Chapter 168: The Game Of Rock, Paper And Scissors
Within an hour, they reached the area where the fourth and last goblin village. This time, the newbies didn’t wait for any order and directly assumed their formation based on the raids they had conducted in the past three villages.
Dhruv and the crew were surprised by this action of the newbies. They didn’t wait any time either and carefully observed their battle as usual.
This time, the observers noticed that the number of mistakes the newbies were making had significantly decreased. It was not entirely gone, but the speed of their progress was quite evident from this.
Because all the fighters were in the zone, the battle didn’t take much time, and they quickly managed to defeat the whole village of goblins. After defeating the normal goblins, they swiftly retreated a few steps and began to form groups according to how injured they were.
Dhruv and the healers of the groups gathered around the rows of people and began to heal those who were injured. The number of injured people this time was quite a few, but there wasn’t anyone who was heavily injured, which was a new victory for this village.
While everyone was getting healed some of them quickly got out form the row and stood in front of Dhruv. Just from their expression Dhruv knew what they wanted.
’So, they are going to volunteer themselves this time. Quite brave if I say so myself.’ With this thought, he began to count the number of volunteers he had received.
’One, two, three, four... So, there are a total of 20 of them. Ohh! Even the old man is in the group, and so is Hilger, the one who had killed the boss in the previous village. This is quite troubling; the number is very high. I have to remove some of them,’ Dhruv began to think of a solution to decrease their numbers.
After some careful consideration, Dhruv quickly removed the old man, Hilger, and the other repeaters from the group so that the newcomers could get a chance to shine.
’Shhh! They are still quite in number. If this many fight the boss, they could essentially one-shot it,’ Dhruv thought as he looked at the people in front of him.
Even after removing the repeaters, there were still 13 people left who were totally new and hadn’t fought with the boss. Dhruv couldn’t decide who to remove and who to keep.
Taking a deep sigh, he began to think of an idea that could easily solve this problem without any dispute. It took him one minute to come up with the perfect idea.
With a clear smile on his face, Dhruv looked at the people and said, "Okay, guys, all of you tell me what your class is."
It took them a few seconds to process what Dhruv had said. When they understood what they had to do, they quickly began to state their classes.
"Quite interesting..." Dhruv thought as he processed everyone’s classes. Within this timeframe, he even sneakily learned everyone’s names so it wouldn’t create an embarrassing situation when he was to call them.
The most number of people were swordsmen, including Ethan, Olivia, Hawk, and Seraphina.
Then there were archers: Lily, Isla, and Kamal.
Those who had chosen the tank class were Grace, Bholu, and Willow.
There were mages: Elara and Sylas.
And most importantly, one of them was a healer, Raina.
’So, there seems to be only one healer in the group, which means there is no need for him to do anything; he could be in the group without anything, Dhruv thought as he looked at the rest of the volunteers.
"As you can see, there are far more people than we need, which is a problem. And as usual, when there is a problem, we need to find a solution for that. Luckily, I have thought of a way that could solve this problem in just a few minutes," Dhruv paused to see their reaction.
’As expected, even they are excited for this.’
Without wasting any time, he opened his mouth and said, "The way to solve this problem is... Rock, Paper, and Scissors."
"Ohh! That could solve that. But how are we playing?" one of the volunteers asked.
"What is R-R-Rock, Paper, Scissors," another volunteer asked. Just from the looks of it, it was evident that he was a member of the tribe.
’How can I forget they didn’t know about this game,’ Dhruv thought as he looked at the man who had asked the question.
It took Dhruv about five minutes to explain to everyone from the tribe how to play this game. They quickly learned how to play the game without any problems; after all, this game wasn’t very difficult to begin with.
Roooooarrr!!
While he was preparing to start the game, the boss goblin got out of the village and began to sprint toward the group, while roaring. The inhuman sound of that roar had managed to capture everyone’s attention.
Being so engrossed in the game even Dhruv startled for a second. He was about to one-shot the monster but controlled himself after looking at the faces of all the volunteers.
’It’s your lucky day,’ Dhruv thought as he captured the monster in a metal box.
Turning around, he looked at the group and said, "So, what are you waiting for? Let the game begin.
The rule is simple: win the game and become the last one remaining from your class, to get added to the team. If you understand the last sentence then what I meant was a swordsman won’t fight with an archer and vice versa. Each class will have one winner. That means we already have a winner. Could you guess who he is?" Dhruv asked with a playful expression.
"It’s Raina, right."
"Raina."
"Raina the healer."
Everyone said with a hint of jealousy in their tone. Chuckling, Dhruv looked at them and said, "Let the game begin."
Instead of starting the game, someone asked the question, "How many times can we play to decide the winner?"
Instead of replying verbally, Dhruv lifted his hand while folding all of his fingers. Just a second later, he raised a single finger, indicating that the volunteers would only get one chance at this.
Thinking that somebody would disrupt the game once again, he quickly announced, "Let the game begin. The first group to go will be our swordsmen."
All four members of this class walked forward, rubbing their hands in anticipation.
Looking at their faces, a chuckle escaped his lips as Dhruv commenced the start. The first two opponents who would face each other were Ethan against Olivia.
With a serious face, both of the contestants shouted in unison, "Rock, Paper, Scissors, Shoot!"
Both of them brought their hands in front of everyone at the same time, indicating they weren’t cheating. Dhruv’s gaze first placed itself on Olivia’s hand, and he found that Olivia had chosen, "Rock!"
Within a hundredth of a second, his gaze went from Olivia’s hand to the hand of the second contestant, Ethan, and soon enough, he found out the winner of this match.
Without wasting any time, he announced, "I hereby announce Olivia as the winner of this round."
Unfortunately, Ethan had chosen "Scissors."
Hearing the announcement, Olivia heaved a sigh of relief. Within that relief, there still was a lingering sign of nervousness for the upcoming game as well. She moved aside to let the next duo arrive at the center.
The next opponents who would face each other in a game of Rock, Paper, Scissors were Hawk and Seraphina.
They faced each other, and once again, both of them shouted in unison, "Rock, paper, scissors, shoot!"
Maybe Hawk was influenced by Olivia’s win, or maybe not, but he confidently threw a rock toward his opponent as well. But like a master strategist, Seraphina had already suspected this, which led her to choose the simple and fragile paper.
Smiling, Dhruv looked at both of the players and announced, "The one who will face Olivia in the next round will be none other than our favorite, Seraphina."
Both finalists faced each other in front of their lord and bowed toward him to get some luck on their side.
Facing each other, they shouted in unison, "Rock, paper, scissors, shoot!"
Having tested her victory once, Olivia decided to place her bet on rock again. Now it was time to check if Seraphina had thought of this or not.
Looking at the result in front of him, Dhruv didn’t wait any longer and announced, "The one who will play the role of swordsman in the boss fight is... Olivia."
This time, Seraphina had made the same mistake Ethan had made, thus losing the final round.
With a disappointed face, she began to walk toward the rest of the group. While Seraphina was walking toward the group, Olivia approached Dhruv and stood beside Raina.
With two of the group members decided, Dhruv continued the match, and soon enough, he had his other three members as well.
The game within the archer group had gone like this:
The first round was between Kamal and Isla. Kamal had chosen Scissors while Isla chose paper. So, naturally, Kamal emerges victorious.
Lily and Kamal had faced each other in the second round. Lily had chosen Scissors while Kamal went with Rock. Making Kamal the winner of the archer round.
The winner of the tank group was Grace, while the winner of the mage group became Elara.
Looking at the five-person team in front of him, Dhruv removed the Metal box.
