The panic was all encompassing. It flowed over and through everyone there and even Karh himself wasn’t spared as his gaze slowly shifted to Gerinda, the thirteen year old girl.

With him staring at her like she was a fish just dangling in front of him waiting to be caught.

Just when he was making up his mind to do whatever it took to survive, regardless of who he had to beat to do so, he suddenly heard Mr Z speak again.

{Oh…I ALMOST FORGOT! For all those with black numbers hovering over your head. Even if you’re not able to get a card, you have been exempted!}

The next second Karh instantly looked up at the number hovering right above his head big enough for him to see.

He already knew that his number was black the moment everyone’s number appeared over their heads regardless of whether or not they had cards but starting at him made him breathe a sigh of relief, even if the two people beside him didn’t.

Their numbers were clearly red and even before the grumpy man named Nort to his left knew what he was doing, he opened his mouth to yell, declaring how annoyed he was.

“What the hell does that mean? How is this fair? How can they be exempted what qualifications do they have?” Nort yelled in dissatisfaction running his head through his partially bald head and staring carefully at the number hovering over Karh’s head.

Hearing Nort’s clear displeasure others close to him began to murmur loudly to show just how much they were against it, as their voices slowly became louder one after the other.

“Yes… how the hell can they be exempted,”

“Is this game even fair?”

“We have to die but they get to live even if they don’t get cards!”

“FOUL PLAY! We can not…”

But just as they continued to collectively revolt and the tension in the air seemed to get even higher than before, with even more people prepared to raise their voices and add it to the mix.

They all suddenly heard a loud click, beyond shocked to see the clock begin to count down.

{14: 58}

They only had fifteen minutes, either to hold on to their cards or steal and plunder another’s.

Karh was exempted and somehow he had complete faith in the fact that if the man in the screen with the Z mask on his face had said it, then that was actually how it was.

‘God knows…I deserve it,’ Recalling all he had to go through.

He had even been convinced he wouldn’t be able to make it.

Looking around he was only barely able to spot one more person from afar that also had the black number over his head and the person went as far as to sit on the floor, almost like he was trying to take a nap.

Karh had been planning on doing the same when he suddenly heard a loud sound from his left.

“THWACK…”

Beyond shocked to see blood gushing from a hole in someone’s head. Standing in front of the slowly bleeding and obviously dying man was Nort, the middle-agedman who had been by his left but now standing even farther away with a bloody rod in his hand and an unbidden aura of death around him.

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“God! He killed him,”

“I can’t believe he killed him. How could he?”

“Will we have to kill people too?”

“Blood! There’s so much blood!”

Karh merely glanced at the dead body that twitched slightly, forever losing all signs of life before turning his head to look at Nort who ignoring everyone else, gripped the dead man’s card in his hand and went back into his box. One that instantly became blue just like Karh’s own became the moment he was exempted.

“Don’t even think of getting my card…” he fiercely yelled with bloodshot eyes, wiping the bloody rod with his clothes in a way that appeared even more menacing and dangerous than when he pierced a man’s skull with the weapon in his hand.

Karh quietly watched without any particular change of expression on his face.

He had to kill his own brothers one after the other. Even though the strange system had requested it, he would his best to do so if he had been given more weapons.

‘Are you still here?’ wondering why the voice in his head hadn’t once spoken to him since he had been brought to the strange area, where he was completely unable to fanthom where he was.

Seconds ticked by without him getting a response. But just when he was about to turn his attention to look at the people around him who nstantkh brought out different weapons from their arsenal’s with wary expressions on their faces, he suddenly got a response.

{Hybernating…}

The response was so low…so tiny…so minute that For a split second, Karh almost thought he had imagined it which was why he instantly asked a question that very moment.

‘Do you know where this is?’

{isn’t it obvious? It's Z’s floor} he heard the voice reply sharply in a tone that slightly betrayed the fear embedded in it.

Karh didn’t care why the voice in his head seemed to be so scared and instead opened his mouth to ask another question only to be snapped at before he could.

{Don’t. I’m hibernating…even if you speak to me, I won’t…} but the voice in his head didn’t even finish speaking before his voice suddenly faded, unable to finish whatever it was he was about to say.

‘Hey!’

‘Are you still there?’

‘One more question and…’ distracted with getting the voice in his head to respond he completely ignored the loud voices on his right until it became too loud to ignore.

He sighed and turned to his right to see Juna, the young man wearing glasses to his right slowly remove his glasses from his face and fold it into his pocket, showing that he simply wore it for aesthetics.

The expression he had was completely unlike the scholarly one he had before, as he snapped his fingers, only for a huge bat to instantly appear in his hand.

“Give me your card! You might have stepped on my card by mistake but that doesn’t excuse the fact that you did. Now, you have a chance to make up for it,” He had barely finished speaking when Gerinda, the thirteen year old girl instantly busted into full blown tears, with mucus and all.

The sight was indeed like an adult bullying a kid but Karh didn’t blame him one bit.

He was really unlucky, especially since all the people around him had better weapons, like guns, machetes, Katana’s and what seemed like dangerous chemicals.

If he hadn’t been exempted he would have indeed moaned at how bad the circumstances around them were, especially since everyone’s guard had instantly gone up after Nort, the man by his left killed someone.

The girl really was the only one that looked easy to bully.

‘I don’t blame him. In his place I would have done the same exact thing. Moreover, it might be better for her to die here seeing how weak she was,’ Karh thought looking at the thirteen year old girl and knowing that with how easily she had instantly come here without doing any quest. She probably had no weapons and no experience.

{11:45}

There was about eleven minutes more and only a few skirmishes had happened and even Juna, although he held the bat in his hand seemed to have no plans on using it.

Karh couldn’t help but wonder what would happen when there was only five more minutes on the clock.

Not to mention what would happen if there was only a minute left?