Chapter 75 – End of Day 1

“Hmm… so there are non-combat ways of gaining tickets, and the gold invitation items aren’t totally useless. That’s good to know. By the way, have you found a shop that you can spend tickets in yet?”

“Nope,” Rosalia answered. 

“How about this, let’s go to the living room and see what’s on TV. There should be some channel with broadcasting rights for the hidden challenge.”

Rosalia nodded and dried herself off, before slipping on her white cleric robes and following me into the dimension room.

“Too bad I can’t come to this room when you’re not around, Spoon~ It’s really nice here~” 

I laughed. “Once I get enough souls, I’ll set up some other room with furniture as well so you don’t have to steam whenever you’re over here.”

“Haha… I usually just stay in the kitchen with Bjorn if I don’t need to recharge my divine energy. It gets a bit stuffy staying in the bath all the time, although did you know there’s a cold water function in the shower?”

“I’ll have to try that out next time,” I said, holding the door open for her. We walked into the dimension room and sank onto the sofa. The television was turned off for whatever reason. 

“Oy, Meat Shield. Where’s the remote?”

“Um… I forgot where I put it hehe~” 

…

“What do you mean you forgot?” 

[You have received a new cat quest.]

[Find the television remote.]

Time limit: None

Reward: None

…

Was this some kind of sick joke? Cat quest? 

“Rosalia, you see the remote anywhere?”

“Hm?” She got up and searched around, then shook her head. “I don’t see it.”

Grumbling as I got up from my comfortable position, I looked under the sofa for a remote. Nothing there. I then walked around the perimeter of the rather empty dimension room, checking the table and under any of the stuff lying around. Nothing. Rosalia helped me look around for it as well, since we didn’t have much else to do till sundown, and the television could give us some vital information about everyone else’s status. 

“Maybe it’s in the kitchen…”

Heading over to the kitchen, I checked all the cabinets and shelves, and even the fridge. The remote was nowhere to be found. However, in my investigation I did notice that there were crushed juniper berries and some fine gray powder that Bjorn must have prepared for me beforehand. I refilled my smoke bomb with the mixture as he instructed, and then continued the search for the missing remote. 

I then headed over to the storage unit, which was pretty much empty besides Siege Tank Golem’s core crystal and the [??? Locket]. The remote wasn’t there either. Finally, I checked the bath just in case, searching up and down and even climbing to the top of the statue of a woman holding a vase since that was Meat Shield’s favorite spot. Nother there, either. I climbed up on the other statue as well, of the male spear fisher, and didn’t find it there either. This was starting to frustrate me quite a bit, especially because the [cat quest] notification felt like it was taunting me.

Walking back to the dimension room living room, I sank onto the couch in defeat. “Can’t find it anywhere,” I sighed.

“Nya~ I don’t remember where I put it~” Meat Shield said while shaking her head in disappointment. 

Kinda wanted to strangle this damn useless cat. So, she could locate players in a different realm because of her sense, could identify and get out of any dangerous situation quickly, but couldn’t remember where she put the tv remote?

I looked over at Meat Shield, who was perched on one of the armrests of the couch. Something was sticking out from underneath her fur. Something rectangular, with buttons and a volume adjuster…

“You stupid cat!” I shouted, lunging at her with both arms outstretched. Grabbing the cat, I tucked her under my arm as she flailed and then took the remote. “You were sitting on it this whole time!!!”

“I forgot~” Meat Shield said with a haughty expression on her face and her head turned to the side. 

[You have found the remote.]

[Cat quest complete.]

[You will receive the following rewards: None]

Rosalia chuckled as she watched this unfold, taking the remote from the couch where I left it and turning on the tv. She flipped to the channel covering the hidden challenge, which was being broadcast in a radio talk show style while looping several publicly available clips of rankers. It seemed that even the broadcasting companies were not allowed to air footage of the hidden challenge. 

–so, who do you think would win in that matchup? 

Well Eunjin, it’s hard to say because although we have a pretty good understanding of Steel Slice’s combat power, which is rather formidable to say the least, we don’t have a full grasp of what Cold Hands’s capabilities are. He has in this tournament revealed a new school of magic known as golemancy, but our intel sources have informed us that Cold Hands is in fact, not a golemancer, and that function is something that he recently obtained. 

Really? Something as powerful as that is just a side ability? 

Yes. Judging by the weight grade of his armor, he has to be some kind of warrior class. It seems he is trying to maintain his usual secrecy while proceeding through this tournament.

I chuckled. “You know, I just had a run in with Cold Hands.”

Rosalia looked over at me with sparkling eyes. “Wow~ Did you get his autograph~”

That wasn’t quite the response I expected. “Er… well he was trying to kill me with his mole knight golem, so not the best timing to ask for an autograph, haha…” I nervously laughed.

Rosalia puffed her cheeks and frowned. “If he’s trying to bully my cute Spoon then I’m no longer his fan, hmph!” 

She was trying to diffuse the situation by being cute, and it was working. “Haha… thanks Rosalia.”

We’ve also heard reports of rock faeries aggressively attacking players in the cavernous region of the challenge. 

“Hey, remember we read about rock faeries in that tome A History of the Natural World?” Rosalia reminded me. “Hang on, let me check my bestiary.”

She flipped through a few statuses and began to read from her bestiary encyclopedia. “Rock faeries inhabit mountains enchanted by a nearby source of magic. When their habitat is threatened, they have been known to exhibit aggressive behaviors, including creating a defensive formation of rock debris.” 

“The players must have been messing with their habitats, for them to start resorting to violence.”

“Yeah,” I responded.

“Wait!” Rosalia exclaimed. “My bestiary just updated!”

She read from the newly updated entry. “Rock faeries are culinary aficionados. They have a keen interest in non-traditional foods and unique food items from other cultures. Elves have been known to befriend rock faeries by offering them smoked mushrooms and other delicacies.” 

The bestiary updated for me as well. “That’s weird. Maybe the challenge will sometimes update our bestiaries when things come up.” 

BOOM. 

A disorientingly loud voice suddenly came from both above and below us simultaneously. Then, the volume calibrated and a hologram of Bubs appeared before us. 

“Ahem. It is ten minutes until the sun sets. As I’ve specified before, if more than half of you all are still alive by then, I will be personally murdering one player at a time until exactly half of you bitches are dead.” 

Bubs slung his trademark mallet over his bunny shoulder and mean-mugged into the camera. “I’ll be starting with the miserable shits who had this whole fine afternoon to murder and rampage and still ended up with the lowest amount of tickets.” 

“Tomorrow morning, you will all be summoned to the field for a debriefing of the event of the day. I’m going to make tomorrow’s event even nastier than today’s because none of you fucks managed to kill that bastard imposter [Beezlebub] that’s still running around and using my name!” 

The hologram of Bubs sat down and looked at a wristwatch on his short fluffy arm impatiently. “Seven minutes left… and there’s still more than half of you alive. You miserable little shits better hurry up…”

There was no point in leaving the dimension room at this point in time, where last minute killing was probably reaching peak fervor. 

“Five minutes…”

“Fourteen tickets should be more than enough, right Spoon?” Rosalia asked me nervously.

“We should be fine,” I replied with a deep breath. The chances that we would get culled was slim to none, but there was always that looming uncertainty that threatened your peace of mind. 

The time passed quickly. After the ten minutes passed, holographic Bubs stood up and smiled with his brows furrowed. “Time’s up, little shits. You better start running, but in the end it doesn’t even matter, because you can’t hide from Beelzebubs.”

A figure of a person that looked very much like the figure of a person on male bathroom signs in public appeared on my screen, and then multiplied thousands of times until there were three and a half rows of figures. It looked ominously like a tally of people in the hidden challenge, more than I could physically count. Crosses appeared on about a quarter of all the figures, representing players who already died. 

I sat there twiddling my thumbs as the hologram was still centered on Bubs like a cinematic camera, as he jumped down from the podium in the sky and landed on the ground in a puff of dust. Brushing the dust off his white fur, the rabbit gripped his comically oversized mallet with both hands and darted forward, instantly goring a hapless victim in one blow. 

I flinched every time Bubs took another swing and decapitated a new victim. He did it so fast and mercilessly that sometimes I couldn’t even catch a glimpse of the victim’s face fast enough before he smashed it in. Rosalia was covering her eyes with her arms wrapped around her knees and thighs and her feet on the couch in a defensive huddle, while peeking through her fingers. 

MULTIKILL. 

Haha, very funny devs, giving your little satanical rabbit announcer kill streak effects as he murdered player after player after player. 

A cross accompanied by a loud game-show ‘ding-ding-ding’ sound appeared over a figure every time Bubs eliminated another contestant from the competition. After goring a level 64 male mage, he then beheaded a level 72 female warrior. I was surprised that a level 64 even survived this long in such a tough competition, to be honest. 

Bubs appeared before a pudgy contestant with the Steel Guild insignia on her leather armor. I recognized her, it was the same woman that fell on top of me in the beginning of the challenge. “Wait, don’t eliminate me. Our guildmaster is just safekeeping our tickets!” She looked desperately at her guildmaster Steel Slice, who was standing just a few meters away and flanked on both ends by Steel Guild officers and bodyguards. 

“You said you’d return them, right?” the pudgy woman begged on the ground, crawling over to Steel Slice.

Bubs just looked on with a strangely mischievous look on his face, tapping his index finger and right foot. 

Steel Slice laughed. “And you believed me, you filthy woman?” 

The obese female warrior sobbed and crawled towards his legs. Steel Slice’s bodyguards moved in to intercept her, but the guildmaster himself motioned them to back off. 

“Little piggy, oink for me and you’ll get your tickets back.”

The obese woman looked up with tears in her eyes. She looked dazed for a moment, but then put on a pitifully gross expression and tried her best to do a pig impression. “Honk, honk,” she said between sobs. 

Steel Slice smirked and looked down at her, squatting down and grabbing her hair to bring her face up to his. “You know where pigs go? To the slaughterhouse.”

“No, please!” the obese woman shouted.

Throwing her face to the ground, Steel Slice lifted his boot and slammed his foot into her head, rubbing her face into the dirt. He then brought out his [Dragonlord’s Battleaxe] and swung down, severing her entire upper body from her lower half in one swing. 

“Hoho, I like your style,” said Bubs. He nodded his head in approval of the violent and merciless style that Steel Slice showed.