Situation Check

['Elise is probably the only person that I'll enjoy talking to in this place. If I got stranded here, I probably would propose.' He thought with a bitter smile.

Sebastian was a perfect example of why.

"Sebastian, don't touch your neck. Please?" Michael asked in a dejected tone.

"Okay!" Sebastian replied enthusiastically.

It seemed that he had already forgotten their previous conversation.

'I… nevermind.' He thought in exhausted exasperation.

"You remember our game right?" He asked cautiously.

"Yes, T. Mostly the part where I'm going to wiiiiiiiin!" He declared merrily.

'I'm less convinced by this than I hoped, but a lot more convinced than I expected.' Michael thought pensively.

"Anyway, if people try to hurt you, don't run. Fall to the ground, do you understand?" He asked.

"Is it because my neck's probably broken?"

Grey's eyes became clouded with darkness after hearing this. "...Yes, I'm glad to know you remember that, but I'm sad that I have to confirm it."

"Anyway… the cast you're wearing has incredible shock absorption, so falling won't end your life." He explained.

'Hopefully.' He added in his mind.

"But the cast won't let you run, and if you break it, you're in trouble. Do you understand?" He asked seriously.

"I think so?" Sebastian replied, lost in a haze of mild confusion.

"Good enough. Let's go."

Sebastian was walking around in an ultra-thin, transparent, skin-tight cast that Grey had developed for him while they were still in the entry point.

Its one and only purpose was to prevent him from killing himself.

While he was walking around in broad daylight right now with a dumb smile on his face, he was actually one movement away from permanently snapping his spinal cord.

It's certainly not a good idea for someone in his condition to be walking around, but in this situation, if he weren't walking around, he'd be dead.

Grey was fairly certain that a godforsaken, post-apocalyptic amusement park like this could create such a paradox.

While the cast was allowing Sebastian to walk without damaging ligaments, snapping bones, or destroying his spinal cord, it wasn't the reason he could walk.

To pull off this Christmas miracle, Michael had to cook up a designer drug that would sell for tens of millions of credits in a Dark Paradise auction.

Tens of millions was not an exaggeration. If you had to explain this drug, you'd have to say something like—

An intergalactic opiate cocktail that absorbed an amphetamine supernova.

—Seriously, that's the only reason Sebastian could walk right now.

After what happened at the entry point, it's surprising that he could even walk with the help of these miracles.

The fact that he was walking was a testament that Alyx Grey was a godlike developer and not a completely bad person. Maybe.

If he had killed Sebastian, he would have been walking around this place as an honored guest for the last two hours—under syndicate protection.

Since he hadn't done that, his life was an unforgiving wasteland hellscape.

So while saying he's a good person would be a stretch, saying he was a bad person was wrong. Maybe.

This was the situation that Michael and Sebastian were in the moment they walked out of the gateway entry door:

Michael and Sebastian had only one conventional weapon between them. It was an op dagger originally designed to kill Sebastian that Michael mostly kept as a [fuck you] type of souvenir.

Neither of them had body enhancements in a server where everyone had them.

Sebastian looked like a teenage boy, merchandise in high demand in Dark Paradise.

Michael was 18 and probably the most attractive male in Dark Paradise. So he, too, was in high demand.

Sebastian could not walk safely, let alone fight or run away.

Sebastian would be hunted down relentlessly from now on.

Michael would be relentlessly hunted down until he got himself out of the mess.

Michael's new username was "Twink." However, since Sebastian looked like a skinny teenager, if someone heard him call Michael "Twink," it would ignite a creepy male, murder-filled jest fest.

Sebastian was hopped up on drugs and naturally too stupid not to get them both killed. So Michael had to rely upon Elise to stop the stupid bastard from killing himself.

Lastly, and most importantly, three burly, enhanced Brawlers were currently eyeing them down like prey.]