The detective is dead, I did it.

In Chapter 81, I made the following arrangements.

Lina didn't sit down after taking her hand off the president's shoulder; she just stood there.

"President, do you think I shouldn't have stopped you?"

The president did not answer, but lowered his head and slowly began to read the thick document in front of him.

This contains the personal information of all the detectives involved in this superpower disaster, including photos, abilities, and detailed assessments, and even Li Ang's information.

She paused when she came across a photo of Alice Clypse.

In the photo, Alice has blonde hair and blue eyes, and a forced smile appears on her lips.

This photo is her file photo. It was taken when she had just been promoted to Sequence 6 and was standing on the steps at the entrance of the association headquarters.

According to the association's training path, she will be assigned to a branch, train under the branch leader for a few years, then gain experience in other cities for a few more years, and then gradually become the new branch leader.

But now, the other side has been drawn into this game.

"Do you know why I wanted to take matters into my own hands?" The chairman slowly closed the document in his hand, his fingers pressing on the cover.

Without hesitation, Lina replied, "Because your people are in the courtroom: Charlotte, Eloi, and those young armed detectives. They are the future of the association. You don't want to lose them."

"It's not just that I don't want to lose it." The president subconsciously raised his hand, pressing his fingers against his forehead. His long, silver-gray hair slipped down from his ear, obscuring half his face. "It's that I'm afraid."

She lowered her hands and leaned back in her chair. The high-backed chair silently bore her weight behind her, emitting a very soft creak.

"If they all die, the association will lose more than half of its core strength in the next twenty years."

"How many years does it take to train a branch leader? From entering the academy to being promoted to Rank 7, it takes an average of ten years. From Rank 7 to being competent as a branch leader, it takes another ten years. Twenty years, a full twenty years. Do we have twenty years to wait for a new batch of people to grow up?"

She didn't wait for Lina's reply.

"In the meantime, what will we use to fight the Witch's Guild? What will we use to suppress the cultists lurking in the shadows? What will we use to suppress those increasingly impatient dukes?"

She turned to look at Lina. "I have to make sure they get out alive. Not hopeful, but certain. Do you understand what I mean?"

Lina understood perfectly.

As the first vice president, responsible for the deployment and command of the association's armed forces, she knew better than anyone how vulnerable the association's core strength was.

For the association, the importance of each branch leader is irreplaceable.

The young detectives imprisoned in the courtroom—Alice, Sherry, Bridget...

Each one is a seed that has been cultivated over more than a decade, and each one corresponds to a branch minister position that will be vacant in the next ten years.

Losing them won't cause the association to collapse immediately, but for the next twenty years it will be like an old tree whose heart has been hollowed out by termites—it may look fine on the outside, but it will break in the wind.

One can imagine the frustration in Chairman Adler's heart.

If it weren't for the fact that the Gates of Hell were suppressed under the other person's chair, she would have loved to personally capture that bitch Rosalind and lock her up in the association's prison forever.

At first, she was somewhat dissatisfied with Adler becoming the president.

A detective whose rank is not publicly known, who usually doesn't even have the chance to make a move, just sits there like a mascot.

However, this mascot has a bomb under its bottom that could explode at any moment.

Once she stands up, the seal on the gates of hell will loosen, and London will become the battlefield it was a hundred years ago.

So she had to sit. Day after day, year after year, like a statue nailed to a throne.

But now, she suddenly understood the president's difficulties.

This position is not an honor for her, but a cage.

"But if you stand up, London is finished. You know that better than anyone," Lina said softly.

The president lowered his head, looking at his hands resting on the armrest. His fingers were long and slender, with distinct knuckles, and his nails were neatly trimmed without any decoration.

Anyone who sees this will think it's the hands of a scholar, not a warrior.

But it was the owner of these hands who, sitting in this position, suppressed something that even the combined efforts of three Sequence 3 armed detectives could not shake.

No one knows what lies beneath the association's headquarters. Only the past presidents know.

It was originally a seal that was on the verge of collapse. Although the Demon Gate was closed a hundred years ago, the seal was never truly secure.

It was Adler who used her power to reseal it, making the seal that was originally restless more stable because of her arrival, and also greatly delaying the time of the second demonic upheaval.

The seal is like a string stretched to its limit. If she sits, the string remains taut. If she stands up, the string will snap.

"Lina, here are my plans. Remember them."

Lina took out her notebook from her pocket, turned to a blank page, pressed the pencil against the paper, and tensed up slightly.

"First, give this hand to Jack and tell him it's time to repay that favor. Make him find out Rosalind's current location."

Lina's pen paused for a moment.

Jack is the second strongest detective in all of Britain after the chairman, and is also the most likely to track down Rosalind's current location.

If it were any other detective, they might actually get hurt due to the large difference in their sequence of events; only the other person wouldn't have this problem.

The problem is that the other party has been away from the association for a long time.

Before leaving, the other party even left a harsh statement, saying that unless Lina and the other two branch leaders knelt down in front of him and begged him, he would never return to the association.

As for why this is the case, it all started with the conflict between detective detectives and armed detectives.

But that was ten years ago. Adler had just become president back then.

"President... if I go..." Lina hesitated, unable to finish her sentence.

If I go by myself, even with the chairman's request, I probably won't succeed, and I might even get scolded by that old guy.

Adler didn't reply. Of course she knew about it.

That was the deepest rift between armed detectives and reasoning detectives.

Ten years ago, Jack was the association's chief deduction consultant. During an operation, the armed detectives refused to cooperate with his reasoning, resulting in the deaths of thirteen innocent civilians, including his assistant.

Jack resigned in anger, leaving a letter on the association's door before he left. The letter contained only one sentence: "I will come back when you learn to respect detectives."

The letter remained posted for a long time, and the three branch leaders, knowing they were in the wrong, dared not send anyone to tear it down.

In the end, it was the newly appointed Adler who personally went to uncover it. After uncovering it, he didn't throw it away, but folded it up and locked it in the bottom drawer of his desk.

"Arrange for a detective to go. I'll write a letter later and ask him to take it with him." Adler shook his head helplessly.

As the president of the Detective Association, she was naturally well aware of the conflict between the two groups of people under her, but she herself had to suppress the Gates of Hell and didn't have a good way to resolve it.

After all, this matter involves grudges and disputes from a hundred years ago, and it's something that our generation can no longer resolve.

Lina lightly touched the paper with the tip of her pen. "Will he see it?"

"Yes." The chairman's answer was brief but firm. "He hates the armed detectives, not the association. He knows who Rosalind is, and he won't stand idly by."

"I understand." Lina felt a little embarrassed.

She was aware of that incident at the time. However, like Adler, Lina had just taken office and was not very familiar with the various affairs under her command, nor was she able to truly manage that group of arrogant and unruly armed detectives.

So we had no choice but to let it happen.

Although this might seem like an attempt to shift blame, Lina still doesn't think she has any problems; the responsibility lies entirely with Viola and Amelia.

But now that neither of them is here, only I can carry out the chairman's arrangements. As long as I'm not asked to go looking for that stubborn guy, it's fine.

"Secondly, I need to issue another order: gather these detectives for me."

Adler slowly read out a series of names, which Lina quickly wrote down.

Then she discovered that these people all seemed to be detectives, and their abilities were surprisingly similar, all involving the ability to interfere with rules.

There are no more than ten detectives in the entire association who possess this kind of ability, and the president named seven in one breath.

"I'm prepared to intervene in this witch trial. To add an extra layer of insurance for them. If they lose in the game, I want to make sure they don't actually die."

The president placed his hands on the table, his posture changing from tense to more relaxed and composed, clearly indicating that he had made a decision.

"How do I do it?" Lina asked quickly.

"The core of the Witch's Trial is the trial itself; the witch kills, votes to execute people, and once someone is dead, they are dead. But what if death isn't the end?"

Lina's eyes widened. "You mean... that they can be resurrected after they die in the game? Are you going to use Sherlock Holmes's abilities?"

She recalled the blacked-out and copied annotation in Charlotte Holmes's file—

"The ability is suspected to be related to death, but the specific mechanism is unclear. It is currently confirmed that it has the ability to resurrect, and it is recommended to classify it as top secret."

No more than three people in the entire association had seen this file, and Lina was one of them. Now that the president had brought it up, she suddenly remembered it.

Moreover, the other party's other ability seems to perfectly fulfill the chairman's requirements?

"Simply resurrecting someone is useless and won't help them end the game. So my idea is to reset it."

"If everyone dies, the game will restart, and time will rewind to day one."

"Second playthrough," Lina whispered the word.

"Yes. When both conditions are met—that everyone dies or the eighth night arrives—the game restarts."

Adler knew that in the game, players who were killed by the witch did not die on the spot, but would wait until the end of the game for a settlement, including players who were voted out.

What she needs to do now is change the game's flow so that it automatically restarts when it ends, until the Arbiter's faction wins.

"But can they, influenced by the game, really find the mole?" Lina looked at the thick folder on the table.

As a high-ranking member of the association in reality, she certainly knew who the mole was.

The other party disguised themselves as a detective and infiltrated the courtroom. But those in the game were unaware of this, and were even affected by the game's rules.

Therefore, Lina was also unsure whether Charlotte and Eloi alone could find the witch posing as a detective.

However, Adler gave an unexpected answer: "Trust Leon. I believe he will win this game."

"Why him?" Lina asked, puzzled. "Charlotte Holmes and Eloise Douglas are both Sequence 5 detectives. Their reasoning abilities are both superior to Leon's. Why not them?"

In her view, both Charlotte and Eloi were the most likely to resolve this game.

As for her own armed detectives, all she could say was, "Don't kid me. Just avoiding causing trouble is a success."

"Because he is an exception," Adler gave a puzzling answer.

"exception?"

"A person whose abilities are awakened later in life is an exception. Moreover, his encounter with Charlotte is quite interesting. I even suspect that Charlotte is hiding something."

"But that's not a reason for you to believe him."

From a realistic perspective, Lina would never place all her hopes on a mere detective who had only recently awakened his abilities, let alone an armed detective.

As is well known, armed detectives are synonymous with power.

This strength refers to combat ability, not mental ability.

Whether it's some kind of curse or not, all detectives who have awakened their armed abilities have become less inclined to use their brains. It seems that rather than trying to persuade criminals to submit with words, they prefer to use force to send them directly to their deaths.

Someone like Lina is already considered one of the smartest people among the armed detectives; otherwise, she might not be in charge of such troublesome matters as mobilizing and commanding the armed forces within the association.

Therefore, she had no idea that Li Ang, the armed detective, could win this game.

"Then let's make a bet? We'll bet on the devil horns that your family has had for over a hundred years."

"So what are you using as the stakes?"

"Hmm... The guild master's scepter that Her Majesty the Queen gave me?"

Although she felt like she was at a disadvantage, Lina didn't think she had any chance of losing.

"Okay! I'll take your bet."

Once I win, I'll definitely show off this scepter, which represents the president of the association, to my colleagues every day.

After the bet was finalized, Lina wrote the last line in her notebook, closed it, and tucked the pencil into the leather cord clasp on the cover.

"I'll make the arrangements right away. Gather those detectives; is anything else needed?"

"No need," Adler said, closing his eyes. "As long as they're all here by noon tomorrow, I'll handle the rest."

Lina nodded, indicating that she understood, and then left.

Adler did not stand up until his subordinate had completely left the room.

The sky outside the window was still dark.

But at the deepest point of the horizon, towards the mouth of the Thames, the color of the sky had already seeped out from that deepest inky black with a very faint gray-white tinge.

Dawn is breaking. The first night in the game is almost over.