RPG JUMP

RPG JUMP

The following intel about this RPG game may, for now, be made public to the reader.

1. The Small Map

There are no signposts in the game, so the small map is rather important. It is essentially identical to the maps of real-world navigation software: a player may view important landmarks, the boss, and his or her own position (but cannot view other players).

The map is shown below. Up is north, down is south, left is west, right is east. The positions of Temples No. 101 through No. 107 are as follows (the exact center of each temple sits precisely on a grid point). On the map, each small cell represents a distance of one kilometer.

2. The Temple Teleport Mechanism

Every temple is fitted with a teleport magic circle. Every 50 minutes, the teleport circles inside all temples trigger in unison, instantly teleporting the players inside the temple to the nearest other temple, regardless of whether they are alive or dead.

If multiple temples are equally the nearest to the current temple, the teleport will jump randomly to one of them. (For example, if Temple A contains Player One and Player Two, and Temple B and Temple C are both equally nearest to Temple A, then there can be four outcomes: Player One goes to B and Player Two goes to C; Player One goes to C and Player Two goes to B; both go to B; both go to C.)

As for how "nearest" is determined, an empiricist rule is used: there is no need to fuss over trivialities such as whether it is planar distance or spatial distance, or where the reference point is set. One need only consider, in the game, a player setting out from the doorway of some Temple X (the position right up against the gate) and walking by the fastest possible route to the doorway of another temple; whichever takes the least time is regarded as nearest to Temple X, though there may be more than one such temple.

(Supplementary note: a corpse cannot walk, so the above rule cannot be applied to it directly. But when considering where a corpse will be teleported to, simply treat it as a living person.)

3. Some Basic Settings

All temples have identical decor: 40 meters on each side, 5 meters tall, with only a single door, one person wide, opening in the exact center of the west wall.

A player's movement speed in the game is fixed at 4 meters per second. Attack power, defense, maximum health, stamina, and so on can be raised through equipment, but attack range has an upper limit of at most a few tens of meters. No player has any special skills.

Part One: The Story Before Arriving at No. 104

* Alice

Might there be a treasure chest or something inside the temple before her? Alice spaced out for a moment before the tall stone walls. She had cleared all the small monsters nearby, yet they only dropped some gold and experience; perhaps it was time to try her luck. Thinking thus, she set her feet in motion.

The stone door was carved with the number 101. The door panel was quite heavy; gritting her teeth, she spent considerable effort to push it open, and after entering she pulled it shut again. But when she turned around to look about, the place was utterly empty, with nothing at all—truly disappointing. She did not stay, and was about to leave, when out of thin air four other people, each bearing a player marker, flashed into being before the door, blocking her way.

* Bob

If at this moment some busybody were to ask what he had done since coming to this world, Bob would only spread his hands and say helplessly, "From the spawn point I just kept walking south; if a monster got in the way I'd knock it down in passing." Saying it like that sounds rather offhand, but that is the truth. After all, with no special developments, it really is very boring. Idly he opened the shop, where one could see everyone's anonymous purchase records—basically weapons, armor, and the like. Bob had no interest in those; with the gold earned from killing monsters he bought a Poison Potion and a Wall-Pass Potion. When thrown, the Poison Potion deals splash damage to nearby targets and adds a one-minute lasting poison effect; the Wall-Pass Potion grants oneself a one-hour wall-passing effect. Now these things looked interesting.

Bob chuckled as he looked at the gear he had bought, when suddenly a temple-shaped building appeared before him. He circled around to the west side and took a glance: the door was wide open inward, and there was no one else. Why not try out this temple's wall, then? His playful streak roused, Bob used the Wall-Pass Potion on himself, ignored the wide-open door, and—still browsing the shop panel as he went—walked head-down straight at the wall, and really did pass through unobstructed. But when he came to his senses, there were, incredibly, four more people before his eyes.

* Claire

Was she perhaps the earliest player to discover the temple teleport mechanism? For some reason Claire felt rather pleased with herself. It was also a matter of fortunate timing, place, and people: when she crossed over into the RPG game, her spawn point happened to be right inside Temple No. 107. In the blink of an eye, her position on the small map changed, jumping to No. 106. Could the map be broken? While she was puzzling over this, the system popped up a notice.

"...for instance, if you stay here, then for you the next crossing may land randomly on 104, 105, or 107, because the time it takes you to walk to these three temples is exactly the same." Claire muttered the prompt aloud under her breath, and decided to try once more in a verifying frame of mind. After clearing a round of monsters outside Temple No. 106, once she reckoned the time was about right, she walked in once again. She did not know how long passed, but just as a boy came running over from afar and they met face to face, the scene before her eyes really did switch in an instant—from one face into four.

* David

As he ran past the front of Temple No. 106, David saw, from a distance, Claire at the temple's center vanish into thin air before his eyes. Could she turn invisible? Did one gain skills and the like after leveling up? Or was there an invisibility-potion item? Still, he had been planning to slack off anyway, so it was pointless to think about such things; better to keep running the map. He shook his head and kept dashing toward his own destination, No. 107.

* Iliya

What is this thing? Iliya stood before Temple No. 103, hesitated a few seconds, then pushed the door open and went in, but had taken only a few steps when she froze on the spot. Was she seeing things? She rubbed her eyes, but the several people before her were, no matter how she looked at them, genuine players just like herself. Could one buy some sort of mass-teleport item? Wasn't that way too bugged? Iliya opened the shop and fell into deep thought.

* Frick

Frick had been quietly waiting inside Temple No. 105 for a while now, having shut the door, yet still had not figured out how the system worked. After trying several more times, he finally brought up the small map. This is fun! He looked over his own position on the map, but in a moment that red dot jumped to another spot. Is it that inaccurate? Frick smacked his lips and raised his head—and his neck suddenly went stiff.

Part Two: The Story Before the Boss Descends

* Alice & Iliya

Alice was startled by the four people who had suddenly barged in; Iliya's face wore the same panic and confusion. Only Claire had an expression of having seen it all before, even thinking half-jokingly that, pixelated faces though they were, everyone's expressions were quite distinct. Fortunately the system, in good time, broadcast prompts separately to the four people other than Claire, and only then did the four learn of the crossing mechanic. Alice privately grumbled that the temple interiors were just too similar—as if copied outright for convenience—so that, setting aside the people who had appeared from nowhere, the scene before her after crossing was not the slightest bit different, and she, who had not looked at the small map, had very nearly failed to notice she had been teleported.

Several people began chattering and discussing, but once she had grasped the situation Alice had no heart to take part; with a brief word of notice she made to leave, saying she meant to rush back at top speed to finish clearing the monsters east of Temple 101, not daring to waste a single moment, and turned to go. Iliya had the very same intent, and followed close behind. Since the first stretch of the way back happened to be on the same route, she walked together with Alice, and they struck up a conversation.

"I was only dragged over here unwillingly in the first place; had I known there'd be no treasure chest, I'd have died before entering that wretched temple. While it's still the newbie-friendly stage, isn't it far more important to clear more monsters and level up quickly than to chat with people I'm completely unfamiliar with? I really don't get what they're thinking."

Iliya chimed in too: "Indeed. As for me, I still haven't dealt with the monsters on the west side. Everyone should learn from the two of us—go back to wherever you came from. Wasting time is, frankly, being a bit scatterbrained. Chatting isn't out of the question, but you've got to finish the real business first."

The two reached an agreement; not finishing off the monsters near home gives one a touch of obsessive-compulsiveness, and although they also wanted to go elsewhere and exchange information with people, leaving the job undone could never be justified. Halfway along, the two smiled, waved, and parted, then each went off to clear monsters. Right up until the alarm sounded, Alice was still within a few tens of meters around Temple No. 101, tirelessly dealing with newly spawned monsters.

* Bob & Claire & Frick

After Alice and Iliya left, the remaining three lingered a while longer inside Temple No. 104 chatting. But it was basically Frick asking and Claire answering, while Bob, as if he had seen a ghost, was still completely out of it and talking nonsense. So before long the group dispersed, each going about their own affairs. Claire vanished without a trace; Bob, for his part, went dashing about everywhere experiencing the wall-passing, and by chance ran into Frick and Iliya exchanging information near the spawn point. That was the last time he saw the two of them before being forcibly teleported into a temple.

* David

After stopping near No. 107, David could finally catch his breath. When he crossed over, his spawn point was in front of the door of No. 101; almost the instant he landed, he discovered the small map and the seven landmarks on it, and at lightning speed worked out a shortest route, going straight and direct so as to run, in the shortest time, from 101 through to 107 in order, as a stamp-collecting tour. After all, he had no interest whatsoever in fighting and killing; he would rather wander about—only, after the whole trip, he found that the temples were all damn well identical, and the nearby scenery quite monotonous, which was somewhat disappointing.

With no sense of crisis, David had goofed off right up to now. After resting, he finally got up to do something proper; otherwise, with not even a piece of equipment and his level too low, things would be rather hard to manage. So he went outside and, while walking, killed off a few monsters as they came, but very soon a red alarm popped up before his eyes.

Warning! The boss is about to appear; staying outside means certain death. The system will simultaneously force-teleport players into the temple nearest to each player and seal all temple doors shut by force; they may be unlocked only after the boss leaves. Players, please mind the small map. Good luck.

After the cold electronic voice finished, the six people still alive in the field appeared simultaneously inside the temples. The boss's icon soon popped up on the small map, too. Quite thoughtful, David secretly thought. According to the system prompt, the protective magic attached to the temple doors can withstand the boss's attacks; as long as one hides inside, one will be fine. Perhaps the teleport-circle setting was also meant to allow escape by teleporting elsewhere when surrounded? But this boss seems to be able to blink-teleport, so the system, being quite considerate, sealed all the doors so that no one can get out, and they can only be unlocked once the boss leaves. That's just as well; in short, simply staying put obediently is the right thing to do—probably one of those temporary, suddenly-triggered events in an RPG, just a formality to pass through, nothing will go wrong.

He probably never imagined that the danger would, on the contrary, come from within.

Part Three: The Story After the Incident

The moment the doors unlocked, Alice dragged Iliya's corpse and left straightaway, and without realizing it walked to near No. 104, where she happened to run into a player she did not know. The man, calling himself David, led her to the front of the No. 104 door to rendezvous with the main group, where she saw Bob and Claire, faces grave, arguing about something, and beside them, strikingly, was Frick—collapsed and not getting up, just like Iliya.

The four were lost for words for a long time before the two corpses on the ground. The game was rather crude; when taking damage one only loses health, leaving no wound on the body, so for the moment the cause of death was hard to judge. But after the boss arrived everyone had been shut inside the temples and could not possibly have come out; whether it was a natural disaster or a human act was, then, plain enough. It had originally been an absurdly simple segment, like an intermission—how had things come to this? Everyone wore an "I don't understand" expression, and an air of unease and suspicion gradually fermented and rose; only, no one was willing to speak first. And what utterly confirmed all of it was a single system broadcast——

"Iliya and Frick were killed by the same player. The main quest is changed to: find the murderer. Those who reason correctly may obtain a high reward."

Although prepared for it, on hearing such news the group could not help but draw a cold breath, falling into a long silence. The first to break the deadlock was Alice. "Just standing around won't do; how about everyone tells what happened inside the temple, in as much detail as possible, so we might find clues. I'll go first." Ignoring the others' looks of "maybe you're the murderer steering the narrative," she said in a firm voice——

"When the boss arrived, the temple I entered was No. 101. After going in I just idled about inside with nothing to do, all the while keeping my eyes glued to the red dot representing my position on the small map and watching the time. About thirty minutes after going in, I jumped to No. 104. When I lifted my gaze from the map, I was startled to find Iliya's corpse lying not far off. But honestly I didn't feel much; after all, we could hardly be called acquaintances, and to say I'd be saddened or frightened would be an outright lie. If I had to put it, I just felt it was very unreal."

"Once I'd recovered, I went up and examined her corpse, but didn't find much, nor did I think too deeply about it. I figured that with the doors sealed and no way out, by rights no one should be able to die; I didn't even consider the angle of a companion harming someone, and assumed she'd carelessly caused herself injury—so I just went on staring eagerly at the small map. Once the fifty-minute interval was up, I jumped again, this time to 103. Iliya's corpse came along too. Not long after, the system showed that the boss dragon had left and the doors were unlocked, so I took the corpse and slipped out, and then I ran into you all."

Alice cleared her throat lightly to end her statement. Although she had described the process of discovering Iliya's corpse in considerable detail, the others' suspicion seemed only to grow. Still, Bob took up the thread as agreed and continued. He recalled the situation at the time—at the very start he was force-sent into No. 104; there was nothing unusual then, and he too just stared at the small map to pass the time, and then after that...

"And then you ran into me."

"Right, right. I watched the time too; from when I went in it was also about half an hour, then that red dot suddenly flashed, and Claire was right before my eyes. She said she'd been teleported over from No. 106, and the two of us arrived at No. 105 together. It was a bit tense and a bit awkward then; the two of us paced about for ages, and I only found a topic to chat about after a while, so the room at least wasn't terrifyingly silent. Later, tired of talking, we split up to rest separately, and then the jump happened just as I'd relaxed. The two of us arrived together at No. 104."

Claire nodded to indicate complete agreement.

"On the second jump I was still spacing out; Claire and David both cried out and walked straight toward where the door was, and only then did I startle awake and discover Frick, dead, fallen at the temple's center. He lay face-down with his feet toward the door, one hand stretched straight out toward my side as if trying to grab something; the health bar above his head had already zeroed out, and his level had become Level 1—without doubt, already killed. I went up to help them, but couldn't make sense of it either. Not long after we'd finished looking at the corpse, the system announced the dragon had left; for the moment we couldn't sort out what had happened, so we went out at once, thinking to find a place to bury the corpse. We were just discussing it when you came over with fresh trouble."

"So the three of you were together the whole time after the second crossing, and you and Claire had been together ever since the first crossing. Mm, I suppose I understand now why you don't quite trust me; it seems I'm the only one who was alone the whole time." Alice smiled bitterly and asked again, "So, Claire, was there anything special before your first crossing?"

Claire only shook her head. "Nothing strange. The course of events after the second crossing is also more or less the same as what Bob said; at a glance I saw Frick lying in the dead center of the temple, as well as David, whom I'd met only once, standing in another corner. I was very anxious and went up to check the corpse as fast as I could, and so did David. But Frick was already lifeless by then. After the crossing, the three of us were each in different corners of the temple, all a good distance from the corpse, so it would certainly have been impossible for anyone to swiftly kill him."

David nodded and added: "I can testify—before Claire had even rushed up, Frick's health bar was already gone. It couldn't have been her getting in first to kill him. The other things Bob and Claire just said are all fine too."

The three corroborated one another; this stretch did indeed seem to be no lie. Alice nodded as if in thought. "Then only your movements remain to be pinned down. David, where were you on your first two crossings?"

"At the very start I took refuge inside Temple No. 107. Unlike you lot, I couldn't be bothered to keep checking the small map all the time; after all, I'd just run the whole map and killed monsters, so I was really worn out and lay down to sleep a while. Only on waking did I take a token glance at the small map, and the position suddenly flashed—it really did startle me, since I hadn't been with you all at first, and only then, when the prompt came up, did I learn there was such a thing as the teleport circle. I was teleported to Temple No. 106. Later, while spacing out, I was teleported again to No. 104. First I saw the dead man at the temple's center with his health bar zeroed, then from a distance a female knight ran over to look at the corpse, and a cloaked male mage arrived late... well, I mean those two. After they'd looked at the corpse they came and chatted with me a few words, and once the alarm was lifted we went out together. But I had no wish to get mixed up in their discussion, so I wandered around nearby for a little while and ran into you. That's pretty much the whole of it."

After a whole round of "home visits," nobody had untangled any thread, so Alice had everyone account for their movement tracks before the boss arrived as well, but this time the information content was even smaller—basically everyone acting separately; apart from Bob's mention that before the crossing he had by chance seen Iliya and Frick together, there were no other useful clues. Claire then proposed checking the shop, where one could see everyone's anonymous equipment-purchase information; most of the records were armor that adds health, weapons that add attack power, and so on, but there were also two especially eye-catching entries—those were the only two functional pieces of equipment with special effects: a Poison Potion and a Wall-Pass Potion.

"Ah, those two potions were bought by me." Bob hastily raised his hand to explain that he had bought these two things out of curiosity. And moreover he had used them up before all this. That seemingly somewhat dangerous Poison Potion was only used for killing monsters.

Such a statement clearly failed to dispel the others' doubts; everyone sized him up with strange looks. Although this potion could be used only once, who could guarantee that Bob wasn't lying? Nobody had special skills or special equipment; they could only attack at close range, and could not inflict lasting damage. The only one who could possibly have attacked the two before entering the temple, then used the poison's lasting-poison effect to kill them both, thereby achieving an unusual sort of alibi, was Bob; faced with this sole variable, one had to be cautious. Unfortunately there seemed to be no more evidence at hand, no way to judge the truth or falsity of the testimony. Someone or other let out a sigh, and the group once again sank into an everlasting silence.