Chapter 60: As simple but deadly [Game of Chess]
Night immediately confirmed ’Yes’.
As soon as he did, he felt it bind to him, similar to his friends, but the bond felt incredibly thin and weak by comparison.
He then saw a new screen appear. It was similar to the standard System interface, but much more game-like in design.
[Initializing Game of Chess...]
[Analyzing the host...]
[An unverified host detected...]
[Core regulations breached.]
[Preparing Extermination.]
Suddenly, the cubic artifact released a deadly aura and started to glow an ominous red.
Night was completely frozen in place. He felt like he was exactly one step away from certain death. Looking around, he saw Lucy, Sage, Eve, Lilith, and Death were immobilized and were in the exact same situation as him.
He suddenly realized just how dangerous this world truly was.
One moment you are chilling in your home with your buddies, and the next moment you are facing annihilation just because your friend wanted to play an expensive chess game.
Awaiting his impending doom, he felt himself be covered by thousands of protective magic circles, desperately trying to separate him from the cube.
On his left, he felt space itself split open as a white blade, etched with glowing yellow runes, shot toward the cube at blinding speed with the intention of separating him from it as well.
....
Meanwhile, in a distant forest...
In a dense forest filled entirely with Level 80 beasts, a man who was casually sleeping on a tree branch woke up to a sudden System notification.
The man was dressed entirely in black. His dark coat was torn in many places and his face was hidden behind a heavily modified hazard mask.
Opening his eyes, he saw that 3 Billion SC had just been transferred to his account. It indicated that he had finally sold the Divine Artifact.
This woke him up fully as he shifted into a crouching posture on the branch.
Which idiot bought the artifact?
Anyone with that much SC by now must know that it is a death trap...
This was an elaborate trap set by him and many rich buyers had found out about it by now.
He had acquired that cube in an early tutorial for solving an "impossible" puzzle.
For his reward, he received the cube, a key and a note detailing the method to bind it; but the note also explicitly warned that anyone else who tried to bind with it would die immediately.
It had filled him with immense regret; to finally receive a Divine Artifact, only to be told the next second that it was a deadly paperweight that couldn’t actually be used.
But instead of moping, he used it as a brilliant way to earn some quick cash.
He had experimented and found out that the key could be used to track the exact location of the cube, regardless of distance or barriers.
Immediately, he formed a flawless plan.
He sold the cube on the System Shop, keeping the key with him.
When the buyer inevitably died after attempting to bind to the cube, he would track the cube using the key, effectively retrieving the artifact.
Every single time he sold the artifact, it earned him billions of SC and he would simply get the artifact back in the end anyway.
Now, he just had to wait for the poor buyer to bind with it, die to the cube and then track it down.
He picked up the key in his hand. The key started to shine with a pulsing red light, indicating that someone was currently attempting to bind with the artifact.
Hehe... I don’t know who you are, but thanks...
Your generous contribution will be remembered eternally...
He smirked beneath his mask as he waited for the key’s light to return to normal, a sign that the bonding had failed and the host was dead.
But he was completely shocked by what happened next...
Instead of the key becoming dull, it just kept brightening and brightening until the light was absolutely blinding. He quickly squeezed his eyes shut on reflex.
Suddenly, he felt the key become incredibly light in his hand. Despite his reservations, he forced his eyes open to check, only to be absolutely stunned to find his hand completely empty.
The key had completely disappeared.
Before he could even grieve the loss of his infinite money glitch, he felt all the surrounding Level 80 beasts rushing directly toward him, attracted by the massive burst of red light.
Grrrrr! ROAARRR! EEEEEHHHAAA!
Running for his life, all he could think was:
HOW???
....
Night’s POV
He saw the magic circles and the blade rushing to his rescue, but they too completely froze as they came close to the red aura...
Just then, a prompt appeared:
[Extermination Paused.]
[Host age detected.]
[Age: 7 Years.]
[Host fulfills most of the core regulations.]
[Host granted temporary access.]
Suddenly, a glowing red key appeared out of nowhere and merged with the cube. The red light started fading, and what was left resting in his hand was a small, sleek chessboard.
Instead of it being the standard black and white, this one was red and black, showing that it was fundamentally different from the traditional chess he knew.
[Welcome to the Game of Chess.]
[You can play infinitely, but each time, the difficulty to move a piece increases.
This difficulty cannot be reset due to the host only having temporary access.
This temporary access will be revoked and the [Game of Chess] will return to its rightful owner when the host reaches 18 years of age, thus becoming an adult according to the standards of this world.]
Immediately, the paralyzing aura lifted. Lucy, Eve, Lilith, Death and Sage rushed to him. The bone blade and magic circles dissipated upon seeing him safe.
Sage reached him first and angrily swatted the chessboard out of his hand. The artifact flew a little but didn’t fall to the ground; it simply floated calmly in the air.
[Detecting player.]
[Player Age: 3 Months.]
[Player added.]
[Welcome to the game, player.]
[You can play the game now if you wish.]
Night saw a row of new notifications. Looking at the confused look on Sage’s tiny face, he realized she must have seen similar notifications too.
This is interesting. Holding his chin, he thought, I thought I was completely done for, but it spared me; probably because of my age.
Maybe this artifact only accepts children and if I had been an adult, not even dust of me would have remained.
A Divine Artifact is indeed weird....
The ’rightful owner’ must be the granddaughter of this [Blaze] guy.
The next moment, Sara teleported into the house with an anxious look, closely followed by Blade who stepped out from a split in space.
Their eyes immediately locked onto the floating chessboard with dread...
Eve, Lilith and Death immediately surrounded Night protectively and Sage jumped right on top of his head.
Eve: "Master, are you alright?"
Lilith: "We thought we lost you for a moment... sniff sniff."
Death, standing in front of him like a shining, dark knight, declared, "Master, I will turn this stupid mutt into a skeleton for putting you in such grave danger."
Lucy already full of guilt, felt deeply insulted. She growled and bared her fangs. "Who did you call a stupid mutt, you stupid stack of bones?!"
Death fired back, "This Queen will show you soon enough who is a stack of bones!"
As she spoke, the blue crystal on her scepter started to glow.
In response, the shadows in the room started to deepen.
Blade and Sara didn’t know what to say...
( ￣ー￣ )
One moment they felt like a nuke was about to go off in Night’s room, only to frantically teleport in and walk straight into a catfight.
Night seeing that things were quickly getting out of hand, said calmly, "This is not the time to fight amongst ourselves."
Both Lucy and Death stopped and immediately looked away...
One was feeling deeply guilty because her greed had almost gotten Night killed; the other was doubly sad; first, because of her weakness in the face of the artifact’s aura and second, because she had once again missed the perfect opportunity to finally ’take care’ of Lucy...
Night saw that they didn’t escalate the situation, but they still made no real amends. He just shook his head.
But he was smart enough not to force them to make peace. It was up to them how they wanted to handle their dynamic.
Sage, sitting perched on top of Night’s head, shook her own tiny head as well.
Sage:
@( ヾﾉ･ω･`)@
She felt her palms become terribly itchy, like she desperately needed a stick to inculcate some much-needed discipline into the both of them.
Suddenly, everyone except Night and Sage went on high alert as they saw the chessboard slowly float toward them.
Blade immediately summoned a huge blade that was half white and half yellow. The magic tome appeared in Sara’s hand and a Lens materialized over her eye.
Death swung her scepter and four skeletal wolves instantly appeared, besides them Lucy started to grow in size.
Meanwhile, kunai materialized in the hands of Eve and Lilith from somewhere; one was covered in crackling sparks, and the other in corrosive dark energy.
But before they could even launch an attack, they each received a notification.
Night reading his own prompt, was stunned.
[Detecting player.]
[Player Age: 108 Years.]
[Player added.]
[Welcome to the game, player.]
[You can play the game now if you wish.]
Looking at Sara, Night’s jaw dropped wide open completely refusing to close.
She is 100+ years old...
but she looks like a teenager!
(⊙_⊙)
