POV - Stanley

[Decima Game – Hotel Cafeteria; T-7 days, 8 hours…]

Blood dripped down the cafeteria wall.

Lina and Laura lay there oozing blood into a dark red pool around their cold bodies.

Clutching his fist, Stanley slammed it on a table beside him.

Damn it. This is my fault. If I had been more careful when making the agreement to avoid unnecessary deaths…

They wouldn’t be dead. I thought nobody here wanted an all out war. Yet… it wasn’t enough.

Bringing up a black tablet. This was the only working tablet in the facility, Stanley had found it in a secret compartment.

The tablet displays everything about the Decima game. Upcoming challenges, players current location and their points.

Since I couldn’t save Lina and Laura, I can avenge them.

The killer should acquire all of their points, checking everyone’s points for discrepancies. Stanley quickly honed in on Player 3’s sudden increase to 10 points.

Realizing who it was, Stanley growled out, “Adin, you bastard.”

Why hadn’t he left though? If he was going to break the agreement, he should’ve left immediately.

Searching for his current location, Adin seemed to be hiding in a training facility… Yet, Player 7 was inside there along with him.

Player 7 was… Tom?

Are they working together? No. I shouldn’t make assumptions without evidence.

Following the map, Stanley weaved his way through the facilities until he reached them.

The room with antigravity had the door open. Inside Adin was floating, barely breathing. Meanwhile, Tom, a usually friendly person, was sitting upside down in a corner in a somber mood reading a book.

Tom noticed me and slowly turned his midnight black eyes from his book. After a few seconds of silence, Tom locked his black eyes on Adin and stated. “I already dealt with him for breaking the agreement. His body is alive… but, Adin no longer exists.”

Focusing on Adin’s body, I slowly realized what he meant. Adin was completely motionless. There was no sign of struggle… or sign of anything.

Tom had already dealt with him. Adin’s body was alive… but his spirit, his soul was gone.

Tom turned back to his book stating, “Despite their deaths, the agreement stands.”

… I’m going to have to let everyone else know.

Sighing softly to myself.

I… just wanted to keep everyone alive.

Clenching his fist in anger before releasing them.

Adin’s already been dealt with… and the agreement stands.

Lina and Laura died a pointless death. The culprit had already been dealt with and I’m useless… I’m always useless.

[T-7 days, 6 hours… two hours later.]

There are only three people left to inform of Laura’s and Lina’s death and, according to my tablet, all of them are in this training room.

Before I didn’t bother trying to get Tobias and his not-girlfriend involved in the agreement. I thought it didn’t matter. I thought, if I was careful, nobody would die.

I was wrong.

After talking with everyone else, most agreed it was necessary to have a more thought out agreement. This time, it’s necessary for everyone to be there.

Slowly opening the door I was surprised. Kara and Tobias’ not-girlfriend were playing some type of holographic board game. After searching more carefully, I found Tobias himself seemed to be scrolling through various holographic books.

What surprised me though was the tone and atmosphere of the room. It was a completely different atmosphere from the rest of this place. It was carefree, playful… happy.

Everything the rest of this place, this facility, isn’t.

It’s normally tense, stressful… worrying.

Kara noticed me and, leaning backward over the side of a wooden chair, called out. “Stanley! Come join us. We’re playing Yomoto.”

Stepping forward into the room, I let out a soft sigh and replied, “No… I’m good, thanks.” Probably for the best, considering I have no idea how to play.

Grabbing a chair from the corner of the room, I placed it beside Kara and took a seat.

Staring at Tobias’ not-girlfriend and Kara play… I began to wonder, are they messing with me?

They’re moving the same two pieces back and forth on their turns. Considering I have no idea how to play the game, I can only presume that is indicative of a stalemate.

Turning to toward Tobias, who had put down his holographic book and was glaring at me. Did I do something to upset him?

POV Swap - Tobias                                          

Stanley... So you finally decided to show up. Don’t worry, your punishment shall be lessened for your voluntary surrender.

As for what the punishment shall be… I haven’t actually thought it through yet.

I’ll probably yell at you for a couple hours or something.

Glancing toward Rin, who was playing some holographic game with Kara. They weren’t that enthusiastic to spend tons of time in here studying. Instead, they asked Schrödinger for a board game.

To be fair… it’s relatively boring studying in here. It’s only interesting when I finally get to test out magical warding, which doesn’t particularly happen that often. I’ve learned enough to set up a trigger mechanism, though.

Having a trigger mechanism for the wards allows tons more variety and choices. To provide an example, I’ll test it out on Stanley… Take a moment to release a ward into the surrounds.

Now to make the mouse take the bait… “Stanley, come over here.”

Stanley seemed suspicious of me, and rightfully so. I did just release a magical ward into the surroundings in front of him.

He glanced at the pieces in the game that Rin and Kara were playing before finally deciding to get up and walk over.

Perfect. Everything is going according to plan.

Should I mention you forgot to link the destination coordinates to the trigger location?

Did I? But, that makes the default…

As Stanley crossed the threshold of the ward, a massive ball of freezing cold water appeared above my head and promptly fell onto me.

The freezing water surrounding my body caused me to shiver. Maybe it’s my new basilisk physiology, but apparently I get incredibly tired and sleepy in the cold. Horrendous news considering that’s basically what the entire fourth zone is.

By the way, God-hunter, is there a reason you didn’t mention that… let’s say ten seconds earlier?

Despite waiting for several seconds, God-hunter never responded. Meanwhile, Stanley sorta stood there staring at me with an ‘are you serious?’ face.

He clearly understood the spell had malfunctioned and was meant to fall on him. Coughing politely between shivers, I grabbed a towel from nearby and politely asked Stanley, “So… I’m Rin’s boyfriend?”

I can’t directly berate him with Rin here. Indirectly, however, with body language and careful word choice, I can inform him why I’m pissed off.

He at least had the decency to look somewhat embarrassed by the mistake, however limited a reaction it was.

“Ah… you heard about that. Sorry that was my bad.” Stanley replied rubbing his head.

‘Sorry that was my bad?’ Do you have any idea the amount of trouble you almost caused? Do you have even the slightest clue the amount I would like to beat you up? If Rin wasn’t nearby…

While imagining various potential imminent punishments for Stanley, I glossed over the issue politely. “Well… It doesn’t particularly matter now. I don’t suppose you’re here to talk about something in particular?”

I’ll get my revenge later. It’s never too late for a gentleman’s revenge.

You aren’t a gentleman. Nor will any part of your revenge be gentlemanly.

Wrong, God-hunter. I’m most certainly a gentleman and I shall have the most poetic of revenges.

Good luck with that.

“… so I’d like all of you to come to the meeting.” Stanley finished and seemed as though he’d been relieved of a huge burden.

…Did you catch any of that, God-hunter?

Do I look like a good multitasker?

Well… it probably wasn’t that important. Let’s just deflect the problem onto Rin. “You should probably ask Rin about that.”

Stanley seemed stunned from my response. He really shouldn’t be, though. I hardly ever decide what to do and usually leave it to Rin.

…Wait. Isn’t that terrible? Am I already whipped?

Pfft. Dad, were you under the impression you weren’t whipped? Hey, actually, since your getting married to Rin does that mean I should call her Mom?

Absolutely not.

Got it, Mom it is.

Rin called out from beside the game board, “Ignore Tobias, we’ll go.”

[Decima Game; T-6, 17 hours… Main lobby, after the meeting.]

Rin had briefly explained what Stanley was talking about earlier.

Apparently two people had died and someone else had dealt with the perpetrator. Now he’s calling a meeting between everyone to ensure it won’t happen again.

I asked Rin if she could reload to save them, but apparently if Stanley’s correct about their time of death, they couldn’t be saved without reloading to before Kara’s fate had been broken. Bad luck I suppose.

The meeting itself was boring. Nothing particularly outstanding happened. Some people grieved, other discussed the benefits and demerits of creating each agreement’s clause.

Honestly, it all seemed pointless to me.

There’s no way to force anyone to follow the agreement they made. Nor is there any reason to presume people would follow it. In the end, along with the no killing rule, people agreed to wait for everyone to acquire ten points before leaving… and everyone would team up to kill someone who violates the agreement..

Overall, this meeting was mostly a waste of time. Completely irrelevant actually, Rin would’ve been forced to reload and deal with anyone who actually violated the agreement to leave.

Meanwhile, my magical warding seemed to have hit a bottleneck. Most of the complicated principles don’t seem to work due to the corrupted atmospheric mana. I’ve been force to focus mainly on triggers and rely on experimentation to figure out other magical principles to create spells.

I feel somewhat callous, people died and I don’t particularly feel anything for them. Maybe it’s because I never met them before... or maybe it’s because part of me considers them to be background characters.

I don’t know.

Still, at this point, Rin and I have 9 points. So, theoretically, after winning another challenge we should be able to leave.

Course, actually leaving is impossible. Kara hasn’t yet reached 10 points and neither has Stanley.

Disregarding the potential weakening of an unknown prize to leave with everyone might be for the best.

Either way, simply studying during this time frame is the best decision. I probably won’t get an opportunity to spend this much time learning in the future…

Or maybe I will. I’m still having trouble wrapping my head around the fact that I probably won’t be continuing onward into the next zones.

Meaning I’ll probably have some time to spend studying in the residential zone...

And, although I’ve learned some warding, most of the useful spells are no longer serviceable. Without some serious time put into re-exploring the environments magical principles, I doubt I’ll be able to move onward.

Meaning, at the moment, warding is essentially a parlor trick.