The Crash Out - Dead Logic

The giant scoreboard flickered above their head. On the display, it was showing congratulations to team Omega For a second, no one dared breathe. They didn't understand what happened. It was clear they dropped the metallic ball yet still.

Team Delta with Delta, Theta, Gamma and Row stood there watching the screen, wondering that it might change which it didn't. There shoulders were heavy with exhaustion. they had fought with the tower for nearly 3 days. Their body was broke down. They just wanted to see their name on the screen.

1st Place: Team Omega.

2nd Place: Team Delta

3rd Place: Team Alpha

4th Place: Team Zeta

Delta froze first, her brain struggling to translate what she was seeing into sense. "No," she muttered. "No… we beat Epsilon. We beat the trial. This isn't right."

Gamma's reaction was sharper. He slammed his fist into the nearest wall with a hollow bang, the sound echoed in the room. "Senpai!" His voice was dead serious. "Come out! I know you're here. Stop hiding!"

The silence cracked. From the far corner, four well known figures emerged like predators from cover.

Omega's leader, Epsilon, stepped forward first, wearing a smile so calm it was infuriating. His teammates followed behind, just as composed, just as unruffled. None of them looked half as drained as Delta's team. Their uniforms were clean, their posture was smooth, their eyes didn't show any bloodshot with exhaustion.

Delta's voice was trembling with rage as she took a step forward. "Explain to me! How the hell are you in first place? We never even saw you on half the floors!"

Epsilon raised a wrist lazily, as if he was introducing them to an old friend. The slim black band of the participant's watch glowed under the dim lights.

"You forgot about this," he said, tapping the glass.

Delta's eyes narrowed. "…The point counter."

Epsilon nodded, spinning the band around his wrist in. playfulness. "You treated it like a scoreboard. A thing you only watched. But it's not just for point tracking. Points aren't tied to how high you climb in the tower—they're tied to the games completed. Doesn't matter if you go up or down. Complete a game and get points."

Theta blinked in shock, "Wait, so you're saying—"

"We farmed them," Epsilon cut in, the grin widening. "Every time we cleared a floor, we went back down and played it again. And again. Why risk harder games when you can replay ones you've already mastered?"

Delta's brain was already tracing through the rule briefings. Each completed game awards points. Repeated plays discouraged. No explicit ban. She clenched her fist.

"The mentors wouldn't allow that forever... right?," she said with a hesitation.

"They didn't," Epsilon agreed. "Once-per-floor rule kicked in eventually. So we went for the big one—Floor 20."

Epsilon's voice shifted to storytelling, savoring every syllable.

"Floor 20 split us into four hallways. Each was sealed with a series of doors, walls made from different materials—cardboard, metal, wood, and, I kid you not, blanket."

"Blanket?" Delta said in disbelief.

"Yes. Blanket," Epsilon said with mock sharpness. "Laugh if you want. It was harder than it sounds. We each got a single item, a fishing rod, a magnet, a spool of wire, and a wrench. The trick? The keys we needed weren't in our own hallways. They were visible in other people's corridors through gaps or cracks.

"So we had to work together. The magnet dragged keys across metal sheets. The fishing rod hooked them through the cardboard gaps. The wrench? For dismantling wooden door hinges when we got the right keys. The blanket wall… that was the nightmare. We had to thread the wire through without tearing the fabric. If we tore it, it would be a automatic failure."

Gamma gave a low whistle. "So… basically a coordination hell."

"Exactly." Epsilon's grin returned. "We cleared it. First clear two hundred points. And it let us repeat the trial twice for half points each. Four hundred points total. Enough to buy something most of you didn't even notice existed."

Epsilon stepped aside. His team followed him and stopped at a point.

A pair of metal doors stood behind them, polished to a soft glow in the dim light. It was an elevator.

Delta's voice cracked. "…No. That's—"

"A shortcut to the finish," Epsilon said simply. "Four hundred points for four people. No need to risk the top floors. We walked right past you all. Also the remaining points were used on buying foods from a booth on the 13th floor."

But Delta… Delta's knees hit the floor. She had fought and nearly died for this run. All that effort, all that risk, just to watch someone else steal the victory with a loophole.

Omega's eyes locked on her. "I expected better from you."

That single sentence landed like a blade to the ribs. The game ended. The lifts unlocked. One by one, teams exited the tower and stepped onto the island's beach. The color of the sky was pale grey, the ocean waves almost mocking in their calmness.

The students' faces were hollow. Alpha looked barely human—skin stretched thin over bone, eyes sunken. He looked like a walking corpse.

The instructors stood waiting. The head instructor stepped forward. "First—Beta was found unconscious. She will not be returning for at least several weeks."

A ripple of murmurs passed through the students.

"And now… the winners. Team Omega."

The crowd's reaction was muted—some sighs, some bitter glares, a few empty claps. Most just looked away.

Omega was called forward. All four of them walked up without hesitation. The instructor asked, "What prize you want?"

One asked for a bigger room. Another for better meals.

Omega smiled faintly. "A monitor and a floor carpet."

The instructor stared at him. "How many monitors do you need? I've lost count of how many times you've asked!"

"Please, sir. We won the tower test. At least do this." Omega requested.

"Fine. But you'll get it after we return."

They boarded the cruise ship back to the facility. This time, there were no chatter, just silence crawling in the cruise.

Halfway into the trip, a thin hiss filled the hall. The gas spread fast. No one had time to react. Darkness took them all. It was a sleeping gas.

Delta woke to the familiar sterile scent of the facility's dorm wing. The nightmare of the tower was already fading into a cruel memory.

Meanwhile, Omega returned to his quarters.

It looked nothing like a standard facility dorm. The first thing anyone would notice—monitors. Left, right, above, below—every wall plastered with screens. This new one made it twenty.

On the floor—Rubik's cubes of every shape and size, arranged perfectly like a giant Tetris board. His new prize was a pristine white carpet, laid seamlessly across the cube floor.

He crouched, pulled a compact CPU from under his bed, and began connecting it to the screens. One by one, they came alive—broadcasting different things. A football match. A baseball game. A chessboard mid-match. The Olympics. A documentary. A dozen other streams.

He sat cross-legged, picked up a 5x5 mirror cube, and began solving it. His eyes scanned all twenty monitors simultaneously.

In his head: Baseball—predict the pitch. Football—goal incoming in twenty seconds. Chess—bishop to c4.

His hands never stopped turning the cube. His breathing was steady.

"I need more monitors," he thought.

"This is all part of my training. I have to overcome it. No matter what."

He was multitasking at a level no one else could imagine—tracking twenty different threads of thought while his hands solved the cube as if on autopilot.

For him, the game was far from victory.

For everyone else… the war was far from over.

Gamma and Theta went straight to the mentors. "We need to talk. That tower game, it was dangerous. Delta could've been killed."

---

The mentor frowned. "There was no death game in that tower. All games were safe."

"Safe?" Theta shot back. "We were given a challenge by a black-suited instructor who—"

"Impossible," the mentor interrupted. "All instructors wear navy blue suits. It's a rule here."

"The mentor's telling the truth," Gamma said in his head quietly from behind them.

"So if he wasn't an instructor… who was he? And why give us a game that could have killed us?" Gamma thought.

The question hung in the air. No one had an answer.

Chapter 26 - The Crash Out