Initially, Lin Yu hadn't doubted Furbollo's identity at all.

After all, Lin Yu had easily discussed profession-related information about the Death Game with him.

Although this detective had completely misanalyzed Lin Yu's profession during their first meeting...

He was indeed a genuine Detective.

The Death Game would never assign professions randomly.

Moreover, the Detective profession's abilities naturally allowed one to quickly obtain "clues."

But...

The "explanation" Furbollo provided happened to be the least credible one possible.

Because there wasn't enough time.

No matter how talented a Detective was, reaching the conclusion that "each abandoned stronghold happens to have seven adjacent strongholds" would require visiting at least sixteen strongholds.

Yet...

He couldn't have moved that fast!

Even so, Lin Yu might not have completely ruled out the possibility that this "Furbollo" had used some rapid movement or enhanced observation tool.

Therefore, Lin Yu chose to take out the map for further testing.

After traveling all night, Lin Yu had confirmed one thing...

This map had "omissions."

There were 13 players in this game.

But on this map... even including the central point, there were only 97 strongholds—plus 12 abandoned ones.

Yet throughout the night, Lin Yu had indeed encountered all twelve other players.

At first, after noticing all the strongholds could form a twelve-sectioned circle, Lin Yu suspected a player might be spawning at the central point.

But after actually traversing the area last night, Lin Yu confirmed...

When drawing this map, each sector's area had been slightly expanded.

After dividing it into twelve equal parts...

An entire sector had been concealed.

The hidden sector happened to be where Furbollo was located.

Lin Yu hadn't noticed when passing through—because Furbollo's area was almost identical in structure to the next sector!

When Lin Yu pointed his gun at him, Furbollo raised his hands in panic.

"I... I'm not Chate! I'm a Player!"

Seeing Furbollo's genuine terror, Lin Yu could tell.

This wasn't an act.

But... that didn't prove he was "real."

After all, the burly man they'd encountered earlier hadn't been acting either.

Both the burly man and this Furbollo were utterly convinced of their own identities.

Otherwise, Lin Yu's earlier deception against the burly man wouldn't have been believed and actualized.

So...

Lin Yu looked at Furbollo and didn't hesitate to fire his bullet.

A veteran player on the forum had once posted a guide noting that statistically, whether in Survival or Slaughter dungeons, the most fatal moment when encountering "monsters"...

Was always during the first encounter.

Thus, Lin Yu didn't rely on his Soldier-enhanced physique or Enforcer combat skills to engage directly.

He simply fired.

"Bang!"

After the gunshot.

"Furbollo" collapsed in shock, his dying expression still frozen in disbelief.

Even Lin Yu, who had been certain this was an imposter, now felt a twinge of doubt.

Had he actually killed the wrong person?

Well, even if he had... better him than me, right?

But two subsequent events confirmed Lin Yu's judgment had been correct.

First was Furbollo's "corpse" on the ground.

It rapidly "melted."

His entire body first faded to black, then softened in texture before becoming a viscous non-Newtonian fluid.

Soon, this black liquid seeped into the ground.

The entire process took mere seconds.

However, Lin Yu had been closely observing "Furbollo's corpse" and missed no detail.

The second confirmation was...

Lin Yu still retained his Doctor abilities.

"So the Furbollo I first met was real, this one was fake."

"While I can't confirm this was Chate in disguise... whatever it was, its disguise method involves creating replicas that 'mimic' behavior."

"And judging by Furbollo's reaction earlier, these replicas can't copy memories... probably only mimicking what they've already observed."

Lin Yu exhaled and pulled up a chair at the workbench.

"So the actual number of strongholds isn't 97, but 105..."

Pondering this, Lin Yu spread out the map on the workbench.

Beside it stood a pencil holder containing an unused pencil.

Lin Yu took it out and drew two dotted lines on the map, marking the "erased" thirteenth sector.

This sector should be due north on the map.

"If there's an unmarked sector here with the starting point at 'center,' Furbollo's stronghold was here last night, and I passed one..."

Lin Yu marked three points.

Then he froze.

Lin Yu suddenly realized all previous strongholds followed a naming convention of letters A to E combined with numbers 1-12.

But—if Furbollo's current location was labeled A13...

Connecting A1 to A13 like a childhood dot-to-dot puzzle...

Formed a perfect arc.

Next was connecting B1 to B12—though missing two points initially, adding them in the omitted 13th sector would form...

A cursive lowercase "h."

The C connections... shaped like an "e."

The D section formed an "a."

The E section—a cursive "t."

Though these letters overlapped, if the initial arc was considered a "c"...

Arranging them from A to E spelled a word:

c, h, e, a, t—cheat.

Which in Chinese means...

Deception, fraud.

Lin Yu exhaled deeply.

"I see. Hiding this sector prevents people from connecting these letters."

With this word revealed on the map, everything clicked into place.

"That monster 'Chate' the burly man mentioned—perhaps its real name is also 'cheat.'"

"So if the map's strongholds are hinting that this is all a 'deception'... then my Fraudster's Promotion Task must involve whoever set up this scam."

Lin Yu murmured to himself.