Duel of systems

Third

The user forced me into the bathroom, with his razor he made me feel inferior. He didn’t hesitate to say all sorts of things to me.

“You are a vermin. It’s unbelievable that you’re still alive. You’re the last one in the ranking. I didn’t kill you because you’re worthless. You’re more useless than an NPC.”

It was very offensive what he said to me. I had been a system user for hours, I still hadn’t done, or tried anything, because it was, I had the week off. It had just been coincidence that the target appeared in this place.

The man pulled out a gun and spoke to me.

“The best thing is for you to stay here. You’re worthless, though. It costs no one anything to shoot you or slit your throat just for fun. You’d better hide and until someone eliminated the target.”

I felt really bad to hear that. I was trapped in that place and I couldn’t say, couldn’t do anything. It was very distressing.

I just opened the door a little bit and saw other users walking around the club. Maybe it would turn into a shootout in a few minutes. I preferred to secure the door with a metal bar. I pulled it out of one of the mirrors, so that no one would enter. This was going to end in a shootout or several player-on-player killings.

I backed away from the door for fear of a stray bullet through the door.

At that moment I started to hear some gunshots, the confrontation between several users had already started. It was a madness in which anyone could die. I tried to prevent anyone from entering, I wanted to secure the door better, but the system gave me warning.

[Nearby target has been eliminated]

It had all been very fast, no more than ten minutes had passed and someone had already completed the mission. I felt calmer, I took the metal bar out of the door, but someone knocked on the door. I hesitated to open it, but I felt calmer with the notification from the system.

A woman appeared and pushed me inside. She closed the door with that same barrier and went to wash her hands in a sink. She had wavy brown hair, her eyes were blue, and her face was round, she had on a black dress, plus she was wearing black veiled stockings and black shoes. She looked so unprotected that it scared me because I knew how dangerous she was.

“You shouldn’t be here. It’s a mission for assassins, it was the only one in this city and there were more than 10 players here. I don’t know who you are, but you’re an asshole.”

“I only entered this battle royale yesterday, it was just coincidence that I entered here, and the target was in this place.”

“I see, you can leave if you want, I just needed to wash my hands. The police are at the exit and search everyone.”

She didn’t have a gun, or anything. For her safety, she killed the target with something short, sharp and had it stashed somewhere. Maybe in a pocket in her veiled stockings.

I decided to ask her for help, for the best, I felt she was an expert at this sort of thing.

“Can you help me?”

“What?”

“It doesn’t cost you anything, I just need a weapon. I don’t want to be a target for the next month.”

“Okay, but stay away from me. There are several players here, and they’re going to link you to me. Just wait for me outside. There’s a single yellow car, stay waiting there.”

I didn’t think she would agree to help me for asking her. So I came out of the bathroom and looked at the disco. The man who was the target of the mission had been killed with a knife and there were other people dead The police were taking pictures. The exit from the place was complicated, the authorities were searching the place.

I didn’t have any weapons or anything like that, so I didn’t have to worry, but the cameras worried me. The woman who had gotten the murder could be linked. So she was at risk of being blamed. Well, it wasn’t my problem, I just needed a weapon to do any mission. I just tried to follow, but I noticed that everyone was going in a group or in pairs. It was suspicious to go alone, so I waited for that woman to leave quietly.

When she passed by me, I had to say a few words to her.

“Pretend a little, it’s just to get out here.”

“Okay, but don’t come so close to me.”

I moved a little away from her, and we approached towards the exit. A plainclothes policeman spoke to us.

“Show me your IDs, please.”

I didn’t have mine, I never carried it, but the girl did.

“Take mine, and my references.”

The policeman was shocked. He didn’t think he would see something like that. And he didn’t hesitate to let her go.

“You can go, Miss Lucia, is that boy over there coming with you?”

“Yes, he is my new partner.”

The man upon hearing her let me pass, but he was looking at me with a face of few friends. He was suspicious of me, but because I was close to her, he couldn’t do anything to me.

I left that discotheque rather bored. The sound of the police car sirens was very annoying. I followed the girl, but I saw her get into a yellow Ferrari. I was shocked, she was rich.

I felt I had a chance to get out of this if she helped me. I took a deep breath, nothing mattered or was more humiliating than being betrayed by my wife.

I went to talk to the woman, I knew what the girl thought of me, but there was nothing else I could do. My life sucked, this was the chance to completely change everything after five months.

I walked up to her and talked to her.

“Can you help me?”

She was annoyed, she gave me the gun I had asked for.

“I’m sorry I don’t give money to anyone” She said in a rather cold way.

I almost got down on my knees, but she noticed right away and spoke to me.

“Okay, I’ll help you, but don’t do that.”

I got up slowly, and she grabbed my arm to pull me up. She looked uncomfortable.

She was angry about the show she was about to put on. She said a few words to explain everything to me, but I started to say a caution as the only alternative to convince her. I knew how self-centered and arrogant rich people were, they never gave anything away. They always asked for something in return.

“I will escort you on your missions and I will be your sex slave. Anything, just help me.”

“Okay, I’ll help you, but don’t say things like that anymore. That’s very humiliating, it’s not that I don’t want to help you. It’s just that I don’t trust you. I ended up with this system because someone I trusted killed me, but I’m going to think about it and make a decision. Just tell me your number and name. I’ll look for you with one of my employees.”

I didn’t want to tell her that I experienced something similar, I felt it was a little unbelievable and forced for her to have some empathy.

I simply remained silent and thanked her.

“Thank you.”

She handed me a sheet and a piece of paper to write down all my information. Obviously, I did, despite the work it took to write it down on a rough surface.

It was only Friday and the weekend was only two days away. I didn’t know if I was going back to work, but it was a week before the end of the month. I needed the money to pay for the place where I would be staying.

When I turned to look towards the discotheque, some people were looking at me, maybe because of what I was about to do. I remembered her name was Lucia. I just hoped she would help me. It would cost me a lot to pay all the expenses for weapons and I had nowhere to live, just one or two weeks in a hotel, plus I had to buy clothes and food. I would not return to the place where I lived.

[…]

I went to a hotel to spend the rest of the week. I was just waiting for Lucia’s call, but I didn’t have to wait several days.

I remembered that I had missed work that day, but it was because the doctor wouldn’t let me go for safety reasons. Since I had been run over by him. On Monday, I had to bring the tests I had taken at the hospital and the record of everything that happened to me.

I remembered again that rich girl, she seemed to be a very educated woman and by the way she spoke maybe she was the owner of several companies or maybe the wife of some tycoon.

I stopped thinking about it and started to watch TV. However, when I turned on the TV I saw the news of the murder in the discotheque. There were more dead, maybe some users killed themselves before eliminating the target.

I felt more and more uncomfortable in my new life. Killing people was something complicated for me. I didn’t have the courage to do something like that.

When they showed the recording, I noticed that they recorded the moment when I was talking to Lucia. That made me feel very uncomfortable. Even though it was seconds, anyone who knew me could recognize me. I just hoped no one did.

I turned a little red, I felt very ashamed that something like that would happen to me. I never thought there would be cameras recording at that moment. I thought no one else would be watching the news at that time, and I switched to other channels for a while.

However, everything got complicated. I received several calls and messages from different people. There were no more than five people, but the most striking one was from my wife.

I ignored it all, I knew that quickly the whole office would be talking about it. Everyone would start texting and talking about what they saw.

However, my wife called me. I didn’t want to answer her, but I knew she would be angry about what she saw, and other people would comment on it. So I decided to answer her.