Chapter 109 - The Heated Competition
A giant cube monitor of about 30 square meters stood above a big Receptor Plate that was placed on stage for everyone to enjoy. On it was being played what was happening in the world inside the painting.
The monitor was divided into different panels with different channels, for them to watch at the same time.
In one of the panels, they saw the expert of the Lupine Family known as Ember, surrounded by 7 people in the area full of tall trees.
Inside the forest, a guffaw resounded, "Bwahahaha, good job punk for finding me!" Said Ember to the people surrounding him.
"Damn it, what are you saying, don't make it like we are the one searching you!" Said the person wearing a leader armor and was holding a crossbow and having pointed ears.
"Right, you are the one who found us, idiot!" Seconded the black skinhead person with dog ears.
"Yeah, we are just about to poop and you suddenly showed up!" Lashed out a demi-human with bunny ears and wearing sunglasses.
"Man you want to poop too!"
Ember's brow was twitching, 'What are these idiots saying?' He thought. "In any case, what a fortune that you are gathering here. 1,2,4,5,7! Guehehe!"
"This person is bad at math!"
"Haha, where is the 3 and 6, dumbass?!"
Arrrgh!! Guwaaahh!!! They suddenly heard crying voices besides them.
They glanced and saw two people having big holes on their chests. They glanced back at Ember and noticed his hand was enveloped by fire.
"Hehe, no need for 3 and 6 as they were dead already, bwahaha!" Laughed Ember.2
"Shit! When did he shoot them?!"
'Dang, why does this person have to show up here!' Thought the fourth person.
"In any case, he's alone, let's defeat him!" Shouted the fifth person in their group.
"B-But he's an expert from the great noble family!"
"Do you think we have a choice! Let's kill 'em!"
"He's right, let's break his balls!" The person holding a massive hammer dashed forward.
"Let's go attack together! And revenge our comrade!"
"Aight!!!"
The other people rushed behind the person holding the big hammer. Different kinds of brilliance burst out from their bodies towards their weapons. The other's shot magical energies at him. Swoosh swoosh! Two arrows let loose from the crossbow and flew towards Ember's forehead.
"Hehe, right come at me! Bwahaha!" Said Ember in elation.
The next second, a golden aura burst out on his hand then it turned into a massive furry hand with razor-sharp claws.
The 3 people rapidly leaped to smash him.
However,
[Partial Transformation - The Punisher Hand!]
He whispered.
Boom boom bang, the fired magical energies and arrows hit him but it was blocked by the large furry hand.
Seeing it, the other did not stop their attack and brandished their weapons in hands.
Ember smirked then the razor-sharp claws were horizontally swiped that hit all the approaching enemies, five marks of claws that was tearing the space materialized in the air. It immediately tore the bodies of the charging 3 people.
Ember disappeared from their sight as he leaped in midair towards the two range enemies and slashed their bodies.
His movement was too agile for them to follow. In just a second, their bodies were torn in half.
Only the long marks of claws in the air and the wailing voice of the killed participants had remained.
The seven people's body instantly turned into light particles as their body materialized outside the painting.
"Damn that freak!" Regretfully shouted one of the people who attacked Ember.
"Bwahahaha, hey you losers! How does it feel getting hit by that attack?"
They gawked upon hearing it.
Some people who were gathering around the respawn area asked. They noticed that there were many people in the area. All of them were staring at the giant monitor on stage. While the respawn area was located at the front of the stage to where a wide empty space was. Under them was a big round flat empty surface with a magic array that was written beautifully.
"Damn, this is so embarrassing…" muttered the other guy with bunny ears.
After they materialized, another group of people materialized one after another. Like them, they also spat some regrets, for them to alleviate the bad taste they felt for getting killed too early in the competition.
Until then, they joined forces to the welcoming group, to welcome the fallen warriors. Ahem, they mockingly welcomed the loser warriors like them. And so another squad was formed in the respawn area. Their numbers were rapidly increasing as more losers came out crying.
"Hah, I knew it, those experts from great noble families are of a different league," a person sighed after his body respawned.
The eyes of the people gathering around the spawn area glowed in red.
Then a moment later,
"Haha, welcome to heaven brother!"
"Good dying day bro!"
"Haha, how is it loser!"
And so on…
The person they welcomed turned stiff at the embarrassing situation.
'What the f**k is this!' He thought.
Later on, he too joined the legendary squad.
Displayed in the other channels were the heated hunting of participants inside the world of painting.
Some were in a solo and some were in a group battle.
Most of them were busy roaming the land.
But they noticed a specific person in one of the channels having a relaxing time.
He was cooking some meat under a tree in the middle of a grassland, unbothered by the other participants who were currently busy hunting beasts or participants alike.
"That guy, he was the one who saved Miss Ella right?"
"Yeah! Eh, what's he doing?"
"Cooking…"
"Look, while the others are busy hunting for enemies, that person is busy roasting meat."
"Haha, what the heck!"
"Does he even know the rules?"
"If he won't gather points eagerly, he can't cross the border!"
"On top of that, it's not easy to find the border!"
"You're right! Not only did they need to gather points, but they also needed to search the border. So it is better to gather points early in the match."
The people who were watching the elimination round on the monitor were wondering why this person was leisurely cooking under the tree with a nice view and didn't hunt for points.
Inside the palace balcony, the slightly loud chuckles of the empress resounded.
"Kuku, that person, really came there for a vacation, what do you think, Rea, honey?"
"....."
For some reason, Ella didn't know how to answer her aunt the empress. 'Did that guy even plan to win this competition? Did he think that after he saved me I am going to accept him for sure? W-Well, I-I'm grateful for w-what he did. B-But he should at least show a motivation to pass the elimination round!' She cried in her mind.
Suddenly, her beautiful eyes widened a little, "Wait… maybe the restrictions in that world affect his magic!" She mumbled a little louder which was heard by the empress.
"Ooh, is that so, fufufu. So that's the reason ha. That's too bad. I am even looking forward to his fight," said the empress, a little dismay.
Ella's shoulder dropped. 'If I know it, I'd rather not put any restrictions,' she thought. Well, it was also a good test for him. But anyhow, that guy seemed to have no plan to win this competition.
Inside Miss Ice room, Almina and the others wonder if their initial thought about that person was right or wrong. If it was Yman, it was impossible that he just leisurely did nothing while the competition already started.
Perhaps it was not an ideal time to just sit there.
Almina and Maena knew him very well. He would always be too eager to take advantage of the situation. While also thinking of some ideal plan.
They all knew that if they were in that guy's shoes, they would eagerly hunt points as they only had a week to complete the mission.
Perhaps it's not easy to gather all the needed points.
If that guy was Yman, he would probably know the importance of it. But that guy on the monitor seemed like he didn't have the drive to take this competition seriously.
Around this time, inside the painting, the world was already around 5 pm.
Unaware of the discussion outside, Yman was still sitting under the tree.
He just finished a very good dinner. The foods were very realistic. No, the world itself was very realistic.
No matter how he thought about this world, he had a hard time comprehending the laws regarding the time in this world.
The sky was already dimmed, but he knew that just a few minutes had passed in the real world.
Yman drew a big cross in the ground. Then he laid on it while facing the sky.
Stars started to appear in the sky.
While staring at it, he noticed a monitoring device flew towards the direction of the east if he presumed.
He wondered how the things that happened in this world were being played in the real world. But he guessed that those monitoring devices captured the scene in very slow motion, then it played in the real world at a normal speed.
And they frequently shift the scene to cover up the time gap between these two worlds.
Really, such great magic. He thought.
Sometimes, his perception caught a human presence around him. But he just ignored them and masked his presence so as not to alarm the enemies.
As of the moment, he killed 2 rank F, 2 rank C, and 1 rank B. He stored some of their meat inside the Cyber Storage.
Rank F is equivalent to 1 point.
Rank C is equivalent to 30 points.
Rank B is equivalent to 40 points.
So as of the moment, he had 102, summing it to his 100 own points, the total is 202 points.
He needed 1000 points to cross the first border. In this regard, he needed additional 798 points.
When darkness finally blanketed the world inside the painting. Most of the participants were already hiding somewhere they could rest.
Yman on the other hand...