“Hey, I’m talking to you” yelled Mikhail.

The boy looked at Mikhail with an elated expression.

“You’re done for. Just shut up and die already”

At that moment, Bold knew what the boy was up to. The swamp underneath them looked particularly strange and out of place from the environment. Its sudden appearance meant one thing only.

“Y-you’re the person created this swamp, aren’t you?”

The boy looked at Bold but surprisingly this time sadness had seemed to consume his face.

“Yeah”

Mikhail looked at him angrily. But soon it changed into a grin. Quite unfitting for someone who is sinking to his death.

“What do you want? Is it gold?”

The boy looked at him with the corner of his eyes and gave a “yeah” that could be barely heard from the tree branch. 

“Then just release us. We’ll give you what we got. You don’t have to go through the trouble of killing us”.

However, the boy didn’t seem to be fazed by this offer.

“Nice try. But I’ll need your corpse for the money”.

“What?!” said Bold with rage.

It seemed from this small exchange that they couldn’t talk their way out of it. The swamp had already taken their leg up to their knees and almost engulfed their thighs. Even if his HP wasn’t dropping Bold was sure that they would become absolutely defenseless once the swamp had drowned their entire body. He had to think of a way to get out of this situation. He promised to himself that he wouldn’t die in a pathetic way like this.

He quickly typed on his wristboard before the boy could react. A small shagai appeared on his left palm.
It was the horse form.

He raised his hand towards the boy. From his previous training, he noticed that the shagai never fell off his hand so long as he didn’t nail it. He looked at the boy carefully and when the boy noticed what was about to happen, he nailed the shagai towards him. The bullet traveled like a laser beam and slammed into his ribs.

“Gahhh”

Despite the horse form being the weakest of all forms, its knock wave was enough to make the boy lose his balance and fall down. The boy landed on the swamp with his back. After he had a grasp on the situation, he tried to pull himself out of the mud but it was hopeless as the strength of his creation proved to be too much.               

 “Nice going, Bold”.

Mikhail seemed genuinely happy for his achievement. Even if he was just a stranger to him, Bold couldn’t help but be relieved to hear a compliment for once. With a victorious grin on his face Bold yelled: 

“Not so high and mighty now, are ya?”

But the kid didn’t seem to care about his words as he was desperately trying to get out of the swamp that was only pulling him down.

“Help! Get me out of this shit”

He looked pathetic and weak but Bold knew he shouldn’t show any remorse to assholes.

“No freaking way. You tried to kill us, bastard. Now sink into your own death” 

“Shut up. You think I had a choice?”

The swamp now had consumed his body all the way up to his ears. Bold was planning to let him stay there until he fully drowned but Mikhail began to type on his wristboard. The four gentlemen appeared from thin air, all surrounding Mikhail.

“Press the cancellation button on his shoulder” ordered Mikhail loudly.

One of the men dived into the swamp with their chest, giving no care to their own safety, stretched his arm towards the boy’s shoulder and pressed the rectangular button on it. The swamp disappeared from sight and the surface beneath them was replaced with solid ground. However, their legs and bodies were still stuck inside it.

Afraid that he might be stuck in this position forever, Bold pushed the ground with his hands and both his legs successfully emerged from it, all dirtied up in mud but intact.

The perpetrator also removed his head and arms from the ground but Mikhail wasn’t just going to stand there watching. Three of the four men pulled their legs out of the surface immediately and tackled the boy who was sitting on the ground. Within an instant, the men in black had successfully pummeled and pushed him to the ground on his face.       

Mikhail pulled his legs out with ease and slowly walked towards the boy and crouched next to him.

“So, care for an explanation?”

The kid stared at him back with an irritation and struggled to release himself but to no avail.

“Well, have it your way”

Mikhail nonchalantly walked away and leaned against a tree nearby. The kid gritted his teeth and yelled:

“Your summoning has a time limit, right? I’ll be free as soon as it’s over. There is nothing you can do”.

“In that case, I’ll just tie you up now and leave your fate to your luck. Doesn’t sound very pleasing now, does it?”

The boy looked at him with utter disgust but soon turned away his gaze.

“You said you were doing this for money, didn’t you?” 

“Yeah, and what about it?”

“It’s strange that you thought that our corpses would give you money. Unless my friend here has tons of gold in his bag right now, I don’t know how it would be profitable for you. Cause I sure as hell spent all of mine. Or were you fulfilling a special quest?”

Bold immediately understood what Mikhail was referring to.

“The assassination quest, the black book. You dumbasses heard of that?”

“Yeah. Indeed I have. This buddy of mine here told me about it. Let me guess, it promised to give you 1900 gold for my head?”

“Pretty neat, right?” said the kid with a filthy smile on his face.

“No, it’s insulting. To think that my life would have equal weight to a few measly golds”

“Say that to the people who wrote the book. Who has planned the game. I’m just a player in all of this”.

“Don’t hate the player, hate the game? Is that what you’re saying?” asked Bold rhetorically.

“Nice way to take the responsibility off your shoulders. But that attitude of yours won’t get you out of this situation” said Mikhail firmly.        

“What situation? What can you two do to me? You already saved my life. I’m grateful for that, honestly. But I won’t stop. I’m gonna attempt the assassination mission again and I will get the gold I need”.

“Son of a…” exclaimed Bold in anger but the kid turned his gaze towards Mikhail.

This time his eyes showed a bit of gloom.

“I don’t have much time”.

“Time? Is that why you’re so desperate?” asked Mikhail with curiosity.

“The wave hasn’t happened yet” stated Bold.

“I’m not talking about the wave” said the kid stubbornly.

“Then what is it? What drove you to take human lives?” 

The boy dodged Mikhail’s menacing look. But without waiting long he answered:

“They...got my sister”

“What are you blabbering about? Who do you mean they?” asked Bold

“Tell us what happened” said Mikhail.

The kid took a deep sigh and delivered his tale.

“When my sister and I were on our way to deliver cargos from one town to another when someone jumped out of the forest and attacked us. It was an enormous man who was about 2 meters tall. Looked unrealistically savage and muscular. Probably a summoned unit.  It pinned me to the ground. My sister was trying to help me escape but three people emerged from the forest. They beat her up and took her away. I couldn’t do anything”

Both of them quietly listened to his story, not uttering a single word to interrupt it.

“One of the men said that if I wanted her to live, I need to bring 3000 gold to a circular canvas located in the forest. A few kilometers south east from the city of Naimaine. I have to be there in a week. They left a piece of paper locating the exact place where I must bring the money. It is in my dimensional bag”.

“Get him off the ground” said Mikhail.

The men did as they were told but they were prudent enough to still pin his arms on his back. Mikhail put his hand into the kid’s dimensional bag and pulled out a piece of paper and a picture next to it. On the picture was the kid along with a girl who was a few years younger than him. 

Bold curiously closed in on him and together they examined what they had found. The paper which the kid spoke of was a hastily hand-drawn map detailing a circular area within the forest that has no trees. And a text was written above it.

“Bring the money here. If you want to see her alive”.
      
“I see. That is terrible…if you’re telling the truth” said Mikhail while putting the paper back into his bag.

Mikhail is right. It could be a trap. Who knows, maybe this girl isn’t her sister at all. I had enough of being mocked and made a fool out of. I’m not going to be backstabbed ever again.  

“If you don’t believe me, that’s fine. I don’t intend to tell this sob story to everyone I met and beg for money”.  

“Instead, you picked even an easier way to gain money. By killing other innocent people” said Mikhail casually.

“It’s not my fault. I don’t have a choice”.

“You’re no different from them. Perhaps your eyes are too blind to see that”

When he uttered those words Mikhail’s voice, his face everything about him seemed to have become serious.

“This isn’t about me being better. I have to save her”.   

“But at what cost? How many throats are you willing to cut for that to happen?”

The kid’s eyes widened after hearing his words. He then looked away as if to avoid the unfaltering truth.

“What the hell am I supposed to do then? You’re not in the same desperate situation as I am. How would you know anything?”

“You’re saying this death game itself isn’t a dire situation?  I have friends I care about, dreams to realize in my life. But that doesn’t mean-”.

“Doesn’t mean what? You’re saying you’ll never kill anyone in this game? Even if it’s the only choice?”

This time it was Mikhail’s turn to pause. After he quietly stood there for a moment as if to have been dumbstruck, confidence rose on his face.

“I can’t promise that. And I think anybody who makes promises are idiots. Who can tell the future? Who has the right to? In fact, there have been times where I did hurt other people in the past. But I will always seek a way. I don’t act upon what’s easy. I act upon what’s right. That much I can say confidently”.

The kid did not respond. He only stared at him sharply as if to search for any sign of doubt in his guise. But Mikhail’s expression did not waver.

“Have you ever heard of dungeons?”

The boy looked at him back as if he was threatened by the words but soon released a soft “yes” from his mouth.

“So, you do know there is a way to gain money other than dirtying your hands like this”. 

The kid’s eyes shifted towards the corner but he still nodded.

“Well, why didn’t you try that?”

“I’m not suicidal…I heard there is hardly any chance of survival if someone enters one alone. And even if I find other people to go there with me, the money will get split between the group”.

“That’s true… I guess” said Mikhail casually while scratching his chin. 

“If you understand then let me go. I’m grateful that you didn’t just let me die.  And I promise I won’t do any harm to you two. But I will continue to hunt other targets”.

“Persistent, I might say” said Mikhail.  

“Aren’t there any jails we can lock him up in this game?” raged Bold.

“There are a few in some towns and definitely in every city. But the events that happened in the wilderness, nobody really cares about it. The people in the world only have so much time to argue over morals. What happens in the wilderness must be settled by the rules of the wilderness, they say”.

“And that’s for the best. You two should get on with your own business. It’s better to prepare for the wave instead of playing a stupid game of judge in this chaotic world”.   

“Well, can’t say that you are wrong” said Mikhail sarcastically.

But fire glittered in his eyes when he uttered his next comment.

“How about you join us then?”