26 - Where's My Luck

'Ah, shit! Please tell me this is a fucking dream…'

Lucian tried pinching himself, but it didn't work… The pain was real. He wasn't dreaming. The message in front of him wasn't fake.

He had truly been chosen as the impostor, and it was the last thing he wanted. Tricking everyone into thinking that he wasn't the impostor was fine. He even liked the idea, but doing so meant that he would have to lie to Ava and Alex… and, more importantly, that he couldn't reach the second floor with them.

'At least the rewards sort of make for it… but I still need to win this game to receive them… which isn't the simplest thing in the world.'

[Rewards: 25 000 Points and 5 Stats Potions of your choice]

After looking at the rewards, Lucian's vision suddenly became blurry, and a few seconds later, it became normal again. He looked around himself, and it had been teleported inside the environment where he would participate in the first trial.

He was currently around a giant roundtable where all the participants were situated.

Everything looked very futuristic. At least, he hadn't seen anything like it in the past. There were giant screens everywhere indicating all sorts of things that mesmerized Lucian.

'Are we in space?' Lucian thought as he looked outside a small window.

Outside the window, there were literal stars surrounding them…

'Don't tell me that we have to fix a literal spaceship? Well, 'we'... I won't be doing that.'

To be honest, Lucian could only do one thing at the moment… pray that Alex and Ava were also impostors. However, the chances of such a thing happening were so low that Lucian practically gave up on it.

He remembered what the informant had told them… there were rare cases where more than three impostors had been selected. But those were so rare that most people ignored them.

His thoughts suddenly disappeared when someone around the roundtable spoke up.

"I guess this is where the votes will be taking place."

Others started coming out of their thoughts when they heard someone speak up. No one talked at the beginning. Everyone started looking at each other, doubting each other… it was impossible to have allies the participants could trust… even those you knew before the trial… there was no way to tell if they would be telling the truth or not.

Suddenly, there was a little chronometer that appeared on his left. It was time for the vote.

[5:00]

[4:59]

*Ding!*

[Task to win without eliminating the impostors: Fix the broken ship before it crashes onto the ground. Everyone apart from the impostors needs to fix it. The places needing fixing will be indicated for you on the [Map]. As for the impostor or impostors… kill them… destroy things… it doesn't matter what you do, but… don't get found out.]

[Secret Task for the Impostor(s): Kill everyone for bonus rewards.]

Everyone read the task and became even more cautious, carefully watching over the others in this room. 

Lucian looked to his left and right, and it seemed that he was seated next to people he completely ignored the existence of. He tried to look for Ava and Alex. A few seconds later, he had found them; they were seated at the complete opposite end of the table.

'Let's not spend too much time here… It's better to leave right away.'

Lucian was the first to stand up, and he took his time, slowly walking toward Alex and Ava. Those two didn't seem to be stressed about this situation as they hadn't moved or said the slightest thing since this had started.

As soon as people saw Lucian move, everyone started to do the same thing. Some of them had already formed small groups before entering the portal… However, one of them was alone.

Lucian glanced past the one who was alone. There wasn't anything really memorable about him. He seemed too normal… maybe that was why…

Though… it was weird the moment Lucian glanced past him, it seemed all the memories he had of that young man had disappeared. The young man himself had disappeared…he was nowhere to be seen anymore.

'Uh…weird, I could have sworn I saw someone. Ah, whatever."

"Hey! Where are you going?"

Hearing that voice, Lucian turned around. Forgetting about the boy completely, he was now completely focused on Darius.

"We're going to fix the ship. There's no point in staying here longer, that is… unless you're an impostor."

Immediately, everyone turned around and looked at both Lucian and Darius. It was official. Someone had officially thrown an accusation, and it had been less than a minute since this game had started.

"Are you accusing me right now?"

Lucian smiled. This was exactly the reaction he had been waiting for.

"Why are you saying something like that? I-I never accused you of anything…"

'It's time to act like a victim.'

Darius tried to say something, but no words seemed to come out of his mouth.

"I-I was just saying that if we want to survive and reach the second floor. We need to start fixing this spaceship… if we stay here and wait, we will never find the impostor or impostors… they'll just wait until we crash."

Lucian acted like all he was doing was for everyone inside this spaceship… when it was the complete opposite. If people started leaving the meeting room, it would make it a lot easier for him to kill people left and right.

Some of the participants started supporting Lucian.

"He's right!"

"I agree. Why are you so against this!"

"Why are you acting so defensive!"

Darius was having even more difficulty speaking. He gritted his teeth in annoyance. But he managed to speak up soon after everything died down.

"I didn't mean anything by what I said… It's just that the tone in his voice was aggressive."

Lucian knew that there was no point in pushing this forward. The doubts had already spread in the minds of everyone in this room, and in a little less than five minutes, he would have gotten rid of the first person on this ship.

Darius was now trying to convince everyone in the room that he hadn't done anything wrong, and while that was happening, Lucian quietly tried to exit the room with both Alex and Ava.

"Hey, wait up. Didn't we agree that we would be coming with you?"

This time, Lucian wasn't the one to speak up. It seemed Alex has had enough of this bullshit.

"You three must really think that we're fucking stupid? Don't you think I already noticed that you three were sent here to kill us?" Alex said without the slightest hesitation. "Give me one reason not to kill the three of you right here and now."