Chapter 17

“What do you think about this cycle’s contestants?” asked a man shrouded in the shadows, sitting in front of an office table. “You have observed quite a few cycles at this point. 

“The silver marks in this country are quite promising. I wouldn’t be surprised if they ascended to D-level soon,” Callow Bitterman responded in a respectful tone. Sitting before him was one of the Council members, with an aura as deep and as foreboding as the open ocean at night. 

“And what of the gold mark? He is the first gold mark to appear in this world, and the first ” 

“...”

“It’s strange. Ever since the preliminary examination, the gold mark’s movements and attacks carry experience with them. He fights and moves as if he is already D-level.” 

“That is most interesting. I wonder, then, if this world’s inhabitants will be able to handle the gates. It is almost time for them to appear.” 

Callow Bitterman gulped. The time had come, but he was not sure if the world he resided in was ready for such a sudden injection of mana. Even the brightest star of several cycles ago, the gold mark, was unable to fend off the neverending tides of war that the gates presented. 

But surviving until that point was already a long shot. First, humanity needed to deal with the initial waves, and the damnation that was the Tower. 

—

“I still can’t believe this is real,” the vibrant pink haired girl in sleepwear said breathlessly, looking down at the lion-like demon hound pouncing onto an examinee, before biting down and tearing her throat out. “Monsters… magic… how is this happening? This feels like I’m watching a movie or something.” 

“It’s like the world is a game now,” Abe mused. “And one where we humans don’t have the plot armor we usually have. We’re not the main characters anymore, the monsters are.” 

“No,” Zack said softly. “The monsters aren’t the main characters. It is up to us to write our own history. Whether we end up as the hero or the side character… in this new world, it is up to us to decide our own stories.” 

He somewhat recognized this beast. It had the marks of a devil hound from the Royal Road, from the curved horns to its red claws and black fur, except it was much larger than he’d seen in the game. 

…

At that moment, the monstrous hound looked up from its meal as if it had sensed something had disturbed it. Lifting its head, its glowing pupil-less eyes looked as if they were searching for something… or someone. From such a distance away, on a completely different level of elevation as well… the hellhound’s eyes searched until they found a human standing in a classroom on the second floor of the building. It locked in place with his gaze, as if it had found what it was looking for all along. 

Zack did not flinch, returning the gaze back stronger than he received it. A feeling was welling up from within him. It was not that of fear, but one of… disdain. As if he was viewing his prey. But how could such a fearsome beast be viewed as prey? 

At that moment, something flared up within Zack’s eyes as they flashed crimson red for a split second, and the unexpected happened. 

The hellhound flinched, as if greatly startled, and it began to back away from its prey submissively. 

How many of you dungeon dogs have I killed… ten thousand… no… at least a hundred thousand… I will make you pay for all the families you tore apart… 

The words that sounded familiar and yet alien echoed through his head as he stared down at the retreating hellhound, before receding back into nothingness after the moment was over, leaving Zack sweating ever so slightly as if he’d just gone through some strenuous physical exertion. 

“It ran away,” observed Patricia. “Why did it run? I really don’t like this… there’s going to be a new hound every hour now.” 

Abe swallowed. “Between the Hamagku and all the hounds, we’re dead aren’t we?” 

“Not if you follow me,” Zack said. “Let’s get going, and do some more collection before any more hounds come out.” 

Zack could see that Patricia and Abe were beginning to lose hope faced by the insurmountable difficulty posed by the examination, so the least he could do was instill some more hope into them. 

“Don’t worry. I’ll keep observing the hounds to figure out how they function. Trust me, I’m an expert at tracking behaviors.” 

“Alright…” Patricia said unconvinced, but she remembered how Zack had obsessively observed the Hamagku through the window blinders, and told herself that there was maybe some merit to his claims. 

As they left the classroom and headed to the cafeteria, they found that the door was unlocked already. But the cafeteria was occupied, and not just by one group of examinees. He wondered why it was unlocked, entering and placing the two buckets of water to the side. 

“Hey, that’s the gold mark, isn’t it?” someone said. 

“Yeah, that’s him alright.” 

Zack looked around after entering and saw that all three of the silver marks except for Wallace Seferant were in the cafeteria, all standing around a stash of food piled high in the middle of the cafeteria. The food was quite comical, just bags upon bags of packaged sandwiches, handrolls, and other nonperishables, as well as quite a few water bottles and sodas. There was plenty to spare thankfully, and people were simply sitting in corners eating away. 

He spotted the silver-marked Alicia Xin leaning against a wall in a bit of an anxious posture, her straight black hair cascading down her black turtleneck and hugging her attractive figure as she spoke with the other female silver mark Sofia Alley, a straw blonde who was holding a wrench in her hand despite looking a bit too slender for that. 

“I’m going to talk to the silver marks,” he told his party. “You guys just go grab some food for now, alright?” 

“Just don’t keep us waiting too long,” Patricia replied. 

“We’ll scope out the area for tokens,” Abe said as if he was a junior commander or something. 

“Alright. I’m going then.” 

Zack walked towards the two female silver marks and prepared to greet them. Honestly, if this was the real world he’d probably feel a lot more awkward talking to random people when he was basically a homeless bum, but here he was their equal and just another examinee. “Hi. I’m Zack.”

Well, maybe not just another examinee. 

“Don’t worry, we know, mister gold mark Zachary Abraxas,” Sofia Alley replied, before giving him a head to toe look. “I’m Sofia, car mechanic and spray painting enthusiast. Silver mark, as you probably know already. Well you look a bit drenched.” 

“What can I say, I had a close call.”

“I’m Alicia,” Alicia Xin said. “Dance major at Tanteck University, and silver mark. We were just discussing how to best get out of here.” 

Other examinees were looking at them expectantly, as they were two silver marks meeting a gold mark after all. Nicolas Abernickel was in the far corner, looking rather sullen. 

The girl in the black turtleneck crop top and jeans lowered her voice for a moment. “Come with us.” She motioned for him to follow her and Sofia into the kitchen, as they casted suspicious looks at Nicolas while they went. 

Once they were inside the kitchen, Alicia closed the door behind them with a kick of her boots. 

“We can speak without being overheard here. The other examinees look up to us a lot because we’re silver marks, but to be honest, we’re not all that great,” Alicia said, resting her slender hand on her face in a gesture that showed her stress. 

Zack decided to cut straight to the point. “I was wondering this whole time actually, how exactly did you guys damage the monster in your preliminary examination? Sorry for being blunt, but neither of you look all that strong.” 

Alicia nodded at Sofia, who spoke up first. “I think we just got lucky. I was working in my brother’s shop when the preliminary examination started. Some big monkey chased me around the shop, but I sprayed it with a can of spray paint I had on me and it kinda just ran into a drill when it was blinded. It didn’t die from that, but it was hurt badly.” 

“Did the monkey have a big nose?” Zack asked, having a suspicion on what kind of creature she was up against. “Long limbs, and attacked you with its left arm the most?” 

“Yes, yes, and… I guess it did attack me with its left arm, now that I think about it. How do you know this?”

“Because that was a rainforest elephant monkey from Royal Road,” Zack replied without missing a beat. When it came to game knowledge, he was pretty much a walking materials encyclopedia, monster encyclopedia, and ores & miscellaneous item encyclopedia combined. “Normally level a hundred and thirty something, but the higher level ones can reach up to level a hundred and eighty. They usually hang around the eastern continent.” 

Both girls were dumbstruck by the ridiculous amount of knowledge that he had about what was an extremely dangerous high level area in the game. 

Alicia was first to speak. “Isn’t the eastern continent really difficult to get to? I’ve never heard of anyone who’s actually gotten there outside of streamers like Arten… who are you?” 

Zack smiled. “Let me introduce myself again. I’m Zack, a professional mana crystal miner and former coal miner.” 

“Mana crystal… miner?” Alicia said with wonder. 

Sofia looked just as shocked. “Aren’t mana crystals those super expensive items that you can only get in the most remote areas in the game? I mean, I’m not an expert but that’s at least what I heard when I was researching about them online… I saw a bag of them on auction once going for ten thousand zed!” 

“Yeah, they’re expensive,” Zack replied. He wasn’t going to tell her that that bag was actually sold by him. “Mana crystals only show up in the deepest caves, in the middle of deserts, in other unreachable areas, and on an island chain called the fire pit islands. But that’s besides the point.” 

“Wait, mister mana crystal miner. How did you end up getting a gold mark in your preliminary examination?” Alicia pressed on. “I’ll tell you what happened with me. I was in a room with computers, and the boar that was chasing after me accidentally burned itself when tripping over an outlet.” 

“Alright, I’ll tell you,” Zack said. “But you’re not going to believe me even if I did.” 

“Tell us!” 

“I killed it with a stone. It was a giant scorpion.” 

At the sound of that admission, Alicia and Sofia nearly passed out. That was because giant scorpions were considered to be B-rank danger creatures. How could a regular person armed with just a stone kill a B-rank creature with his bare hands?