I think it will just be “nobody said you’d die” (which I’ve been saying for some time now) and “it’s just a game & frankly I’m a bit hurt that you’d think that I would actually endanger you”.
Have we seen blood more than once? I think it might’ve just been that one time when it was implied that the adults got eaten.
Yeah, that’s what I’ve been thinking too since ヤムネ was eaten:
I’m not sure if we even got torn clothes after that.
on the topic of “the hint”
After a good amount of sleep I’m less sure about that. I remember the Count mentioning that “even a smaller kid than them” could get the hint, and my “the rules are the hint” involves a fair amount of looking at the exact wording, going through hypothetical game states and so on. I feel like the hint would need to be more obvious than that to allow a little kid to figure it out.
edit: Oh wow, I think I got the hint!!
It’s the picture with the sheep!
Here is a description of it:
So we have 5 sheep who are doing a witch hunt among themselves. And a wolf hidden in the background, separate from the sheep.
Wow, going through and reading all the speculation and thoughts is awesome, @shitsurei and @Legato. Good job especially to @Legato for coming up with a great theory and going back and doing the research that I have thus far refused to do.
Replies
I haven’t been as bothered by this, mostly because of my different expectations from a children’s book I thought this sentence callout was nice, and was more than I was expecting anyway.
Ah, nice! I learned something new; thank you!
Spoilers for Legato's end-game spoilers
I’m gonna be real here, I think these two points have really convinced me of your theory. Not that the other parts aren’t well thought-out or poorly based, but these particular textual clues really resonate with me. XD I guess my only question with this would be: is the book’s target audience sufficiently familiar with the English alphabet to get the clue that (O)OKAMI = IMAKO? Not that it’s a make or break thing, I’m just wondering in passing.
Also top-notch clue.
There there. It’s natural for you as a werewolf new reader to misdirect not realize the possibilities.
Time to play devil’s advocate: I’m on the side of “those kids are gone”. Even without knowing that Usagi’s on a future cover, I would bet that she doesn’t die here, mostly due to the power of friendship.
…Granted, this is also a really compelling case. I’d be okay with the kids surviving as long as the Count’s a jerk about it. (He even had that “it’s rude to point” bit in this week as well. )
Oooh, that’s a good catch! I bet you’re right!
…I feel like I really haven’t contributed much this week, it’s all just reaction shots from me. You guys are too good of detectives!
Chapter 10 (14 pages): ハヤト tries to defend ウサギ from the werewolf and fails.
Chapter 11 (25 pages): ハヤト slowly solves the puzzle. (I do wonder how though, since so far they have not even been close, and he doesn’t even have a conversation/puzzle partner left.)
Chapter 12 (~12 pages): The game is over, and the children and Orihara turn out to be alive. Everyone agrees that this was a really fun game and they go home. ハヤト and the Count exchange phone numbers so he can be invited to the next game.
Before the rules were introduced I was super sure of “It’s going to be a straightforward werewolf game, so the traitor is one of the kids.”
And then the rules were introduced, so my mind always went “But the rules! They say it’s one of the kids! And even if not, the werewolf would still need to vote, and the kids would need to be able to vote for the werewolf, so it has to be one of the kids.” whenever I was even slightly considering that it would be anyone but the kids.
So I really needed this chapter to tell me “It is DEFINITELY NOT one of the kids. Figure it out.”
Yeah, I was thinking that too, but your badge theory makes a lot of sense for how voting for one of the adults could still work with the rules. I totally forgot there were extra badges haha. I would have flipped back to check for clues, but I can’t skim read in Japanese So thanks for doing all that work for us, now I’m looking forward to reading the rest.
Good job especially to 
I thought this sentence callout was nice, and was more than I was expecting anyway. 
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