Liu Feng’s training game of choice? Prop Hunt.
It was vastly different from paint gun fights but ten times scarier. The rules of this game were simple. Zen had to hide in plain sight or camouflaged as an item in the hiding grounds. After a minute, Liu Feng would seek for him, and he had five tries to get it right.Also, in the virtual world, Liu Feng was a murderer. Prop hunt was a horror game that allowed players to be the monster seeker who killed shape-shifting humans to win the game. Humans were naturally disadvantaged. Hence, they played in a team of four against a seeker.Zen’s team members were created by artificial intelligence and were not very good at their jobs. To avoid getting captured by Liu Feng, hiders had to fix machines to distract Liu Feng or run for their lives. However, they kept getting caught from their ruckus not even five minutes into the game. Zen was always the last one left.Unable to fix any machines because the blind manIf there was something more hilarious than waking up from a comatose, it was a civilian offering a mafiosi protection service.What was Zen thinking?Damian Gorski could not understand. It defied logic. Everything about Zen defied common sense if common sense was common. First, that kid wanted to recruit him. Then, he wanted to redeem his freedom. Now, he wanted to protect him?Damian Gorski was a science freak. He needed data and evidence for every judgement. However, no amount of data could explain the insanity that Zen embodied. He was almost as bad as Godfather Veron, if not worse. At least Godfather Veron had experience on his side. Zen was walking through a minefield with only luck on his shoulder. How did he survive probability till this point? If it were anyone else, they would need at least eighty-seven lives to get to where they were.Sighing in defeat, Damian wondered if he should reply to Zen’s goodnight message. The event would begin tomorrow,
The event dragged everyone into a virtual beach. No, not beach resorts. Just plain old sand and water under the glaring sun. It was a rude shock to most people sleeping as it was three in the ungodly hour of the morning. The more experienced assassins were used to having unusual circadian rhythms and jumped into work mode immediately while others struggled to pry their eyes open.Zen was catching up on his beauty sleep when the Godfather sprung the event on them. It was a horrible way to wake up, but Liu Feng had his back. The students were spawned in different parts of the huge deserted island surrounded by an impregnable wall of waves.“Remember the lesson,” Liu Feng reminded Zen.They were lucky to be spawned together in this event. The Godfather decided to be merciful when people of the same party were spawned in a similar location. They could also use their communication system to contact others on their friend list. Zen, the academy’s soc
Bang!Bang! Bang!Frustrated, Sasha gnashed her teeth. She’d never missed this many shots in her life after she received her customised rifle. It was humiliating, but she put up with it as they were facing a difficult opponent.“Run!” she yelled at the terrified student beneath her perch. Oritha was doing her best to face off with Felix, but it took their combined efforts and shaky teamwork to keep him at bay.Watching his prey get away, Felix’s grin turned into a scowl. Facing a guild defector was bad luck. Running into a pesky sniper was worse. The blonde bitch in the tree was a pain to deal with. Even if he knew where her blind spot was, he couldn’t get to her.Oritha was on guard. She thought they would find Johan first. That terrorist was a less terrifying person to deal with in comparison. Liu Feng was the only person on their team capable of fighting the Hunter. Both men had similar abilities to spot a person’s weak
Nearly forty minutes into the event, Zen and his guild members confirmed they had enough map parts to finish two of five treasure maps. Akiko had a run-in with Johan, who escaped, and was frustrated when she could not locate him with the area tracker.“He must have used the teleportation item. It’s ok,” Zen consoled Akiko, who must be berating herself for failing to capture the bomber. “We have two completed maps. Could you help to retrieve it? I’m sending one to you and the other to Oritha and Sasha.”Listening to Zen’s soothing voice, Akiko calmed down. It was a shame she failed to finish Johan when she had the chance, but there was always next time. Besides, they had a more important task at hand. Even after gathering so many map parts from more than half the remaining students, they only pieced two of the five treasure maps. She should have ripped out at least one of Johan’s arms.At the same time, Sasha and Oritha c
When Zen and Damian arrived at the rendezvous point, Liu Feng was already bored out of his mind. He’d killed several monsters that charged at him and earned some interesting items. The injured student was slowly recovering but not fast enough. The recovery told Liu Feng that the injury during the event would not be permanent. It was a concerning confirmation.“You’re here,” the long-haired man smiled.Zen nodded and looked at the number of unusual animal corpses surrounding his terrifying sworn brother.“What are these?”Shrugging, the Chinese man expressed disinterest. However, he held up the new loot he collected from killing these beasts.“I got these from killing them. Are they useful?”Confused, Zen came closer to Liu Feng, side-stepping the corpses carefully. Damian ignored their discussion, more interested in the corpses as he questioned the other students for a personal recount.Reaching for w
Just an hour into the game, everyone forgot about their initial sleepiness. If anything, they were pumped with adrenaline, running in every direction. Some ran for their lives from monsters, some ran in search of targets, and others ran to avoid getting targeted.Zen ran to look for a new babysitter with Damian in tow. The cyborg did not feel breathless, and Zen was envious. He wanted mechanical body parts too! He bet he could learn to use robotic limbs faster than the gym could build muscles on his scrawny body.By now, the game had changed drastically. Player map parts were no longer high in demand, and Guild Survivors had all five map pieces consolidated. Akiko had already located the first treasure and was holding onto it while she searched for a new one that Zen tasked. Likewise, Oritha and Sasha were on the lookout for their second treasure of the game.Liu Feng, Zen and Damian were supposed to be searching for the last treasure when they bumped into someone the
It was dark, and every tiny sound was magnified ten times by the echo in the cave. Zen was afraid. He felt his fear escalated when he heard Johan’s voice echo.The madman knew where they were. How? Zen had no idea. Nobody was in the area when he first found the cave, with Damian following behind him. The area tracker showed nothing. How did Johan know there were people in here?“Come out, come out, wherever you are! I smell more than rats in this place. Don’t worry. I won’t bite. I’ll just drink your blood from the bloody pieces of your flesh. HAHAHAHAH!!”Trembling but holding his breath and doing his best to erase his existence the way Liu Feng taught him, Zen shifted his body in front of Damian, pushing the cyborg closer to the wall.While Damian appreciated the gesture of bravery and his attempt to uphold Zen’s protection service, he knew it wouldn’t work. Johan “Terrorist” Bin Hashim gained his repu
Twenty minutes flew by very quickly. Without any threats for the rest of the game, Zen settled into a more relaxed mode, opting to do silly things like build sandcastles and jump the artificial waves at the beach while his two most powerful party members slogged.Was this really ok? Damian could understand if Sasha joined him to amuse the child-like gamer. However, when the Amazonian joined in with the sand sculpting contest they hosted and dragged him into helping her to build a sand totem, Damian had to question their sanity.Why were they having a beach party when people were frantically fighting for their lives in this event? Didn’t they just escape a narrowly close death experience?“What’s wrong?” Oritha frowned. “Your hands have stopped moving. I still need five more compact sand bricks.”Staring at her, the cyborg studied her. There wasn’t a lot of hate anymore for some reason.“Didn’t you hate me