The area’s bright, so bright for those coming from the gaming zone that their eyes need some time to adjust. The zone’s all white with decorations that resemble a carnival. Colorful signs attached to balloons float through the air. Before Wyn and Yu can make sense of what they’re seeing, a demon in a schoolgirl uniform is dragging a soul with its mouth, zooming through them. On the soul’s backhand, which is in the cat’s mouth along with a school backpack, a number of negative two hundred is blinking bright red continuously and is going down. Another cat, this time in a carnival-themed red and white costume, takes the soul from the schoolgirl cat and runs toward the dome. Wyn quickly checks his balance in fear. He breathes a sigh of relief when he sees his balance is over fifteen thousand credits. Yu takes a deep breath before tapping his palm. His balance is below nine thousand.

“Phew. Not as bad as I thought.”

Up ahead are booths everywhere, unorganized, and obstructing the paths. The booths are in different colors but all have white strips. There are souls getting caught with negative balances left and right. Demon cats are busy at work chasing these souls, sometimes crashing into passersby. 

Modes of transport are scattered across the zone. The zone adopts a one-fare system regardless of distance. Souls can consider the free but most extreme method – the circus soul cannon. Placed inside a regular-shaped cannon but with a cat face at the tip and paws around the unit, a cat operator shoots the passenger to the designated landing zone. There’s no insurance coverage in the case of miscalculation or collisions with other objects while airborne. For a modest fare of five hundred credits, souls can rent a rickshaw pulled by a demon cat dressed as a horse. If it’s like anything Wyn and Yu have witnessed, this method should be fast. However, the speed depends on how busy the paths are, making this an unreliable transportation mode for those in a hurry. A better method is to fly casually tied to a smiley cat-faced balloon for one thousand credits. The rope is tied to the waist. Passengers control the balloon by yanking the rope to the desired direction. To descend, yank the rope downward a couple of times. This method is at risk of getting hit by a cannon shot passenger. No refunds for any accidents that may occur.

The two walk around, checking out the booths they want to try their luck on. Despite the carnival theme, there are only gambling booths. They come across a small booth where a demon attendant is accepting bets on which of the five fish will drown last. The fish are automated in an actual water tank. They start by floating on the surface, then they flap to keep themselves afloat. To place a bet, Wyn touches his palm and says aloud the fish color he wants to bet on and the wager amount. He places a one hundred-credit bet on the green fish, while Yu bets on the red one with the same wager. Placing a bet stops balance deduction until the rewards are realized. A horn sounds and the fish begin to flop. They’re all equally matched initially until the red fish is descending slowly, still flapping its robot heart out. Other fish begin to follow suit. At this point, the green fish is in the lead. Wyn, Yu, and five other souls partaking in this bet are cheering loudly. Then, Wyn’s worst nightmare, his fish starts to lose momentum and sinks first to the bottom. Yu laughs, patting Wyn on the back, then continues to cheer for his fish. Another horn sounds, the winner of this round is the red fish. Only Yu bets on the red fish, so he collects his wager times the number of participants. The moment the balances adjust, the deduction continues.

“That was fun!” says Yu.

“Yeah right. For you,” Wyn responds.

Wyn and Yu play ten more rounds in this booth. The results are, one win for Wyn and four for Yu, with Yu making some profit overall. Trying out different booths always results in Yu winning more bets than Wyn.

“How the turntables. Who’s the noob now?”

“I am…Let’s explore. Maybe my luck is out there somewhere.”

Due to the fear of height, Wyn opts for the only grounded transportation mode. They walk up to a rickshaw and get on it. The imposter horse doesn’t utter a word.

“Excuse us, we want to go somewhere but we don’t know the key locations here,” Wyn says.

“There are plenty. You can name the booth type or a site you want to visit,” the imposter horse responds.

“Please do tell in detail,” Yu says.

“Here, is known as the left wing. There is nothing but booths, same for the right wing. The central portion of the zone has a full-sized horse betting stadium. There is…”

“Horse stadium with real horses?” Wyn asks.

“...a sports stadium where you can bet on automated athletes. A casino is nearby.”

“Robot horses and robot athletes?” Wyn asks again.

“Robot athletes, but horses like me.”

“If you’re a horse, then you should end a sentence with a ‘neigh’,” Yu says.

“Don’t forget what happened to you with CATOTO and that first level soul…,” Wyn warns Yu.

“To the athlete stadium. Giddy up!” Yu gives a command.

“Pay first. Five hundred each.”

By touching the phony horse’s cat paws, the transaction proceeds. Wyn’s remaining balance is slightly above ten thousand, while Yu’s has jumped to fourteen thousand. Upon arriving at the stadium, there’s a large crowd gathering in front.

“What’s happening? I can’t see shit,” says Wyn.

“Same here, but I hear it’s Greed! Greed is here!” a nearby female soul answers.

Occasionally, Greed goes around the level once a day to challenge interested souls in an all-or-nothing bet. A loss means, balance falls to zero, which also means doom the second it goes negative. A win however, yields a hefty sum of ten million credits. Wyn wants to see what Greed looks like but he can’t budge the crowd. Looking up, he notices a number of souls observing the ordeal on balloons. Quickly, he walks up with Yu to a siamese cat standing next to a balloon dispenser and order two balloons. At the moment, Wyn disregards his fear of height – he has to see Greed.

While in the air, Wyn feels uncomfortable. Looking down gives him a sense of vulnerability, but there he is, Greed. The level mechanized moderator has a large gold-plated trapezium-shaped body with robot body parts. There are four arms, four hands, four legs, and four feet – all in shiny gold. His gray metallic elongated face features a four-sided shape with a hole at the center where the faces converge. Each face is aligned to a hand and a leg. Having multiple body parts allows Greed to challenge multiple souls at once. Judging from the build, he can likely spin his whole body around, though Wyn is left to wonder a use for this ability.

From the distance, it seems one of the faces is challenging three souls into some card game. The other two faces are challenging two and three souls with what resembles a dice game. The last face is with one soul playing rock-paper-scissors. Wyn assumes these games take many rounds as they keep going for a while; that is until Greed grabs on to two of the souls from the card game with just one hand. Wyn is uncertain, but he believes he sees electrical sparks coming from Greed’s hand to subdue the resisting souls. Armored demons, similar to the ones on the first level, who stand guard around Greed, take the two away and make their way toward the dome. Wyn overhears other souls on balloons talking to one another that the auction of body parts is held in front of Greed’s tower at the center of the level. In a way, he’s disappointed that he doesn’t get to see the dismemberment and the auction live.

“I think I’ve seen enough,” Wyn says, “Let’s just go inside the stadium.”

The men land right in front of the stadium with enough distance away from the crowd. Inside of the cement stadium is a big hall. The hall is decorated in gold with a touch of sparkling silver. Around the hall are passages to different sports. Medal-shaped copper signs hanging from the ceiling tell visitors where each sport is – all have multiple sports on them.

“Let’s do seal clubbing,” Wyn suggests.

“I don’t know anything about it. And that sounds horrible.”

“Simple. A game consists of two teams of three plus a goalie. Game is split into two periods. Each period, ten seals are released in the ice rink. Players club the seals into the other team’s net. Period is over after twenty minutes or when all seals are in the nets. If a seal walks out of the net, then the score is deducted. They clean up during the break. Repeat for the second period.”

“So, blood everywhere?”

“Yep. Seals’ and players’. Players are allowed to fist fight each other.”

“How about a NO! Let’s go for something boring, like football. I mean the real one where you play with feet. The other one is also boring. You can choose.”

Wyn agrees to go to a football game, the real football. The two proceed to take the northeast passage only to arrive at a smaller hall. The number of sports on the signs are thinning down. After going through two more halls, they have finally reached the football field. Souls are seen gathering around the field. In front of them are terminals where they can look at the teams’ statistics and place bets. Scanning his backhand at the terminal, a projection appears in front of Wyn. His balance movement seems to be on pause. Going through the statistics, Wyn wagers one thousand credits on the blue team. Yu also places his bet on the same team as Wyn, a blatant copy as numbers confuse him.

The overhead screen in the middle of the field becomes visible to the two after the bet has been made, showing the score of zero to zero at the twenty-minute mark. The souls surrounding the field are cheering in excitement. To Wyn, this is boring. He prefers fast-paced sports like seal clubbing. But at least though, he knows he doesn’t have to put up with fake injuries here. Even with his credits on the line, he falls asleep, no dreams and standing. He wakes up to Yu’s constant pokes to the upper arm. The game’s already over. It’s a disappointing scoreless game.

“I thought we didn’t have the need to sleep in Hell,” Yu remarks.

“Same here. I guess sleeping from boredom is an exception.”

“You want to go do seal clubbing? Should be less boring, at least. Plus, I’m curious to see if they use real seals.”

“Actually, let’s just leave. Knowing these are bots takes away the fun. Let’s go to the combat zone.”

Taking a rickshaw, both are now in the right wing of the gambling zone. The combat zone is up ahead.