Zachary Zhao, Royale’s racer no.11.
He had been sitting in his room, in peace, talking to a friend on the phone.
“Hmm and then…what the f…,” his friend muttered.
Zac was silent too. Something had popped up in front of him.
He knew what his System window looked like, but something wasn’t right.
[Attention all people of Earth#9739]
“What?”
Something was definitely wrong.
“I’ll call you later,” he said, hanging up on his friend.
[Thank you for your kind attention.]
Huh?
[The Power-balance of Earth#9739 has shifted.]
[World: Earth#9739 has fallen under Noviar Debt and will now be made a channel on the Galactix. A Conductor for your region will be assigned shortly.]
****
Adrian and Zeifar both looked at each other with wide eyes and back at the windows in front of them.
“…we aren’t hallucinating, huh?” Adrian laughed nervously.
Zeifar quietly stared, calm.
The window changed to a big hologram-screen in front of the two. Blurry static solidified into a masked boy with silver hair.
“Hello peeps!” he waved, like a celebrity saying hi to the camera, “I’m your Conductor, Mika,” he grinned, flashing oddly white fangs.
Through the dark, intricate purple mask, two deep emerald green eyes were visible.
Zeifar squinted at him, trying to figure out what she was seeing on the screen, when the eyes met hers. She raised an eyebrow, wondering if he could see her. Only a slight smirk answered her before the guy went on, talking to everyone in Dubai. But that little gesture was clearer than day for an answer.
‘Oh he can see me alright,’ she sighed.
“So!” the guy, Mika, said, “Incase the dumb ones out of you haven’t realized yet, you guys basically got sold to the Galactix for power and bla-blah, and now due to Noviar Debt, ya’ll gotta’ complete stuff, entertain the peeps, or else,” he made a throat-cutting gesture.
“And the test to determine if you can even get to the ‘entertaining’ part—Auditions!”
Another window popped up in front of them, smaller ones.
This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.
Mika’s eyes darkened, “You all have 24 hours,” he seemed to have a bit of hidden pity in his eyes, “I wish you all the best.” And the big screen disappeared.
Adrian read the window’s contents before wishing he had never.
[Dear Participants, the Terms for the Qualifier:
Task: Form a group
Mininum:5 Participants
Maximum: 18 Participants
Requirements: Survive the entirety of 24 hours, all members must survive.
If requirements are not met the participants will be eliminated.
*The Qualifier will begin once the timer ends, in that time you may sort out Categories and guild.
**Those already Categorized will have their Skill Levels reduced to beginner Level for this Round.]
“Oh god.”
****
Sorting into a group was easy.
The problem was the big floating timer ticking away…00:30…00:15…
“What now?” Zac asked.
“Dunno’, we just gotta’ survive I guess,” Zeifar replied. The others stared at her in fear and confusion.
“Well, let’s see.”
00:00
A System window popped up in front of them.
[All Skills reduced to Lvl.1]
[The Qualifiers have begun.]
Mika’s face re-appeared on a big screen,
“Oh, I forgot to tell you all—make sure to kill a few monsters! Good luck!” he said, and disappeared just as quickly.
“Kill a few what—” but Danielle couldn’t finish her sentence before the building began violently shaking.
****
Chaos. Utter chaos.
As if in less than an hour the entire world had gotten flipped upside-down and thrown into a tornado.
The hotel’s walls cracked as concrete rained from the ceiling. They could hear screams upon screams, with not a clue of the reason. The most any of them could think of was to hide.
Adrian didn’t argue, after all, the terms were survival.
“You don’t seem scared,” Zeifar commented, glancing out the window of her room—where they had locked themselves in.
“Neither do you,” Adrian replied.
“It’s too confusing to be scary,” Zeifar said.
“People fear what they don’t understand.”
“Can’t relate,” she replied, a weird sort of intensity in her eyes, “We can’t hide here, the building will collapse.”
****
“I can’t drive like this!” Danielle yelled.
There were screams audible from all throughout the building but nobody knew why. It didn’t matter, it was obvious they were in a life-or-death situation.
“Dan, the only way we can stay safe for now is to keep moving,” Zeifar sighed.
She couldn’t really get mad, even Adrian seemed to be scared. Her reaction was the abnormal one.
[Monsters: Low-Level inter-dimensional creatures.
All current monsters in Dubai-Centre are Lvl.10-8
*Monster Levels work in descending order (Lvl.10=E-Rank)]
Said her System window.
She looked back at her teammates, all trying their best to stay calm. Her only explanation to her calmness was so stupid it made her feel embarrassed. It was, in question, probably due to her nerdy knowledge of apocalypse-based fiction. But it was too ridiculous of an explanation.
And then of course her other explanation was,
[Initiating (Temporary)Lvl.1 Skill: ‘Observatory Infinity’]
[Initiating Lvl.1 Sub-Skill: ‘Intimidation]
“Guys.”
They flinched a little and looked at her.
“Close your eyes and wait behind the car for a bit.”
The ‘Intimidation’ Skill scared them, even if a little. Though confused, they did as told.
Zeifar sighed and took her only baseball bat out from the car,
“Well this is interesting,” as her System window said,
[Effects of ‘Fear’ from Lvl.10 Monster ‘Chimera’ have been reflected due to ‘Mirror Void’.]
****
“I don’t know why this is happening,” Zeifar said, to no one really—maybe the monster?
“But,”
[Observatory Infinity: Vital point*]
A little message showed, the monster’s head was weak.
“This is ridiculously like a fictional story,” she said as the baseball bat smashed into its head.
[Congratulations. You have defeated a Lvl.10 Monster.]
She stared, her hands dropping to her sides, calmly as the body of the odd-looking monster exploded to glowy red light, leaving behind nothing but the remains of her bat.
“How-how did you—” Adrian asked, but he couldn’t finish, the dark eyes looking at him asked, sounding unsurprised, “You opened your eyes?”
****
“Where are we going?”
“Marina Walk.”
Which didn’t take long, the short-cut highways made it a short drive.
The things they saw were the problem.
Dubai wasn’t Dubai anymore, its lights all broken off, buildings fallen—absolute chaos. Monsters they couldn’t see properly crawling and running.
“…these are low-tier monsters?” Zac asked, his hands still trembling.
Ethan, sitting next to him, had his face buried in his arms. He didn’t want to know, didn’t want to see.
“…my entire family’s in Seoul,” he mumbled.
“Don’t worry, Seoul should be fine right now,” Zeifar said, hitting the brakes at full force, “If anything,” she opened the car door, “It’s Dubai we should be worried about.”
The Marina Walk wasn’t recognizable.
And what the hell were those things—those giants swimming in the water?
****