded after an idea popped into her head. Vision shaken and tilted, she took the pen and diary from them before looking over at the number nine: IX. "Look! The word SIX minus the number nine - IX in this case - leaves us with just S. And if we add the other answers to the equations, we also have I and X, which creates the word SIX. That's how the equation equals to 6."
The door opened, the announcer telling them that the game had been cleared, which was just in time as Akuji heaved in a large gulp of air before coughing tremendously. Still, she and the rest of the players rushed into an elevator and out of the game venue as quickly as possible.
Akuji looked down at her hand and noticed blood. She could barely think straight and her vision was blurry; it was like she had been hit with a grenade again.
She collapsed to the floor just before a coughing fit seized her.
AUTHOR NOTES poor akuji 😭 she fr was hit by a grenade & then like 8 hours later is about to die from some poisonous gas
