A figure stood silently in the middle of a desert.
Despite being clearly illuminated, the figure was somehow still hard to see.
There was nothing but sand all around.
In every direction.
It was a rogue's worst nightmare.
There was literally nowhere to hide.
Thankfully, this floor wasn't geared to test a contestant's combat power.
Jeremy's entire body started to sweat before he activated the cooling function of his combat suit.
He stared at the sun that made its presence known.
It glared right back at him.
For a second, Jeremy felt a little envious of its majesty.
Then, his eyes started to hurt.
…This would be a long 10 days.
Soon, a series of notifications from the [Tower] scrolled across his vision.
[Welcome to Floor 2.]
He slowly read the following messages until he got to the pivotal part.
[Your story will not be reset.]
[…Analyzing…]
[You escaped the manhunt in the Preliminary Round.]
[A few are unhappy with your advancement.]
[Everyone else has forgotten you entirely.]
Jeremy almost face faulted when he read that sentence.
A part of him was happy about it.
A bigger part of him felt indignant.
He killed so many Throskarts on the first floor!
How could they have forgotten him so easily?!
He kicked the sand on the ground so it flew up in the air with the wind before he continued reading.
[The game show is committed to fairness on the surface, even for a member of the human race.]
[The higher-ups are restricted from acting directly.]
[You are participating in this game for the second time. You have the identity of an 'enemy.']
[Please choose your difficulty.]
Jeremy selected [Extreme] without hesitation.
[Analyzing…]
He waited for a few seconds before a card appeared, suspended in the air above his chest.
It was engraved with words.
A robotic voice spoke into his ears.
"Please turn over the card to receive your special role."
Jeremy slowly read its contents.
[Malerachnis Hunter]
Mission: Kill 500 [Terrentia Malerachnis] over the course of 10 days.
Perk: Get a 25% speed boost for 5 seconds as the partitions appear.
[Choose this special role?]
[Yes/No]
Jeremy pondered for a second before slowly nodding.
The speed boost would definitely be useful in selecting a lane.
It was then that another [Tower] notification arrived.
[Mission: Kill 1000 [Terrentia Malerachnis] and survive for ten days to pass the qualifying round.]
Jeremy considered his understanding of the second floor missions.
Otto had requested and shared with them an entire ream of information from Drennel regarding the second floor.
Now that Drennel had these kinds of reports readily available for the three kids to use, why wouldn't they make use of them?
The [Very High] difficulty mission varied in intensity, but usually gave challengers a perk that allowed them to escape from a popular execution once.
It then required them to clear this round of the game.
Apparently, clearing the game was harder than it seemed, despite the lack of emphasis on combat.
Mostly because it was rigged in favor of the wealthy and popular Throskarts.
The audience's decisions played no small role in such favoritism.
Perhaps only Otto was fortunate enough to escape their whims.
The [High] difficulty mission generally required the challenger to survive for six days.
The [Medium] difficulty mission was to survive for four days, the [Low] difficulty to survive for two, while the [Basic] difficulty mission only required a challenger to last a single day and night.
Accordingly, every day was a new struggle to survive.
It wasn't made easy, either.
For normal challengers, Throskarts were essentially a superior race, comparatively stronger than challengers in all attributes.
Even lasting a single day would be difficult if a challenger found themselves too slow to enter a lane, both in terms of the afternoon executions and in terms of the lack of water.
Only the elite of the elite could boast reasonable chances on these four floors.
Jeremy thought for a bit, then felt decidedly lucky to have gotten away with this particular special role.
Every group could only have up to three special roles, but most groups contained only a single one.
The worst scenario was to find oneself in a group with the rumored [Assassin] that would relentlessly attack the challengers, occasionally even trying to kill the entire group in one fell swoop.
Thankfully, as far as Jeremy knew, the [Assassin] would always be the only special role present across a single group.
Since it could essentially only be countered by the audience votes…
In no time at all, Jeremy was whisked away to a different spot in the desert.
Surrounding him were his 99 Throskart group members for the next ten days.
Jeremy didn't draw any attention as he arrived.
First of all, humans and Throskarts looked similar enough that Jeremy wouldn't be immediately discovered without any special circumstances.
Secondly, not a single person looked directly at him either way.
Even under the harsh glare of the afternoon sun, it was as if his figure was completely invisible.
Because he'd spent so much time with people that normally paid attention to him, Jeremy initially found it a little hard to adapt.
But in this game, going unnoticed could also be to his advantage…
The hours passed with murmured conversation that steadily grew in volume as time ticked by.
Jeremy quietly listened to endless complaints about the heat, the boredom, the discomfort, and the ever present thirst that pervaded the desert.
He took a sip from the glass of condensed water in his hand.
His body instantly felt refreshed.
Jeremy checked his game screen for the nth time.
And sighed.
Still silent, totally void of audience comments.
Not because the audience couldn't speak to the contestants.
They just hadn't noticed him…
An hour later, the partitions came up.
Jeremy felt his body lighten as the 25% speed boost took effect.
His eyes landed on the middle lane.
If he grabbed it now, he knew he'd be recognized fairly quickly despite his lack of presence.
Perhaps a better strategy would be to survive discreetly for the first few days before suddenly showing off his might only when required.
But Jeremy wanted to get a better score. To take the floor by storm!
He dashed past the other contestants and immediately snatched the middle lane.
He willed the partitions to close behind him and stored the glass of water inside his spatial storage ring.
A grin alighted itself on his face.
Despite the heat, Jeremy was in his element.
The element of combat!
***************************************************************
Julia groaned as she read the notification on her game screen.
[Event Time!]
[Today's Event: Depression]
Description: The desert is experiencing an economic downturn!
Donate now to raise the price of all of Group 844's merit purchases for the evening.
Price increase depends on YOUR donation. Water and facilities will be up to 10x more expensive!
[Donate Here]
Current price increase: 150%
Julia had received a rather uneventful 'special role' after she entered the second floor.
Her role was called the [Magic Networker].
[Magic Networker]
Read along with the audience and gain access to information on real time game events, votes, and donations for 2 hours each day.
Requires: 5 merits per day to hold this role.
It was intended to be a purely beneficial role with no drawback.
Access to advanced knowledge of what the audience was planning on doing and who they were voting for was an excellent trade for only 5 merits per day.
However, the [Tower] would never let her go so easily.
The drawback was felt in her [Extreme] difficulty mission.
[Mission: Clear the qualifying round without the merit-based immunity reserved for contestants with the top 10% highest merits. Merit based immunity reserved for the single top merit-holder.]
The game show allowed the audience to hold a vote each day to determine which contestants to execute.
The top 10% of contestants with the most merit were normally immune to being voted off.
The rest 'cost' votes based on how much merit they had.
A contestant with 3 merits was easier to vote off than a contestant with 30.
But now, every contestant except the one contestant with the most merits was fair game.
Worse, Julia had been exposed as a human on her very first day in the desert.
The audience would never let her go.
She could feel their malice in every comment she found on her game screen.
If she hadn't taken the center lane and gained the most merits for the first two days, Julia had no doubt she would already be gone.
The other Throskarts had already banded together to barricade her from the center lane earlier today, forcing her to settle for one of the second best lanes instead.
Despite her excellent combat suit, the heat was starting to get to her.
Since even after gaining 200 merits from fighting those nasty spiders in close quarters melee combat, Julia didn't dare to rent the mansion for the evening for fear of losing her number one spot.
So it was anything but good news when the audience wanted to raise the price of water for the night.
Thankfully, Julia had saved over half of the glass of condensed water she'd brought into the desert.
Even if she was forced to rent a tent, or even sleep outside, with the water in her glass, Julia would still be able to make do.
A stage slowly emerged from the sand.
Ten Throskarts in the crowd suddenly vanished, their figures reappearing on the execution stage.
They looked at each other, horror clear in their expressions.
One man tried to appeal to the audience,
"No, don't kill meeee!"
He started dancing, moving his body crazily to nonexistent music.
His expressions were downright bizarre.
The others on the stage also began to perform various increasingly outlandish activities in order to capture the audience's attention.
Who knew? Perhaps a clever performance could win back their lives.
One woman even started to seductively gyrate her body onto the body of another woman.
Julia sighed, but looked on at the scene with little sympathy.
All of them knew that begging for mercy on this stage was useless.
The audience wanted to be entertained!
The execution seemed to wait patiently for the 'performances' to finish, giving the audience members a chance to donate money to the game and 'save' one of these contestants.
Alas, it seemed their impromptu production was not a big hit.
One by one, they were led to the guillotine.
But as the fifth person's head was summarily chopped off, Julia's vision began to blur and distort.
She disappeared from the spot under the watchful eyes of one particular Throskart.
Her field of view changed.
The stage was no longer before her eyes.
What replaced it was a guillotine.
A killing machine that loomed larger now that it was barely 2 meters in front of Julia's face.
Her legs involuntarily carried her towards the giant machine.
Her heartbeat raced through her chest like a car on the autobahn.
Julia's blood pumped furiously as she grilled her brain for answers. And she needed them fast.
How was this possible?
Was she really about to be executed?
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