A couple of days earlier.Ronny opened his eyes and found himself in a dark room, which immediately spiked his heart rate. He started sweating. “W-Where am I?”Did someone kidnap him for stealing his organs? Or was it his previous landlord who brought him here because he didn’t pay the last month’s rent before leaving the condo? All kinds of crazy thoughts ran through his mind. Before he knew, he was drenched in sweat, even though he hadn't done anything physically demanding yet.It took him a while to control his heartbeat before getting up to his feet. Suddenly, a rat came running out of the toilet room and brushed past his foot as it ran into the hole at the corner.“AHH!” Ronny jumped and screamed in horror, but then he realized that it was a rat. “Fuck! It’s just a rat? That little shit almost made me shit in my pants.”He carefully came to the door and brought his head closer, thinking he might be able to hear any voices, but then when his head touched the door, he was electrocu
Back to the present.Baker was returning from the storage room with a big smile on his face.“As expected, only R1 was able to match the gaze of J7. He says he wants to work as a companion, but I highly doubt that they can both be on the same page when I tell them that there’s only one loaf of bread available. They are both big guys. Surely, they’re going to fight for this loaf of bread. I can’t wait to see what R1 has to offer. If he’s able to at least match J7, I think he’s going to be worth investing into making him a wonderful villain. The upper floors have no lack of villains, but a strong villain always makes more impact than a strong survivor. If he does a good job, it’s going to increase my reputation and pay as well.”He excitedly entered the dining hall room 9D3.Everyone except Jim and Ronny were still stuffing their bellies as Baker had expected.“I’m sorry, but there’s only one bun left in the storage room,” Baker came and put the bread in Jim’s hand. “It’s not much, but
Baker blasted a bomb in the hearts of everyone in the room with his words, and then he quietly left the room. The other chefs closed the doors to the connected room so that nobody could escape. There were only seven people in the room now. One brunette, and six men. The woman quickly stood and moved to the corner, holding a fork in her hand. However, none of the men moved their limbs. They kept looking at each other as if waiting for others to make the first move. Ronny’s heart was ringing in his ears because this was the worst possible scenario for him. He never killed anything except mosquitoes in his life. How was he supposed to kill humans now? This task felt way beyond his capabilities and even imagination itself. Jim broke the silence. “Do you trust me, Ronny?” Ronny hesitantly nodded. To be frank, he didn’t see any other choice other than relying on someone. What better way than standing beside Jim who seemed like the strongest man in the room? “Good.” Jim shifted his gaz
Jim and Ronny kept staring at each other.Jim wiped the blood off his mouth. His jaw was still hurting. (Who was that woman? It wasn’t that I couldn’t see her attack coming, but she was just much faster. And her technique was also good. She was able to change the direction of her kick midway. She must have practiced a hell of a lot to be able to effortlessly pull off such a kick. She said she only came to see me. Does that mean she’s one of the watchers? She said she doesn’t want to kill me yet. Does that mean I’m going to be facing her after I leave this floor?) At this point, Jim had more questions than answers (At any rate, all this makes me want to grow stronger faster.)“Are you going to fight me?” Ronny asked with a rigid expression.“I don’t think there’s a need for that,” Jim replied.“Mm? What do you mean?”“Just walk out of the room with me,” Jim said. “It’ll be fine.”“Are you sure?”“Yeah, they told us only one of us can leave the room,” Jim said. “So, we both are going to
Stanley the Mountain. He was very popular among the watchers for his ruthlessness. He held the record for killing the most number of people on his way to reach the top floor. There were many stories told about him that he fought hundreds of people at once and then sat upon the heaps of dead bodies and smoked cigars.Most of the mid-level watchers were of recent years, so they didn’t know how scary Stanley really was. The only person in the chat who had personally seen some of the things Stanley had done was Bald Brute.“Stanley… he’s never come to the website to watch the pawns before,” Bald Brute thought. “Why’s he here now? Is he interested in R1 like I am? This is going to be troublesome. Although I’m much stronger than I was a decade back, I’m still not as good as he was back then. There’s no way I can defeat that mountain of a man. If he’s really after R1, I can only give up on him.”Meanwhile, Stanley was watching the CCTV footage while sitting outside his house that was on top
In Jim’s room. Jim was back to practicing the martial art again. He was trying to condense the vivre to create sharper and more powerful attacks while conserving his energy. The martial art book only gave a basic description, so Jim was now having to figure out the rest by himself. This was to his preference as well, though he wished he had time on his side, too. “Why did you take the hero’s path?” Ronny asked. “I mean, if you use common sense, that’s the most difficult path to take because we’re obviously kidnapped by bad guys, and they’ll definitely love to torture those trying to act like the good guys. Are you not afraid of being particularly targeted by those people?” Jim wasn’t expecting such a question from Ronny. “I’m wary of the strong, but the people that concern me even more are those who have no meaning to their lives. These are the ones that have no restraint in their hearts and kill for fun. I have seen those kinds of people in the past, and I think that Baker, Lovelac
W6 was in the corridor, walking aimlessly. She was hearing voices, hallucinating, and kept suffering from muscle pain all over her body. She didn’t look at herself anymore but more like a soulless being who couldn’t think for herself. The cause of this was the parasites that had begun to infest her brain in particular.As W6 was walking past the room Jim and Ronny were on, her nose twitched as the parasites in her could smell two new hosts that were in the room. They made her bang on the door, but then she got electrocuted and had to stop.“What the hell was that?” Ronny’s heart danced in his throat. He remembered the times when he used to live in the condo and the owner knocked on the door, asking for rent. Even the owner wouldn’t beat the door this hard. This was way more scary. All the hair on his arms stood up.Jim’s brows drew together. He went closer to the door and closed his eyes, trying to sense the person on the other side. He was able to hear the woman outside hissing in a
The door opened slowly, adding to the drama.Ronny’s head slowly turned to look outside. A short-haired woman with blacks under her eyes was watching them, and her hissing grew louder and turned into a growl at once.She bent her knees and jumped into the room, pushed Ronny aside with a sweep of her hand and clawed at Jim.Jim moved back, but the wind pressure from her attack still cut his skin but only barely. No blood leaked out. This attack of affecting the wind reminded him of Lovelace, though this one was very weak compared to what Lovelace had done.“Grrr!” she thrust her hand at him, making him instinctively step back again. However, she swiveled and then thrust her foot instead. Jim saw the kick coming, but his body didn’t get away in time.Her foot struck him right in the kidney and sent him rolling back. A sharp pain gripped his core, making it impossible for him to get up right away.The woman ran at him and tried to bite his ear.“No!” Jim used both of his hands to press a