> A hunted has been eliminated.
>
> None remain
>
>
> The hunter is victorious
> Challenge Three Completed!
>
> Congratulations.
>
> Final Grade - E
>
> Current pass percentage: 65%
>
>
> Please continue to next challenge
Another E? Another bleeding E? Three Es in a row. Bob was lying in the middle of the square, reading his system messages against a red, apocalyptic sky. The fires still crackled and swirled around him, but they didn’t bother him, lying there, staring up at the misty sky. No Bob was happy, madly happy, he’d never felt so damn alive. He’d done it. He’d done it, boys. Bob had made it through another challenge. He’d live to see another day. Bob was still alive.
The E did annoy him a little though, most unreasonable, were they only judging on time? Nobody is ever happy with the ref’s call, no matter what he ends up calling. Hadn’t Bob been injured multiple times and just look at the state of the field, and that was all aside from finishing with zero seconds on the clock. Ok, maybe E wasn’t completely ridiculous. Still you’d think he might have got some bonus points for the 3 on the 1. A bit uncharitable no?
Bob still couldn’t believe his plan had worked. Mostly, anyway. The pigeon had been a real long-shot. There had just been something about the way the bird eyed him. That look of superiority, of rank disdain, he’d seen that enough times in his life before: this person thinks they’re better than me. That’s what clutched it for Bob. What would a proud man do? Where would he come to spectate the ugly struggles of his inferiors? It had to be that spot. That same spot.
Bob had bet a lot on that chance. He’d climbed back up that wall (he didn’t like to remember the experience) and he’d coated the whole ridge in the superglue he’d found back in the side table drawer. Then he’d had to spend a long time chipping out the wall mortar. He mostly did that because he didn’t fancy having to climb up the bloody wall a third time. Still all’s well that ends well.
He saw another notification and tapped it open beside the completion message.
> Achievement:
>
>
> Stylishly Late
>
> Description: Better than being early.
> Complete an initiation challenge with less than 5 seconds remaining on the clock
>
>
> Effect: A minor bonus to dexterity
Sometimes Bob thought the system was taking the piss. Had someone really programmed in that achievement? He guessed he should’ve been more suspicious when there was achievement for getting yourself muddy.
Bob looked back over the other message. That was when he noticed the “current pass percentage.” 65%. Really? 65%? How were so many people passing? What would have happened if we’d all picked the same side? Would we go again or would it just be an instant win? That number sure made it sound like the latter. Some kind of teamwork, cooperation bullshit reward. Man that seemed like just the amount of arbitrariness the system enjoyed. We could’ve been that group. We should’ve been. Why did Sally have to lie to him? Bob guessed he’d spend many sleepless nights trying to answer that question.
The lighted path was pointing him to a doorway off the market square. But Bob didn’t move. No, Bob continue to lie there and look into the night sky, into the red shadows and ethereal smoke. It was strangely beautiful. He’d killed a little girl today. It was hard to know what to feel about it. Yesterday, yes, in the world of yesterday, that truth would have been unthinkable, unbearable, it would have eaten away at his mind, turned him into a mumbling wreck. But today, now, Bob only stroked his chin and wondered what he ought to feel.
It had been her or him. That was the plain fact of the matter. But did that make it alright? Bob didn’t know. He stroked his chin and wondered. And then another question came to him: would he have done the same again? Yes, he answered without hesitation. He wasn’t going to sugarcoat it or pretend to be something he wasn’t. He would have done it again. Well, there it was. What else was there to say?
Maybe Bob should have lamented the kind of man he’d become. The kind of man who could kill a little girl and think calmly, even rationally on the subject. But, you know what, he didn’t. Bob felt proud. He’d fought. He’d fought and she’d fought. And he’d won. And he would keep going. Bob wasn’t done yet. Bob was getting out of this place. Bob was going home. Time to move on.
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Bob gathered up his possessions. He’d acquired a good many by this time (he was a bit of a hoarder). Three apples, all he had left of his crop, the system primer, the pencil case and exercise book, his hunting knife, the collected junk from the village (highlights being a silver necklace and a pair of reading glasses): it made quite the pile. The trouble was he not longer had his plastic bag. He didn’t begrudge the bag. The bag had served valiantly, most valiantly. It was perhaps the true hero of the whole affair. The bag that conquered the bull. But then a bag would have been most handy around now. Instead, he searched out his old side-table drawer and piled his crap inside.
Only one challenge left, here’s to praying that it doesn’t involve mud, Bob walked through the lighted entranceway and into… a building, some kind of large hall, the ceiling was way up and the room exceptionally grand. The whole space was packed with people. The people were laughing and chatting. Why the people were drinking. Drinking what looked like alcohol too. And they were well dressed most of them, long gowns or black ties, all very fancy and proper. Bob, well, Bob, on the other hand, was not exactly in formal wear.
Acutely embarrassed, he ducked and wove his way through the press of people and made it to a deserted corner. There he plopped himself down on the ground (he was probably dirtier than the floor). That was when he noticed something off with the people’s faces. They looked penciled in almost, more grey outlines than real faces. There was something about them that made he think they weren’t real people. They weren’t survivors like Sally or himself.
> Challenge Four (4/4):
>
> Pay the exit fee (1000 credits)
Along with the final challenge notification, five chips materialized in front of him and fell neatly into a stack. Bob picked one up. It was a black, round disk. He thought he heard a slight buzz emanating from the object, as though there were a current running through it. The chip was completely unmarked but when he focused on it, a system annotation popped up 100 credits. Five 100 credit chips. 500 credits worth. And the exit fee was 1000. That was when it came to him. Bob had finally realized what this place reminded him of: a casino.
Bob was conflicted. On the one hand, don’t get me wrong, he was ecstatic that the final challenge had not turned out to be a duel to the death against some hideous creature of the deep or worse still another player. The proposition had seemed more than likely given the confrontational aspects of the first and third challenge. On the other hand, he didn’t fancy staking his immortal soul on the roll of a dice. Especially give his luck so far.
Wait a moment, wasn’t Bob supposed to have good luck? He felt like over two thirds of his achievements, the vast majority of those unrelated to mud, had provided some bonus to his “luck.” Bob ought to be one of the luckiest people alive at this point. And yet Bob maintained the healthy skepticism of a man who had been teleported out of a luxurious bath to land in a puddle of mud.
The system’s definition of luck, Bob suspected, did not perfectly correspond with Bob’s definition of luck. And it was highly questionable whether the stat would translate over to luck in simple games of chance. No, here was a moment for brain power. See Bob understood the basic principles of card counting. Hell, he wasn’t a bad hand at cards when it came to it. Some might say he was a mean card-player (at least in his own reckoning). And there was no time limit that he could see. The way to do this was to go slow, take your time, study your opponent and plan out a strategy.
Bob made a circuit of the hall. Then he made another circuit. Then he cursed fate, god, the system, and these confounded challenges. Alas, for there was only one game available in this casino and that the most mindless, luck-based, casino-skewered one of the lot — roulette. And to rub salt in the wound, American Roulette. 36 numbers alternating red and black, plus a green zero, and (the shamelessness of it) a double zero.
This house is rigged. The system is literally laughing at us. What part of this is an initiation? Where was the lesson, the teaching, where was the goddamn tutorial for that matter? This here, this here is a culling. It’s obvious isn’t it? The system figures it’ll just reduce the numbers a little bit. And we’re powerless to do anything.
While complaining, Bob had migrated over to the edge of the table. He watched the dealer reach over with white gloved hands to give the wheel a deft spin and then drop a little ball into the whirling contraption. The ball spiraled around its little circuit and the gathered players leaned collectively forward to watch the little ball’s progress. The ball slowed. It seemed about to fall into 31 and then tripped over into 16. “Black 16,” the dealer announced, “Black 16.” He silently raked in the lost bets and pushed out winnings.
Bob had studied the whole episode waiting for the other shoe to drop. Despite his grumbling, he had been fairly confident that there was a trick here. He figured there would be some twist, maybe the wheel was biased or there’d be some signal or hint in the way the dealer placed the ball. Of course, you couldn’t conclude anything from just one spin, but the whole thing looked like bog standard roulette to Bob. A simple game of chance.
Well Bob pushed one of the grey-faced revelers off his chair and parked himself in it, ignoring the offended and angry look that the man in the top hat gave him. He would have to do his homework here. He leaned his drawer against the chair, extracted out the exercise book and a pencil, smoothed them out on the table and got ready to take notes. That was when he caught sight of bow-tied waiter. He loudly and obnoxiously signaled the man over. “Do you have anything non-alcoholic?”
“No sir.”
Bob hesitated. Bob hesitated for maybe half a second. But he was pretty thirsty. And he was playing the long game here. Worse case he would just sleep it off. The carpet didn’t look that uncomfortable. “What about a beer then, you must have beer, I saw a man drinking it on the way here.”
“Very good, sir.” And he strode away. Well something to look forward to, eh? About the only way he’d be able to muddle through the boredom of taking notes.
Unfortunately, Bob knew enough about statistics to know that he’d need a massive sample size to make any strong conclusions. And strong conclusions were necessary to turn this life and death decision into something more than a coin flip. Bob got to work with the thought: this is going to be boring.