Chapter 67
A Taste of Death
All the contestants stood still in a dumbfound silence, as they stared at what seemed to be a cake buffet in front of them. After the hellish obstacles and trials they all had gone through, the thought of a room full of tables with sugary sweet foods on them seemed like an idea that was so ridiculous that it would have made any of them burst out in laughter. Yet here they were, looking right at such a seemingly impossible sight.
“Is this… Is this a lunch break or something?” Ryle asked. “I mean, that’s the only thing this could be, right? There’s no other explanation.”
“Of course it isn’t, you idiot. Do you really think that the people behind these sick games would just have a room with cake in it for us to enjoy?” Lexton said. “There’s obviously some sort of a trick to this.”
“Well then what the hell is it!?” the blonde asked angrily. “Unless those cakes are some sort of messed up monsters that you’d make in your freaky lab, I don’t see how they could pose a threat to any of us!”
Erin wasn’t paying much attention to the argument going on next to her, as she herself was trying to figure out what was going on. For all intents and purposes, the room before her made no sense. Why would a contest of life and death meant to amuse twisted minds have something like this? The more the redhead thought about it, the less sense it made.
Suddenly, the voice from the speakers called out to the contestants.
“Alright, it seems like you’ve all made it to the room of our next game!” the voice said. “You’re all probably wondering what it is that you need to do here in order to get through, right? Well, take a look at the other end of the room.”
All eyes were now on the wall opposite of them. There they could see a large door with something in front of it. Right by the sides of the door were two tower-like machines that rose from the floor. Both were about the size of an average man and had a red light on top of them.
“The task you need to accomplish is very simple. Within each of the cakes that you see before you is a very small microchip. All you need to do is eat one of the cakes and get the chip in your body. Once that is done, you can get the sensors to open the door to let you proceed to the next stage,” the voice coming from the speakers explained. “Simple, isn’t it? Though I do have to warn you, not all of the cakes are what they appear to be! Hope you enjoy!”
Silence fell over the contestants, as they all processed what they had been told. None of them could believe that the task they had to accomplish was so simple. The contestants were looking at each other, wondering if this was real.
“If it’s that simple, then might as well get done with it!” one contestant suddenly declared loudly as he walked towards one of the cakes. Two other soon followed after him, each going to a table of their own.
Erin and Ryle were about to follow the lead of the three contestants, but were stopped as Durge put his arm in front of them.
“What’s wrong?” Erin asked. “Shouldn’t we just go and get this done?”
“Wait for a moment,” the orc said as he kept his eyes on the three contestants. “Let’s see just what is going to happen first. If my instinct is correct, this is much tougher than you’d think.”
Deciding to listen to Durge’s warning, Erin and Ryle stepped back and waited. A few other contestants were about to go and join the three that were eating their own cakes. However, they all stopped upon seeing what happened to the three that had gone to try out the task.
The first one managed to take a couple of bites before suddenly dropping the piece of cake he was holding. He then held his throat in agony as he began to cough up blood. Soon after this he fell over on the floor and died.
The second one didn’t even get a chance to touch the cake before him. As soon as his hand got near the sweet treat, a spider burst out of it and bit him. The venom acted quickly, shutting down his entire nervous system and killing him.
Upon seeing the other two die, the third one hesitated for a moment but decided to go for it regardless. After all, he needed to complete the task at hand in order to survive, so he might as well go for it here. Unlike the other two, he was actually able to eat the whole piece of cake and seemed to have passed the task. Just as he was about to go and proceed to the next room, however, his stomach exploded from the inside.
All the remaining contestants stood in stunned silence and horror at the terrible fate that had fallen over the three who had tried their luck. It was only by Lexton voicing his thoughts that the silence was broken.
“Explosive ruins inside a cake? I’ve never thought of that myself,” the kobold said in a somewhat impressed tone. “I need to remember that.”
“Lex, are you freaking serious!?” Ryle yelled angrily. “Three people just died in front of us! What the hell was that about!?”
“It’s the challenge, Ryle. We should have known this was way too easy to be true,” Erin said as she didn’t take her eyes off the room before her. “We need to pick the right cakes out of all of these in order to survive.”
“But how the hell are we supposed to do that!?” the blonde asked. “All these damn cakes look exactly the same! How are supposed to know which ones are the right ones!?”
“I think that’s the point. It’s all a game of luck,” the redhead replied.
“The red lady is correct!” the voice from the speakers spoke up. “This wouldn’t be much of a game, if there was no chance to lose, would it? You have to do your best to pick the right one in order to proceed! The other ones have different types of surprises in them! They still have the microchip that you need, but you have to face the risk of what else is within.”
The contestants looked at each other in a panic, wondering what they should do. Suggestions as to what could be done to get through the challenge were flying around wildly, as the contestants were starting to lose themselves to their fear. It wouldn’t be long until total chaos would erupt.
“Oh right! I almost forgot to mention one important thing. Don’t try to dig through the cakes in the hopes of getting the microchip itself. They are so small they are practically invisible, so messing up the cake runs the risk of you losing the chip itself,” the voice from the speaker spoke up. “Make sure you every last bite!”
Erin and her group were not doing well for themselves, as they all couldn’t figure out what to do. It seemed like this was truly a game with nothing but luck as your only chance for survival.
“This is bullshit! How are we supposed to get through this!?” Ryle asked angrily. “Besides, how do we know any of these cakes are safe!? They could all be poisoned for all we know!”
“I highly doubt that,” Erin stated. “After all, this is a show they put on to entertain people. No game is exciting, unless there is a chance for you to win or to lose.”
“Oh come one! You think we can trust these types of people!?” the blonde asked angrily. “Hell, even if all of these things don’t have some sort of a trap in them, how do we know that the whole thing about the microchip is true!? We could end up eating all of these, yet no one gets out!”
“We don’t know that, which is why we are going to have to find out for ourselves,” Durge suddenly said as he lifted up Lexton off his shoulder and handed him to Ryle. “Hold onto him, would you? I need to go check something out.”
“W-What!? Check out what!?” the blonde asked as she took the kobold in her hands.
“Whether it’s true that what they said about the microchips is true or not,” the orc answered as he walked up to one of the tables.
Much to the surprise of everyone there, Durge walked to the table where one of the three who had gone first had died at. It was the cake that was poisoned. The orc looked at the corpse and noticed certain symptoms that were caused by the poison. The contestant had coughed up blood and his eyes were bloodshot as well. His veins had also bulged in certain areas and turned red.
After he was done with his investigation, Durge shocked everyone that was watching by grabbing what remained of the cake and ate it in one go. It happened so fast that Erin was completely taken by surprise and was unable to do anything to stop the orc. The effects of the poison soon began to appear, as Durge began to cough up blood while holding his throat. He soon fell to his knees as he kept coughing violently.
However, just as everyone watching had been certain that the orc would die, they were shocked to see him suddenly rise up. Besides the heavy breathing and the small amount of blood at the corner of his mouth, Durge seemed to be completely fine.
“...What the hell? That was the poisoned cake, right?” Ryle asked in disbelief as she stared at the orc with wide eyes. “How did he survive that? Is he immortal or something?”
“Not at all. I think this is due to his orc heritage,” Lexton said, sounding just as shocked as the blonde, despite having figured out how Durge had survived. “Orcs as a race have a better resistance against poisons than others. It seems to have allowed him to survive whatever poison was in that cake.”
“I don’t think it’s just that, Lex,” Erin said. “He’s also a very hated person within the criminal underground. My guess is that he has been poisoned more than a few times in his life, so his natural resistance to such things has evolved quite a bit. That’s why he checked the corpse in order to recognize the symptoms and thus determine what poison it was. That’s how he knew he would survive.”
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Meanwhile, Durge simply wiped off the blood near his mouth and walked to the door that would lead out of the room. Once he got in front of the sensors placed in front of it, the lights on them turned green and the door opened.
“Well, it looks like the thing about the microchips was true,” the orc said. “I’ll be on my way then.”
“Hey, hang on a second!” Ryle suddenly called out to Durge, who stopped in his tracks. “Didn’t you make an alliance or something with Erin!? How can you just abandon her like this!?”
The orc was about to reply, but was stopped by Erin.
“Ryle, stop that. You’re honestly embarrassing yourself,” the redhead said in a stern tone. “Just because we may have agreed to help each other out doesn’t mean we are supposed to needlessly sacrifice ourselves. Since he got past this challenge, he should be free to go on.”
The blonde obviously wanted to keep arguing, but knew that it would be pointless. She knew that her friend had made up her mind and was not going to budge.
“Thank you for being so understanding,” Durge said with a nod to Erin. “While I will be leaving you three on your own, I will say one thing. I believe that you all have a method of getting through this at your disposal. You just need to figure out what it is. I know the kobold there at least has a certain method he can use.”
Before anyone could ask what he meant, the orc walked through the door, letting it close behind him.
With Durge now gone, panic began to slowly build up once again among the contestants. They now knew that the only way to win was by playing the game set up before them, but the risks were very high and not in their favor. Arguments over what was the best way to clear the challenge began ignite everywhere.
“I say we just go in, grab the first cake we see and try our luck!” one contestant proclaimed. “There’s really no other way out of this, so might as well go for it, right!?”
“Really!? Why don’t you show us how it’s done, so we can follow your lead!?” another contestant asked sarcastically. “After all, you’re the one who suggested it!”
“I think I’ll sit back for now, actually…”
“OH REALLY!? I WONDER WHY!?”
Fights began to break out, as some contestants tried to force others to try out the cake for them first, while others began to fight over pieces that “seemed safe” in their eyes. It was obvious that no one had a clue as to what needed to be done.
“...Idiots. All of them. They are doing exactly what the Laughing Ogre wants,” Lexton said. “They wanted to force us into a situation where we would fight each other, like a bunch of rabid animals. Saves them the trouble of having to kill us.”
“So what should we do?” Ryle asked. “Should we just go for it and try our luck? I mean, the longer we wait, the less there are going to be any safe cakes.”
“The opposite is also true for that,” the kobold added. “If we go right away, there are more of those that have a trap of some kind in them. No matter how you look at it, we don’t have any solid method of getting through this.”
“Well, we can’t just sit around here!” the blonde argued. “Like it or not, we need to try something!”
While her two friends were having their argument, Erin was observing the room deep in thought. Durge had said that they all should have a method of beating this challenge, but what did he mean by that? The redhead tried her best to figure out what the orc had tried to tell them.
As she was lost in thought, Erin noticed Goldiana walked around the room in complete calmness despite the chaos erupting around her. The barbarian was halfheartedly looking over the cakes, until one caught her eye. This she immediately picked up and ate without hesitation. Not only that, but there was no trap in the cake at all.
“You-! How did you-!?” Erin asked with a wide eye, as she was unable to believe what she had just seen.
“Oh, this? Nothing much,” Goldiana said with a smirk as she began to make her way to the exit. “It just helps to have friends in certain places.”
As the barbarian woman went through the exit, Lexton spoke up to answer the question on Erin’s mind.
“She probably knows someone in the crew that prepares these games. They must have marked one of the safe pieces for her, so she knew what to do,” the kobold explained. “That’s why she was never worried at all, when we came to this room.”
“What a freaking cheater!” Ryle complained. “How is it fair that she has friends on the other side helping her out, while we have to struggle!?”
“Ryle, in these situations, it’s not about what’s fair. It’s about you having the abilities you need in order to survive,” Lexton said with a frustrated sigh. “With that type of logic, you could say it was unfair that Durge has a natural resistance to poison!”
It was at that moment that something clicked inside Erin’s head.
“That’s it! That’s what Durge was talking about!” the redhead said, earning confused looks from her two friends. “Don’t you get it? We all have special abilities that can help us get through this! Lex, you have knowledge of runes and other such things that can be used to trap people. And Ryle, you have your enhanced senses! That’s how we can get through this!”
“...I see. Why didn’t I think of that myself?” Lexton said to himself thoughtfully. “This will be easy for me.”
Before either Erin or Ryle could ask what the kobold meant, he starting to walk around the tables, looking for something. He eventually stopped at one of the tables and looked at the piece of cake placed on it.
“This is the one,” Lexton said with a small smirk. “I can tell that they used runes for it.”
“How can you tell that?” Ryle asked.
“Runes have a faint sign of magical energy. Once you’ve worked with them as much as I have, you can pick up on it,” the kobold explained. “This will be my ticket to getting out of here.”
“How? Didn’t you say that it has runes within it?” the blonde asked. “How is a cake that’s going to kill you going to help you in any way?”
“That’s simple. I just need to disarm the runes,” Lexton answered. “It can be very risky, though, so I recommend stepping back a bit. Otherwise, you two might get caught in the blast.”
“WHAT!?” Ryle shouted. “Lex, maybe you shouldn’t-!”
“Let him be, Ryle,” Erin said, cutting off the blonde. “I’m certain he knows what he’s doing.”
Despite not liking the idea, Ryle decided to watch with Erin as Lexton got to work. To start, the kobold bit one of his fingers so hard that he drew blood from it. He then moved his hand around the cake without touching it, almost like he was trying to sense something. After doing this for a moment, he plunged his bleeding finger into a couple of spots in rapid succession. Once this was done, a strange mist-like vapor seemed to rise up from the cake and disappear. With his work done, Lexton picked up the cake and ate it without hesitation.
“Ummm… What just happened?” Ryle asked.
“I think he sort of disarmed the runes or something along those lines,” Erin said.
“That’s one way of putting it,” Lexton said. “I won’t bore you with the details, but certain runes can be disarmed by using a medium and just enough of magic power. I got a feeling of the general locations for the runes and used my own blood as the medium, through which I then sent magic power into the runes, effectively disarming them. Luckily the one who placed them was either an amateur or just didn’t take their job seriously. Otherwise, that would have ended badly for me.”
“...Huh. Good to see you know what you’re doing for once,” Ryle said, dumbfounded by how easily the kobold was able to pass the challenge.
“I’m going to ignore the insult in that comment,” Lexton said in a slightly frustrated tone. “Anyways, I’m going to go ahead. You guys probably know now what to do in order to pass as well.”
With the kobold now gone, Erin and Ryle were left to figure out what to do. However, the blonde of the two wasn’t exactly confident on how to do that.
“Okay, so scaly-ass could figure out a way from this candy nightmare, but what the hell am I supposed to do!?” Ryle complained in desperation. “I don’t know anything about magic or any bullshit like that! I’m completely screwed!”
“Ryle, calm down!” Erin said. “You had gene-splicing done to you, remember? All you need to do is use the senses given to you by your dog genes-”
“Werewolf!”
“...Werewolf genes and sniff out a cake that’s safe,” the redhead finished explaining. “That’s something you can do, right? I know that even dogs have insanely good noses, so you should have one as well.”
“Oh, come on! Like it’s going to be that-!” Ryle was about to complain further, only to stop upon her nose picking up something. “Hang on a second… This odor… It couldn’t be…”
Before Erin could ask what she was talking about, the blonde walked up to one of the tables while sniffing the air. Once there, she sniffed the cake as closely as possible in order to confirm her suspicions.
“...There’s no doubt about it. This has got to be the one that gets me out of here!” Ryle declared before shoving the cake in her mouth and swallowing it.
At first, Erin thought that her friend had found one that was completely safe. However, when the blonde began to show signs of being in pain, the redhead panicked over the cake actually being poisoned or something.
“Ryle!” Erin called out as she quickly ran to the blonde’s side. “Quick! Spit it out! Maybe you can still-!”
“It’s fine! I’m fine!” Ryle said, causing the redhead to stop in her tracks, as the blonde’s voice sounded strange. Almost like she had bit her tongue. “I just… have to deal with the side effects a bit…”
Ryle turned around to face Erin, who was surprised by how the blonde looked. Her lips were red and swollen, and her tongue seemed to have gotten bright red as well.
image [https://i.ibb.co/z7m808P/Ch-67-Pic-1.jpg]
“...Ryle, what was up with that cake you just ate?” Erin asked.
“Can’t you tell? It was full of extremely hot spices,” the blonde answered. “I recognized the smell of the spices, so I figured that it was the trap on the cake. Freaking painful still…”
“...ARE YOU OUT OF YOUR MIND!?” the redhead asked angrily. “Why would you think that some chili was a trap set up by the lunatics behind this!? Don’t you think that’s stupid as hell!?”
“Woah! Relax a bit, okay!?” Ryle quickly said, a bit taken aback by Erin’s sudden outburst. “It was actually completely reasonable of me to think that there was nothing else wrong with it. You know how Durge was able to survive the poison he ingested? I’m sure it’s because it wasn’t the most potent stuff out there, so he had a good chance of getting through it. He even confirmed it himself, by checking the corpse of the guy who had died from it first. There are probably cakes with way stronger poison in them. The same logic applies to these traps overall. Some are less lethal than others. With the right person, extreme spices can lead to severe issues or at least drive away people. That’s probably what they were thinking.”
“Might be so, but it still doesn’t take away the fact that what you did was completely reckless and idiotic,” the redhead said with a frustrated sigh. “Whatever. I’m just glad you’re alright. Just try not to do something like that ever again.”
The blonde gave a simple shrug as a response before walking to the exit. Now it was only Erin who needed to pass the challenge.
However, once Ryle had left, the redhead realized something. While she had an idea as to how her friends could get through this, she had no idea how she could do so for herself. While Lexton was familiar with runes and Ryle had her superhuman senses, Erin had no such skills at all.
To put it in terms that Ryle would use, the redhead was completely and totally screwed.
Since there was no actual certain method for her to pass this challenge, all Erin could do was take a blind guess. She turned to look around the room to find a cake to try her luck on, but what she saw around her didn’t fill her with confidence. Most of the pastries had already been either eaten or thrown to the floor. There were dead bodies everywhere, as the different traps had claimed their victims. Some contestants had been lucky enough to survive the challenge and had gone to the next room. There were still a few remaining people, all now in complete panic as they saw their chances of survival get slimmer.
Seeing as how there was nothing else she could do, Erin moved towards the closest piece of cake and decided to try her luck with it. She moved in to put the pastry to her mouth, when a hand suddenly stopped her.
“If you eat that, you’ll have a swarm of scorpions dig their way out of your internal organs,” a familiar voice said disapprovingly. “That is unless I manage to kill you myself first out of sheer frustration. I mean, I put my faith in you to get things done, only for you to die like this? You gotta be kidding me.”
The redhead’s eye went wide as she saw the shadowy figure standing next to her, holding her arm in place. While he had no facial features, she could somehow tell that he was glaring at her.
image [https://i.ibb.co/ygD5j4f/Ch-67-Pic-2.jpg]
“You! But… Why!?” Erin asked, completely confused as to why the shadow had suddenly appeared before her like this. “What are you doing here!?”
“Isn’t it obvious? I’m trying to stop you from screwing everything up,” the shadow answered with a frustrated sigh. “Seriously, you do such a good job so far, yet this is where you end up? What the hell kind of a joke is this? Also, drop that damn thing already.”
The redhead did as she was told and dropped the cake to the floor. Once it had fallen, very tiny scorpions began to dig their way out of the pastry. Erin gulped audibly at the thought of what would have happened, had she not been stopped.
“Thanks for the save,” the redhead said. “But this still doesn’t solve the main issue at hand. I still need to find a cake to eat that will allow me to go to the next room.”
“Oh my freaking everything that’s holy in existence… Do I have to do everything for you?” the shadow said in a tone dripping with frustration and anger. “Fine. I’ll point you to one that is safe, so you can join your buddies. You better not be this useless in the future, though. Understood?”
Erin gave a simple nod in response, afraid that if she spoke up, she might further anger the shadowy figure. Seeing her response, the shadow then pointed at one of the cakes that had remained untouched so far. With his work done, the shadow then disappeared by simply walking into the darker part of the room.
Now that her mysterious helper had left, the redhead quickly made her way to the cake that he had pointed out for her. She was just about to pick it up and eat it, when someone tackled her from behind. It was another contestant, a female elf, who had lost her mind from the panic. She had apparently seen Erin move towards the pastry and decided to take it for herself instead. The elf’s hands were soon around the redhead’s throat and began to squeeze with all their might.
The redhead tried to pry the hands off her throat, but was unable to do so. She could feel her consciousness beginning to slowly fade with the lack of oxygen. She needed to find a way out of this and fast.
Out of the corner of her eye, Erin spotted another piece of cake on the floor very close to her. She quickly grabbed it and smashed it on the elf lady’s face, who soon began to scream in pain. Once the grip on her throat had lifted, the redhead could see what was causing her attacker so much pain, as numerous beetle-like insects crawled out of the pastry and began to attack the elf’s face. Sharp mandibles and venomous stingers assaulted her face, as she tried to desperately get rid of the insects.
With her attacker now occupied, Erin was free to go and get her ticket out of this room. She quickly shoved the cake into her mouth and swallowed it without much chewing. Not wanting to waste anymore time and possibly get attacked again, the redhead ran to the exit. Relief washed over her, as she saw the door open with her friends waiting on the other side.
“Took you long enough! We were starting to get worried!” Ryle called out with a smile on her face, happy to see her friend alright. “What took you so long!?”
“Do me a favor and don’t ask,” Erin replied with a tired smile.