“Is this normal?” Matthew sat down near the back of the concrete room. It was slightly chilly, especially since he was only wearing a loincloth and he was excessively skinny.

Iris snickered, swinging the baseball bat a few times, before groaning in pain. She slowly walked over to the wall and sat down next to him, before murmuring “Pretty fucking typical. At least it’s a lot better than I remember. I used to have to wait in a dingy cell, with a bunch of nasty cunts for hours or days. They wouldn’t let me have or keep weapons either. Hmmm~, this is pretty good though. The more people there are, the more Souls we can get once the fight is over. The winner takes all.”

As she said that, a message from the System popped up in front of Matt’s face.

[Although the winner will take all of the Souls, the experience points must be gained directly.]

He sighed and complained “Apparently we have to actually kill people ourselves, or I won’t get any experience from it.”

“Fucking A, what the hell is that?!” She could obviously see the semi-transparent screen as well.

“I told you it was a VR game. Isn’t it normal for these kinds of windows to pop up? Anyway, the point is that you need to go out and kill as many people as possible… But also make sure to stay alive, because I won’t be able to Summon you again for at least a day if you get killed.”

After he finished talking, the high-pitched female voice announced “Welcome to a fun round of murderous carnage! Hehehe~! You’ve got a minute to prepare your buttholes~… Oh wait, sorry, wrong planet. You’ve got a minute to get ready to kill each other for fun, and Souls! Hahaha~! Good luck!”

“Well… I guess I’ll just take your word for it. If all this is just a ‘game’, then at least it’s better than reality being this fucked up.” She sighed, then started coughing violently. The plastic mask fell off of her face and onto the floor, while she threw up a few mouthfuls of blood, along with one of her molars.

“Oh my God! Are you… Are you okay? Can you really go out there and fight in this condition?” Matthew frowned, then asked “Umm, System, is there any way for me to heal her? Or will she always be like this?”

[Most cards scale along with the Summoner. If the Summoner is excessively weak, as you currently are, your cards will also be weakened in various ways. Of course, if you utilized ‘Minor Qi Infusion’, it would be possible for her to recover temporarily. If you wish to permanently alter the abilities or effects of a card, you could play the game that they are from… Not necessarily the original version, but some iteration. For example, this particular card is from Chaotica’s Coliseum 1. That game no longer has working Public Servers, so Chaotica’s Coliseum 3 is your only option. Once you become Ranked, it will be possible to purchase equipment or Powers that you can permanently attach to her card.]

By the time he finished reading, and Iris was done vomiting, the happy little girl’s voice announced “Okay everybody! It’s time to go, go, go~! Fight to the death~! Heheheh~!”

“Well, wish me luck. And try not to let em get to you.” Iris used the baseball bat to help her stand up, then spat out a bit more blood, before walking out of the opened cell. She didn’t bother moving around too much though, and just waited for people to come to her themselves. Besides, if she left, then Matt would have been completely defenseless.

Matthew got up off the floor and walked over near the wall to his right, cautiously peering out towards the sides. He saw that to his right, there was a tall and lanky dark-skinned man, who was using a small switchblade to fight against a short Asian woman, who was wearing brass knuckles. On the left, two unarmed and barely clothed muscular middle-aged women were wrestling with each other on the ground.

Across from his side of the rectangular arena, there was a messy brawl. Two men and three women were fighting to the death, wielding bats, chains and one of them had a meat cleaver. Iris snickered and whispered “If you weren’t such a pussy, I’d rely on you to deal with the right, while I slaughter the idiots on the left.”

“We’ve only known each other for a few minutes… What makes you think that I’m a pussy?” Matthew stood upright and looked down at the relatively small girl. She was actually only eighteen or nineteen, but the scars and wounds made it difficult to visibly discern her age.

Iris shook her head and complained “Dude, you begged for your life the moment you saw me. Look at my face, hell, look at my chest!” She suddenly unzipped her jacket and exposed her tank-top. It was originally white, but had been dyed dark-red from all the blood. The left breast had been completely amputated, while the right was abnormally large and disfigured. Zipping her jacket back up, she smirked and said “Ya think my tits are fucked up, you should see my ass right now… No, never mind, you’ll probably throw up. Hell, I might even gag and it’s my own body.”

He cringed and couldn’t help asking “How are you even alive and moving around right now? Are you actually a zombie? But it didn’t say anything about you being undead in the description…”

“Nope, I’m definitely alive. Just dying and in horrible agony every moment. Hence why I said that you’re a fucking pussy, because you need to rely on a little dying girl to fight your battles for you!” After shouting, she started coughing again and a decent amount of blood splattered on Matt’s face, chest and feet.

“You know what, you’re a bitch, but you’re still right.” He sighed and pulled a card out of thin air, staring at it for a moment, Matt grumbled “It might not be much, but the least I can do is summon us some weapons to fight with.”

The two Souls that he gained in the match earlier vanished, returning the number on his hand to ‘11’. Then three katanas appeared on the ground between the two of them. They were each covered by simple brown leather sheaths.

“Fucking A~! You could do this shit, but were gonna make me fight them off with a goddamn baseball bat?!” She tossed the bat back into their cell, reached down and grabbed the sword with the red hilt. After picking it up, she slowly unsheathed it and didn’t find any problems with the blade. It was smooth and shiny, as if it was brand new or well taken care of… Even the edge was sharp enough to cut through the leather on her left arm after sliding it past slowly.

Matthew picked up the other two off the ground and the moment he unsheathed them, Iris started cackling. The first one was broken in half, while the second one was rusty and dull. She casually ordered “Even if they’re trashy, it’s still better than nothing. Now go over there and stab that guy in the back while he’s fighting that bitch. I’ll go over and kill those two in the meantime.”

“Uh, umm… Okay, I guess… I’ll go do that now… Stabbing someone in the back…” He was muttering to himself, as he watched the leather-clad girl swiftly approach the two wrestling women. Without a moment of hesitation, she thrust the sword through both of their torsos in one swift motion. They had been too busy trying to kill each other to even sense Iris’ arrival.

When she walked back to him, she asked “Are you just gonna stand there or are you gonna stop being a useless loser?”

“Oh, uh, yeah…” Matthew turned around and started nervously walking towards the two fiercely battling enemies. The Asian woman abruptly started sprinting away, causing the two-meter tall dark-skinned man to stand there blankly for a moment. Then he suddenly turned around and Matt screamed “Ah~!”

Out of reflex, he stabbed the rusty katana forward. Even though its cutting edge was dull, that didn’t mean its tip wasn’t deadly. The blade slid in through the skinny man’s left-side ribs, penetrating his lung. As Matt swiftly pulled back out, he jumped backwards. Unfortunately, before he could react, that Asian woman ran over and jumped onto the dying man’s back. She screamed “Die~!” Then snapped his neck with all of her upper body strength.

 

*Author’s Note*

 

In case you didn’t already know, I finally finished editing and posting “Observing the End” the other day so… Check that out if you want to read an actual finished series lol.

 

Volume 1: Unranked

Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16