Chapter 2: Art of Deceiving
The voice spoke out, "Your answer to the riddle is... correct" A sharp sigh of relief escaped me, I quickly wiped the sweats off my face.
"Hope, the one thing that gave us reason and meaning to continue our journey in this tower, and the only thing we received and gave others for free, it truly fits the description"
While I was catching my breath, the voice echoed out again, "The second game is now over. Out of the 18 players, 10 passed. All the players that failed, will now be eliminated"
"...BOOM!"
"The third game will now begin"
The door in front of me opened, and I entered.
As I walked into the third room, all I could think about was the safety of my guildmates, "Only 10 members are left. I don't want to say this, but it's impossible for all 6 of my guildmates to survive. Sinclair and Finral should be fine, but Kakashi and the others are not too bright when it comes to riddles...Tch, is there nothing I can do?"
"CLING!!" A bell rangs out. Suddenly, the room started shaking violently, and dusts started enveloping the room. The smoke blurred my vision, "Cough! what the hell is happening?"
I covered my face with my arm, and stepped backward towards the wall slowly and steadily.
Then, amidst the chaos, I realised something, I realised that the room had expanded, it was now bigger than what it was before. I knew this because my backward steps were now more than my forwards steps before.
..."Fwooosh!" A breeze went through me, and along with it the shaking stopped. As I looked around, I saw something tragic, a painful sight no empathic person could bear
"P-Please" A voice called out, before me was two women kneeling in the left and right corner of the room, crying as they held their child in their arms.
[3rd Game: Judgement of Life]
"For the third game, you must fulfill the wish of one of the two mother. You have one minute to make your decision" The voice announced
The woman on the right corner spoke out to me, "Please, I-I can't do this anymore, just kill us. If I die, my baby will suffer even more, please just end our suffering" She cried out, begging me to take their lives.
From the left corner, the other woman cried out, "Please kill me, I-I can't do this anymore, but spare my little baby, she does not deserve to die here" tears fell down her cheeks, she hugged her child closely, not wanting to let go
The choice was killing a mother and her child, or killing a mother and spare her child. One asked to be eliminated along with her baby, because she does not see hope. And the other asked me to spare her child, clinging to the hope that a better life may come for her baby.
"The answer is obvious" I muttered as I stood there with my eyes closed
The timer kept ticking, going lower and lower.
Midway through the game, I heard multiple explosions, people eliminated for making the wrong decision. But I just stood there, as the clock ran down
5...4...3...2...1...
The system announced, "Time's up... You passed"
I sighed, "Just as I thought. This tower and its game had always been about choice and it's freedom, and no player has the right to judge the fate of others, so not making a decision was the right decision"
Both women disappeared into thin air, and the stone door opened before me
I walked inside the next room. And this time, it was different.
"Tonjo!" She called out to me as she ran, it was Sinclair.
"Sinclair? are you alright?" She hugged me tightly, I could tell she was afraid and needed someone to comfort her
"It's alright, we are together now. You managed to pass all the games, you have done a good job Sinclair.
We have to continue, we have to win this next game for Finral and the others. let's win it for them"
I looked around and saw three other players coming out from their room—All with a gloomy look on their face. The room was now built in a circle, way larger than the previous rooms.
The voice echoed out, "The finale game will now begin"
[Final Game: Art of Deceiving]
The system started explaining the rules, "For this game, all 5 players will be given 5 cards each. There are A,B,C,D and E cards, numbering 4 each, there is also a card with the symbol Φ on it, they are called blank cards—In total there are 20 letter cards and 5 blank cards.
You will be given one blank card and 4 random letter cards. Your goal is to obtain 3 identical letter cards within 4 rounds that lasts 5 minutes each
Any player with 3 blank cards in their deck will be eliminated, any player that failed to obtain 3 identical letter cards when the fourth round ended will be eliminated, and any player resorting to violence, or showing their cards deliberately to others will be eliminated"
"Hmm, communication will play a major role in this game. Except for Sinclair, I don't know any of the other three players, so relying on them to co-operate unconditionally is a gamble.
Violence is prohibited so that's a good thing for Sinclair, but the problem is that we can't show our cards to others—That makes it even harder to co-operate with the others as we can't know if they're lying or not"
The voice emerged again, continuing explaining the rules, "Players can trade once every round, you can either deny a trade request, or accept a trade request. And remember, only three players will survive this game, the elimination of two players is absolute"
The moment the voice finished explaining the rules, I looked around, glancing at the eyes of the others. There was only one thing that came to mind—malice. The room screamed every man for himself. It was clear that the game had become a game of survival of the fittest.
End of Chapter 2.