Thinking about the Schrödinger's attempt to kill me and the hide-and-seek game that could collect up to nine points, I felt a headache welling up.

Collecting enough points to winning was problematic toward my goal of saving Kara, I didn’t have a proper plan in place to save her yet...

Sadly, the only fail condition for this game was dying, which was out of the question.

“Two minutes to hide.” Schrödinger meowed out, distributing my thoughts.

Hearing him speak, my mouth twitched in annoyance but I kept silent.

Since protesting wouldn’t have an effect, I would save myself the effort. This game was going to happen regardless, the only difference was the timing.

I still needed time to think.

… I internally proposed strategies.

Attacking them was a completely valid option.

By attacking them, I would reduce my current points, lower the chance that Kara’s fate happening after the match. Additionally, dealing with a couple of them would make my future actions less complicated.

The best way to deal with them would be petrification… as I didn't want to kill them unless it was necessary.

Staring at God-hunter, I winced as I realized what that required.

Bring the dagger to my left hand, I moved it onto palm of my left-hand and pressed downward with a swiping motion. Massive pain signaled from the gash and red blood lined the blade and my palm.

By the time I had gotten around to wiping away the blood, the wound had already healed.

Well… once again, I could cut myself to acquire blood. God-hunter was as astonishingly sharp and powerful as I remember.

Without her, it’s difficult to even scratch my own skin to acquire blood.

The ability to cut through my own skin means it’s possible to save them from petrification. Although it’ll be extremely painful to collect enough blood.

I would de-petrified them after dealing with Kara’s issue and collecting ten points, forcing them to accept that they won’t be left here alone.

We hadn’t gotten to the point I needed to worry about that yet.

There’s another strategy that I plan to utilize.

“Catch me if you can!” I waved toward the crowd with a smirk, and began running into the distance.

In this grassy field with zero hiding places, the best option for this game of hide-and-seek is nothing more than to run away. My endurance is far above any of them and the seeker’s true goal is to capture or kill me. This isn’t an actual game of hide-and-seek.

Since that’s the case, why do I need to obediently hide?

My body has advanced regenerative powers, which revitalizing my body and muscles constantly. The world tree ensures my body has sufficient nutrients and continues functioning.

To put it bluntly, I’m a perfect endurance sprinter.

I will never feel tired and can run for the full twenty-four hours without pausing and taking a break.

All I need to do is run and keep running.

My goal is to simply avoid them the entire game and my unnoticed passive cannot accomplish that.

As the unnoticed ability would be hard-pressed in preventing people from finding me in an entirely open field and utilizing my petrifying gaze will come with inevitable pain when I inevitability revive them, running is the best option.

Otherwise, avoiding all these people on a grassy plane with no places to hide is impossible…

If they actually catch up, I'll simply deal with the future pain and petrify them.

With those various thoughts flashing through my mind, I began this game of cat and mouse.

The idea to escape before the game began failed. The seekers had started their chase before two minutes had even passed.

It seems the seekers noticed, or were bluntly told by a scheming cat, that no rule required them to wait until the game began to begin chasing.

“The game begins!” Schrödinger announced, despite his distance I could hear his voice clearly.

Moments after the game was announced to have started, vines appeared out of the ground and wrapped around my legs.

Ignoring the vines around my legs, they were easily torn with sufficient strength. I continued running forward through the grasslands.

Waves of ranged attacks spat in my direction.

Icicles, fire, and glowing projectiles landed nearby. I easily dodged relying on my instincts. Most projectiles simply weren’t dangerous enough to merit dodging, such as the heat from the fire.

Sadly, those weak attacks that managed to contain enough threat to waste the shield from my gloves.

I looked over my shoulder after feeling a tinge of danger. I saw a projectile, specifically a glowing arrow racing toward me.

Adin, according to analyze, had a bow of light and released an arrow in my direction.

More vines appeared in the surroundings. This time the vines did not attempt to bind my legs, but block the surroundings in an attempt to delay my movements. Clearly whoever was controlling them had learned their lesson the first time.

Hopping sideways, I cut through the vines with god-hunter whilst running. This allowed me to dodge the arrow projectile of light that flew by with a loud swoosh.

Suddenly, the entire world turned dark.

Feeling the gentle pattering of ice projectiles on my skin, I knew the situation hadn’t change and I was still in combat.

Some kind of blinding ability?

Regardless of how it was accomplished, I couldn’t see anything.

Shutting my eyes, I completely ignored my vision to focus on sounds. In the meantime, while running forward, I moved my bag in front of me and began stumbling thorough it to search for a spare ring of night vision.

I’d silently made an extra night vision artifact for myself after giving the other duplicate to Laura… This time, it would turn out useful.

To be honest, I didn’t like using the night vision artifact. Wearing it for any long-term usage resulted in massive headaches, but for short bursts and battles it was a lifesaver.

Whether it was true darkness or some ability influencing my eyes, the ring of night vision would restore my eyesight. Although it didn’t actually change the situation of my eyes, restoring my sight was a massive advantage already.

However… my bag was packed with too many small artifacts, as well as clothing and crafting tools.

Trying to search through my bag for a specific ring was time consuming. The difficulty was doubled when you considered that the entire bag is shaking as I’m running, and quadrupled because I could only rely on touch to find the night vision artifact.

Sadly, time wasn’t an abundant resource in combat.

Another tinge of danger appeared behind me, another dangerous projectile was approaching. I closed my bag and dodged to the left.

Judging by the swooshing sound, another arrow.

My instincts for danger remained… even if my vision had been temporarily blocked and I could easily avoid any dangerous attacks.

However, the main problem with the darkness wasn’t dodging their attacks. It was losing the ability to use petrifying gaze and other related vision to continue running.

My most powerful attack, petrifying gaze relied on seeing the other party.

The ring of night vision would only restore my vision by projecting the surrounding environment into my brain, not repairing my normal vision. That meant the night vision artifact wouldn’t allow the usage of petrifying gaze.

Basically, I’ve lost my most powerful attack and was temporarily blinded. This also prevented me from perceiving the surrounding environment to run at full speed. Whether it was purposeful or accidental on their part, this blindness was a crippling disability to my combat power and something to keep in mind for the future.

The grassy field certainly wasn’t a smooth, the ground was uneven with occasional potholes and descents in the landscape that were normally easily dealt with... however, the sudden blindness made these normally subtle, ignorable lumps and depressions in the soil extremely troublesome.

Hearing another arrow coming, I tried dodging it but unassuming vines blocked my movement. Despite the vines have no danger themselves, my instincts ignored them and that meant I couldn’t perceive them while they hindered my attempts to dodge.

The arrow shot through my stomach and I gritted my teeth in pain. I had severely underestimated the people in the Decima game… or perhaps I simply overestimated myself?

I should’ve chosen to ambush them at the start.

Now that I was blinded and without petrifying gaze, I had no easy method to safely depose of them.

I’d already used my unnoticed active in the main lobby earlier… making escaping from this situation difficult.

Hissing in pain as my stomach wound healed, I made a decision.

Fine! You want to die so badly, I don’t mind accommodating you.

Calming down, I slowed my run to halt. My attempt to run away failed, but the wound piercing through on my stomach had already healed. I still was in peak condition, save for the lost eyesight.

Instead of waiting around for the people to catch up, I dug through to the bottom of my bag and once again resumed my search for the ring of night vision.

Sadly, the hostile crowd didn’t intend to give me the time to accomplish that feat.

Projectiles rained down in abundance, none of them intended on having an upfront battle in close combat.

I clicked my tongue in annoyance.

Smart decision on their behalf. They definitely would’ve lost in close combat.

Blocking and dodging the various dangerous projectiles, I ignore those people for the time being and continued searching through my bag.

The stalemate continued, I dodged frantically whilst looking through the bag and they fired projectiles at me.

Eventually, I found and equipped the night vision artifact and restored my vision. Seems I left the night vision artifact in a small pocket of the bag that I’d completely forgotten about.

From their, I looked forward and began examining the situation.

Only five people were attacking me.

First, in far front, there was a guy named Dylan. This guy’s movements corresponded with the appearance of more vines, which meant those annoying vines are likely his handiwork.

Beside him, there was another burly man named Brain and judging by the summoning of icicles in front of him, I’d say the ice projectiles were his handiwork.

Edward stood right behind them, releasing fire and throwing regular projectiles. His ability is some kind of mental attack, if I remember correctly from Rin.

In the far back, Adin with the bow of light. Likely possessing an ability to solidify light into dangerous objects.

Isana stood at his side in the back, according to analyze, she has some relation to darkness. Likely the cause of my blindness.

I noted their calm expression as I dodged their projectiles. It seems the five of them planned on wearing me out over the time period. Taking advantage of their numbers to fight over time with attrition.

That was a tactical mistake on their part. My endurance allowed me to do this indefinitely, but I certainly wouldn’t inform them of that.

Turning my gaze toward the remaining three on the battlefield.

Stanley, Kara, and the hedgehog were in the distance, they were chatting while walking in our direction. Despite his killing intent earlier, the hedgehog seemed to not be interested in intervening in the fight.

I turned my gaze toward Isana, the probable cause of my blindness.

When Isana dies, the blindness should dissipate and I would regain the ability to petrify people. Therefore, she is the main target.

As long as Isana is defeated, the rest of them will be easily finished by my petrifying gaze.

Since they wanted to fight an attrition battle, I’ll show them my endurance.

When they make a mistake, providing an opportunity, I’ll beat them all in one fell swoop. All I need is for them to make a single mistake.

Thinking that quietly to myself, I removed the ring of night vision temporarily to prevent headaches from long-term usage and prepared for an attrition battle.

A stalemate was to my advantage, and I had already underestimated them earlier. Underestimating them again is foolish, even if they don’t have hidden trump cards it’s best to be cautious and wait for an opportunity.

Why should I give up an advantageous stalemate to rush toward them? If they want to fight of attrition, I’m more than happy to oblige.