The Game

Second Floor, at the time when the sun had already gone down and a blanket of darkness had stretched across the whole sky.

At the entrance of the black castle, a group of players were impatiently waiting for midnight to arrive.

It was getting quite chilly, but most of the players still had their winter clothes from the first floor, and after putting them on, they were able to warm themselves up slightly.

Leaning against a black brick wall, Adam flicked the timepiece open and checked the time before closing it again and pocketing it. There were only five minutes left.

'It was that room, right?' Adam thought to himself with a slight uncertainty. 'Third floor, first room on the left. That was the room. it must be.'

"Yo."

At that moment, Ramon came to him while drinking some hot drinks from his canteen. He was dressed in lighter clothing, but he still didn't look like he was cold.

A little bit of the drink spilled, trickling down his chin, and it looked like he was drinking coffee, which he most likely received from the cafeteria and filled his canteen with.

"Hmm?" Adam raised an eyebrow in question as Ramon approached him, wondering what he wanted.

"I couldn't stop thinking about what happened in the morning." Ramon said, then took a small sip and continued, "You angered those guys, and they must be coming after you soon enough; you know that, right?"

"I know." Adam nodded calmly. "They now know that during the mornings, there won't be a lot of mercenaries around. It is when they will most likely attack me."

"Hah, scared?" Ramon asked with a grin.

"They're older and more experienced, which is why I should be scared." Adam asked him back.

Ramon shrugged his shoulders and said, "They also have manpower. If they find you lacking, you will be in trouble."

"I know." Adam nodded and chuckled. "That's why I am not leaving my room during the morning."

"Eh?" Ramon raised his eyebrows in confusion.

"That's right." Adam crossed his arms.

"Your plan is to hide?" Ramon asked before laughing. "I thought you planned something brilliant, but instead you chose to hide in your room like a kid from his bullies."

"Why would I go out and expose myself?" Adam asked with a frown. "It would be foolish. They have around twenty fairly skilled individuals. They can just surround me and overpower me with their numbers.

"I would die."

"Ah…" Ramon rubbed his chin with a smirk. "That sounds fair; I just didn't think you were the kind of person who would hide and not fight."

"Oh, I will fight, but there is a time and place for everything," Adam said. "There is something you have to learn about this world. Survival is the only thing that matters."

Ramon silently looked at him and thought about those words.

At that moment, Adam pulled out his silvery timepiece, then closed it almost immediately and pocketed it.

"The time is near; there are only a few minutes left."

"Then you should hurry." Ramon said. "And remember, if you betray us, we will kill you."

"Right."

Adam slipped his hands inside his pockets and stepped through the entrance of the castle while all the players watched him with intense anticipation.

He had already told them what room he would be in and told them to cover the exit of the room, so the Clown Boy didn't have any means of escaping that small, closed room unless he had a secret passage out.

After stepping up the stairs, he reached the third floor and immediately entered the first door on the left.

The door was already open, barely hanging on its hinges.

As he stepped through the entrance, he saw a small light flickering in the corner of the room, with shelves of books lining the walls. In the center of the room, there was a desk cluttered with papers, and a single chair pushed up against it.

Adam pulled out the chair and sat slowly down, then placed his pocket watch on the desk and watched it slowly tick down the seconds.

At that moment, the black clockhand struck twelve.

Swoosh!

A cold wind rushed in, the door immediately dropped off its hinges, and the light in the corner turned more prominent.

"Do you want to play a game?"

…

"Time's up!" Donald's voice boomed in the yard as he closed his very own pocket watch and pocketed it.

He purchased it from Flamekeeper, as it was the only way to know the time.

"Let's go in!" Ramon shouted and was the first to enter the yard.

Without any hesitation, all the players rushed to the third floor and crowded in front of the first door on the left. They were even standing on top of the broken door that fell off its hinges.

In the room, they saw Adam seated with a calm look on his face, and on the other side of the desk, there was a floating figure with a whimsical appearance.

The Clown Boy looked adorable with flushed red cheeks and milky-white skin, but when Donald saw him, his skin started to crawl. He couldn't forget the sight of the boy's mouth stretching open into a grotesque grin filled with sharp, jagged teeth.

"Do you want to play a game?" The Clown Boy asked once more, an adorable smile on its lips.

"I do," Adam said.

"Yay!" The Clown Boy cheered in joy and sat down on the desk, cross-legged, then showed its right hand before forming it into a fist.

"Ever heard of the rock, paper, and scissors game before?"

"I have." Adam said with a grim face. 'So, that's the game. It would be luck-based, in most cases, but not this time around…'

'How ridiculous.' Ramon thought to himself. 'Life and death scenario coming down to luck. Well, I suppose that luck is also an important factor in the life of a mercenary.'

"Let's begin!" The Clown Boy said excitedly.

Everyone else watched from the doorway in nervousness, but they all had weapons ready and tried to huddle closer to the room to get a head start. The fastest and most prepared player would be the one to get the kill.

With that single kill, everyone would be practically guaranteed a higher score than D.

The players, who hadn't done much in the tutorial yet, felt their blood pumping as this might be their best chance of catching up to the top players.

At that moment, Adam and the Clown Boy placed their fists against their open-palmed left hand and shouted, "Rock, paper, scissors, shoot!"

They both threw out their hands—Adam with the rock and the Clown Boy with the paper.

It was as if the time had frozen; all the players stopped breathing. The Clown Boy's paper covered Adam's rock, declaring the creature as the winner.

"I won…" The Clown Boy said with a grin, and at that moment, the skin around its mouth started ripping as its mouth opened wider than humanly possible.

It looked like it would be able to swallow Adam whole in one bite.

"The winner gets the loser's dinner~"

The Clown Boy said and then lunged towards Adam, about to take a large bite off his head.