บท 52: THE TEST
In a barren landscape strewn with ruined buildings and debris, three recognizable figures could be seen tiredly walking forward.
These were the three students who had been briefly teamed up with Stare earlier.
"I wonder when we'll encounter other students or any signs of life at all... We've been walking for so long, and all we come across are these deserted and demolished buildings."
"No activation of the fief yet, and no clues about the nature of the test. There are no attractive girls to play hero to, and I'm getting really hungry and extremely fatigued from all this walking. I can barely move my legs anymore."
The blue-haired student, Dominic, complained as he wearily dragged himself to keep up with his two companions, who weren't walking much faster.
"I'm just as tired as you are and hungry too. I mean, aren't the Withsworths supposed to be smarter? How could someone from their family come up with something as insane as making the participants in the VR feel hunger?" The brown-haired Mayo complained as well, his movements just as sluggish and dragged as the others.
"Is it just me, or is it getting dimmer?" The buzz-cut student, Bama, said in a tired tone, with one of his hands pointing at the sky.
The other two students also instinctively looked toward the sky and noticed the sun setting. Their expressions immediately became more somber.
"Can this get any worse?" Dominic muttered in an exasperated tone before helplessly falling to the floor on his butt.
"I think we should find shelter. It won't be safe out here if it gets completely dark," Bama's voice could be heard amid the breakdown of the two, realizing that it was getting dimmer. From their lack of response to Bama's suggestion, it was evident they didn't have a better plan for their current situation, or any plan at all, for that matter.
While the group grappled with the sudden turn of events, their attention was drawn to the sounds of approaching footsteps.
Somehow, the desolate nature of the place heightened the sound of the footsteps, making it feel more threatening.
The three's attention remained locked in the direction of the footsteps as they seemed to get closer and closer.
With each footstep, the anticipation and tension heightened. After walking for hours, this was the first sign of life nearby. However, they couldn't determine whether this new presence would be good or bad, especially as it was getting dark. They remained on high alert.
Mayo, still keeping his eyes on the source of the sound, had already picked up a nearby rod, gripping it firmly. Bama, visibly shaken, moved behind the other two students, his eyes also fixed on the direction of the approaching footsteps.
After minutes of building tension among the three, they finally identified the source of the footsteps.
To their surprise, it wasn't a student or a beast as they had assumed; it was a rat.
The rat was unusually large, about the size of a cat, but other than its surprising size, there was nothing extraordinary about it.
"Great, we got riled up by some fuckin rat. I just keep finding more reasons to hate this VR world," Mayo stated in an annoyed tone. Dominic attempted to scare the rat away with threatening hand gestures but instead of fleeing like most rats would, it oddly stared back at him.
This infuriated Dominic further as he walked over to the rat and kicked it a few meters back. However, the rat didn't retreat even after being kicked; instead, it launched toward Dominic, aggressively attempting to bite or scratch him. Dominic responded by kicking it back again and then taking the rod from Mayo's grip, using it to angrily strike at the rat.
Despite the visible injuries inflicted on its body, the rat seemed unaffected, persistently trying to bite or scratch Dominic as if the hits had no impact.
The confrontation between the blue-haired student and the rat continued for a while before the rat succumbed to the numerous injuries, lying motionless on the floor. However, it hadn't retreated without causing some damage to Dominic. In the exchange, it had managed to scratch him a few times, further irritating him as he continued to smash the rod onto the motionless rat.
After venting his frustration by repeatedly striking the rat's motionless body, Dominic turned to face the other two who had been compelled to witness the somewhat gruesome scene.
"You done?" Mayo asked in a somewhat mocking tone.
Dominic opened his mouth to respond, but what he said caught them off guard.
"Can you hear that?" he suddenly asked, causing expressions of confusion to immediately appear on both Mayo and Bama's faces.
"Hear what?" the brown-haired boy asked in return.
Instead of providing an answer, Dominic began screaming as if in immense pain.
"Stop!…Stop it!!…Stop it!!!"
"What's happening?" Mayo immediately asked, his voice slightly shaky from confusion and fear. Both he and Bama were put on edge by Dominic's sudden and distressing behavior.
"The voice…the voice…stop it!"
The two became increasingly frightened by his erratic behavior. Mayo cautiously approached him, but before he could get closer, Dominic grabbed his head with both hands.
"AHHHHHHH…THE PAINNN…it's getting to me…it's getting to me."
Amidst his cries of pain, his eyes suddenly began glowing—completely red, a stark contrast to his previous blue eyes, as if there were literal fire burning within them.
"Get it out…Get it out…Get-AHHH."
Before Mayo could grasp the significance of this, two bright lasers shot out of Dominic's eyes. Fortunately, Dominic had been looking upward when this occurred.
Immediately after this, his painful screams abruptly ceased, and he stood motionless with his eyes tightly shut.
Mayo, astonished by everything he had witnessed, quickly rushed closer to Dominic, gripping him on the shoulders.
"Are you alright, dude? You did it. You actually managed to activate your fief... is that what the test is about? Killing some damn rat. I knew this virtual world was-"
Before he could finish his sentence, Dominic's eyes shot wide open, and instead of his usual blue iris, his eyes were now completely black and non-human like.
Mayo instantly sensed something was amiss. Before he could step back, Dominic tightly gripped his neck, making it difficult for him to breathe.
"Dom..Domi..nic," Mayo called out amid the pain in his throat and the struggle for breath, but Dominic's grip tightened.
A wide, eerie smile appeared on Dominic's face—a smile that Mayo instantly recognized as ominous.
A chilling sensation ran down Mayo's spine, urging him to escape from whatever Dominic had become.
Mayo tried to break free, but Dominic's hold on his neck only grew firmer.
As Mayo felt his consciousness slipping away, the proximity of death became more apparent.
He kept reminding himself this was all in a virtual world and not the real thing, but the pain he was feeling and the fear he had of dying kept making him think otherwise…it was just too realistic.
"RILED…UP…BY…A…FUCKIN…RAT," Dominic said in a mocking tone, his voice no longer familiar, now deep and eerie and sounding as if he had just learned to speak not too long ago.
Mayo tried to give one last struggle before giving in however nothing had changed as he was still unable to shake himself away from Dominic's grip.
Just as he was about to give up, letting Dominic squeeze out his remnant consciousness, he suddenly felt something rapid and electric surge through his body.
Mayo instantly recognized this feeling as he had felt it once before…it was his fief, he had managed to activate his fief as well.
With a ray of hope, Mayo tried to channel the electric power surging through him to Dominic's body. He succeeded briefly, stunning Dominic, but the firm grip returned within seconds. Weakened, Mayo couldn't unfortunately repeat the attack.
Dominic seemed to have grown tired of him as he suddenly severed his head off his neck by blasting them with his eye lasers; he then casually flung the headless body of Mayo to the floor.
Stuck in place due to fear from the gruesome scene, Bama swiftly snapped out of his stupor upon witnessing Dominic casually discard Mayo's headless body.
His survival instincts kicked in immediately. Aware that whatever had possessed Dominic might target him next, Bama wasted no time and sprinted in the opposite direction, away from Dominic, who maintained an eerie smile while watching him flee.
Bama's thought process was in disarray after witnessing the horrifying scene. However, this was no time for contemplation. All he could focus on was running—getting as far away as possible from this ominous presence.
After seeing that scene, he seemed to have realized why the only hint at the test they had been given was survival.
The eyes of Dominic remained etched in his mind even as he fled.
The only message conveyed by those eyes was a grim prophecy—of death and relentless destruction.
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DreamScribbler
DreamScribbler please point out errors
thx for reading.
a few ps would go some way as encouragement too
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