Going back a little, right before the game started.
Right after inviting Magia, Maru was buzzing with excitement.
"Hoo... Finally, we’re playing together...!"
She had been watching other members collab with Magia, waiting for the perfect chance to invite her, but the opportunity never seemed to come due to their completely different gaming preferences.
Maru’s favorite game, 64 Cubix, was all about mining, building, and automating block structures.
It took at least two to three days just to get used to playing it together, making it hard to invite someone casually.
Most of her other games were single-player puzzle games, making co-op gameplay even more difficult.
And then, the first-anniversary concert took over.
While other members saw their chance and grabbed Magia for collabs, Maru just watched and sighed.
At the core of it, though, it was Maru’s own fault.
She had been waiting for a "natural" moment instead of just asking directly.
She was the most mature of the members, someone who didn’t want to bother busy people, so she just kept pushing it back over and over again.
But then—the perfect news dropped.
Magia had taken another week off, making it two weeks in a row.
According to Kang Ji-ho, it was because Magia had been sick.
But since she had already recovered before the pre-festival event,
this week’s "sick leave" was just for extra rest and hospital checkups.
So the moment a spot opened in the I’m Wolf group collab,
Maru ran straight to Magia.
She thought she might get rejected.
But instead—
"Ah, sure. I’ll go. When does it start?"
An instant yes.
Maru had to force herself to lower her voice from excitement.
She immediately reported to Ronze, the host of the collab.
And while waiting, her mind ran wild with simulations of how they’d play together.
'If she struggles, I’ll DM her to help... If we both roll Werewolves, I’ll carry her to victory...'
And—
She planned to finally drop formal speech.
How long were they going to keep calling each other "nim" like they were strangers?
They had known each other for nearly a year already.
Granted, their only real interactions were during equipment setups, routine broadcast checkups, and late-night emergency fixes.
But still—they were the same age.
They could afford to be a little closer.
But since Maru valued natural conversations, she didn’t want to just force it like,
"From now on, let’s drop formalities!"
If she was going to say it,
she wanted to have a real bond first.
And the best scenario for that?
Rolling Werewolves together.
Only two out of twelve players were assigned the role,
making teamwork absolutely critical.
They could strategize together, support each other, and naturally build camaraderie.
But Maru’s dream shattered before the game even started.
[I watched the entire Parallel pre-festival stream from start to finish! I’m a huge fan of Gia-nim!]
[Thanks to her, I pulled off a surprise strategy in my tournament! That one win saved my team from getting eliminated in playoffs this year.]
Magia’s popularity exploded.
Sure, before Magia arrived, the conversation naturally flowed between Maru and Komari, leading to talks about the pre-festival event.
And naturally, Magia became a topic.
But Maru never expected it to be this intense.
Magia was a rare Pokémon, but she wasn’t even a streamer.
Shouldn’t they be a little more chill about it?
Instead, it was like everyone had a Pokéball in hand, chasing her down.
Everyone wanted a piece of the YouTube content pie.
At least Ronze gave Maru some credit, telling everyone to thank her.
So Maru rode the wave.
[Ahem. You should be grateful. If I hadn’t asked, Gia-nim would’ve just gone home and sent some toxic donos instead.]
She even tried to make sure Magia had room to speak for herself.
But then—
[GUYS——!! GIA-NIM HAS SOMETHING TO SAY———!!]
After that?
She never got the chance again.
Everyone swarmed Magia like zombies.
"Magia-nim, you’re a Werewolf, right?!"
"Magia-nim, you’re a Lycanthrope, aren’t you?!"
"Magia-nim, you’re a Vigilante, right?!"
"Magia-nim, you’re Canadian, aren’t you?!"
And in that moment,
Maru thought:
'Wow. Gia-nim is gonna lose her mind.'
Every stream Magia had appeared in before had at most two people.
Now?
There were eleven.
And all eleven were pressuring her nonstop.
Magia was fluent and eloquent once she got talking, so Maru had thought she’d be fine.
But now, her responses were getting shorter and more repetitive.
And Maru felt guilty.
She had brought Magia into this mess.
At the same time, she remembered what Momo had told her.
"She might seem sharp, but she’s not cold-hearted. Try to be understanding."
"Not many people would drop everything to fix a stream issue in the middle of the night."
"It’s fine to invite her on streams, but if she gets overwhelmed, you need to back her up."
So Maru hovered near Magia, trying to shield her.
The others still chased after Magia,
but Maru stuck close, waiting for a chance to get her alone.
Finally, she found an opening.
But then—
[Actually, I saw Kamik go north before Ronze did!]
[Huh? Wait, Maru-nim, that’s not true—why are you lying?]
[I’M NOT LYING!! I was standing right there! Gia-nim saw it too, right?]
[...Hmm. Yeah, I think I saw something like that in passing.]
Maru stared in shock.
She had just witnessed Magia using her voice to frame Kamik.
And—
She couldn’t say a damn thing.
Magia had used the Silencer ability, completely sealing Maru’s mouth shut.
"Ah. Ah! Guys! GUYS, CAN YOU HEAR ME?! HEY! GIA-NIM!!! ARE YOU CRAZY?! THIEF! THIEF! SHE STOLE MY VOICE!!!"
— Maru, shut up, lol.
— We literally can’t hear you, dude, stop flailing.
— LMAO she got muted.
— "Dongle" is about to explode~
— EarDrum (Dongram) is about to burst~
— Does this count as workplace harassment?
"No. No way. NO FREAKING WAY. I WAS READY TO HELP YOU! IS THIS REALLY HAPPENING?!"
{{ Trial Result: Kamik (Ejected) }}
{{ Kamik was NOT a Werewolf. }}
Which meant—Maru was next.
By defending Ronze,
Maru had painted a target on her own back.
But before she could even explain herself—
"Alright—"
[Everyone split up! We just need to force a trial! Humans automatically win!!]
Komari rushed to command the Humans before Maru could even open her mouth.
The math was clear.
Seven players remained.
The Werewolf kill cooldown was 30 seconds,
but a trial could be forced in 20 seconds.
The game was already over.
"WAIT, GUYS, LISTEN TO ME!!"
But nobody did.
And Maru was left alone with Magia.
"Gia-nim. Gia-nim, please. You already stole my voice. Please don’t kill me... Just this once!"
Magia’s avatar cast a shadow over her screen.
A custom animation on her model.
The sign of an impending execution.
"KYYYYAAAAH!! DON’T!! DON’T!!! DON’T!!!"
But then, Magia spoke.
[I’ll spare you. But you have to back me up.]
"...Huh?"
[Five, four, three—]
"O-OKAY! OKAY!! I’LL BACK YOU UP!! JUST LET ME LIVE!!"
[It’s a deal. Betray me, and you know what happens.]
"I GOT IT, I GOT IT...!"
Magia disappeared in a flash the moment they made their deal, leaving Maru behind in the corner of the building, completely dumbfounded.
"She actually let me live...? What if I just tell everyone she’s a Werewolf?"
— Yeah, seriously, lol.
— Does she have some kind of insurance?
— Well, at least you’re alive! That’s good!
"Oh... Is it because if I die, everyone will know I wasn’t a Werewolf?"
— As if you wouldn’t go blabbing the second you got the chance.
— LMAO exactly.
— This was a mistake.
— Maybe she still has one Silence ability left?
— Ohhh, that could be it.
— Nah, come on, this is already the sixth trial. No way she still hasn’t used both charges.
There were some suspicions, but as the chat pointed out, it was already the late game.
Maru, feeling secure in her victory, smirked.
"Okay. Gia-nim, just wait. I’m gonna argue my way into a win."
If it were just an internal Parallel match, that’d be one thing.
But this was a large-scale collab.
Helping a Werewolf on purpose would spark controversy, so there was no way in hell Maru would actually side with Magia.
20 seconds passed.
{{ Trial Begins!! }}
The buzzer rang out, signaling the start of the trial.
As expected, two more people had died, leaving five survivors.
Komari immediately cast her vote.
[Vote out Ronze first, then Maru-unnie! That’s game over!]
The votes flew in instantly.
Follow current novels on ƒreewebηoveℓ.com.
The Human faction had already done the math—
as long as they kept forcing votes, even if a Human died in between trials, they’d always have the majority.
No matter how much the Werewolves struggled,
they couldn’t turn the tables.
Only one person held back their vote.
Magia.
Komari, sensing her hesitation, confidently reassured her.
[Unnie, what are you doing? There are still three of us Humans left—there’s NO WAY the Werewolves can win.]
[Wait a second. I need to think.]
[There’s nothing to think about! We already won! Maru-unnie’s a Werewolf!]
The others agreed.
"Yeah!" "Just vote already!" "Humans win!"
Komari had been nailing her deductions all night,
so at this point, she was the undisputed "brains" of the group.
But Magia didn’t respond.
Tick. Tock.
Time ticked away.
In that moment of silence,
Maru seized her last chance to argue.
"WAIT!! I HAVE SOMETHING TO SAY!!"
[Oh? A final defense? Go ahead, let’s hear it.]
"Gia-nim is the Silencer. That wasn’t me talking in the last trial."
Komari raised an eyebrow, clearly skeptical.
[You’re saying Gia-unnie is the Silencer? And that you weren’t just blindly defending Ronze?]
— LMAO this disrespect.
— They’re clowning on Maru so hard, lol.
— She’s an airhead, but she’s smarter than that dragon and the American lady at least!
— Oh-ho?
— Youuu are~
Maru’s chat burst into laughter, knowing the truth.
But the collab members didn’t.
"Gia-nim is really good at voice mimicry! She literally shut me up and copied my voice! Don’t fall for it! If you watched Find Rain, you’d know!"
The moment she mentioned that stream, the collab members started murmuring.
After all, to them, it had definitely sounded like Maru was the one defending Ronze.
[Wait... You’re telling me she perfectly mimicked your voice? Without any audio distortion?]
[That’s what I’m saying!]
And on top of that,
they had talked naturally during the trial.
If that was actually a one-man act,
it was too ridiculous to believe.
If Magia had been a famous streamer, that’d be one thing.
But she was just a slightly talented office worker.
And then, just as if she had been waiting for this exact moment,
Magia spoke in the most innocent voice possible.
[What’s a Silencer?]
She had declared it.
"I’m a newbie. I don’t know how to play."
And just like that,
a lightning bolt struck Maru’s brain.
Maru’s chat had the same reaction.
— ???
— THAT TIMING LMAO
— Wait... what?
Telling someone NOT to do something just makes them want to do it more.
That’s why when people want to give backseat advice, they type “DON’T DO [X]” in chat.
‘Did she predict this outcome from the start...?’
Maru had thought she just ran away because killing her would be too bothersome.
But if she had already anticipated Maru spilling the truth,
then that was truly terrifying.
But Magia was lying.
Maru had to force a mistake out of her.
She shouted.
"Gia-nim, are you serious?! You KNOW what you’re doing! You literally said earlier that you didn’t know the game, but you knew all the roles!"
[When did I say that? I really don’t know what’s going on! I’ve just been running away all game because I don’t know how to play.]
People with high intelligence tend to believe in what they see as absolute fact.
For Komari, who controlled the trial votes,
the only fact that mattered was that Magia had been running for her life all game.
And she wasn’t the only one who had seen that.
[Yeah, she was running away all game.]
[Gia-nim always had people near her. She barely had chances to kill anyone.]
[And yet, people kept dying... So it can’t be Gia-nim. Hmm.]
But—
Magia wasn’t a newbie.
Maru’s viewers all knew it.
The problem was that only they knew it.
"No, no, no! There HAD to be moments where she was alone! She literally tried to kill ME!"
— SHE TOOK A MURDER STEP, DAMMIT!
— Holy shit, are we the only ones who know the truth?!
— Is this Blindness: The City??
Komari snorted.
[Pfft... Unnie, you’re caught red-handed. You can’t escape, so now you’re just trying to drag Gia-unnie down with you?]
"I’M NOT LYING!! GIA-NIM IS A WEREWOLF!! SHE’S THE SILENCER!!"
[You need to say things that make sense, Unnie. The Find Rain stream used AI voice filters. Are you seriously saying Gia-unnie predicted she’d roll Silencer and prepared for this ahead of time? That’s ridiculous.]
"NO, WAIT, WAIT, LISTEN TO ME! When my—no, wait, when not my voice framed Kamik, Gia-nim AGREED! You remember that, right?!"
Maru desperately tried to argue, but Magia calmly countered.
[I just thought Maru-nim was telling the truth. I don’t know the game well, so I trusted her more. Plus, we’re in the same company, so I naturally trusted her a bit more.]
She was too shameless.
She was lying through her teeth, yet her tone didn’t waver at all.
[Unless... Komari, are YOU the Werewolf? I have no idea what’s going on anymore. Who should I trust?]
[Unnie, no way. Let’s go over this again, calmly.]
Maru, knowing the whole truth, was furious.
But at this point, she had only one weapon left.
Her voice.
She took a deep breath and yelled at the top of her lungs.
"GIA-NIM IS THE SILENCER!! DON’T GET TRICKED!! YOU HAVE TO VOTE HER OUT NEXT ROUND—!!"
But nobody heard her.
{{ Muted. }}
Magia had silenced Maru again with her Silencer ability.
"Oh, come on—AGAIN?!"
— LOOOOOL
— CACKLINGGGG
— SHE’S A MONSTER WTF
— INSANE TIMING HAHAHAHA
— She’s so damn good at playing dumb AND using Silencer at the perfect moment, holy shit
— This stream is comedy gold LMAO
And once again, Maru’s words—unheard by anyone—were completely twisted by Magia’s narration.
[Oh. Wait. Actually... Now that I think about it, Komari, YOU’RE the Werewolf. You instantly dropped Ronze and tried to act innocent. That’s suspicious, isn’t it?]
[Oh wow, why don’t you just announce that you’re the real Werewolf?]
[Excuse you?! It’s YOU!!]
[Mhm. You couldn’t frame Gia-unnie, so now you’re targeting me instead? That’s so obvious.]
[W-WHAT?! WHAT DO YOU WANT ME TO DO, HUH? THINK I’M A WEREWOLF? FINE! JUST VOTE ME NEXT TRIAL THEN!!]
[Yup. We’re voting you. Gia-unnie, hurry up and vote already. Next, we’ll vote Maru-unnie.]
[Gia-nim, DON’T FALL FOR IT! SERIOUSLY, IF YOU DO, IT’S OVER!]
Finally, after dragging it out, Magia cast her vote.
Maru, watching it all unfold in complete silence, was utterly stunned.
"No way... Gia-nim... Are you actually INSANE?!"
— She’s playing a completely different game, LMAOOO
— WTF THIS IS LEGENDARY
— THIS IS PEAK CONTENT
— ??? : I’m Wolf... just pick Silencer, gaslight everyone, and free win??