10 The New Toy Pt.2

"Miss…"

"Miss…"

"Mistress," I peel my eyes open and blink a few times. What came into view was the brilliant golden hair color of the child. His features soon came into focus and I quickly begin to remember where I am.

"Did something happen?" I ask him quickly. My whole body was tense.

"No, it's just morning," he says cutely, as he sunk back down onto the branch. "We thought that we should wake you up," he says jerking his head towards Royal.

I glance at my snake baby, and he nods his head agreeing with what the small child said. It looks like while I was asleep, they'd gotten on quite well. That was always a good thing, for others to get along.

"That means that nothing happened during the night?" I ask him.

He ducks his head slightly and I felt a bit of anxiety at that response.

"What happened?' I ask.

He pauses before he turns around to face me. Now we're looking eye to eye.

"There were a few monsters that wandered towards us, but I took care of them. It wasn't any of the monsters from the castle. Just some monsters from the forest itself," he says while looking down at his hands.

Which he was twisting nervously.

I let out a sigh of relief. It seems that he was indeed a capable monster, I'd gotten lucky in beating him it would seem. My gaze drifted towards Royal, maybe, it was a bit of inhuman luck that I had.

"I'm not mad at you, I'm impressed that you were able to take care of everything by yourself. I'd assumed that since you specialize in mental attacks that you would be physically weak…was I perhaps mistaken?"

He quickly shakes his head and I roll my eyes; it was time to look over the book and the contacts. I summon both of them from the ring.

A contact case that's completely black with golden eyes appears, underneath of it is a book. The book was strange, it has the face of a clown on it and behind the clown is the design of a Ferris wheel all of the design are cartoonish.

Extending my hand, I give the book to the golden child in front of me. He takes it with open hands. Leaving me with the black contact case. He looks at the book in his hand with great interest.

I screw open the cap of one of them and inlaid in a black liquid inside of the case is a rainbow-colored contact lens. It was beautiful.

Without further delay, I scoop the contact up out of the black liquid and quickly place it into my eye. I repeat the step for the second one as well, with that over, the contact case melts, transforming into black liquid.

It quickly seeps into my flesh, and the palms of my hands feel like they're being burned. Flipping my hands, open I find that my hands have two eyes burned into them, they're golden and remind me of the eyes that had been on the contact case.

Was this permanent?

Flipping them over, I just shake my head, there wasn't anything that I could do. Blinking a few times, I look up at the Golden child in front of me.

Above his head, a screen appears.

「Mental Clown Lvl.21」

I choke a little, he was level twenty-one. He was a higher level than me!

I look over at Royal. It would be safe to expect him to be abnormal as well…

「???」

There was nothing but question marks above his head, did that mean that he was unknown…

What sort of monsters had I fallen into?

Rubbing a hand down my face, I close my eyes and finch the bridge of my nose. It was safe to say that I had an advantage considering the strength of theses Monsters, but it was also mind-numbing to think that there are stronger monsters in that castle.

Opening my eyes, I focus on the two in front of me. They're both looking at me with high expectations. I felt my stomach flip flop, I was glad that I had these two at my side.

The golden child had a face of glee as he flips through the book that was in his hand. He looked completely enraptured in the book. His eyes are practically twinkling like stars. The book I'd given to him to hold was the guide for this world.

"Mistress! This book has a section about me!" He says quickly flipping the book around. Doing so to allow me to see the passage.

In the passage, a similar picture of him did appear. However, it the original look of when he'd been a monster, this child-like look he was sporting now wasn't documented in the book. Was this a special feature of my own special skill?

I reach out and take the book from his hands. Skimming the page, I look for anything that suggests that there was a transformation that this creature would undergo if obtained by a Player.

It didn't reference a transformation for a monster, it just simply stated that a ring would drop that allowed you a onetime summon of that certain monster. Whereas my skill was broken, as long as I had MP, I could summon any monster on my list.

Making this drop rate even better than what was listed in the book. I also had the feeling that the higher my luck went the better the chance that I would have to obtain that monster. With that thought in mind, I wanted nothing more than to pour almost all my points into my luck stat.

But that was a little hasty. It was safe to say that it would be a little hasty to dump everything into one place, especially when I felt really weak against these monsters. After fighting two of these stronger and advance monsters in a row, I learned just how inexperienced I was in combat.

These monsters had more thought and reasoning than just the mindless clowns that I had fought in that hallway after first waking up. That was playtime, this was the beginning of the real combat that was happening, a life and death situation.

In this life and death situation, I found myself with two monsters, I'd lost the only other Player. In this sense, I was completely by myself but I still had my subordinates, basically.

Flipping through the book, I stop when I see a description of the mini-game that I found myself in…「Clown's Seek」. I wanted to hurl the book at the sight of that fucking name.

Sucking in a deep breath, I begin to scan the page.

There wasn't that much information on it; it was ranked a Hell mission. The reason for that was the second stage that can be triggered if one doesn't finish the first stage. It was unlikely that someone that was fresh as snow would survive this challenge. Or that's at least what the book was telling me.

In terms of overall clearing of this stage, it was in the single digits. This really was such an unfavorable situation.

There was a list of people that had cleared the minigame, and I sucked in a deep breath. They all we're elites in terms of their level. Most of them are above fifty, I was sitting her at level eight. Most of the monsters in this minigame are over level fifteen.

Biting my lip, I want to cry, this luck stat was bullshit! If I was lucky, I wouldn't have found myself in this damn game, to begin with.

I'd almost given up hope, but I flip the page and a section straight out of a holy text appears.

「The second round, of the minigame, is the true salvation of a player. If one can complete the minigame, being under level 20. A special prize will be rewarded to them, along with a specialized skill!

Higher-level players will receive world currency in replace of a specialized skill.

Outside of the rewards, solo clearing the minigame will also reward a randomized prize. 」

I remember Matthew, telling me that there was a handsome reward in clearing the first part. He apparently, wasn't stupid enough to tempt fate, and risk the second trail. In the end, he'd still overestimated his skills and gotten killed in the process.

This wasn't a joke.

Nothing about this was simple, without Royal and this powerful skill I'd gotten. I'd be in his same boat; I probably wouldn't even survive half as long as him.

I clench the book, and continue reading, but there wasn't anything else that was helpful. Most of the information was about the first section of the minigame, it seems that a fair few had cleared that.

It was an easy clear if you had enough people, you'd just have to split the reward. But that was a small price to pay to survive.

Then all the strong players, that had cleared the second round, didn't seem to want to share the information. But that wasn't a surprise, this was a simple concept that was followed by everyone that was strong.

As if that triggered something, I felt a prickling behind my eyes, as if something was scratching to get out.

The echoing sound of a man's voice starts in my head.

'It's simple like Darwin's rule of natural selection, the weak die out, while the strong continue on and survive. It's survival of the fittest, remember ****, the strong keep strong by never allowing the weak to get strong!'

Darwin…

I hadn't been able to remember anything, since the moment I'd become conscious. Had that been a memory… the man's voice had seemed so familiar, almost like he was talking to me.

He'd said a name, but I hadn't been able to understand it at all. However, I can't shake the feeling that I did know that voice, and that he'd been calling my name.

Who had I been before, I'd woke up here?