Kapitel 9: Special Game (3)

"Pang..."

Time seemed to slow down as my dagger lightly touched the t-rex's weapon.

As space itself rippled around the point of impact, it eventually ripped, and for a single second, a bright, blinding light flashed.

The next second, and the dinosaur looking monster was down for the count, pieces of its minced bone and flesh flying into unlucky competitors' holding cages.

'Welp, that's that.'

Grabbing Maschenny by the hand, I dragged her like a sack of potatoes back into our holding cage.

"Congrats on passing the special game! We will now be transferring you to your dorms." Said a private announcement in our own cage.

'Ah, so we go there immediately... But why aren't we taken to sign the contract with the guardian of this floor and get our floor positions?'

My questions were left unanswered as a column of blue light descended on everyone here.

~~~

I awoke on top of a rigid bed in a dark room.

Immediately checking if my clothes were still on, I breathed a sigh of relief after realizing that my ass didn't hurt.

'Thank god I wasn't violated... Wait, why am I even afraid of being violated in the first place?'

Not knowing why my first thought after waking up in a bed was to figure out if I had been violated or not, I quickly moved to check the time and date on my pocket.

'So only a day has passed, meaning I either missed everything, or the manhwa had just time skipped a few days before the role announcement scene.'

I mean, I was pretty freaking excited to find out what position I was going to get.

Ideally, I would've licked to get either fisherman or wave controller, but I felt that I could probably slot into any of the other positions and I'd still be fine in the end.

Getting up and remembering that I was wearing like 3 day old clothes, I took them off and put on the pair of clothes that the testers had nicely provided to me.

They were just play gray clothes, almost looking like a prison jumpsuit.

Thankfully though, the fabric was really nice, and I honestly entertained the idea of keeping these and turning them into my pajamas for my journey up the tower.

Anyways, I stopped myself from going any further down the clothes rabbit hole and I left my room.

Walking down the one way hall, I was soon greeted by the sight of the cafeteria.

And, what do you know, it was for some reason, empty?

I had thought that the others would've been back by now, but it seemed like A) There was an extra test that they had to finish, or B) They had been transported back to their dorms too and hadn't found the strength to wake up yet.

Of course, these conjectures were running on the assumption that the testers had not, for some reason, neglected to give me and Maschenny our positions.

Walking up to the chef and finding that it was the same octopus dude from the manhwa, I smiled.

Well, I always had a smile on my face, but this time, my soul was smiling too.

'Finally, something familiar to the manhwa.'

Ordering a basic breakfast set, I quickly got my food and sat down at a table next to the window, so that I could watch the dark landscape illuminated by only the light of the stars outside as I ate.

'This world truly does hold an inherent beauty to it...'

Sure, floors could be grotesque and deadly, yet all of it created a sense of balance that the shinsu that surrounded everything helped perpetuate.

After finishing my meal, I placed the tray on a cleaning rack and started walking down a different hall when I suddenly ran into someone.

'So Miss I Got My Ass Kicked By A Dinosaur had made her appearance.'

Judging by how there was an ahoge sticking out from her hair, meaning she had just woken up and had neglected to do her hair, I could almost confidently state that this other hallway lead to the girls dorms, and so I quickly stopped myself in my tracks.

To be fair, my pocket had told me that it was 4 in the morning, so I guessed that she hadn't expected to find anyone else awake at this time.

And, as if she was trying to save myself from my awkwardness, she pointed down the third and final hallway branching from the cafeteria and said,

"Outside access is that way."

With no more words, she turned away from me and headed towards the chef.

'Hey, at least she knows that she's indebted to me.'

"Thank you, Madam, for your much needed assistance." I calmly spoke, as her she just continued walking, although we both knew that she heard that.

Now knowing where I was going, I quickly walked down the hallway to the outside access doors.

'Finally...'

Finding myself outside on a balcony, I breathed in deeply, inhaling the fresh, almost naturally wild wind of this floor.

The breeze almost had a magical effect on my body as my hair swayed ever so slightly, as my eyes greedily devoured the pristine fields of grain that we were floating by.

This fake sense of freedom and tranquil emptiness possessed me for a second, and herein, at this singular point in time, I finally realized my goal in climbing this tower.

I was climbing not to learn a truth, not to tower over all others, not to fulfill a dream of mine.

No...

I was climbing the tower to experience that freedom that I had felt in my past life again.

The tower was inherently a mechanism that limited.

The guardians limited our shinsu, the great factions of the tower limited what actions I could take, and the structure of the tower itself trapped those that it deemed unworthy for the rest of their lives.

So, herein, I remembered, I remembered the feeling of freedom that I had felt in my old world.

Maybe, one day, I could return back to my old world and live a life free of worries.

It definitely wasn't because I had been indoctrinated as a child to believe in the power of liberty and the red blood that flowed through my veins as a freedom loving American...

Yea... definitely not.

~~~

"Congratulations to all of you who have passed to the last round of testing! As you might know, we will now be assigning your positions!"

Apparently, they were doing things a lot differently in the past, as they had separated the elimination and role-giving dates.

I basically ended up just blanking out during the part where they explained each team position to the newbies and was lost in my own headspace until I heard the positions starting to be announced.

"Joo Shiyoon! You will now train as a..."

---

A/N: I know it was unnecessary, but I just had to put that cliffhanger at the end, reader retention and all that shit y'know?

Also, sorry for missing the Friday upload, I was just too sleepy and slept from 5 pm to 7 am Saturday lol. Then, I designated Saturday as "Me" day and just watched Netflix and Youtube all day after coming back from archery practice.