The Lilith Protocol Chapter 13

They used her as a sacrifice to restore the other children to health and normalcy.

I shuddered. Thinking about it carefully, this was truly horrifying.

This should be her cause of death.

As for her identity, that seemed harder to guess.

"It's evening. Let's hurry and gather."

Number two checked the time and urged me to leave.

"Why gather? Are we debriefing again?"

"Yeah, Walter said we must be careful on the Return Night. The danger might double."

He seemed to trust Walter's words completely.

I was curious what kind of words could make them believe so deeply.

Back in the living room, my heart skipped a beat.

My piano had been splattered with paint, the back cover was wide open, and several spiked clubs were jammed inside.

The piano was destroyed.

"Why did you destroy this prop?"

I tried to keep my voice sound normal.

"We wanted to see if there were clues inside, so we smashed it open."

Number nine said innocently.

I took a deep breath, trying to hide the tremor in my voice.

"I see. Did you find anything?"

"Nothing at all. Such a conspicuous piano sitting here—turns out it's just useless decoration."

I was already past being angry.

Countless scenarios flashed through my mind.

Whatever happened, I didn't want to die.

The task only said to perform the piece. It didn't specify I had to use a piano.

Besides the piano, was there anything else I could use to perform?

I searched everywhere for instruments.

The sky darkened. Number two, who'd been following me, and numbers nine and eight who were already here, were all present.

"Walter, four, and five aren't here. They couldn't have gotten lost, right?"

"We've all walked through here hundreds of times. How could anyone get lost?"

Everyone speculated back and forth.

"Watch out for number four."

Listening to their confused guessing, I spoke up.

"Why?"

"I can't say exactly. Just intuition."

Number one had died before reaching the selection point.

Both four and seven were suspicious. Now seven was gone too.

That left only him.

If all three people didn't come back, his suspicion rate was eighty percent.