Chapter 97: Hand Sanitizer

"What are you even thinking!?" Kaguya shouted, her embarrassment flaring up once again. "It's obviously supposed to be blood, not something... like 'that'!"

"There are many types of human bodily fluids," Amamiya responded logically. "I think it could work."

In Chika's words, "that stuff" can be used in emergencies. Right now, it's just a matter of filling up the bottle—completely reasonable.

Amamiya placed his right hand on his belt with a serious expression. "I've always wondered if we could undress in this game. Now seems like the perfect time to test it out."

"What's wrong with your head!?" The puppet butler, unable to take it anymore, stormed forward, his voice full of frustration. "Don't you dare ruin my bottle!"

Amamiya looked down at him, unbothered. "What if I make a mess of things?"

"...What?" The puppet butler was taken aback, surprised by the sudden turn of events.

Without hesitation, Amamiya reached out and grabbed the puppet butler's body.

"Foolish human," the puppet butler sneered. "In this castle, I am invincib— Wait... what's happening to my body?"

The butler suddenly found himself unable to move.

A smile crept onto Amamiya's face. "Got you, Don."

Earlier in the hall, Chika had renamed the puppet butler 'Don'. As long as no one changed the target, the effect of the name change would remain. Hence, Amamiya could capture the butler with 100% certainty.

"My dear guest, capturing me is pointless," the puppet butler said, quickly regaining his composure. "I'm just a puppet—I don't have the five senses of a human. Pain means nothing to me."

Amamiya nodded in understanding. "I know. That's why I don't plan on torturing you, 'Billy'."

"Wait," the puppet butler's wooden eyes spun in shock. "How do you know my real name!?"

The clues Amamiya had pieced together were clear.

[Mr. Butler, as a puppet, despises being called "Billy" because his real name is Billy.]

[Maintaining cleanliness and proper appearance is a basic quality of a butler. Mr. Billy cannot tolerate any stains on his attire.]

[Obsessive cleanliness is not a disease!] 

After reading the hints, Amamiya immediately understood—Billy the puppet was a neat freak.

It made sense. Just like a raccoon washes its hands constantly, a puppet obsessed with cleanliness wasn't far-fetched.

"Mr. Billy always wears gloves, doesn't he? He hates getting his hands dirty," Amamiya noted.

The puppet butler's voice wavered. "Human, what are you planning?"

"It's simple." Amamiya pulled out a marker pen that produced permanent ink from his inventory. Casually, he pressed it onto the table, leaving neat characters behind. "This oil-based ink is hard to erase. Want to test it, Mr. Billy?"

The puppet butler's tone lowered, unimpressed. "Your trick won't work on me."

"Let's see about that."

Amamiya pulled off the puppet butler's white gloves, revealing his pale yellow wooden hands.

As the tip of the marker pen inched closer, the puppet's wooden eyes darted nervously. Unable to bear it any longer, Billy finally admitted defeat.

"Alright, alright! You win, human. Just keep that pen away from me!" he exclaimed.

Amamiya shrugged and put the marker pen away. "Too bad you don't have hair, or I'd give you a middle part."

With the puppet butler in hand, Amamiya walked over to the cage. "Where's the key to open it?"

"You don't actually need a key," the puppet butler replied reluctantly. "It can be opened at any time."

Amamiya's eyes narrowed. "Explain yourself."

"That's all I can say. It's part of the rules," Billy said. "Observe the cage carefully."

"What does that even mean?" Kaguya frowned, staring at the iron bars that confined her. Cold steel and a tightly locked door—it was hard to imagine how the cage could be opened anytime, as Billy had claimed.

Amamiya carefully examined the cage before his eyes twitched slightly. "...I think I've figured out how to open it."

"How do I get out?" Kaguya asked, looking up in confusion, still unable to see the solution.

"The method is actually really simple, and it doesn't require a key at all." As Amamiya explained, he reached out, grabbed the iron cage, and lifted it off the ground with ease. The cage, which had been inverted like a box, was raised up immediately.

"It's not that heavy," he remarked, glancing down at Kaguya. "You can come out now."

Kaguya: "..."

The iron cage had only five sides and had been sitting upside down like a box. You could simply lift it to escape. No key was needed at all.

Embarrassed, Kaguya puffed her cheeks in frustration. How did she miss something so obvious?

Biting her lower lip, Kaguya silently crawled out from under the cage.

"Try the key," Amamiya said, handing her the bunch of keys.

Aside from being confined in the cage, Kaguya also had iron chains binding her hands and a strange collar around her neck. All of these locks needed to be removed.

Taking the keys in silence, Kaguya tried each one but quickly realized, "None of them work."

Amamiya turned to the puppet butler, Billy. "Mr. Butler, how do we open the handcuffs?"

"You don't need a key for the handcuffs," Billy replied with a roll of his eyes. "The keys are there just to add a little 'fun'."

Leaving the key in such an obvious place, only to offer false hope, was clearly a twisted sense of humor.

Amamiya frowned. "Then how do we unlock it?"

Billy the Puppet provided a cryptic hint: "When the forest ends and the water is found, there is a mountain with a small opening that shines with light. We leave the boat and enter the opening, which is narrow at first, but then it becomes spacious after walking a few dozen steps. Suddenly, the view clears."

"Peach Blossom Spring?" Kaguya, being well-read, immediately recognized the reference.

Amamiya, however, remained unimpressed. "Speak human language."

Billy sighed. "It's simple. When humans encounter tight spaces and dryness that hinder movement, what do they usually do?"

Amamiya silently pulled out a marker and raised an eyebrow. "Do you realize how dangerous it is to tell dirty jokes?"

"A kind person sees kindness, an evil person sees evil. Clearly, human, you're the one being evil here," Billy retorted.

Kaguya furrowed her brows, utterly lost. The subtleties of the conversation seemed to fly right over her head, as her level of naivety was akin to that of an elementary school student.

Amamiya pressed, "Mr. Butler, I'll give you one more chance to rephrase that."

With a resigned sigh, Billy explained, "Please recall Newton's first law."

"The first law... inertia, the law of laziness," Kaguya mumbled, then suddenly brightened. "Friction?"

"Reduce the friction between the handcuffs and my hands?" she asked, now understanding the hint.

Amamiya's gaze fell on Kaguya's pale, delicate wrists. He too realized what Billy meant and quickly looked at the glass bottle sitting on the table.

"So, the liquid in this bottle isn't water—it's... hand sanitizer?"