Second World Novel

“Okay…,” Jack muttered. He pulled the rubber strips of the slingshot, testing it. He wanted to be ready in case he needed to perform a shot.

He didn’t waste too long to get ready. He only had ten minutes, after all. He left the safe room and walked down the dimly lit hallway. Not far ahead, he met a T-junction. The hallway split to the left and right.

There was nothing particular between the two directions, so he just randomly took one. He turned left.

He crossed several intersections afterward. He couldn’t access his map system, so he tried to manually remember every path he had taken and mapped them in his mind. Thanks to his high intelligence stat, he had enough memory to remember them and visualize a proper map picture.

“This maze is truly chaotic,” Jack remarked after checking the map in his mind.

He had gone back several times to a path he had passed before and went the other way, but there didn’t seem to be any sense of a general direction to go. The hallways always went in circles. It was like the entire maze was one big box without an exit.𝗇𝑶𝗏𝖊𝓵𝑛𝐄xt.𝗰𝒐𝐦

He tried opening the multiple doors and windows that he encountered along the hallways. None of them could be opened. He even tried ramming his body into one of those doors. Despite his strength, the door didn’t budge. He also tried smashing his elbow into the window. The glass was as if steel plate. Maybe if he could use mana manipulation, he could break this glass, but he would probably be violating the rules then. In his current condition, he would have to use the proper method even if he didn’t want to.

He went back to studying the map in his mind. While he was doing that, he heard faint footsteps.

He stopped his thoughts and focused on his ears. Nothing. When he was about to decide that he was only imagining things, he heard a different sound now, scratching. He knew then that it was not his imagination.

He turned to the sound. There were footsteps now. Out of a corner, a deformed man wearing ragged farmer clothes appeared. The man was huge. His face was badly scarred. The most intimidating part of the man was he carried a giant maul on his shoulder.

This monster of a farmer walked toward Jack with steady steps.

“All right…,” Jack muttered and drew the slingshot’s leather pad that held the metal ball. “Like any other survival action game, aim for the head.”

Despite being back to a normal person, Jack’s attributes were anything but normal. The slingshot’s rubber strips were pulled to their maximum stretch. Jack even worried the slingshot might break from his pull, but the game mechanic kept the small weapon sturdy. When he couldn’t pull any further, he released it.

The metal ball flew straight and accurately struck one of the farmer’s eyes. The farmer reeled back from the hit. His free hand went to his face as he groaned.

It was an accurate shot and the target was stopped. It should be something worth celebrating, but Jack was scowling instead.

“Shit… We aren’t supposed to fight this thing,” Jack said.

The damage caused by his accurate shot didn’t even reduce the farmer’s HP bar by one percent. Even if he shot all the twenty balls, it won’t kill this farmer.

“The ten unmissable shots that Aglea mentioned are not about this monster,” Jack uttered. So, he turned and ran. He had wasted one bullet. Now that he knew the bullets were not for the farmer, he couldn’t afford to waste any more of them on the same target.

“Then what are the bullets for?” Peniel asked.

Jack didn’t answer because he also didn’t know.

“Something… Something…,” Jack muttered while running.

He kept the farmer’s previous position in his mind while he ran. He visualized the possible routes it might take in his mind’s map. He didn’t want to accidentally stumbled into the farmer while running.

His talents were also sealed, so he couldn’t use his Hundred Synchronous Thoughts. But he had gotten used to multi-thinking so much that he could now do it naturally, only not as extreme as when his talent was active.

He slowed down as he paid attention to the sound. He heard footsteps from the right. That side was among the routes he visualized the farmer might take. So, he inputted this new position into his visualized map and moved accordingly.

However, this was not a solution. He couldn’t play cat-and-mouse with this farmer indefinitely. Not to mention there was a ten minutes deadline.

“Something… Something…,” Jack was still muttering while running. His eyes caught something then. “… Something out of place!”

Jack stopped and aimed his slingshot upward. He had armed it with another metal ball.

Peniel observed the direction Jack was aiming at. Above the window and hanging from the ceiling, was one tiny circular picture. It was like the ones used on the archery match before this round, only much smaller in size.

Jack released his pull and the metal ball struck this tiny circular target near the ceiling. The target broke. As it did, the window underneath it was opened.

“Bingo!” Jack exclaimed.

His celebration was cut short when he heard footsteps approaching. He turned back and saw the huge farmer.

Jack didn’t stay around to contemplate. He jumped through the open window and ended up in a different hallway. He knew it was different because the architecture was different. This hallway used a gothic design.

He looked back at the window he had jumped out from. No window was there. It was a wall.

‘No going back to the safe room anymore,’ Jack thought. Not that he was considering going back, though.

He heard footsteps behind him and found it was the same farmer from before.

“F*ck! You are not giving me time to study the place this time?” Jack cursed and started running.

This place was a completely new layout, so the map he memorized before was useless. He had to start drawing the map in his mind while being chased by a monstrous farmer, all the time searching for the small circular target that might easily elude his sight.

“Fun game,” Jack said with sarcasm.