According to Coach, Roscoerama was a new shooter game that was only recently placed into the Simulon Games roster. And to combat the slow and lackluster growth of the playerbase, the heads of Simular Inc. had advertised a tournament with an immense prize pool.

But that wasn’t all.

They had also promised a VIP tour of their Simular headquarters given by none other than the current CEO, Azan Auric.

Val didn’t care about the tour. There was no point in winning something that didn’t have any real value to her.

The game itself didn’t sound all that hard. Not like blackjack. Coach had told her that blackjack was easy, but she had gotten into the habit of never trusting any of his words that mentioned something along the lines of being easy. None of what Coach said was easy were actually easy. Sometimes, she wondered if Coach was actually illiterate and that he had somehow mixed up the definitions between the words, easy and hard. That was clearly the only explanation possible. Whatever the case was, Roscoerama sounded easy. And that was in her own definition. Not Coach’s.

The game was a free-for-all. Basically an old-fashioned, glorified battle royale. At least, that’s what Coach had said. Val didn’t understand all that gamer jargon, but she knew that all she had to do was shoot and survive until she was the last person standing on the battlefield. The concept wasn’t all that difficult, but there was a problem. One single problem…

“I don’t know how to shoot.”

Coach shook his head, letting out a visible sigh of disappointment. She could tell that much.

“What? I was a thief. Not a bounty hunter.”

“Watch.” He affixed a makeshift, red and white painted cardboard target onto a fence post next to his beach hut. Then he walked back and picked up a toy gun. While adjusting his aim, all Val could hear was the smacking of his lips as Coach chewed on some beef jerky.

“Will you stop that—”

“Shush. I’m concentrating.”

“It’s like ten feet away. If you’re so good, why do you need to concentrate so much?”

He didn’t answer. Instead, he pulled the trigger. A stream of water sprayed the center, muddling the fresh paint on the surface.

“See? Easy.” He took another bite out of his snack.

“You didn’t tell me jack shit, Coach.”

He sighed again. “Whaddaya got your Razen for, eh? Here.” He tossed the gun over to her. “Try it. Shoot the target.”

She’d preferred to learn things slow and steady—from the ground up. Rushing never worked when she’d been a thief… but over time, her experiences as a boxer seemed to have overridden that aspect of her personality.

As she held the gun up, her right eye suddenly triggered and automatically highlighted the potential trajectory of the water stream, even the position in which it would start to fall. It was almost as if the Razen already knew she was holding a gun in her hand. Specifically a water gun. It felt so natural to her…

“You gonna shoot or what?”

She pulled the trigger. The water followed the projected trajectory with precision. The shot landed perfectly in the middle of the target. She didn’t even know Razens were capable of this feature.

This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

“And would ya look at that? Easy.” He finished his jerky and got to work on another pack. This time, it was an extinct species—armadillo. It seemed like any animal could be turned into jerky inside the simulation.

“Hmph.” Sometimes, she couldn’t help but acknowledge Coach’s know-it-all attitude. “Anything else I should know?”

“It’s a survival game. Just survive.”

“You’re real helpful.”

“I am, aren’t I?”

“I didn’t mean it.”

“I know you didn’t mean it. I’m no idiot.”

“Why don’t you participate too? You know more about shooting than me.”

“You think I can outrun anyone with these legs?” He chuckled. “C’mon. We’re not done yet.”

She knew that was an excuse. Coach was just being lazy as always, putting all the hard work on her. He could’ve just bought a slideboard. It wasn’t that expensive, and small gadgets were allowed in the rules. But he continued on with explaining the rules for blackjack. Since the events were back to back, she couldn’t afford to interject.

It was now or never.

…

Apparently, the blackjack tournament was different from the norm. Coach said that every participant was separately and simultaneously going to compete against the same dealer with the same set and order of cards. And after five rounds, the players were going to be ranked in order of most points to least. Then the prize money was going to be split proportionally to the rank that they had gotten.

He explained that all players started with only a hundred points. They could also end up in the negatives if they bet too many points. That was to ensure a small reduction in potential ties amongst the players. Of course, they still couldn’t bet more than double of what they currently had.

Coach then went on to describe the rules of blackjack. It sounded pretty simple at first. Just get as close to twenty-one as possible without going over or force the dealer to lose…

“That’s called a bust, lass.”

“What is?”

“Going over twenty-one.”

“Did I really need to know that, Coach? We’re time constrained!”

“Ah, right. I shouldn’t say too much.” He pulled up a picture of a blackjack table. “Just remember to hit and stand. Those two words are the most important.”

“Yeah, yeah. You already told me that.” She motioned for him to hurry. “Anything else? We’ve only got an hour.”

“Don’t rush me. I’ll get to everything, I promise.”

“I just don’t get why you left me alone at your little shack yesterday when you could’ve taken that time to teach me. I mean, not even a tour of the city? That’s not proper host etiquette.”

He smacked her over the head with a familiar looking stick.

“Ow! What the fuck?” She scurried behind a table, only poking her head out to see where he was. “Where did you get that? It even looks the same!”

“You know how hard it was to get you into the tourneys, lass? Especially blackjack? There’s limited space! I had to call one of my old friends to make it happen.” He menacingly aimed the wooden weapon at her barely visible forehead. “And it wasn’t cheap, so you better darn place high or this’ll all be for nothing.”

“Okay, I get it. Just don’t hit me with that.”

“C’mon.” He gestured for her to come closer. “We’ve got more learning to do.”

She inched a little closer.

“I’ll hit you again if you don’t hurry it up.”

“Geez, chill.” She moved just close enough to be able to book it if he ever swung towards her direction. “So violent.”

Coach went on to explain more terms and concepts. Something about doubling down, splitting, and insurance. But he told her to forget about the insurance. Said it wasn’t important to a beginner like her—she didn’t understand why he’d even mentioned it in the first place—and after an hour of intense memorization, she knew…

She was probably screwed.