บท 65: Battle Royal P1

"For the second round, each of you will enter the simulation pod and get transported to the virtual world.

"In here, you're able to let loose and fight to the best of your abilities. Everyone will start with no weapons and no armour, the key is to find them scattered throughout the map. There are 200 players in each match and only the top 10 will advance into the next round.

"Please note, MP and HP will not be regenerated in this match. You'll have to find the potions laying around and recover your HP and MP that way.

"During the match, you'll be able to scour the map to discover items, weapons and armour to give that extra boost in the match.

"As for your character, you'll only be allowed 1 tier magic for the mages and 3 skills for the warriors. Both the warriors and the mages will be randomised for this stage. Mages will have 50k HP and 75k MP while the warriors will have 75k HP and 50k MP. Other physical traits will be similar to your real-life counterparts except for stamina. Everyone will have the same stamina.

"With that all said! Please enter your pods and we'll begin the second round shortly!" The commentator shouted out as Shiro did just that.

Entering the pod, Shiro used her nanobots to hack into the system once more and change the system recordings of her status.

Picking Tier 2 Ice magic as her skill, Shiro felt her vision shift.

[Shiro – Ice Mage - LVL 34]

[HP: 50,000/50,000]

[MP: 75,000/75,000]

Her status could be seen under her peripherals and the map was in the top right corner.

Pressing the map, Shiro was surprised at how big it was.

The map itself was primarily constructed of 5 islands with the 5th island in the centre.

The first island was designed as a ruined city. The second, a rural village. The third island was the desert and the final island was the forest and mountain range.

As for the centre island, they couldn't see anything since it had a huge 'UNKNOWN' above the area.

'Seems like it'll reveal itself in due time.' Shiro thought.

Looking around the starting area, Shiro could see it only being composed of level 50's and a few stray level 40's. However, these level 40's all range from level 45 onwards.

She was the only odd one out with her level 34.

"Very soon, all of you will be teleported into the air at the four different islands. Each island will have 50 fighters. And over time, a ring will slowly close in onto the centre island. The more people there are, the more crowded the centre becomes. And if you try to enter the centre island at the start, there are turrets there to eliminate you.

"The centre will only open when the ring covers the majority of the four islands.

"And without further ado, LET THE SECOND ROUND START!!!" The commentator shouted out a light engulfed the entire starting area.

Shiro shielded her eyes as she felt the wind hit against her.

Opening her eyes, she saw that she was currently freefalling above the city.

Narrowing her eyes, she scanned the people around her.

Most of the were struggling for a moment to reorientation themselves.

Shiro ignored them and turned her attention to the city. Most of the buildings here were either skyscrapers or large stadiums.

Thinking for a moment, Shiro focused her attention on the skyscraper.

The skyscraper would be the best choice for her due to the fact that she'll be able to take advantage of the narrow corridors and set down traps for her enemies. In addition to this, she should be able to find a few items in the first aid area.

Flipping her body in mid-air, Shiro made her body streamlined and shot towards the skyscraper at incredible speeds.

Since her control of the body was high, she was able to control her glide towards the skyscraper with near maximum efficiency and speed.

*BOOMM!!!!!!

Shiro suddenly heard the sound of combat behind her and turned her head.

Elemental attacks littered the skies as they wanted to eliminate their competitors as soon as possible.

'Seems like they ignored me because I'm a low level. They think someone else will kill me sooner or later and rather than wasting MP on me, they wanted to kill the other level 50's first.' Shiro thought, analysing the current situation.

'This works perfectly for me.' She grinned while quickly approaching the roof of a skyscraper.

A strange feeling overcame her as her body landed softly on the roof.

'Seems like a mechanism to make sure no one died on impact. Though I suppose this does save me some MP I can use later.' Shiro thought. Her initial plan was to use her tier 2 ice magic to create a ramp to slow down her landing.

Not stalling for a second longer, she dashed through the door and dropped down to the top floor.

Looking around, Shiro saw a few weapons and armour lying around.

'White grade sword, white grade chest plate and white grade boots.' Shiro thought as she equipped the equipment.

Holding the sword near her waist, she jogged through the floor to find a map of the skyscraper.

'Currently, I'm on the 50th floor. Floors 1 to 20 are for visitors. 21 to 45 are the main offices and floors 46 to 50 are the offices of the big bosses.' Shiro thought, looking at the panel near the elevator.

'There isn't a –'

*BOOOMMMMM!!!!!

Her thoughts were cut off when she felt the skyscraper shake from a nearby explosion.

Jogging to the windows, Shiro peaked towards the source.

She could see two mages battling it out in the streets, each attack of theirs rocked the surroundings.

'I need to get all I can before evacuating this skyscraper.' She thought since she wouldn't be able to survive if the skyscraper collapsed on her.

Quickly dashing through the floor, Shiro picked up anything she could use and discarded anything she couldn't.

Generally, the start of a battle royal like this would consist of gathering items before actually fighting. Very few would fight unless they set their eyes on the same equipment.

Panting for a moment, Shiro frowned at the fact that her 'stamina' wasn't transferred over.

'Seems like I can't use my martial arts too often.' Shiro thought since the Yin Style Phantom Art's was heavily taxing on a person's stamina. She was only able to use it often due to her monstrous stamina.

However, in this round where everyone basically had the same stat's as their real-life counterpart, she had lost her advantage of monstrous stamina.

Without her advantage of the Yin Style Phantom Arts, the upcoming fights will become much harder.

Currently, she had an item called the 'backpack'. It acted like an inventory and allowed her to store her weapons inside.

Unfortunately, it was just a white backpack so she could only store a maximum of 4 items inside. Though it still helped since she didn't have to carry her weapons around manually.

Her current arsenal included a green sword, a green bow, 20 arrows and a white spear.

Sneaking a glance through the gaps on the wall, Shiro saw that the fight was coming to a close.

Converging the fire into a flaming hammer, the attack slammed it into the ground causing tens of pillars of fire to erupt from the ground.

*BOOOMM!!!!

Shiro stumbled slightly since the skyscraper was also affected.

Peaking at them again, Shiro saw the defender get reduced to ashes.

However, before the attacker could celebrate his victory, Shiro saw a streak of yellow.

*BOOM!!!

A lightning streak smashed through the attacker's chest as he too was eliminated.

'A sniper!' Shiro thought as she peeked towards the source. Roughly 500 meters away, she could see the residue sparks left behind by the shot of lightning.

Narrowing her eyes, she frowned when she couldn't make out the sniper's figure.

'To be able to attack the duo from that far away, he must have either great eyesight or predictive abilities.' Shiro thought as she suddenly had a feeling of danger.

Abandoning all thoughts of cover, Shiro jumped out the windows with her arms shielding her face from the glass.

Free falling, Shiro swiped her arm upwards and made an ice ramp.

*BOOM!!!!!

A lightning shot pierced her previous location and made a clean hole through the building.

Cold sweat would have appeared if this wasn't in a simulation.

Flicking her wrist, she made a few odd turns and loops to throw off the sniper's aim.

*BOOM!!!!

The bullet missed her as the force pushed Shiro off her ramp.

'Crap!' Shiro thought.

Quickly swiping left, another ramp appeared and softened her landing.

Landing back on the ground, Shiro crouched low and dashed towards a heavily crowded area. This was so that the sniper would have a much harder time predicting her position.

Sliding into some cover, Shiro panted heavily.

'Annoying.' She thought.

Normally, she would welcome a long-ranged fight since she'll have her arsenal of rail guns, nanotech snipers, nanotech bows and the such. However, right now her crappy green bow will never be able to reach the distance of 500 meters.

Meanwhile, the sniper was frowning at the fact that he missed both shots.

"Tch, her instincts are on point." He muttered, removing his binoculars.

When he dropped into the city, the first thing he searched for was something to accommodate his long-ranged fight style. Thankfully, he managed to find a pair of binoculars, graded blue, in the store nearby.

"When did we get someone with such an acute sense of danger." His shots were almost always 100% accurate and very rarely would he miss. This was because he made sure to go for shots he knew would hit.

Yet, Shiro managed to dodge both shots he thought would hit.

Looking through his binoculars, he decided to give up on her since she's had already entered a hard to hit area.

He drank an MP potion while he made a mental note about her appearance.

###

Peaking out of her cover, Shiro no longer had the feeling of danger that was there before. Sighing in relief, she continued her path through the buildings.

Her location was north-west of the entire map. Sighing at the fact that she was about as far away from the centre as she could get, Shiro looked for a Hospital to try her luck for items. While the previous stunt didn't take too much from her MP, she would only feel at ease with it full.

However, since it was a hospital, Shiro knew that there was a huge chance of encountering someone.

Keeping a bow in hand, Shiro nocked an arrow so she would always be ready to fire the bow.

Sneaking through the alleys, she kept an eye on both the player count along with the surroundings. Occasionally, she would see a random mage's magic spark in the distance, telling her of their position.

Shiro could only shake her head at these people. With such flashy magic, they're basically crying out 'hey! I'm here! Kill me please!'.

It was especially bad due to the fact that this was a battle royal. Without the limitation of holding back, they can easily use their best skills and end people.

Approaching the hospital, Shiro only frowned when she saw the shadow of a person in one of the windows.

Narrowing her eyes, Shiro contemplated whether or not she should enter the building.

'If I keep my tracks quiet, I should be able to sneak past him with ease. But then again, he might have robbed all of the items…' Shiro thought for a second before settling with setting a trap to kill them as soon as she could. This was the fastest way to eliminate her peers that were levels above her.

Naturally, this wasn't without risks. She had to make sure her trap guaranteed the kill no matter how overpowered it might be. Because if not, she would be out of the round.

After all, if you're dead, you can't use any of the MP you tried to save for the late game.

Sneaking near the entrance of the Hospital, Shiro narrowed her eyes and estimated the probability of him exiting by the front door.

'Open area, not much cover, great for snipers. My best bet would be the back door where he will most likely exit.' Shiro thought and circled around. Just as she predicted, she saw hints of his shadow walking away from the front door.

Crouching down, she pressed her palms down and created a magic circle. The circle flashed for a moment before fading away.

The door, the floor, next to the lights, drainage, the stairs and the rails. She placed traps in as many directions as she could to guarantee her the kill. Jumping up nimbly from extrusions, she landed on the window ledge and looked down.

Taking a deep breath, she tried to recover a little of her stamina. She pulled out her bow and looked towards the entrance.

Nocking the arrow, she held her breath and waited for the perfect moment.

Her ears twitched when she heard echoing footsteps.

Pulling back the arrow, Shiro focused her concentration to 120% since she only had 1 chance to kill him in one shot.