Marauder

Somewhere inside a dark alley.

Two individuals were staring at each other without moving.

There was a moment of silence until the thug broke it. "So, ya' newcomer? Kekek! I pity you, you don't know the danger you just entered!" he said.

"Hmm, I'm feelin' a bit good today so I'll explain a bit. Be glad!" he said, waving his phone. "See this, yeah? This is D-Game! A game where you can easily be rich!" he added as he showed his screen.

"And right now, we're in a battle! Kekeke! The only way to win is by either killing the opponent, or if the opponent gives up! And oh by the way, I prefer to win the former! Kekek."

Despite the threatening action of the thug, the person wearing a uniform just calmly glanced at the phone that he threw earlier. It was a mystery as to how the phone was still not completely broken.

He then sensed something from it.

Marauder's intuition!

His intuition told him that the phone he threw was valuable.

This phone had a snake come out of its screen and bit him. So with caution in mind, he approached it.

Walking in front of it, he bent down and slowly picked up the phone which was under the fluorescent light.

Nothing happened, good.

Looking at the black screen, he got confused. "Hm?" he wondered, looking at the reflection of the screen which showed his face.

He was very focused on something earlier that he failed to notice that his appearance had changed again.

His appearance now looked like when just graduated high school in his past life. His hair was now wavy medium length, and deep black in color.

He opened the phone and saw a cartoonish image version of him. At the right side of the image, he saw various information about him and the name which was supposed to be his own.

[Amon]—It said.

The student—no... Amon, who was holding the phone, got even more confused.

'This is definitely not my name though… Well, whatever,' he thought to himself. There wasn't even a last name.

Amon, who had just witnessed a massive red flag unknowingly, decided to ignore it.

"Ya' done? This is taking too long," the thug butted in, feeling impatient.

Waving his knife in his left hand, he added, "Come on, come on! I said I'm feeling good today. So just give me half of your points and surrender. And I would spare your life."

Looking at the thug silently for a few seconds, Amon smirked which the thug failed to notice as Amon's smirk went back into a normal smile.

Amon walked slowly to the thug and said, "Thank you for your kindness, really. I'm fairly new to this as you have correctly guessed. So would you please help me? I don't really know how to transfer points, you see."

Seeing the student walk slowly to him, the thug laughed and said, "Kekek! Ya' really helpless, huh? Let me tell you this, everyone was once a beginner at first, but not me! I was already good at this game the moment I joined!"

Amon put his phone inside his pocket and clapped his hands. "Wow~ As expected of you. I mean, you look really strong! I bet no one was near your match," he said while smiling, taking off his coat uniform. "Phew, this is so hot, don't you think?"

"Hot? I dunno." It was already night after all, there was no reason to experience hotness in the surroundings.

"Anyway, ya seem like you're good with words. Actually, hey, wanna be under me? I need someone good at speaking soon after I become number one in this area. Kekek," the thug said, clearly immersed in some delusions of his.

At this moment, Amon—who was now 7 steps near from the thug, suddenly threw his coat uniform, aiming it at the thug's face.

"Wha-!?" startled, the thug who had his vision suddenly blocked by the coat uniform, immediately ducked, successfully avoiding the coat.

Just as he avoided it, he was in for another surprise. "You-!" he was startled yet again as he saw a smiling face that was now right in front of him.

Amon was now right in front of him.

Marauder's nimbleness!

The moment Amon threw his coat uniform at the thug, he immediately ran towards the thug with great speed.

Taking advantage of the surprise, he nimbly stretched his arm and attempted to steal the phone in the thug's right hand.

Seeing this, the thug immediately moved his hand away, causing Amon to fail his attempt at stealing the thug's phone.

"Bastard!" The thug screamed as he tried to slash Amon using his knife in his left hand.

But Amon never got slashed.

The moment the thug swung his arm at Amon, he realized that there was no knife in his hand anymore.

He looked at Amon, and there it was. His knife was somehow now in Amon's hand.

Marauder's misdirection!

Amon tricked the thug into thinking that the phone was his target. But in reality, what he actually attempted to steal was the knife.

And he succeeded. He had successfully stolen the knife.

Taking a simple step forward, Amon smiled as he brought the knife into the thug's neck.

Blood flowed from the thug's mouth. "Ah," he didn't manage to utter a word. His body went limp, and he simply died.

The marauder—Amon, had his first kill and first win.

Inside his pocket, his phone brightened up.

[You win! Winner: Amon!]

…

I continued to stare at the dead body in front of me. I didn't feel disgusted, sadness, pity, or anything.

It felt as if there was something that was preventing my emotion from feeling displeasure.

I watched other characters being able to kill easily despite being a normal citizen for most of their life. For them, was it like this?

Anyway, I checked the broken phone.

This thug that I killed was spouting something about D-Game which was very unfamiliar. From what I heard earlier, this D-Game seemed to be a crazy game that involved the lives of the players.

It was basically a PvP death game from what I understood.

I opened the phone which again, showed the D-Game name and a snake logo. Tapping the screen again, I saw information about me again and other several options.

[Status]

[Affiliated Clan: None

Name: Amon

Battle Record: Battle (1), Win(1), Lose(0)

Points: 110

Sigil: Hashashin ]

[Status] [Battle] [Shop] [Rankings] [FAQs]

"Sigil? What is that?" I asked myself as I clicked FAQs.

Soon then, I saw a bunch of lists.

[About Darwin's Game]

[Sigils, and what are they]

[About Points]

…

..

Seeing the lists, I clicked on the first one.

[About Darwin's Game - It is a super friendly game which helps to develop a person's success! Come, invite your friends to join this fun game!]

As a person who already knew that this was a death game, this information baffled me. "Wow, this is not very suspicious looking at all," I said while laughing.

I clicked on the second one. This time, at least, the information was now kind of interesting.

[Sigils, and what are they - a unique ability everyone who joined possesses which came from human evolution!]

I touched my chin. "Interesting, definitely interesting," I said.

This 'sigil' was probably what the thug used earlier to have a knife suddenly appear in front of him.

Looking at my own sigil—Hashashin, I formed some ideas. Is it because of this that I was able to kill my opponent even when I have no experience in killing?

Moving on, I clicked on the third one.

[About Points - Points are numerical values which are gained either by winning or losing.

There are four ranks which are assigned according to the players' total number of points. Respectively; Rank D 0-99, Rank C 100-999, Rank B 1000-9999, and Rank A 10000-99999

One point is equivalent to 100,000 yen. Spend wisely! (Check more in the shop!) ]

"Alright, now this is really interesting…" I said as I looked at my points.

Points: 110

Meaning, right now, I am carrying an 11,000,000 yen phone! A player's phone was important judging from the thug's reaction earlier and from my own intuition.

I immediately called out to the system, as I clicked on inventory.

As I was about to put the phone inside, I saw an item I didn't put inside. "What the… A monocle? I don't remember putting one there," I said to myself.

But strangely enough, I didn't feel repulsive towards the monocle. In fact, I even felt like wearing it right away.

Is it because there was almost no one wearing a monocle in my past life that I felt attracted to it?

Not noticing the red flag again, I took it out from the inventory and replaced it with the phone.

Immediately, I wore it. "Ohh~ feels kind of nice," I said. "I'll keep this from now on."

"Now… should I buy clothes? I'm not short of money now, after all," I said, looking at my tattered clothes.

With that, I made my way out of the dark alley.