SWISH SWISH
Muscles were contracting, sweat was dripping, rugged breathing could have been heard, and the slashing sound of a sword resounded in a certain part of the forest.
It had already been an hour since the supply box spawned, and Finn paused his training to look at the number of players remaining.
"Huff... Huff... fifty people out of the starting hundred had already died."
'It was to be expected. If someone is stupid enough to believe he can snatch the first supply box, he deserves to die.'
Finn didn't answer Loki and went to sit down on a rock next to his fireplace.
He then started a fire and roasted some meat that he had hunted.
All he kept doing was training and hunting monsters for food.
It was a boring way to play the tournament, but he came here to win, and having fun would only come as a bonus.
Finn's next hours went like this: eat, train, rest, and repeat.
Once the clock hit the twelve-hour mark, the second box spawned, and the people who previously chose not to go but didn't know how to prepare food were forced to go for it if they wanted to stay in their best condition.
---
Six more hours later.
The third and final supply box was about to spawn, and Finn was now on the move because the gas had already engulfed his camp.
The players kept dying, not only from fighting for the second supply box but also from fighting each other over berries, and some even died to the weak monsters because they didn't have the energy to put up a fight.
Not eating for eighteen hours wasn't that big of a deal for a human body, but the players had to be on the move to the center, they had to occasionally fight others, and they had to keep staying vigilant so that nobody would ambush them.
This made their bodies waste energy that would normally be taken from the nutrients they eat, but since they didn't eat anything, their physical ability was weakened.
Some players found berries in the forest, but the gods thought that if the humans could just eat berries, then getting food would be too easy, so the only berries that grew in this forest were Hungerberries.
These berries had a toxin inside them that, once eaten, would make the person's stomach walls weaker.
The players would then feel like their stomachs had teeth and were trying to bite themselves out of the body.
Not having another choice but to eat the only food they had, the Hungerberries, they ate more and more until they died in an excruciating pain as their stomach burst open and the acid within started devouring their insides.
It was a horrid way to die, and the ironic thing about it was that some of the players fought life-or-death battles to get their hands on those berries.
"10 players remain… Olivia must be among them."
Finn checked the player list while on his way to the center.
The last supply box would spawn shortly, and he needed to get something from it, so he was walking while waiting for the siren that announced its appearance.
From the moment Finn spawned in this tournament, he had not engaged in a single fight against another player, but he knew that he would have to fight if he wanted that supply box.
BEEEEP
The signal Finn was waiting for finally sounded, and he looked up, trying to spot the pillar of light.
Soon he saw where it was, and even though he expected it to spawn in the center of the forest, it spawned on the edge of the gas zone, so he had to go in a different direction.
Fortunately for him, it didn't spawn far, so with his high agility, he quickly weaved through the forest and arrived near the wooden crate.
He focused his senses on hearing, but all he could hear were the birds tweeting and the bugs crawling.
Almost all of the ten players that were currently alive knew how to find food, so they didn't have the need to go for the supply box.
This meant that the competition would be pretty much nonexistent for Finn, but he still waited behind a tree to see if any players came to get the box.
He trained his sword skills a lot in his camp, but he still preferred assassinations, so he planned to swiftly kill anyone that wanted the same supply box.
To not reveal his skills, though, he couldn't use his Shadow Jump skill, as that would make his upcoming opponents in the bracket tournament wary.
After the battle royale, the winners had time to review their opponents' matches and prepare accordingly, so Finn didn't want to reveal all his cards yet.
RUSTLE
The sound of rustling leaves interrupted his train of thought, and two players soon emerged from the bushes.
They were both holding their swords and eyeing each other.
"I don't want to fight you! Just leave and let me have this supply box so you don't have to die!"
One of the players with black dreads shouted.
The other player laughed at him before responding.
"HA! Hell no! This box is mine! Since there are just the two of us here, let's have a duel, and the winner gets the supplies!"
The other player with a buzz cut shouted back.
He then looked around, but since nobody else came out, he assumed that it was just the two of them there.
There were only 10 players left, so it was safe to assume that two players going for a supply box that was on the edge of the zone was already a lot.
It would also have been normal to assume that nobody would risk going for it since the battle royale could end pretty soon, and fighting for food at that point wasn't really worth it.
CLANG SWISH CLANG
Swords clashed, and Finn watched their duel.
Finn wasn't an expert with swords and would even call himself a novice because it hadn't been that long since he started learning how to wield a sword, but the players in front of him were still a lot worse than him.
'If he blocked, he would have won… He left his throat open… If he continues randomly swinging, his wrist will start to hurt from those clashes… What is this...?'
Finn was bewildered when he saw how bad the players were at using the sword.
It was to be expected since they didn't have any experience with wielding a sword and they had been learning how to wield it for the same amount of time as Finn had.
The only difference was that Finn had a god personally teaching him and correcting his mistakes.
This difference made the gap between their skills widen, and even if Finn was only a novice, he was still ten times better than those players.
CLANG
With a loud clash, the players jumped away from each other while looking like they had just run a marathon.
"You… You are not… not bad, but I… I'm better!"
The player with the buzzcut kept stuttering as he took big breaths to get his energy back.
"Sh-… Shut up… I almost had you… this master… shall teach you pain!"
The other player shouted while trying to look cool, but with his heavy breathing, he just sounded stupid.
'This master? Is this guy joking? And what's up with that cringey line…'
Finn thought that the last ten players alive would be strong since they had survived for so long, but after looking at this fight, he wasn't so sure anymore.
Suddenly one of the players bent down.
"Wait! My shoelace is untied."
The other player saw this as a chance and rushed to strike his opponent, but as soon as he got close to him, the player who had previously bent down threw a handful of dirt into his opponent's eyes.
"Fuck! You bitch!"
The blinded player started randomly swinging his sword with his right hand while using his other hand to clear the dirt from his eyes.
SWISH SPLURT
The sword of the blinded player hit the other player's arm, and in return, the blinded player was stabbed into his abdomen.
"OW! My arm! What the fuck, dude, it hurts!
"ARGHH!!! My stomach! Why does this game have such a realistic pain sensation?! Couldn't you just kill me, dude? Why did you stab my stomach?! OW!"
Both of the players began rolling around on the ground in pain.
'…'
Finn, who was finally happy to see the end of their terrible fight, was now speechless at the sight before him.
'What are they doing? Filming a comedy skit? HAHAHA!'
Loki was laughing while looking at the two dumb players, who kept shouting in pain.
But Finn had enough of looking at them and decided to intervene.
He silently approached the player, who had a hole in his abdomen, and stabbed his throat.
SPLURT
"Wha-" were his last words as his body started transforming into light particles.
Before the other player could look at what had happened to his previous opponent, his throat was also swiftly pierced, and his body disappeared.
'Most players that play this game do not take it seriously… They think that dying and losing a level is okay, but I wonder what they would think if they knew that this game was going to become a reality.'
Finn thought as he went to open the supply box.
'Once they find out, it will be too late, but that just means you will have less competition.'
Loki chuckled while imagining the faces of those players when they find out the truth behind this game.
With a nod, Finn began rummaging through the wooden crate.
Medicine, food, blankets… there was a lot of stuff, but he ignored it and tried to find what he needed.
"Here it is!"
He suddenly pulled out a flat metal flask that had a picture of a water drop on it.
Putting it in his pocket, he looked at its description.
Name: Metal flask
Rank: F
Ability: None
Description: Capable of storing basic elements inside it, for example water. Capable of holding one liter. This flask will disappear once the tournament is finished and won't stay with its owner.
"Now that I have this, I can depart to the center of the map."
Finn didn't even bother looting the players since the inventory function was disabled, and he started walking towards the center of the map.
When he was almost there, he quickly checked the remaining players and was surprised to see that only four players remained.
'Hmm? What happened? I didn't watch Olivia's match in my previous life, so I'm not sure about all the fights that had happened, but if I exclude me and the two players that I hunted, then 4 players died while I was getting the metal flask.'
Loki didn't respond to Finn's questions since he also didn't know, so Finn walked a little faster, planning to find out what was going on in the center of the map.