[James's Pov]
"I'm here to ask if you want to make a deal..."
There had been a slight change in my plans, mostly as a result of Adriana and Mike eliminating each other. No, I wasn't unhappy about it. In fact, it was one of the greatest gifts I had ever received. But it did make my upcoming plans incredibly awkward.
I had plans to try and coax Sebastian into finding and fighting Adriana while she was exhausted after the battle, while also trying to get Arthur to join the fight simultaneously. It would have been an incredibly chaotic fight, but there was no chance of anyone making it out without receiving some damage.
Now, that plan wouldn't work so well. If I baited Arthur into going to Sebastian and Suzan now, he would just get butchered like an animal, which was still a pretty good scenario, but it wasn't the optimal one.
That's why I decided to see the golden boy right now, to try and see if I could suggest a plan that would work in both of our favor, of course with me coming out on top in the end. Scanning the appearance of the hero, he appeared to be quite haggard, having been walking around for quite a while already, always on edge to make sure he would not suffer an ambush.
It was the perfect condition for me to convince him to 'fight with me'. Naturally, I wouldn't be doing any of the fighting, but I could create the perfect situation where he would get to fight Suzan and Sebastian in 1v1 fights, making it very possible for him to at least take down one of them.
Scratching the back of his head, Arthur wore a slightly sad smile, "Although that smile of yours is pretty weird, I do believe that you just want to help me."
Scratching my cheek, I already started to sense where this conversation was headed, "But?"
"Hehe!", My blunt interjection made him chuckle a bit before his eyes suddenly completely shifted, morphing from the innocent eyes he almost always wore, the eyes that I was sure I could convince to join me. Replacing those were two blue eyes steeled with resolve. Unwavering. Strong.
'Interesting.'
As he straightened his back and stood with confidence as if he had been a snake who just shed his previous weak skin, he refused me, "I don't want your help. I know that you are strong. Heck, seeing the state that you are in you probably don't think of this thing as anything more than some light training."
'Well, sadly I'm not...'
His head turned to the sky as he continued to speak, it was just that he wasn't speaking to me anymore, "I know I'm weak right now, but, I still want to do the best I can without you helping me out of pity."
Tightening his fists hard, making his knuckles white as they became devoid of blood, he met my gaze once more, "A wise and strong woman has repeatedly told me that as long as I struggle and drag myself forward, I will become strong. And I believe that woman, I believe her with all my heart. Therefore I cannot accept your help. I forfeit!"
"Wait, what?! Wait, Arthur!"
Panicking as he had suddenly ended his long speech by surrendering, a completely contrasting act in regards to his words, I tried to grab him before he disappeared, but to no avail.
"FUCK!"
'Fuck!'
Both of my bodies exclaimed the profanity at the same time, my entire being frustrated at the shockingly stupid and indecipherable decision the moron of a hero had made. "Didn't you say that you were going to struggle with all your might?! What is this shit?! Didn't you just give up?!"
'Calm down me...'
'I am as calm as you are!'
After a couple of minutes of stomping the ground, I finally calmed down enough to look past the idiocy I had just been forced to experience. "Huff... huff... What now then..."
It had to be said that what had just gone down was a less efficient version of my backup plan; baiting Arthur to get eliminated by Sebastian and Suzan. The reason it was less efficient was that now, they didn't even have to risk getting injured to get rid of him.
'There is no way I can take them down if they aren't injured... I'll just have to hide until the end then...'
****
[Sophie's Pov]
By roughly calculating the time that must have gone by in the VR world since the battle between Mike and Adriana, who was currently staring dagger into each other, it was probably in the dead of night already.
Suddenly, another capsule opened up. Someone got eliminated without engaging in a fight with other students, as made evident by the fact that the CRT didn't show us the fight.
Out of the capsule, Arthur emerged, smiling brightly like always. Noticing all of us sitting here he exclaimed, "Oh? I thought I was one of the first to go! Seems like I made it quite far after all!"
As there were now only three participants left, he did make it really far. And that only made me like him more. I made my way to the blonde, well-built, sexy... I made my way to Arthur.
"Hi, Arthur! How did it go?"
Turning his head to the side, looking a bit embarrassed, he explained what had gone down.
"Well, after you gave up from being so hungph! Mmph!"
"Don't talk about that!"
Even though I quickly covered his mouth the damage had already been done, as Anna had somehow already sneaked up on us, now looking at me with a smug smile, "Really, Sarah?
"If you make fun of me here for that, where everyone can hear you, I swear I won't talk to you ever again!"
I had to put my foot down. It was embarrassing enough that Arthur and Anna knew about it.
Taking a step back, Anna put one of her hands on her painfully straight hips, "Geez. Fine. I'll wait until we are alone."
"Wait until you are alone to do what?"
Another challenger had appeared, with it this time being Sarah who had also gotten up from her chair to see what was going on.
Putting on a fake smile, I just verbally dismissed her inquiry and changed the subject, "Oh, nothing. Anyway, Arthur, how did you get eliminated? Did you forfeit or did you somehow lose against a monster"
Scratching his head, he carried on with his explanation, with all three of us listening intently.
"Well, as I was saying after you left, I spent quite a lot of hours feeling sad that you were gone. After that, the night was already well on its way, so I started to just walk around so I wouldn't get found. Then, James suddenly showed up."
"James showed up?!"
We all turned our heads to the fangirl who couldn't control her impulse, an act that ended in her face getting completely red as she turned her eyes to the floor in shame.
"Cough! So yea, James approached me."
It was such a weird situation, and I still hadn't gotten an answer to my question, "But you didn't fight, right? If you did, it would have been displayed on the TV. So what did he want?"
"He wanted to help me. And as I didn't want his help, I forfeited instead. At least by doing that could I decide for myself!"
He looked so proud when he talked about the fact that not only did he refuse help for no apparent reason, he even forfeited just for the satisfaction of eliminating himself.
'Oh... You poor soul...'
Arthur was still quite pitiful, but my belly still got warm when I saw how proud he was over his decision.
As me and Sarah were currently stun-locked by two very different afflictions, it was up to Anna to make sense of everything.
"So wait... What was his proposal then? I mean, wouldn't it have been smart to work together if he had a good idea?"
Arthur's face slowly started to crumble as he realized something, "Actually, I don't know... I forfeited before I could hear what he had to say..."
...
As we were now unable to get any more information, and this conversation became fruitless, we made our way back to the chairs, waiting patiently for what would happen next.
At the same time, I was frantically trying to understand how that silly goblin could have made it this far.
No one appeared to have seen him at all except for Arthur, or at least no one confessed to doing so, so how had he been able to go unnoticed this whole time?
The forest was purposefully made to be not too large, meaning that if everyone went around completing events, it should have been almost impossible for no one to see him.
Little did I know that two girls in the room had, indeed, met him. Even more than that, they knew that he was the reason as to why they got eliminated in the first place.
****
[James's Pov]
The last day had finally arrived, and it had brought a surprise with it, a gift even.
A semi-transparent screen had appeared in front of me, bringing with it new information.
[During the last day of the survival competition, this world will begin to disintegrate. The disintegration will begin on the outskirts of the forest and with only the center being left. If all participants survive until this point, a golden orb will fall from the sky. The first team to touch the orb wins. A digital map showing the available area will automatically be distributed.]
'Thank you, Theia. I owe you one...'