“Are you all ready to start?!” Jewel yelled enthusiastically, hoping to get a cheer from the participants.

  Unfortunately for him, all the participants stayed silent and only stared at him blankly. This caused Jewel to sweat a tiny amount due to his embarrassment at the situation.

  Idiot.

  “Nevermind. The game will now begin.” Jewel states and claps his hands.

  Once he clapped, the participants spread out randomly across the area. A white box that spread across almost the entire ground, leaving the sides only a few inches away from the vertical borders. Jewel teleported outside the white lines, right between it and the border. A massive 10 minute timer appeared in the air, just like the player count in game 0.

  50 of the participants, including Jack himself, started glowing with a blue light fluctuating around them. Then, the timer started its countdown and bell rang throughout the area.

  Looks like I’m one of the taggers. Welp, this should be easy enough.

  The other participants began to run in order to separate themselves from the glowing players. After only seconds the only people near Jack were Loid and Riveria.

  “Oh no, you’re a tagger! What’re gonna do Mr Jack?” Loid asks, visibly worried.

  “Look, I don’t really know you that well but from what I’ve seen early, you got this. Right?” Riveria asks.

  “Riveria, people will die by my hand today. That is an unavoidable fact. This game is fundamentally built on the idea that we have to get each other killed. If you have a problem with the way I do things I suggest you separate yourself from Loid and I now. But if you choose to stay our ally, stay with Loid, I’ll be back in a bit.” Jack explains and then dashes away from his allies.

  Jack ran to the other side of the area in a flash and reached a corner with a few other participants. A participant with blue hair grew a cannon out of his chest and shot a cannonball directly at Jack. Jack dodged the cannonball and delivered a roundhouse kick to the man’s skull. That contact transmitted the tagger label to the other participant and turned Jack into a player.

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  Jack then jumped away in order to not be turned into a tagger again. Meanwhile, Loid and Riveria were getting chased around by a tagger.

  The tagger was a young man with his long black hair kept into a ponytail. His navy blue eyes tracked the two like a predator hunting his prey.

  He’s catching up, I have to stop him. Loid thought.

  Loid turned around, materialized a pistol into his palm and shot at the tagger. The tagger reacted too late to dodge and the bullet pierced his forearm.

  “Damn it!” The man yelled out before his scowl turned into a smile. “Nice shot kid. Too bad I’m a tagger because if I wasn’t, I might’ve taken you under my wing.” The tagger said.

  Then, Riveria moved in front of Loid and lit her fists on fire.

  “You talk too much, you freak!” She yells while blasting fire at him.

  The man dodged and kicked Riveria in the knee. She winces, then pulls his leg close and punches him in the face. He headbutts her, causing her to let go of his leg and leaves her open to a punch to the gut. Riveria has now become a tagger and the previous tagger jumps away from her.

  “Adios!” He exclaims before running away.

  The time left on the clock was now 6 minutes. After Riveria was turned into a tagger, Jack returned.

  “Riveria, you’re glowing. So that means you were turned into a tagger.” Jack said.

  “Thanks for stating the obvious, genius.” Riveria snaps back.

  “Whatever, just tag me and I’ll deal with it.” He responds.

  Riveria than taps Jack to turn him into a tagger once again. Jack was about to leave but Loid started to speak.

  “Please…be careful Mr Jack.” Loid said.

  “I will but I have to go now or else I’ll go kaboom!” Jack replied and dashed off.

  There was a group of players in a chaotic brawl in an attempt to escape two taggers. Two people, a man and a woman were running towards Jack, trying to escape from the scrimmage.

  This is a good opportunity, I’ve got to tag one of them.

  Jack ran at them and tagged the man before they noticed he was a tagger. But when he tried to run away, the man stretched out his arm and materialized a stone cage to trap him in.

  “I’m not letting you go anywhere you son of a b-” The man started before Jack delivered a right hook to the man’s face.

  The punch caused the mud cage to drop and caused the women to pounce on Jack. She launched a barrage of punches that made it hard for Jack to get her off him. So he struck her stomach with his knee and pushed her away. The man that he punched had recovered so the man tried to kick Jack in the face. Jack dodged and swept the man’s other leg off the ground, causing him to fall and hit his head on the ground.

  Right before Jack could get away, he felt his right arm start to burn. He turned around to see the woman holding a sphere of a mysterious liquid in her arms.

  She can control acid?!

  The woman changed the shape of the sphere and sent a bullet of acid towards Jack. He dodged the acid and grabbed the woman by the neck and slammed her into the ground. Then, he ran a good distance away from the duo and looked at the clock.

  There were zero seconds left.

  He looked back at the unconscious man he tagged. The man and all the other tagged individuals’ heads simultaneously exploded, splattering blood on the people and ground near them.

  The woman that was with the now dead man screamed. A horrific scream. One of pure terror and grief. This scream only made Jack feel a single emotion. One he hasn’t felt in a long time.

  Guilt