From Zero

After the participants all fell unconscious and entered the new world, 37 laser guns in each room lowered down from the ceiling and rotated themselves to point directly at the players' foreheads. However, they did not fire. After all, it was not yet time. The event needed to trigger them had not occurred yet.

Meanwhile, in the control room of this deep underground facility, a single hooded figure stood on top of a diamond-shaped black platform. Surrounding him were three pitch-black walls that contrasted greatly with the bright white rooms where the players were placed in, and made it difficult to see as well.

But that was fine — for the walls suddenly flickered to life all at once, each splitting into 333 screens that displayed the perspective of a different player who had now all entered the Game of Endzone. No, they did not have cameras implanted into their heads — this was just a feature of the VR sets: broadcasting the players' perspective.

It was unknown if the hooded man's expression changed or not as his face was hidden, but he did spread his arms and tilt his head upwards, facing the ceiling.

"So… the Game begins once more. Perhaps, in this year's batch, there will be someone whom you find worthy, chairwoman."

*****

- Inside the Game -

When the darkness faded away and Cyanide opened his eyes once more, he found himself staring at the wide open sky, blue and clear.

"Ngh…" He groggily sat up and looked around. He seemed to be on the wide roof of an extremely tall building, much like the skyscrapers seen in metropolitan cities. Then, his gaze landed on himself, his own body.

"What is… this…?"

Cyanide blinked in confusion at the clothes he was wearing. They were brown and dirty, like a prisoner's. Cheap sandals were attached to his bare feet, and his lower body was covered by loose and baggy pants that offered zero protection. Perhaps for other people, this was the definition of 'comfortable', but for Cyanide, this could not be further from that.

Without any weapons and armor beneath his clothes, he felt naked as a professional assassin. He felt restless inside his heart, fearing that somebody may have poisoned him in his sleep, even though he knew this was just a simulation. He felt defenseless, helpless.

But of course, such things weren't enough to sway Cyanide. He calmly stood up from the ground and walked forward to the edge of the roof to get a good glance at his surroundings. But after taking a single step, he stopped.

SCRAPE.

His feet… had made noise upon touching the roof's gravel ground. Impossible — he had trained for years to not make any noise when walking, no matter how rough the floor's material may be. He was a silent shadow in the darkness, quiet and stealthy.

And yet… here he was, making noise while walking like any other person.

'No… it can't be…' Cyanide thought, narrowing his turquoise eyes and glancing at his arms. There were barely any muscles on them — definitely not what he recognized to be his own body.

Then, he rolled up his shirt, and confirmed his doubts. There were no abs whatsoever, even though he had a ripped six-pack in the real world.

That left only one conclusion — his power, all his training as a professional assassin… was gone.

'So this is what that hooded man meant by 'fair'? Hmph.'

Well, it was fine. At least he retained his 6'1 height. His physical prowess may have been gone… but he still had all his memories. All the knowledge and experience he possessed as a professional assassin was invaluable. Physical strength could be trained to regain in no time — but certain things, such as knowledge and experience, were impossible to learn unless the conditions were met.

He was still the world's number one underground killer, Cyanide. Even with his physical power and stealth gone, he was still a fearsome entity that could not be underestimated.

Slowly, Cyanide walked forward on the roof until he hit the very edge of it, then gazed out at the beautiful wasteland that laid out in front of him.

As the gentle wind breezed past his body, he marveled at the once-prospering, modern city, now lay in ruins. There was no sign of life anywhere; nothing was moving at all — at least, from the height Cyanide was at.

Buildings lay in shambles, some of which had toppled over and smashed into the ground to create various cracks and fractures along the broken concrete. Vehicles — cars, vans, and bikes — lay flipped, unmoving and dead. There wasn't even any exhaust coming out of their pipes, signaling that whatever caused this to happen occurred a long time ago.

Out in the distance, far beyond the ruined highways and destroyed buildings, a forest could be seen. Mountains lay even further away, but they were too hazy for Cyanide to be sure.

But if he looked in a different direction, he could see another decayed city not too far away, connected to this one via a broken metro railway track. Said metro had derailed; it's remains now lay on its side a little ways off the tracks.

"… A post-apocalyptic world," Cyanide muttered. "Interesting. So… I have to be the last survivor here, huh? Not bad, not bad at all."

In his mind, he pondered: What's next? Zombies? Mutated animals? All the things that he had read about before in novels of the apocalypse genre popped up into his head. Reading those books had been his way of spending free time, whenever he was resting between training sessions. Who knew such fictional tales would come in useful one day?

But just as he was thinking about this… a mysterious, translucent blue panel suddenly appeared his face, levitating in the air like a hologram.

[Warning: Virus Detected.]

[If an antidote is not consumed within 24 hours, the Survivor will perish. Time remaining: 23:58:42.]

"… So I did get poisoned while I was unconscious after all."