Huh? Isn't This A Galgame?

Their first main quest was to find their strategy targets. From the beginning, Wen Nan had a blind spot—thinking that the strategy target must be a female character, or even if not female, be it male or other genders, at least Wen Nan thought the target should be a human character.

Hmm...

He seriously underestimated the diversity of this game.

The options for strategy characters in the first trial map clearly told him not to limit his imagination of romance by gender. Now, this intermediate map is teaching him through its options—

Species is also not a problem!

Completely open your mind and broaden your views. In fact, the strategy target doesn't even need to be a living creature! As long as it's good-looking enough, even if it's an object, it's still possible!

Click, click, click.

Thinking of this, Wen Nan couldn't help but shake his head and marvel, saying that the planning team of this game truly possesses a "loving" heart.

Advanced, this version is really too advanced.

Of course, back to the main quest, once the mindset is opened, and it becomes clear that in this map, there are roles that seem to be female on the surface, and their associated entity could be any organism or even non-organism in this villa, Wen Nan starts trying to re-sort the candidates for the first main task—

Before this, the range of targets Wen Nan considered, including the never-appearing Mountain Villa Owner and Doctor Lu, totaled only 8 females and 1 male.

Now, everything has to be reshuffled.

Jiang Xueying and her entity, the Qinghua porcelain vase, have already been ruled out due to an untimely end.

Among the remaining targets, Chef Xiao Ji is merely a female shell worn by a certain character, whose true form is the Female War God music box lighter.

Xiao Huang's entity is the chubby tabby Little Y. that is currently snoozing not far away.

This explains why the reward item for completing Xiao Huang's side task was Little Y.'s yarn ball. Little Y., is Little Yellow, the same way Xiao Xue and Xueying are a wordplay in naming.

Similarly, Azi's entity is the Chow Chows that sticks out its purple tongue, Little P.

Little P. is the abbreviation of Little Purple. So, when Wen Nan tried to save Han Feng at the staircase earlier by throwing a piece of meat, he accidentally gained Little P.'s 10% friendship mood. That night, Azi was eager to come to Wen Nan's room door because that 10% friendliness was also applied to Maid Ah Zi.

Susu's true form is, of course, Little W., the little darling Jiang Xueying refers to, which requires a teething stick to increase friendliness.

As for what type of animal this little darling is, it's still unknown, but it's likely some sort of rodent.

Thus, now in front of Wen Nan are the available strategy targets like—

The giant Chow Chows Little P., the chubby tabby Little Y., the rodent-like Little W., the Female War God music box lighter, the twin girls or their corresponding unknown true forms, Doctor Lu or his unknown true form, and a mysterious character who hasn't yet appeared but has been frequently mentioned.

All adding up, there are exactly 8, neatly matching the 8 players assigned.

Why weren't those footmen, chef assistants, or doctor's aides in the restaurant before considered?

Because after the incident, they all seemed too bewildered, with some even suggesting calling the police, clearly unaware of the villa's situation—either temps or who just arrived recently. Compared to the strategy roles, they seem more like low-tier NPCs.

The true strategy targets, Wen Nan believes, should be like Xiao Ji, Susu, Doctor Lu, and the little princesses, who, after the villa incident, thought first about how to internally solve it themselves because they know the police and government emergency personnel are outmatched by this villa's situation.

As for why those animals or decorations which take female forms are necessarily the strategy targets...

Because before, when Han Feng, at the staircase, locked onto Little P. by coincidence while using his portable tool defense, the system gave him a prompt.

But that's only circumstantial evidence.

To prove this speculation, Wen Nan still needs to verify it on-site.

Thinking of this, he turned to face Xiao Huang, who followed him over, and pulled out that box of small umbrellas from the equipment backup slot, putting it in her hand.

Xiao Huang: ༼·⍤༽

Azi: ༼·⍨༽

Xu Dongsheng: ༼·⍢༽

Originally recording surveillance videos for each other, Xu Dongsheng and Azi then simultaneously pointed their cameras at Wen Nan, Xu Dongsheng even doing a close-up at 0.01.

Xiao Huang's face turned red, like she had caught a hot potato, and she nervously tossed it back to Wen Nan, retracting her hand, "W-why are you giving me this..."

Wen Nan said without changing his expression, "Oh, sorry, grabbed the wrong thing. It's this one."

He quickly pulled a ball of yarn from his pocket and placed it into Xiao Huang's hand.

A bright light obviously shone in Xiao Huang's eyes, but she restrained herself from playing with the yarn ball in front of others.

Wen Nan smiled in satisfaction.

Just now, after putting the small umbrella into Maid Xiao Huang's palm, he received the expected system prompt in his mind—

9527: [Sorry, the target you selected is not an available strategy target, cannot complete lock, please be informed.]

Maid Xiao Huang is not a strategy character, even if Wen Nan touched her with a small umbrella, she couldn't be locked.

This means, as Wen Nan speculated, for their portable items to complete a lock, a big prerequisite is that the target they touch must be a predetermined strategy character on the map.

And when Han Feng previously bumped into Little P. with the chest plate, it immediately completed the lock, proving Little P. is some player's strategy target.

Everything became clear.

Next, Wen Nan only needs to pick out his own strategy target from those 8 options to easily solve this first main quest.

Thinking of this, he put his hands in his pockets and started walking towards the staircase entrance.

Xiao Huang quickly caught up again, "Mr. Ye, where are you going?"

"Going upstairs to look for clues."

Wen Nan casually made an excuse, then directly started towards the rooms on the east side of the fourth floor.

He drew the only eleven-and-a-half-star strategy character in this map.

Such a high-level character, Wen Nan's intuition tells him, can only be that person.