An electric current that was strong enough seemed to hit straight into Hiro’s brain, causing an immediate shock, and it made all his senses stop functioning for a few seconds.
When his eyes could no longer see the figure who was smiling at him but giving him an excruciating pain, Hiro could feel his body being pulled backwards with great force and crammed into a very narrow pipe.
He couldn’t breathe. However, in a matter of seconds, he was back standing together with the other survivors in the place where they had been gathered. In front of a building resembling The White House, which has been abandoned and looked a bit scary. On his side, there was an overly strong source of warmth. The bonfire.
“Hiro, we lost.” Jacob patted Hiro’s hand and his action snapped Hiro’s to the present.
Even so, he did not respond immediately. He was still trying to process what Jacob had just said, as if he had lost consciousness all along and had missed a lot of important things. He lost track.
The appearance of the powerful WynterRain’s as well as his act of showing his true identity in front of tens of thousands of people made Hiro greatly confused. How could that be?
From the way he spoke and did things, it was clear that WynterRain was not only his brother’s avatar, but was also being controlled by his brother. Hiro was over one hundred percent certain that it was his brother.
However, a big question popped into Hiro’s mind.
How could Yuujin play WynterRain if he was already dead? Was the corpse he found not his brother’s?
Cold sweats dripped down all over Hiro’s body when suddenly a dazzling flash of light appeared from the direction of the blazing bonfire.
As usual, when the light appeared above the surface, the warm fire was extinguished in an instant.
“Thank you everyone for your participation in this special event.” GM Juno reappeared without revealing her true form. Her voice didn’t sound as lively and cheerful as before. Her voice sounded like she was exhausted.
Not only was Hiro aware of this, but some survivors who were already confused realized the same thing. They began whispering with each other. After all, the sudden absolute defeat they had just experienced could never be predicted.
“The Game is Over.”
“The Hunters have won the game. Please check the final point on the panel in front of you.”
At the same time,
The sound of beeps suddenly echoed throughout the place. And after that sound came out simultaneously, a transparent panel appeared in front of the players, showing the game points and the names of the players who scored the highest game points from the winning team.
[1st. Hunters (Total Game Points 2,851,200)] – The Winner
[2nd. Survivors (Total Game Points 1,140,480)] – The Loser
[1st. Top Scorer in Winning Team. WynterRain. Game Points 1,546,260 (54.23%)]
[2nd. Top Scorer in Winning Team. Ace. Game Points 256,608 (9%)]
[3rd. Top Scorer in Winning Team. Dimitri. Game Points 128,304 (4.5%)]
It wasn’t only Hiro who was surprised after seeing the results of the calculations made by the system. WynterRain really came out as a player from the hunter team and he managed to take the percentage points of contributing over 50% in just mere minutes of his appearance.
It was really impossible to be done by a player who had the same time to start the game. All kinds of voices started buzzing behind Hiro.
“What the hell? Isn’t it obvious that he’s a cheater?”
“Why did the GM consider him as a winner? Is he even a real player?”
“That is impossible. He’s too powerful.”
“He’s WynterRain! Of course, he’s powerful, but how could he play the game when he already died?”
“No way. He must be a cheater who made fun of the legend’s death.”
When the whispers had turned into shouts that broke out among the line of survivors, GM Juno let out a chime of bells to get their attention back.
Dang!
“You may wonder how the system calculates the game points after the sudden appearance of a player named WynterRain.”
GM Juno explained that she and her team had carried out an emergency check when they detected a very powerful energy occurring in the Haunted Maze. The power that made them find it a bit difficult to control the entire system they had created as the weather in that place.
However, when they found out that the reason for the weather chaos in that place was due to a player’s magic power, they checked again whether the player had a bug or was a cheater by tracking the timing history of the player.
And the results showed that WynterRain’s name had miraculously entered the hunter team’s player list from the start before they were all teleported simultaneously into The Haunted Maze.
The player just hid in the maze, doing nothing before finally appearing at the last minute when the survivors were gathering in one area and brutally massacred them all without much effort.
The LSO system did not detect the WynterRain player as a cheater. And count all the points he got with a fair calculation.
Therefore, GM Juno and her team couldn’t do anything but entrust the outcome of the game to the system’s calculations.
“That’s not fair. Are you sure he’s not cheating?!”
“His power is on another different level, you dumb GM!”
“Yeah, open your eyes, GM!”
“Are you blind, GM?!”
The survivors were getting aggrieved at the final result and did not want to tolerate any excuses given by the GM. Even so, the GM did nothing, as if there really wasn’t anything else they could do. For now.
“The reward will be sent to you via message.”
“And all of your items will be back to you after you leave this venue through the warp.”
“Thank you and see you at the next event!”
At that moment, all the survivors in that place were booed over the GM.
The light of GM Juno moved down again to merge into the bonfire, to light it back.
Not long after, the flames of the bonfire moved to form a shape resembling a giant gate with a transparent bubble popping in the center.
Everyone started walking into the warp with faces full of disappointment.
Hiro watched them exited through the wrap until all that was left in the venue was him, Jacob, Noah, and Cara who somehow appeared and joined them.
“That guy sucks. I will definitely defeat him later when I meet him again.” Noah still couldn’t accept the defeat he never had imagined. Meeting a mage who possessed a unique skill and still couldn’t predict his true strength made him eager to increase his strength even further.
Noah spoke to Hiro, but Hiro ignored him. None of them knew that the mysterious yet powerful mage they were speaking about was his brother. If they knew, Hiro was sure that he would be the place to curse at right now.
“Let’s go. We can’t stay here forever.” Jacob led the three of them to leave the venue quickly, and he was the first to walk towards the warp among them.
Noah, who was still grumbling in annoyance, came in second.
Meanwhile, when Hiro and Cara were left in the venue, the girl seemed to notice one thing that the others didn’t.
She observed Hiro’s face from the side. It seemed that she was noticing how the look in Hiro’s eyes had changed from the last time she saw him in the maze.
“Are you ok?” she asked in a voice that surprised Hiro.
Hiro could hear the worried tone in the girl’s voice. But he still kept silent.
“Here, in case you need someone to talk to.”
Ding!
[You have received a new friend request from MyPhantom]
Hiro knitted his brows in confusion. A notification just entered through his HUD system. A friend request from Cara who suddenly turned into a big-hearted person, no longer the calculative person like Hiro remembered.
He looked at the girl next to him with a tilted head. And that’s when he got a warm pat on the back from Cara.
“I think those old geezers from Immortal Knights are right. You really look a lot like ‘that guy’,” Cara said in a mumble without the slightest interest in meeting Hiro’s eyes.
Hiro couldn’t immediately grasp what the words that came from Cara’s lips meant. However, when the girl finally disappeared after going through the warp before his eyes, Hiro’s eyes suddenly widened.
He was about to run and catch the girl before she announced to the public about the thing Hiro’s need to hide this whole time in the LSO world, but suddenly he could feel a very uncomfortable feeling welling up in his body.
His chest felt so tight, he couldn’t breathe normally even though no one was there attacking him silently.
Hiro fell and coughed violently right in front of the exit warp. His saliva was dripping down on the ground. His chest felt like he was being tied up with a very strong thread. The pain was intolerable.
Both his eyes bulged out while his white skin seemed to turn blue, as if the oxygen supply in his body was at a dangerous point.
And before he knew what was really going on, Hiro had fainted with his face kissing the ground.
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