I waited in the dark metal room for a little bit, before a red button and a green button appeared simultaneously in front of me.
The red button had "Kill" in big black letters on it, while the green button had a small font spelling out "spare" on it. (A/N: Yes, I intentionally made "Kill" uppercase and "spare" lowercase.)
Following my earlier plan, I immediately punched the red button.
Although the room was barren, there was still a clock in it, probably meant to instill a sense of restlessness in us.
"Tick... Tick... Tick..."
[Ding! The other player has chosen "spare". You have successfully survived and have advanced to the next round!]
From the room next to me, I heard some whimpering noises before horrible, soul-tearing screams resounded.
Hearing this, I shuddered, huddling, pulling my arms and legs under my cloak.
After a while, in which I heard a dozen more screams, I felt a clank before my room started moving.
Staying in my chair, I enjoyed the ride.
That was, until the cubicle suddenly slammed into a wall or something, and I was pitched straight out of the only seat in the room.
As my arms and legs were stuck under my cloak, I just fell, bouncing off the ground like a ball before rolling a short distance.
'Well... that hurt.'
Reluctantly taking my limbs out of my cloak, I stood up and walked back to the table.
"Yaaawwwwwnnn, when's the next round starting?"
As if in an answer to my prayers, the prompt for the next round showed up.
Lazily picking the red button again, I waited.
"Tick... Tick... Tick..."
[Ding! The other player has chosen "spare". You have successfully survived and have advanced to the next round!]
'What are these dumbasses doing?! Choosing "Kill" is a no brainer!'
Again, I had to wait, before the familiar motions of the cubicle detaching, then moving, then reattaching itself happened again.
By now, after listening to the various screams and feeling the motions of the cubicle, I could basically understand what kind of structure we were in.
Because the screams always came from directly to my left or directly to my right, I could make the assumption that all the cubicles were lined up in a straight line.
Then, after every round, all the cubicles would move to random, or what seemed to be random spots in the next line, and then we would play the "game" with the person next to us.
This process would probably repeat infinitely, so that we wouldn't just all choose "spare", until there was only 50 of us left.
So, again, when the buttons appeared, I pressed "Kill".
This time, unlike the previous iterations, a different system message showed up.
[Ding! The other player has chosen "Kill". You will now be teleported into an arena. Please get ready and prepare yourself for death!]
This time, a black light engulfed me.
Like the system message said, when I opened my eyes, I found myself in a stadium.
In front of my was a system prompt asking me to chose my weapon.
"A bow please."
Back when I had chosen my position, I had picked sniper, because one of the two types of weapons that I had ever handled in my life was a bow, a makeshift one of course, back when I was homeless and chose to live in the woods.
A simple bow made of an elastic wood and a string appeared in my hand, and a quiver full of generic, but extremely sharp arrows appeared on my back.
As the system prompt faded away, I was able to take a look at my opponent.
'They say first impressions are important, but this might be overdoing it.'
He was an overly muscular man, who had probably put all his extra stat points into strength. He was almost naked, with only a loincloth covering his nether regions and had smeared the blood from whom I presumed was his last opponent(s) onto his face and body.
If you didn't figure it out already, the rewards for the past few trials had all been extra stat points, greatly differing from the first generation, whose tutorial tower consisted of specified stat point rewards.
'I wonder if I can surprise him? This will be fun."
[The duel will start in 30 seconds!]
I got into a stable stance.
[The duel will start in 15 seconds!]
I fingered the knots that tied the string to the wood.
[The duel will start in 10 seconds!]
I started slowly plucking the string, feeling its elasticity.
[The duel will start in 5 seconds!]
I grabbed an arrow out of the quiver.
[The duel will start in 4 seconds!]
I placed the arrow on the bow.
[The duel will start in 3 seconds!]
I brought the the bow up to my eyes.
[The duel will start in 2 seconds!]
I pulled back, allowing the nock to touch the slant between my noes and my right eye.
[The duel will start in 1 second!]
I took a deep breath in.
[START!]
I released, both the breath and the arrow.
"PLING!!!!"
The sound of the arrow leaving the bow resounded through the whole arena.
As the arrow rushed quickly towards the heart of the towering brute, I looked up to his eyes, to savor and watch the expression of someone who knew death was fast approaching them.
'What?!!'
But instead of the expected surprised, scared, sad, or resigned expression, his face was full of smiles.
And as the arrow approached, he somehow grabbed it out of the air.
'Shit, I underestimated him!'
Seeing his body, I had assumed that he had just invested all his stat points into strength, with the choice of clothing and blood marks supporting that, but I had never considered the possibility that he was just a bodybuilder before coming here, and that he had invested them all somewhere else.
And, to be honest, I had also thought that he was dumb, due to the muscles, but I guess stereotypes aren't everything as he obviously had enough brains to know how to trick his opponent that well.
'Well, I'm fucked.'
I watched as he hoisted his axe and started charging towards me.