Margana: To Seek The Truth

19. The Call of Cards

Moments after what I just experienced, I finally got up the— door. I thought we were looking for an actual door, not some kind of emergency hatch! The image of the elf-like twins in my head scares me... The look in their eyes teemed with desire to do something— unfavorable.

"Margana! You made it, I'm glad," said Lino. He was just sitting beside the door of the next room.

"I'm glad I actually did. Wait, were you able to see the seekers?"

"Not really. However, I heard some kind of maniacal laughter while waiting for you."

"Oh those were just the seekers."

"The creature chased you?!"

"I got caught in the cafeteria looking for the final key."

"... Damn, really? That's terrifying, I'm glad you made it out alive."

"Oh same, same here."

The broken lift on the left side of the room just suddenly came on and someone was clearly on it. Please be Miya... Please!!

"Hello dear contestants! I hope you had fun earlier! Miya is here again to give further instructions on the next room. Once you have entered the venue, there are 5 cards on the table right in the center of the room. Find the exit within 7 cycles. That's all, you may proceed!"

Same rules, it should be easier now. I mean, it would be impossible for the activity to be harder, right? I have been listing all and any possibility I can think of to overcome this hell. I did the same thing earlier and it did help somehow, might as well do it now too.

I snapped back to reality when the door immediately opened, we did not have the option to click play or not. At least, I did not remember one around here. It felt extremely ominous in there, if I had a choice, I would not go in.

It was clear that Lino digested the fact that there was no other option as he said, "Let's go, there's no time to waste."

I followed him aimlessly thinking that he's right about it, and I really hope that he actually was. This room had good lighting, and a hologram of a countdown was shown at the center of the table with help-cards. Three minutes to look around, that's ample time.

I quickly noticed how big the place was. It wasn't an ordinary "office" within a hotel, this thing is basically an entire house. The room of the highest ranking worker was as big as a small condominium room, the other stalls didn't disappoint. There are so many places that can be used to hide, it's hard to get caught now. However, we could not open a single drawer, how odd.

After all that time searching, I heard a siren-like sound with a countdown to ten. I swiftly ran back to the center of the entire room to rendezvous with Lino.

"Hey, Lino! Three cards, let's take one each then search for whatever it leads us to!" I said while running towards him to save time.

"Sounds good to me! Get the card closest to you!"

"First cycle, start. 60 seconds remaining."

I got a blue help-card, it had some kind of room with files all over the place. I know I've seen that somewhere, it should be the archive. I took it earlier and it seemed complex yet simple, there were too many places to hide a single key.

Once I came into the room, I started looking at the walls and the 3 desks that were inside. Why did white walls give me the creeps though? There were nothing in these! Where is the key?

"30 seconds remaining."

I tried my best to not mind the countdown, though I couldn't help but do so. I flipped through each folder but everything was blank! Just pieces of A4 zappers after the other, who would spend so much on these? This was beyond frustrating... Until I finally found a sheet of paper that had a lot of stuff on it.