Chương 16: Hide and Seek

The classic game of hide-and-seek, now with a deadly twist! If you were ever the unpopular kid at school, you remember the humiliation of staying hidden while nobody came looking. Here, that same unpopularity might be the only thing that keeps you alive. Participants are split into two factions: Hiders and Seekers. A Seeker's objective is simple: kill at least one Hider to clear the level. A Hider's objective is just as simple: survive. At first glance, the Seeker's role has a clear advantage.

To balance the scales, here's the twist: no one will know anyone else's role! And to keep this from turning into mindless slaughter, a penalty has been instilled: A Seeker who kills another Seeker forfeits the Contribution Points from that kill and loses half of their current total. A Hider who kills anybody—Seeker or Hider—faces the same penalty. One more thing. Safe zones are disabled for this round. There is nowhere to retreat.

Reward 4, 000 Contribution Points 50% EXP Ability Shard x2 Time remaining in level: 5 hours Your role is… Shota, Gwen, and Nabi are all in the Top 10. Those monsters. He swiped past the leaderboard and skimmed the rules for the next level. Forcing everyone to take part levels the field for the ones who camped it out in the safezone. Especially the ones with zero CP. They have nothing to lose, so they can afford to play as recklessly as they like and go after anyone without fear of losing points they don't have.

Then there will be Seekers who play it safe, who skip the reward entirely rather than risk friendly fire. Still, two full levels of EXP is hard to walk away from. Let's see how things are shaping up back at the gym. Gray pushed through the glass doors, and the stillness he'd left behind was gone. Fists closed around barbells and kettlebells like they were weapons, because right now, they were.

"I'm a Seeker! Stay the hell away from me!" A woman backed into a row of treadmills, one hand raised, the other gripped tightly around a kettlebell.

"M-me too! I'm a Seeker!" A man's voice cracked as it climbed an octave.

"Hiders! Show yourselves!" Just as Gray expected: everyone claimed the safer lie. Then the whispering started. A few heads turned his way first, glances quick. Within seconds those glances became open stares, fingers lifting to point him out across the room. The murmurs swelled into a low, excited roar, and the crowd surged toward him as one.

"Kill him!" someone shouted over the noise.

"He's got over five thousand Contribution Points! If he's a Seeker, we lose nothing if we kill him! If he's a Hider, we clear the level and take everything he's got! He won't dare fight back and risk losing half his CP!" The realization hit him. Well, crap. I forgot to apply my own logic. He spun on his heel and bolted for the exit, the mob's footsteps thundering behind him.

"This game brings back memories." A nostalgic smirk tugged at the corner of the anonymous man's mouth.

"Whenever I needed Gray to stop pestering me while I studied, I'd suggest a round of hide-and-seek. He'd lock himself in his room for hours, waiting for me to come find him." This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it He chuckled, arms folding as he skimmed the system announcement, one finger tapping idly against his chin.

"I never had to end the game."

"Waiting out a five-hour timer sounds simple enough. I might as well spend it looking for Gray. Edward, would you help me find him?"

"A favor?" Edward's voice slid into his mind.

"You know I don't do those for free, Hyun. How about you owe me one in return, mate?"

"Of course. I'll always be in your debt for what you've done for me in this race."

"Fantastic. Unfortunately, with my current circumstances, activating my scrying ability will be quite… taxing. But for such a promising young bloke as yourself, I suppose the strain is worth the investment. Give me a moment." Fifteen seconds passed.

"He's sixteen kilometers east of you," Edward finally said,"currently being chased out of a fitness gym. None of his pursuers look dangerous. Barbells, weight plates—improvised weapons, nothing more."

"Yup." The anonymous man exhaled, his shoulders loosening.

"That sounds like my brother."

"Hey. You there. What's your role?" A hand clamped down on his shoulder before he even registered the voice. The man froze, then turned slowly to face a young woman half his size and twice as unbothered.

"Um… it's Seeker. My role is Seeker," he stammered. Nabi crossed her arms, one eyebrow lifting as she activated Identify. Name: Freddie Fodder Class: Irrelevant Level: 3 Rank: Awakened Ladder Rank: 111 She closed the distance until his back met the wall, then reached up and cupped his face in both hands, tilting his head down until his eyes had nowhere left to go but hers.

"Look me in the eye when you say it." Her voice dropped to a whisper.

"What. Is. Your. Role." Blush rushed to his cheeks. His gaze slid away, unable to hold hers.

"I told you, I'm a Seeker! You'd better think twice before killing your own!"

"My own?" Nabi scoffed.

"We're not on the same side. I'm the Seeker. You're the Hider. You'll need to lie a lot better than that if you want to slip past my lie-detection skill." His jaw dropped.

"A lie-detection ability? What kind of cheat skill is that?" His hands clasped together, pleading.

"Please, I'll give you all my equipment, just spare—" Nabi's scythe flickered into her grip and she plunged it in an overhead strike. The strike split his head open before he finished the sentence.

"Lie detection?" Ava's voice surfaced in Nabi's mind.

"Blood Reapers don't possess such an ability."

"I know." Nabi's grin stretched ear to ear.

"But he didn't." A satisfied chuckle echoed back.

"The system has truly found me the perfect disciple," Ava said. Gray outran the Level 0 mob without much effort. At Level Three, his speed alone put him well past the best track athletes Earth had ever produced. The gap between him and his pursuers stretched wider with every stride until their shouts thinned into nothing behind him. The absence of an attribute allocation system nagged at him as he ran. Maybe the System favored generalists over specialists.

But that didn't hold up either; there was no reason for it to force every class onto the same stat curve. Would a mage who leaned on intelligence and wisdom really carry the same raw strength as a warrior? The theory fell apart further when he thought of Jun at Level Two in the Mirror Matchup, who somehow moved faster than Gray did now at Level Three. Too many anamolies, not enough answers.

His priority became clear: learn everything he could about this world, starting by scouring a library—somewhere he could piece together its structure and history. Then it hit him. He wasn't trapped in some medieval fantasy setting, forced to rely on dusty grimoires and crumbling scrolls. The System ran on communication devices implanted directly into their brains. It could simulate entire battlegrounds, recreating the scale of Earth's biggest cities down to the last brick and street sign.

A noise cut through his thoughts and yanked him back to the present. He was sprinting through a flawless recreation of Gangnam, Korea's most affluent district. Glass skyscrapers rose on both sides, their surfaces cycling through luxury ad after luxury ad. Somewhere close, a low, insistent thumping echoed through the street. EDM. He followed it until he came to a stop in front of a storefront. A neon sign buzzed overhead, bass leaking out through the entrance in waves he could feel in his chest. A club.