Chapter 2 "The First Challenge"

"The first challenge will be different for everyone." I noticed this voice was louder than the other voices. "Everyone has been given a pouch." The pouch was white with a golden ribbon to tie it up. "Inside the pouch you will find a ticket with your name on it." Inside my pouch there was a white ticket with my name in gold letters. "Now you will make a group of 5 by putting their tickets in your pouch. Your group will be assigned a name based on what your group has done since the tutorial ended and you will do it again within 5 days."

'What would I do? Probably kill someone right?' I thought with no emotion. 'No it's a group assessment, what I did won't matter.' I thought.

"By the way, if you fail, you die. Let the challenge begin." The loud voice said.

"You two, give me your tickets." I say as they reach in their pouch.

"Thank you for letting us come along sir, I do not have a fighting attribute and my daughter doesn't have an attribute but we will try our best to help you." Reggie said to me as I put his ticket in my pouch.

"I'm sure you'll be useful, both of you." I said with a fake smile. 'They may not be good at fighting but they have heart, they'll be useful.'

"Yes, thank you sir, oh I don't think we got your name." Miya told me with a grin.

"Oh uh yeah my name is Atlas, Atlas Williams." I said awkwardly.

"Nice name." Miya and Reggie said at the same time.

"Lets not worry about that we have two more people to recruit." I said, trying to change the subject.

"You're right." Miya said, running up to me. "Let's go." she said as Reggie and i leave.

"Ugh, we've been walking forever!" Miya said with a frown and sweating.

"It's only been a few hours." Reggie said with sweat going down his face. We walked until we saw a couple men walking toward us.

"Hey, look a few trash we can recruit." some man said to another guy.

"Who are you calling trash?'' Miya said as she stepped closer to the men.

"Oh she's kinda pretty." The man said as he looked at Miya. "Cmon lady, come join us we'll even let your grandpa- wait who's that other guy." The man said as he pointed at me.

"Join." I said as I put my hand on my new katana that the old man made me.

"Yeah, sure." the men both said sarcastically as they both rushed to me. I take out my katana and block both of their swords.

'Damn, their strength stat is high.' I thought while trying to block everything. 'I'll use the Warrior attribute.' I think as my eyes turn red and my strength stat turns to 7.5 The men try to attack me again but I strike their swords causing them to crack.

"What the hell!" one of the men said with a shocked impression.

"How did he crack our swords!" the other man said, sweating. I shot two fist sized fireballs at the two men, one for each. "W-What h-he can use fire to?" the man said with terror as he dodged.

"Well, will you join me or will you die." I asked the men who already took out their tickets. I put the tickets in my pouch and walk to Miya and Reggie after patching up the cracks in the men's sword with ice. I noticed my pouch started to change from white to blood red and in white letters it said Slaughters.

[SYSTEM]

[YOUR TEAM HAS BEEN GIVEN THE NAME OF SLAUGHTERS(Common) DUE TO EVERYONE IN YOUR GROUP KILLING AT LEAST ONE PERSON]

My blood went cold. The two men I expected but the old man and the girl. I trusted them but their murderers. 'I had my back turned to them, hell I took a nap on the way here and their murderers!' I thought as I looked at them 'No I killed someone, it was self defense, maybe it wasn't their fault, they don't seem like they would kill me, but now i'm not sure.' I thought, as I walked to the old man. "Why didn't you say you killed someone!" I say as I grab his throat.

"W-Wait," Reggie said, trying to get air. I loosened my grip on his neck so he could talk. "After the tutorial everyone freaked out. I worked as a janitor at a gas station a couple blocks away from the casino and a guy attacked me."

"How did your daughter kill someone then!" I yelled as I squeezed a little harder.

"She picked me up in her car after she finished the tutorial. We went to the casino and a man attacked us and cut me, and she killed him." The man said trying to get his breath back

"Why were you the only ones at the casino?" I asked as I looked at his daughter who was terrified.

"Monsters already killed everyone. The man that attacked us killed most of them but was injured. We just killed the rest." Reggie said, gritting his teeth.

"During the tutorial, who killed the Orc." I asked as I looked at Reggie and let go of his neck

"It was one of the employees, his name was Jerry." Reggie said with sadness.

"What about you?" I said as I looked at Miya.

"M-My co-worker killed it." She said sweating.

'Damn I can't trust them. With the nerf I don't know if I can beat them if they teamed up with the two men.' I thought as I froze Reggie's hands together. I walk to Miya and freeze her hands together too. 'If I had to make a guess…' I thought as I looked at the two men who I just fought. 'Their strength stat is about 3 each. Durability 2 and speed 3. I didn't see their mana stat but that probably means they only have 1 for mana. Which means they didn't kill the Orc in the tutorial, someone else did.' I thought as I walked toward them. "Who else was in the tutorial with you." I asked them, causing them to jump in shock.

"H-How did you know?" They asked me.

"Answer me first." I said getting ready to fight.

"Woah uh okay." The man started to say. "We run a gang, we're like the 3rd and 4th in charge." The man said. "But the 2nd in command is a monster. His name is Malachi. A man with level 6 in durability got cut down in one swing and we didn't even see him move." The man said as he started to get scared. "We've never seen Aaron use his strength." The man said as his teeth started chattering. "The way he makes us kneel, I can tell he's even stronger than Malachi." The man said.

'If this is true I doubt I could beat him with my full stats let alone now.' I thought nervously. "We need more people if we can take them down." I said looking at everyone. "Miya, Reggie, I'll trust you for now." I said walking toward them and destroying the ice. "Reggie try to level up your attribute, Miya try to awaken yours." I said as I turned to the two men. "What are your attributes? And what are your names?" I said to the men.

"Oh uh we both have the Thief attribute and our names are Michael and Brody. And our attribute, it allows us to get good loot when we kill someone." Michael with long brown hair said with a smile.

'Psycho' I thought nervously. "Do you know where we can find people that can help?" I said as I glanced toward Miya. "Well the five people in charge take most of the loot so I know a lot of people don't like us, but they hate Aaron. He takes at least 80% of the loot." Said Brody, the man with short brown hair.

"I see, how many people are in your gang?" I said.

"Last time I checked 19." Brody said confidently.

"I think there's 22 now." Michael said.

"Will that be enough?" I asked.

"Hard to say but even with you I don't know if we can win." Brody said with disappointment.

"I see, then we need to find a sub-challenge." I said as I looked at the ruined city around us.

"What's a sub-challenge?" Brody and Michael said.

"A sub-challenge are challenges that can happen that have nothing to do with the main challenge. I did one and got 50 coins from it." I said as I looked at Brody and Michael.

"Wow I didn't know that existed!" Brody said excitedly.

"We need to think of the worst scenario. In case we need to fight everyone in the group, we'll need to do at least one sub-challenge." I said.

"How do we get a sub-challenge?" Brody said interested.

"I'm not sure, we'll find out though." I say with confidence. "Let's kill some monsters for now, we can get coins for killing monsters we haven't killed before." I say as we start to walk. We walk a bit and only find some Orcs and Goblins that we easily destroy.

"Mister, do you trust us?" Reggie said behind me nervously.

"You can't trust anyone in this world, not anymore." I said without looking back

"I trust you mister." Reggie said.

"You shouldn't, I murdered people." I said as I continued walking.

[SHOP]

[KATANAS]

Coins-0

PAGE-1/20,362

[F-RANK] MIYAMOTO'S KATANA-20c

[D-RANK] HOLY KATANA-50c

[C-RANK] EVIL KATANA-100c

[B-RANK] MIDNIGHT KATANA-300c

[A-RANK] BLOOD KATANA-500c

[S-RANK] HEAVENLY KATANA-1,000c

'So expensive.' I thought as I looked at the prices. 'I have to keep Reggie around.' I thought as I looked to him. We walked a bit more and then we found new monsters.

"Yes! Finally something to kill!" Michael said as he dashed toward the creatures. The creatures were around 5 feet tall with sharp claws and teeth. They were like a cross between monkeys and leopards.

"Wait!" I screamed to Michael as he ran to the creatures. 'Idiot we don't know what they can do!' I thought as his brother started to walk after him. "Sto- Damnit!" Brody ignored me and started fighting the creatures. I dashed toward the creatures to help them. I caught one off guard and killed it. "Shit!" I yelled as I looked up a building, seeing dozens of the creatures.

[SYSTEM]

[KILLED NEW 2-STAR MONSTER]

[+30 COINS]

'Yes! This is a start to completing the scenario!' I thought as I leaped away from the creatures and I put 20 coins into speed and 10 into mana.

[STATS]

HP: 130/130(122.5/122.5)

MP: 30/30(22.5/22.5)

STRENGTH- 5(3.75)

DURABILITY- 3(2.25)

SPEED- 7(5.25)

MANA- 3(2.25)

"H-hey." Brody whispered in pain. "They're poisonous." Brody said weakly. I look at Michael and he's already coughing up blood.

"Miya, Reggie!" I yell at them. "Prove yourselves useful and help them!" I yelled as I dodged the creature's sharp claws. 'Damn I'm using my skills and it's hard to dodge.' I thought as I sliced the creature's arm off. 5 more of them try to jump on me, I shoot a fireball up and burn the creatures. 3 more jump down and look at me I glare into their eyes, they rush to the other creature's that I injured and took them into the building. 'Comradery? These creatures are better than humans.' I ran over to Miya and Reggie who were treating Brody and Michael who had now gone unconscious. "Will they be okay?" I asked.

"Um well they won't die." Miya said seriously.

"How do you know that?" I asked, getting suspicious.

"Oh yeah my mom was a doctor and she taught me some stuff also I've been training to be a doctor." she said proudly. I walked away from them and started to think.

'How do we beat that guy?' I thought as the system showed up.

[SYSTEM]

[D-RANK SUB-CHALLENGE HAS BEGUN]

[BEAT ZELEX KING]

'Zelex king? What's tha-' my thought was interrupted as I heard loud bangs coming from in the building that the other creatures went into. "What the hell." I said quietly as one of those creatures came out. This one was much bigger, about 18 feet tall and very muscular. It dashed toward me. Despite being so much bigger it was only a little bit slower than the normal Zelex. I dodged everything easily and swung my sword at its legs but my sword bounced off. 'So your defense is pretty good, let's see if fire works.' I thought as I shot a fireball at its chin. It brushes it off easily, so I rip a concrete wall off of a building and slam it in its face using telekinesis. It brushes it off and kicks me into a building. It charges through the building and uses its sharp claws to slash at me. I try to dodge all of it but I can tell I broke a few ribs and it shows, my sloppy footwork causes me to get cut multiple times by his claws, luckily the cuts aren't deep enough to poison me. I try to use ice magic but I don't have enough mana to use it. It slashes at me and cuts me deep across my chest and I backflip to dodge his second slash. The poison immediately sets in and my body becomes stiff, I can't move at all but luckily Michael threw his sword right in the back of Zelex king's head. The Zelex king turned and dashed toward Michael. I tried my best and was able to move again and I ran over and grabbed the Zelex's leg and yelled to everyone. "Fucking do something!" I yelled as I squeezed his leg tighter. The Zelex looked at me and I closed my eyes. I looked up when I felt blood fall down on my back and I heard the Zelex king scream. Miya had slashed its eyes. I used this opportunity to grab my katana and sliced the throat of the Zelex king. The Zelex dropped to the ground and my system popped up.

[SYSTEM]

[D-RANK SUB-CHALLENGE COMPLETE]

[+50 COINS]

[KILLED NEW 2-STAR BOSS]

[+30 COINS]

"Hah, that's some pretty good rewards." I say before I fall to the ground unconscious.

"Ugh fuck, my head." I sigh as I wake up, on a couch in a hotel lobby.

"I thought you were gonna die!" Miya said as she hugged me.

"I'm the last thing you should worry about, are you and everyone else okay?" I asked as she got up.

"Everyone is fine now, you've been out for 4 days." she said.

"What! That means we only have 1 day!" I yelled as I shot up off the couch.

"I know but you can't fight in your condition!" she yelled as she pushed you back down.

"Hey we're back!" Brody and Michael yelled. "Oh look who's up now." Brody said with a grin as he walked over to me.

"Who are those people?" I asked as I looked to about 15 people behind him.

"This is our help, we're going to attack them tonight after all!" Michael said with a grin.

"Hell yeah we are!" Brody and all the people behind him yelled.

"No! Look at his condition, he's the strongest here, we can't fight without him." Miya said as she got up in Brody's face.

"Who said we weren't taking him?" Brody said with a smirk. He walked up to me and took out a red liquid in a bottle.

"What's that?" I asked as he took the lid off.

"It's a healing potion I got for murdering. Drink." He said, handing me the bottle. I drank it and instantly felt better, I was still in pain but it was a lot less. I jumped up off the couch and grabbed my katana next to me.

"So what's the plan?" I asked as I took off bandages and put some new clothes on.

"Heh, Isn't it obvious we're all attacking tonight, and we'll kill, everyone." Brody said with a smirk.