"Your badge," Bloed spoke up indifferently to the girl lying on the ground in front of him.
A snakekin girl. She was his last prey.
The girl gritted her teeth and threw him her badge unwillingly. She then closed her eyes and started to cry silently.
Bloed ignored her. In this game, they were all competitors. If he did not defeat her, she would have defeated him.
With a nod, he put her badge in his storage device and left, not caring for the girl anymore.
With this badge, he had gathered a total of eleven badges. In other words, he alone had gathered almost a tenth of the badges.
Although he was not sure about how the others were doing, Bloed thought it was a pretty good result.
Hence, Bloed's mood was pretty good.
He could not help it. Just one hour ago, he had finally managed to completely shake off the A-Rank going after him.
After he used the wolfkin as bait, Bloed mixed between the other contestants and distanced as much as he could from the hunter.
In that situation, the hunter could only give up in Bloed.
When Oculus's confirmed the hunter was not going after Bloed anymore, Bloed heaved a sigh of relief.
Then, he focused on the game again.
He hunted as many enemies as possible, getting their badges. Some of the enemies even had more than one badge, so Bloed's badges increased quickly.
Soon, though, the number of enemies had started to decrease.
Well, a few hours had passed since the start of the hunt, and most of the weaker candidates had already been eliminated. Plus, the ones still alive were definitively going towards the center of the city.
"… I guess I should hurry up too, huh."
Shaking his head, Bloed entered on stealth and started to advance again.
At the same time, he asked Oculus to scout the way ahead.
But when he saw the information Oculus sent to him, his expression turned solemn.
The number of A-Ranks in the way ahead was greater than he thought.
Just in five kilometers around him, he managed to catch the figures of three different A-Ranks.
And although that number seemed small, an A-Rank could easily run one or two kilometers in one minute.
In other words, if his location was discovered, at least an A-Rank would come in his trail.
In fact, during the time Oculus was scouting, Bloed managed to catch the scene of a candidate being suppressed by an A-Rank hunter in less than twenty seconds.
Bloed could not help but reach a conclusion when he saw that.
"… They are here to weed out the discovered candidates, huh."
Yes. Judging by the current situation, although the A-Ranks were suppressing their strength, they were much stronger than the contestants.
In other words, a normal contestant was destined to be eliminated once he is spotted by a hunter.
Following that line of thought, the key to surviving this game lay in not being spotted. The hunters were here not to test the candidates' combat strength, but instead to test their abilities to hide and avoid danger.
Of course, there were a few contestants with strong enough abilities to escape the chase of a hunter.
Just like Bloed.
But Bloed was sure most of the candidates would be unable to do something like that.
Heaving a tired sigh, Bloed moved carefully to avoid the hunters and continued on his way.
Fortunately, his luck was pretty good. In the way, he met with another contestant that he defeated using his usual strategy.
And not much later, he spotted more candidates.
This time, though, they were more than one.
Three candidates were fighting in a ruined street. Two of them were joining hands to defeat the third candidate.
To Bloed's surprise, he recognized the third candidate.
"She is… Aya, right?"
Aya Sharpclaw, Javelin's little sister.
She was currently fighting the other two beastmen with all her power. Unfortunately, she was at a disadvantage.
Although her movements were fast and unpredictable, the teamwork of the two beastmen fighting her was impeccable. They never gave Aya the opportunity to take out any of them.
Bloed was a bit surprised by that. From what he could see, these two candidates seemed used to cooperating with each other.
'… They have probably fought together often in the past.' Bloed thought to himself.
At the same time, he realized he was not the only one to notice the loophole in the rules.
Yes. Since the start, the rules never forbid teaming up.
Quite the opposite, Bloed was pretty sure they were silently encouraging it.
Aya and two beastmen continued fighting fiercely. On one side, Aya was trying to find an opportunity to defeat them or escape, and on the other side, the two beastmen were trying to defeat her as quickly as possible.
But Aya was pretty strong herself. Bloed noticed her combat style was very similar to Javelin, using quick movements and shadows to attack her enemies from unexpected directions.
That probably was the usual fighting style of the Sharpclaw family.
But in the end, fighting going against two enemies for herself was very difficult.
Before long, Aya's disadvantage became cleared and clearer. Moreover, her enemies were being very careful to not give her the chance to escape.
The fact that she had not been defeated yet was already commendable.
Even so, Bloed knew her situation was far from good. Moreover, Oculus told him that a hunter was advancing towards the place of the fight. He would arrive in less than one minute.
Bloed hesitated for a brief moment before sighing and transforming his gun into sniper mode.
Javelin was one of his few friends, and Bloed had promised him to take care of his sister if he met her.
Now that he met his sister, and she was in trouble, the least Bloed could do was to keep his promise.
Quickly, he climbed on a roof and aimed towards the battle. Then, he waited.
One second, two seconds, three seconds. The time until the A-Rank arrived was becoming shorter.
But Bloed remained calm. He needed to succeed with his first shot. Otherwise, the situation would turn more troublesome.
And soon, the opportunity presented itself.
With an indifferent expression, Bloed aimed to the leg of one of the beastmen and pulled the trigger.
*Bam!*
And the bullet flew towards the enemy.