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
Jim’s arms were still bleeding, so he couldn’t run fast, either. A lot of thoughts ran through his mind.What if some door were to open now, forcing him to fight again? What if multiple doors opened?Moreover, what if Ronny decided to attack him now?All these thoughts kept his heart running faster than ever. His mind worked on hyper mode. Staying outside was much riskier, so he risked it and said, “There’s a key in my pocket.”“Key?” Ronny remembered that Jim had a master key. Seeing that Jim’s arms were not in a position to grab the key and open the room door, Ronny put his hand in Jim’s pocket and took the key out.It was the key that could open any door on that floor, the lowest floor and also called the fourth floor of the dungeon.The thought of running away with the key did cross Ronny’s mind, but he believed that he had a much greater chance of survival with Jim. So he opened the door.There was a robot with a human face and a dog inside.“You’re not supposed to come into this
THANK YOU:: JIM IS HIM… is finished! Have you enjoyed it? I hope so. I definitely enjoyed writing it as it was challenging. It was supposed to be a 500 chapter long work, but I condensed it and finished it quickly. To all those who read every chapter and reached this page… you have my humble thanks. A big thanks to readers Lynn Casey, Mickey Ritch, and Liwhundebe Emmanuel for their precious votes. A special thanks to Rex Magnus for his lovely review. Much appreciated, Brother. CHARACTERS:: I hope you can take away some memorable characters from this novel. My favorite character is Jim, not because he’s the protagonist, but because he will give me food if I go to his restaurant with empty pockets more than once. He didn't have many friends growing up, but if you ask Shiney, she’ll tell you that he’s the kind you wouldn’t want to end your relationship with once you get to know him. Then again, Shiney might give you a different answer depending on the mood she’s in when you ask her.
Sometime later.Jim and Rena were on a mountain top, enjoying the view of the magnificent forest. Her belly was slightly swollen.A couple of birds flew by.“How do they find food?” Rena curiously asked.“God provides for them,” Jim said.“Yeah, but he doesn’t drop food in their nests, would he?” Rena retorted.“We work like buffaloes, and then buy food, cook it, and then put it in our mouths, chew it, and then our stomach has to digest it,” Jim said. “Just like us, birds also fly about to find grains, bugs, spiders, and… they can see from afar unlike us. They can see a tiny spider that’s dancing on its web under a tree shade from hundreds of meters away. So, yeah, God equipped them with enough skills so they can feed themselves even though they don’t live under a roof like us.”Just then, a brown Bentley arrived at the scene.John stepped out first and then opened the door for her. She got up and said, “Why don’t you also carry me over there because I can’t walk, you know.”“I was ju
Seeing Rena enter the kitchen, Jim also rushed in. He took the coupons from her and then kissed her hand.This was part of the deal, after all.The thing that she requested of him for being a waitress was that he would kiss a part of her body once every time she would enter the kitchen. And she was loving it now as Jim was coming up to her no matter where he was or whatever he was doing and was kissing her in unexpected ways and in unexpected places at times. Luckily, the kitchen was not open for view, or it would have been impossible to have these cuddling and kissing endeavors.As they were hugging, Rena noticed a little creature sneakily enter the kitchen. “I-I-It’s a rat!”“WHAT?” Jim was shocked and angered. How dare a rat enter his restaurant on the day he opened it? And that, too, in the middle of the day? “Where is it?”“I don’t know. It disappeared,” Rena looked around but couldn’t find it.“These things are smart. The moment they think they’re in danger, they freeze,” Jim co
Two weeks passed since Jim revealed his ancestry to those of the Draknor Finance company.At Bob Shriner’s house.Bob had kidnapped a six-year-old girl and tied her to a chair. Wearing a clown mask, he was dancing around her chair to make her cry and feel the horror of it.After all, sacrificing after torturing the prey would bring best results for any dark path ritual, so Bob was very excited about it.After finishing his dance, he revealed his hidden knife and stabbed the girl’s head from the top. The knife went right through her skull and came down from the chin. He was grinning; however, a second later, he realized that not a single drop of blood spilled, and the little girl was grinning at him as if she was the predator and he was the prey.Bob quickly stumbled back. “W-Who the hell are you?”“She’s Systa,” a voice came from behind Bob, sending a chill down his spine because he couldn’t even sense the presence of this person. He turned back but didn’t recognize this man who was n
A few days after Jim revealed himself to the chairman of Draknor Finance.In Draknor Finance headquarters.Lola was working alone in the cafe as Jim had told her to not hire any workers and that she must run the cafe by herself for the next four years.She was making sandwiches in the cafe, and she ended up cutting a bit of her finger while cutting tomatoes. And it made her cry from pain and then cry some more because of the hardships she was facing. As if that wasn’t enough, when she took the sandwich to the customer, he complained to her saying, “I asked you to mildly heat them in order to keep them soft. Why did you roast them this much?”“Sorry, sir. I’ll do well next time.”“Next time? You mean you want me to eat this shit right now?” The customer was none other than Joker from the Beast Dungeon.“T-That’s not shit, sir. It’s only roasted a little more than you asked for.”“So, now, you’re teaching me, a new client of this company, about food,” he hissed at her and threw the sand
“If you want to keep working in this company, then you need to do two things,” Jim said, and Lola already found herself losing her posture. “First thing. Give me my restaurant back.”“Done,” Lola didn’t even hesitate to agree. “What’s the second one?”Jim smiled and said, “There are multiple cafes in this building. I want you to open a new cafe and work as the main cook there. You’ll be taking care of that shop for the next four years. And then I’ll take reviews from the employees. If you get a majority of good votes, then I’ll promote you to a financier level. Otherwise…”Lola was shaking in rage. “You want me to cook and sell food like you and your dad did? Go to hell! I’m never doing that!” she shouted and walked away in haste.Marc followed her, but he pleasantly smiled at Jim.Jim, however, didn’t even bat an eyelid.After Marc and Lola left the building, with the latter looking extremely humiliated, Jim turned to face Rena, “Was I too harsh?”Rena slightly shook her head. “She h
Jim put his hand forward, and Steve gently held it and kissed it.Lola’s heart, brain, lungs, and many other organs seemed to be suddenly failing to work at this very instance. The mobile and handbag in Caylene’s hand dropped. Her dad tilted his head back in stupendous shock.Marc looked utterly dumbfounded.Tom and his dad and sister seemed supremely flummoxed.Austin, on the other hand, looked horrified. Elisha’s face also froze in a bit of horror.Rena was the only one who was able to move. “W-What is this, Jim?” She stepped forward. She knew who Steve was, so she looked at Steve. “Why are you bowing to my husband? What is this? Why did you call him Lord Jim?”“He’s from the line of kings, so how else would you want me to call him?” Steve replied, still kneeling even though it was hurting him to do that at his age.“F-From the line of Kings? Who? Jim?” Rena looked very confused.“I cannot speak more about the Lord while in his presence,” Steve added. “So, please forgive me for not
On the ground floor, more than a dozen guards were lying on the floor. Some were still conscious but were in too much pain to get back.There were many people standing, but most of them were not even willing to step forward or get themselves involved in whatever was happening.Jim was still holding the broken arm of Austin who was crying blood at this point. Jim had defeated the guards while holding Austin’s arm. And this brought greater pain to Austin. The only reason he didn’t pass out from pain was because Jim bolstered his mind with psychic vivre so that he’d be able to endure it to an extent. Austin was not aware of this. Even though he was able to bear the pain, the pain was still there. He had to withstand the indescribable pain that throbbed all across his arm, especially near his elbow and shoulder.“Y-You monster…” Caylene couldn’t believe what had happened. She was not expecting Jim to defeat the guards so easily. “Just take some money and get lost from here.”“You can’t so
Steve Millman was talking with someone on his mobile.“He is likely going to come to your office today,” Bernard was speaking from the other side.“Lord is?” Steve was startled. “Today?”“Treat him well. I’ll be sending you his photo, so don’t mess up, or you’re the only one who’s going to suffer, Steve,” Bernard said and ended the call.As Bernard waited, every second felt long.More than fifteen long seconds later, he received a notification. He saw the photo. “So, this is Jim Draknor. He looks to be barely thirty. No, he could be younger.” He gritted his teeth. “I have to bow to this brat?” His ego felt very hurt right now.He called someone on his mobile and said, “I sent you a picture. Find out his identity immediately.”“Yes, sir. Just give me a minute.”Steve stayed on the call, and then the person from the other side said, “Sir Steve, I found information on him. He used to be an ordinary chef, but only a day ago, his name has been spreading through the underground circles all