The dark cool night chilled the air with its loving embrace while the bright lights from crystal lamps illuminated the darkness, vanquishing it away. Marwin grabbed a beer from the fridge and headed down towards the lounge. The main building where all the overseers lived was a 3 story building, with each room belonging to an overseer.
The steps creaked as he made his way down into the well lit room. After leaving his room, he had walked down from the 2nd floor and down towards the 1st floor lounge room, the meeting place between his group of friends to gamble and play. With nothing to do on this boring and isolated island, Marwin and his friends played cards and gambled every night to relieve boredom.
Entering the lounge room, Marwin spotted his group of friends by a round table with a few wooden chairs. He pulled one of those chairs, sat down and left the beer bottle on the table. He held his head back and looked at the ceiling.
“So that’s it then, everyone who's needed here huh? I ain’t gonna wait anymore! I’ll die of boredom if we have to wait for Dan to arrive, he takes fucking forever,” said Mike with an accent, making it hard to understand what he was saying.
Seeing that no one was going to refute him, Mike chucked one whole beer bottle and burped out loud. “You know the rules, aye bud? Let’s start playing.” He shuffled the cards like a pro and started dealing. He laid down five cards to each player.
The mood changed in a split second and the tension spread around the room. Pulling a stack of coins out of his pocket, Marwin placed a stack of 10 silver coins on the table. Following his actions, everyone on the table took out a stack of silver coins and placed their bets before picking up their cards.
Marwin turned to the other, eyes glued on their expressions. All of them played long enough with each other that they knew what their habits were.
Mike reached for his cards and slowly turned his cards open, making sure no one else sees them. He smiled inside his head. His face didn’t move an inch. He knew the rest were watching. Drawing a card from the deck in the middle of the table, he felt the buzz of the beer he had. “The beer must be super strong.”
Seeing how long Mike was taking during his turn, the Tom started to complain. “Goddammit, can you hurry the fuck up, i wanna sleep soon!”
“Pipe down! My turn is over when i say it’s over, so shut the fuck up.” Mike answered angrily as he placed a king of spades on the table. “Aye Tom, why you so pissy to go sleep so early anyway?”
“What! You don’t know? Sir is coming here tomorrow. I need to wake up early and look my best!” Tom answered as he straighten his tie to emphasize his point.
“Just give it up Tom, you know you ain’t ever getting a promotion. We wouldn’t be stuck here otherwise.” Marwin spoke as he placed his card down, ending his turn.
“Speak for yourself! As long as i work hard and attract Sir’s attention, i’ll be out of this hell hole in no time.” Tom replied while placing his card down.
“Dude, do you seriously think you have a chance of promotion? Dude, face it, we are just grunts. If we are of any competence to get a promotion, we wouldn’t be working in this dump in the first place. We would be working as an adventure and climbing dungeons instead of working in this shit stain.” Hearing his friends words of confidence, the rest of the gang couldn’t help but bring him back down to reality. “The only reason we are here is because we are too weak to be working as an adventurer.The only thing we would be useful for is picking herbs or finding lost cats. Face it, we’re trash.”
Hearing his friend point out their incompetence, Tom couldn’t help but clench his fist in anger. However, he did not refute them. This was because, deep down, he knew they were right. The only reason why he was here was because he was too weak and afraid of monsters in the dungeons.
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Face with the words of their own insecurities, everyone suddenly became quiet. Silence filled the air as everyone placed a card on the table one by one while drinking beer.
Marwin, unable to take the silence, asked “so why is the sir coming here anyway? Last time i checked, he was arriving in a week. Why the sudden change?”
“Aye, that's true, but from what i heard from Kendal, our head overseer, the reason why Sir is arriving early is because the big heads wants to cut the program. Some righteous hypocrites got wind of our programs and are looking for evidence. Thus Sir is coming back early to get rid of all the evidence here,” Tom quietly whispered as if afraid of anyone hearing.
“What! Shutting everything down? Damn those morons, how did this get leaked?” Marwin exclaimed in anger, smashing his fist onto the wooden table and shaking it.
“You see why i am trying so hard to get a promotion? After this is all over, we are most likely unemployed.” Tom shuddered at the thought.
“Sigh, it’s not like we can do anything about it, we are just basic grunts, just follow orders and pray we get lucky,” a deep voice came from the last person in the group. The usually silent but reliable Zack spoke and gave an advice, alarming everyone in the group.
“Sigh, you’re right, no point worrying about things we can’t control, so let's just drink and end this round, if we are fast enough, we can play another round before Mr.TryHard over here has to go take his nappy, hahaha,” Marwin teased before chugging another bottle of beef.
“Aye, you’re right, let’s drink!” Everyone replied as they began placing their cards on the table. With the mood lightening, the game heated up again.
“Aye Marwin! The Hairule festival is going to start soon, aren’t you going to quit this shitty job on that day? Tom asked and placed a card on the table.
“Yeah, i want to start settling down and find a wife, if i continue with this job, i think i might be dying alone someday.” Marwin answered before chugging his beer.
“Goddammit, way to ruin the mood again!”
“Fine fine, i’ll lighten the mood. Let’s talk about the festival instead. I was thinking about quitting on that day as it is an auspicious day after all. The day i quit this shithole will be on the same day the four great heros vanquished the evil death lord and freed our land from it’s villainy a thousand year ago. Won’t that be great?”
“Sigh, why can’t we be as strong as them? Like honestly, how the fuck did they get so strong? They fought millions of undead minions and vanquish the great death lord while we are here rotting in this dump.” Tom sighed.
“Seriously, can you guys like stop talking? Every time you guys open your mouth, i feel like drinking myself to death with the depression you guys are giving me.” Zack spoke out again with his deep voice while placing a card on the table.
“Sigh, all right, all right, we’ll shut up now.”
Thus the game continued on in silence, stacks of silver and copper coins stood tall and proud on the table. The bets had been increased drastically. Only the sound of beer chugging, card sliding and coins chiming could be heard as the game carried on. With each placement of cards, more coins were added to the bundle of coins in the middle.
However, Marwin unable to take the silence again, couldn’t stop himself to starting the conversation again “Aye Mike, i heard that the noble girl died? Is it true?
“What noble girl? You mean the pick hair?” Tom asked.
“Sigh, yeah it’s true, i think she died on the day of the wolf hunt, when we counted the number of people in the camp after the exercise ended, i didn’t see anyone with pink hair. So it’s safe to say, she’s dead,” Mike answered.
“Pity, i wanted to giver her a try,” Marwin responded.
“Watch yourself mate, she’s the sir’s girl, i heard the sir has been looking at her for quite awhile now. I think he’ll be quite pissed off tomorrow when he hears that his favourite died.” Mike warned.
“How did she die anyway? Wasn’t she one of the fit ones who had a high likelihood of surviving the exercise? What happened?” Marwin asked.
“Well, i think i can answered that, i belief she went crazy. The night before the exercise, i was watching around the camp and was making sure everyone returned to their hut properly, when i saw her laughing like a mad man while sniffing the air and waving her arms around. I tell you man, she went Psycho,” Tom answered mysteriously.
“I win,” a soft mutter came out from Zack’s deep voice. “Hehehe, while you guys were busy talking shit again, i won, hahaha.”
Collecting all the coins on the table with a big hug, Zack pushed all the coins into his bag. “Hahaha, looks like i won the first round, boys.”
“Dammit!” The other three cursed as Zack won 60 silvers, a week worth of income.
“Sigh, fuck it, i’m going to take a piss, when i return, we’ll begin the the next round,” Marwin muttered while clutching his crotch. Marwin ran out of the room and rushed towards the nearest toilet. “Dammit, too much beer!”
With crystals illuminating the dark corridor towards the toilet, Marwin ran while clutching his crotch, causing shadows to whizzed past. After holding it in for so long throughout the duration of game, Marwin was closed to leaking. It was impossible for him to go on a toilet break during the game, the moment he died so, the rest of the gang would cheat. Thus he had to hold it in for the past hour. Desperately holding it in, Marwin soon arrived at the door. A huge sigh of relief came as he rushed into the toilet, his pants zipped down and ready.
However, Marwin’s face soon concocted as extreme pain wrecked his body. His complexion became ashen. Blood gushed out from his throat. Unable to scream due to the cut on his throat, all Marwin could do was turn and face his attacker just before he died.
An expression of extreme fear and confusion rose as he turned around. In his eyes were the reflection of a smiling girl with pink hair. A smile so sinister and creepy that froze Marwin completely. As if facing a ghost, Marwin pale skin turned even paler. The only think Marwin could think before he died was “How! How?”