BXBX NOVEL Chapter 101 101: The First Competition [Pt1]
The first round had officially started. Now there were two kinds of people in the clearing - those who were excited and ready to do anything to win and those who were scared for their lives and what this contract meant for them.
Many participants had entered here for fun and experience. They had expected to be able to back out of this competition anytime they wanted to.
But that luxury had been taken away because of the contract. Instead, these people were forced to fight each other and they had to also abide by certain rules they had not even read before.
"Don\'t worry dear participants. Nothing would happen to you if you behave within a certain parameter and do not cause any trouble for us. As for the tournament, we should start it now or our host will get irritated even more."
The black-clad figure spoke and snapped his fingers. A slip of paper appeared in front of everyone and Keith quickly noticed that it was color coded.
"You all need to pick a color from the ground. You have 10 minutes to do so. Exchange of slip colors is allowed within these ten minutes as well."
Keith looked at his green paper slip and then noticed that Amelia had a pink one. So, he needed to find a pink one as well.
Keith suddenly felt like he knew what was going on with these colored slips. The host was separating them all into different teams and it could either go brilliantly or wrong from here on.
But Keith decided to trust his logic. There were too many people here to be doing a battle royal without different teams. So, the teams were likely going to compete against each other.
"Which color did you get, Keith?"
Amelia quickly walked over to Keith and noticed his green slip. She looked uncomfortable with her pink slip now and instantly started looking around for green.
It seemed like she had decided to stick with Keith for the time being which was assuring. With the protagonist looking after him, Keith had a feeling he would not be facing too much stress during the competition.
"E-Excuse me, but would you be willing to exchange your green slip for my pink one? I saw that you needed one and I do not mind being on a different team than my original one."
A teenager walked over to Keith and Amelia as soon as he noticed their plight. He held out his pink slip, not knowing what kind of opportunity he was missing by refusing to be with Amelia.
Keith knew it was immoral of him to rob this child of a possible victory but he was desperate as well.
"Well, sure I would exchange slips with you. But are you sure you want to do that? You will not come to regret your choice in the future, right?"
Keith asked one last time as he held his slip ahead of him. The teenager took the slip with a red face and he held his pink one for Keith to take as well.
All this while, the teenager seemed to be busy staring at another participant. So, when Keith questioned him, the teenager looked baffled and broke out into a flushed expression.
"O-Oh, I will not regret it for sure. You see, I have my reasons for wanting to be in green. Thank you so much for your help."
Keith had followed the teenager\'s gaze, only to notice a female on the other end holding a green slip in her hand.
It seemed like the teenager who had agreed to exchange his slip had things much more important than victory in his mind right now.
"Aww, that is very sweet of him. I am glad he got to be with his friend during this competition."
Amelia seemed to have misunderstood what just went on between Keith and the teenager. But Keith decided not to burst Amelia\'s bubbles. She was alright even if she was innocent so Keith decided to let her delusions be.
Sara walked over to the group with her pink slip as well. Keith was sure that her initial slip had been red but she had exchanged it with someone else as well.
Besides them, there were a lot more people who had the pink slip in their hands but no one mingled with the other group.
*Clap*
"Alright, everyone. The time for you to choose your slip is over. Now, try to survive until only one color is left in the forest. You have no time limit but your locations would be displayed with your color every two hours. Eliminate everyone who stands in your way until you are the only one left. Good luck everyone."
The black-clad figure snapped his fingers and the stage disappeared. It happened in the blink of an eye and it took everyone by surprise.
The smoke caused everyone\'s vision to be obstructed and by the time it disappeared, no one knew where they were.
Thankfully, Keith had managed to be with Amelia even now and the trio had ended up alone in the forest.
There was a screen-like thing in front of them that showed beeping maps. It was the map showing the location of different colors and the nod of participants left.
"There are over 10 teams? And 32 members in each team? That means that there are over 320 participants?"
Sara exclaimed in surprise. Even Keith was surprised to see such a big number of people coming to participate in this competition and passing the first hurdle.
But that was not all. When you considered the fact that people had been screened before admitting into this competition, it made things and the scale of this competition even bigger than before.
As much as Keith did not want to admit it, the guild and Master Olivia had a tough reputation to beat. She was famous and people were flocking to her side regardless of her inclination.
"Be it 300 or 1000, it should not matter if you want to win. Let\'s focus on taking people out nearest to us first. Noah, you provide me back up and I will do the heavy work."
Amelia did not seem to mind so many opponents. She was determined to fight and win as soon as possible.
Her way of thinking was rational as well since waiting around would only put them at a disadvantage.
"H-hey, should we not wait around for a bit? Let these people fight it out and tire themselves while we wait and attack later? It\'s a sound strategy."
Sara tried to sound rational but it was clear that she had never been in a fighting situation this huge before. Had she been in one, she would not have suggested sitting around and being fodder for the other team.
"Sara, if we stay around then we will become targets sooner or later. Rather than being surprised attacked by someone, I would rather just attack the person outright and be the one to take them by surprise."
Amelia explained with a dark look in her eyes. Memories seemed to be flashing across her eyes and Keith decided not to poke her right now.
"We also lack food and other necessities and we have no idea if we will be able to find them in this forest. It would be better for us to finish this round early."
Now, Keith had packed a lot of amenities and food in his pocket dimension but it was all for emergencies. If he could preserve it then he would. And even the food in inventory had an expiry date and time.
So, when Amelia said that they were on a timer, they were on a timer.
"Alright fine. I guess you are right and we cannot hide when the timer is exposing our location every two hours. But you two do have a plan, right?"
Sara sounded worried and she had to be because of her lack of fighting capabilities. She was the only dead weight on this team and that was why she had chosen a team that would take her far.
"Hmm, it\'s simple. Between my attacks and Noah\'s defense, we should be able to take out most of these people. The problem would be the heavy hitters but we can just regroup with the others in our team and attack them."
Amelia ended up making this decision and Keith did not oppose her decision made. He knew Amelia was not confident in herself but her plan could honestly work.
That, and Keith had no idea what else to do. His attack powers were still not under control and killing was prohibited for this competition. It would be a huge problem if someone ended up dying.
"Alright fine. Let us do things your way this time around. But I still think we should find other people first before deciding about taking these people on or not. I don\'t think we should rush in this recklessly ourselves."