2

  Into The Arena

  The spawning area was not a pleasant countryside in Scotland. I was not standing on a designated platform, with random people to my left and right waiting to butcher me as soon as a cannon fired.

  I was also not aboard a plane, where an npc would adjust my straps before telling me to go join the warzone.

  It was so much worse.

  When the blinding white light disappeared and I was able to see once again, I found myself standing in front of an elementary school classroom. Not only was I to be a substitute teacher, but I was to be a violent one, seeing how my fists were both held up in a fighters ready stance.

  I was not the only one ready to show these kids what was up.

  Standing in the corner of the room was a shameless man wearing nothing but polka dot boxers. I was about to call the man out, when I felt the chill on my own legs, finding out that I too was shameless. He had a small floating diamond hovering above him, and upon focusing on it, I was able to read his profile:

  Earth’s Greatest Penguin Flipper

  Rank: 999999~

  ??0

  There were several things I wanted to ask him regarding his choice of profession. Taking my eyes off him and looking towards the source of his horrified expression, however, I decided any questions would have to wait. I paled.

  Filling the seats of all the neatly arranged little desks were not exactly children. They must have been no older than six or seven, hands politely folded neatly together in front of them. Their necks were bent a perfect ninety degrees in a manner that made me loosen up my own neck in unease.

  “What the hell, what the he-” Penguin Flipper guy yelled out, frantically backing away and desperately looking for anything to grab onto. One of his hands found a case of crayons, sending its contents rolling all over the floor.

  Confused by his reaction, I watched as the last of the crayon to roll out made a clanking sound against one of the desks, causing the eyes of every child in the room to track it from the corner of their eyes. Continuing to roll to another of the students desks, it changed trajectory and eventually came to a still when finding my right bare foot.

  A moment of silence.

  Then, every pair of eyes looked up at me.

  Fuck.

  Monster: Timmy

  HP: 1

  Damage: 1,000,000

  The sound that escaped my mouth when their necks turned towards me in unison was not among my proudest moments. Looking at the Timmy nearest to me, it became apparent very quickly that these were not regular children. Instead of innocent eyes, the smallest orbs of dark replaced their pupils-making their oversized whites look like that of a mannequin doll. Each one of them wore those ridiculous colorful caps with a mini propeller glued on top of them, the kind you would see in one of those absurd toddler commercials. Most troublesome, however, was the way they permanently smiled.. Dimples unnaturally enlarged, it gave the boy the appearance of smiling from one ear to the other.

  When the school buzzer went off, all hell broke loose.

  I punched the first little bastard that jumped at me mid-air, sending him sprawling all the way to the back of the room before dissolving into a gray dust like substance on impact. The system must have a thing for over-exaggerated ragdoll physics, because I found myself strangely satisfied with my punch. Give whoever wrote the code for that a serious raise.

  The other children, having just seen their classmate get physically assaulted by their violent substitute teacher, scrambled out of their seats immediately after to avenge their fallen comrade. A notable number closest to Penguin Flipper decided to go for him instead, but I was in no position to worry about anyone else at that moment.

  Frantically sidestepping whenever a kid came close and following up with more assault charges, I noticed a pattern in their attack behavior. While their damage was absurdly high and would no doubt kill me in a single swipe, their attack speed was extremely slow; once they were within range of me, they would be in a fixed position as they prepared to swipe at me. The movement was similar to that of a pitcher, and as long as I stepped out of the way, they would simply find air.

  Then a fist from their teacher.

  “Get out of range once they come close enough to start their attack animation!” I shouted, but when the amount of Timmy I was beating the shit out of drastically reduced in size, a knot formed in my stomach.

  Sparing a glance to the corner of the room where Penguin Flipper was just moments ago, an anthill of Timmy savagely were desperately attempting to claw past each other in their attempt to get some of the prize. The sound of aggressive chewing noises coming from most of them was reason enough to convince me my teaching career was just not meant to be.

  Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.

  I bolted for the door, closing the door shut behind me.

  “Alright,” I whispered to myself, “I’m alright.”

  I was not alright. Hands still trembling on the door lock, I finally sank to my knees when the Timmy didn’t bother pursuing. I had barely made it out alive of the spawning area, and watched another person die in quite possibly the worst way imaginable. There was of course no point in mourning another person's elimination, since the strongest growing point of the game was to beat each other. If this game we were playing followed similar game mechanics, a set of rules like any video game in existence, it was very likely that Penguin Flipper didn’t just..die?

  Maybe he would join the redcoat and the astronaut in the white rooms, an enormous flat screen tv playing out his killcam.

  Respawns? Spectators?

  Getting back on my feet, I made for a large entrance door to my right that would hopefully take me out of the building. Before I could take more than a few steps, however, I stopped.

  I turned around.

  While there was no door at the other end of the hall, a strange shimmering pulse-like sound was just audible enough for me to pick up. I walked slowly towards the source, my fists again raised and strangely locking into what I assumed was the designated melee stance.

  Call me a pessimist, but I do not want to fight out what happened to Penguin Flipper just yet.

  What started off as a rectangular orange light outlining the ground as I got nearer transformed into the most gorgeous, antique looking modern chest I had ever seen. The orange light running up from the ground enveloped the chest, becoming even brighter the higher it went, mixing with the shining white alien hieroglyphs that appeared on the front between a lock demanding a key to open.

  Hovering my hand over the lock and feeling it unlock to my presence, several things happened then.

  First, I was almost certain that I had just fried every part of my brain’s dopamine release system. A pinata-like eruption escaped the chest, several shimmering objects with different colors of what I assumed was to represent rarity fell all around me, with one of them even landing where I stood. I marveled at the sudden feeling of warmth from my waist down to the knees, seeing a pair of bright pink swimming shorts that I would absolutely not wear at a public pool.

  Cosmetic: Pink Swimming Shorts(Epic)

  - +25% movement speed

  - Tracer Effect: Pink pulse shockwaves that sense PvE enemies within 10m.

  The tracer effect worked just as described, sending out clearly visible pink waves from my waist that faded the further they reached for. More disturbing, however, was the fact that they clearly outlined multiple of the Timmy sitting in the classroom closest to me.

  Noting that the loot appeared in an orange light representing the epic tier, I made my way to the other two epics lying near. The loot system worked like any other battle royale fps shooter I’d played, instantly equipping anything I walked over so long as I had the required inventory space.

  Consumable: Fiery Shuriken(Epic) x10

  - Throwing projectile that deals instant 200 damage on impact

  Consumable: Healing Salvation(Epic) x1

  - Fully restores health and shields over 30 seconds. Taking any damage throughout this process will cancel any further healing.

  While the earlier cosmetic equipped itself and had a pretty straight forward movement speed buff, pulling out one of the new consumables was a bit more interesting.

  Imagine that one jacket pocket you always pull your car keys out from, or know just far in your pants pocket your hand has to dig in to pull out the phone. What should have taken years of muscle memory instead turned into instant knowledge the moment I acquired the items.

  I summoned one of the Fiery Shuriken first, reaching for a pocket of space just to my left waist-making absolutely no sense, yet the action felt totally natural to me.

  I’ve never seen a ninja star in person before, but the star comfortably held between my fingers felt true enough to what would have been original. The material that it was made of, however, could not have been any more different. Instead of ordinary steel, the star was made of a reflective silver with its sharpened edges having a permanent fire effect. In simple terms, the most shiny heavy weight silver material that's edges never finished cooling down. There was also a temporary trajectory line that showed my aiming potential. Within 30 feet, the line was solid indicating the aim would hit true. Beyond that, however, the line broke off abruptly and there was no way to perfectly predict the accuracy let alone the objects drop off when thrown at further distances.

  Would a higher tier projectile have better aim? Damage?

  Could the highest tier version of a projectile have some kind of guaranteed lock-on system?

  Retrievable?

  I was about to summon the healing salve next when I hesitated . I still had no idea how the life or hitpoints regeneration here worked, and remembered the Immortality difficulty that the system spawned us into.

  Shouldn’t expect any regeneration at all.

  Deciding not to risk accidentally using something that could end up being incredibly valuable, instead went over to the most shiny, shimmering purple and white light, present yet.

  Weapon: Claws Of Contempt(Legendary)

  - +60 Damage

  - Normal attacks deal 10% splash damage to nearby enemies

  There was something strangely satisfying in manually equipping the first of the two obsidian black claws. Maybe it was because it looked and felt more expensive than all of my clothing combined back on earth. Or, instead, it was because I had to murder half a classroom of demonic mannequin children to earn it. There was a thick winter-glove pouch for the hand to comfortably slip in, the fit feeling like it had been made for me alone. It was when my hand fully dug in, however, that the claw showed its true life.

  The obsidian black continued to further expand up my hand, looping itself in rings all the way up my elbow. While I would do absolutely everything possible to avoid taking a direct hit, there was a sense of comfort in seeing my body in some kind of armor. Comfortable, custom fit armor that almost looked as good as it felt. “Expected a bit more from the claws, tho-”

  Fitting on the other claw, my complaint was interrupted abruptly by what sounded like 6 lightsabers coming to life as the three blades of each claw extended, carrying with them a permanent pink laser.

  [Damage 21>86]

  “Oh my god,” I whispered dumbstruck to myself, staring between the two claws. A temporary green system text appeared before me the moment they had fully taken form, notifying me of the incredible additional damage.

  More than pleased from the overall loot, an idea came to mind as I looked not towards the entrance door, but instead the classroom that I had just cowered away from.

  Claw lightsabers with splash damage.

  Classrooms of children.

  Many classrooms of children.