"I don't know what you're talking about."
Liza lowered her head, her expression unreadable.
Arthur didn't seem bothered in the slightest. "Let's start with why I even thought about this in the first place. The system never explicitly mentioned a traitor, did it?"
That was exactly what troubled Liza most. There had been no direct clues, no announcement, nothing that clearly proved the existence of an undercover role. So how had he been able to act and even plan—on the assumption that one existed? Wouldn't a normal person, after seeing her reveal her identity yesterday, try to cooperate with a fellow Reincarnator? She had assumed he refused an alliance simply because she had schemed against him before. Now it seemed he had been wary of her from the very beginning.
"Actually, the system already gave us a hint," Arthur said, winking. "Do you think this name I'm using now is my real one?"
"…No."
Foreigners were common enough in Reincarnation Dungeons, but after interacting with him, Liza didn't believe "Eren" was his true name.
"Exactly. That's the hint." Arthur smiled faintly. "For the native residents of the dungeon, it makes no difference what name a Reincarnator uses. So why would the system bother forcing a name change?"
He paused before continuing, his tone turning more analytical. "Think about it from another angle. If every Reincarnator's only mission were to survive until their twelfth birthday, then everyone would naturally be on the same side. In that case, why not gather us together at the start, like in other dungeons, to encourage alliances?"
Liza's eyes flickered. She understood.
The mission and the hidden-identity setting were contradictory from the outset. If everyone shared the same objective, competition might exist, but it would be something mild, like outperforming others in exams or rankings. That kind of rivalry would be almost harmless in this world. Yet this dungeon was anything but harmonious.
The need to conceal identities implied conflicting factions. The simplest conclusion? Someone had a different mission.
Ordinary Reincarnators were tasked with surviving until the end of their twelfth year. But if another stance existed, then the most logical opposing objective would be preventing others from surviving.
Under that assumption, calling her a "traitor" was not unreasonable at all.
And perhaps he hadn't been certain from the beginning. But her behavior had only strengthened his suspicions.
"In the online intelligence archives, almost no one has ever admitted to playing the role of a traitor," Arthur continued calmly.
"Of course not," he answered his own point. "'The Promised Neverland' is already considered one of the hardest among the ten-story dungeons. If someone discovered a stable strategy to clear it, why would they publicly reveal it?"
He looked at her evenly. "More importantly, being a traitor is a role that easily draws hatred."
His voice carried the weight of quiet certainty. "Imagine ordinary Reincarnators struggling to survive, finally reaching the last day and making their move—only to have all their preparations exposed, leading to total failure. Wouldn't they want to kill the one who betrayed them?"
He continued without raising his tone. "There are plenty of faction-based missions built on fair competition. If you lose because you're weaker, most people can accept that. But being stabbed in the back by someone you thought was on your side? That kind of resentment lingers."
Arthur's gaze sharpened slightly. "So the Reincarnators who drew the traitor role in this dungeon—whether they cleared it or not—would have every reason to stay silent."
Everything Arthur said was, strictly speaking, speculation.
Yet it was speculation so precise it was almost indistinguishable from the truth.
In reality, some Reincarnators had already cleared this dungeon. Most of them only achieved evaluations between E and C rank, but without exception, every one of them had drawn the identity of a traitor.
For someone who entered the dungeon blind, that role was extremely convenient. A traitor had legitimate access to communication with the adults inside the farm and, if they performed well, the chance to obtain valuable intelligence. Of course, those low-ranked clears had never uncovered anything truly critical. If they had, that information would have been sold long ago.
The truth that the orphanage was a ghost farm had never leaked.
That alone proved something: even as traitors, those Reincarnators had merely been expendable pawns, monitors mixed into the flock, clinging to survival by betraying others. The farm never treated them as equals, only as tools.
Arthur's voice was calm as he summarized the situation.
"No one would expect that in this seemingly peaceful orphanage, the danger isn't just the monsters outside, but also traitors hidden among the Reincarnators."
He paused slightly.
"This isn't just a survival dungeon."
"It's a game of Werewolf."
When he finished, he looked at Liza with a faintly playful expression. The atmosphere might have felt far more oppressive if they were in their adult bodies. But as a boy who looked barely old enough to lose his baby teeth interrogating a seemingly adorable little girl, the scene carried an odd sense of dissonance.
"I'm guessing you're probably the first traitor to learn the truth about this farm," Arthur continued with a soft chuckle. "To the farm, you're just livestock. They wouldn't let you near the ghosts too easily. Fear would only make you unstable."
His gaze sharpened.
"If I'm right, you must have an additional mission. Something like—report enough valuable information and your shipping date gets extended. And to push you into action, your initial deadline was set early."
He looked at her steadily. "So… when is your shipping date?"
"…Next month."
Exactly as he expected.
Liza's exclusive mission allowed her to report any "abnormal information" in exchange for extending her deadline. The reports didn't even have to involve Reincarnators—she could report ordinary children as well. But the length of the extension depended entirely on the value of the information.
From the very beginning, her adoption window had been set at only two months.
She had tried submitting trivial intelligence at first. None of it earned even a single extra day.
Eventually, she had no choice but to set her sights on the Reincarnators.
This was the cruel dilemma faced by most who randomly drew the traitor role.
Fail alone—or drag others down with you?
Very few people would calmly accept their own elimination.
She had simply made the choice most people, when cornered, would make.