The pain and the shock hit me but my white mask would give me a degree of minor regeneration as would my status as a low performing killer. A single bullet was going to hurt, but unless they aimed at the back of my head it wasn’t going to hurt me.
This was a simple situation of me causing too much noise and being far too visible when I should have gone into a house or two, killed the adult inhabitants and then chosen to position or hide their bodies.
I engaged my count of the [Viewers] paying attention to me as I continued to run down the middle of the road past more picket fence houses. As I moved further from the original killing location, the attention was smaller and thankfully the NPCs had yet to wake up from their states of unconsciousness or standard activity.
The numbers were reasonable but the total of invisible guests had dropped. Guessing that watching one of their so-called actresses run down a road without actually doing anything was boring I considered what action to take.
With the [Viewers] active I threw out my hand holding the [Blooded Machete] and made a rude gesture with a few fingers behind me. I had learnt that true horror wasn’t all about killing. There needed to be temporary relief and moments of surrealness.
‘Yeah, on a good day I’d be cutting off the hand and arm of whoever shot as me but given that we’re doing a special today I’ll get in close. Promise. Unless my brains get blasted out and I’m run over a few times. Pretty sure she’s a bad shot and her friend is a worse driver.’ I said with a rough laugh.
My lung capacity had improved more than when I had been inside this place and a moderate run, even with a human thrown over my shoulder, wouldn’t wind me too easily.
I had used hostages on the rare occasion when discovered to increase the tension when trying to escape as a [Player Killer] but I usually partially slit their throats or stuck something sharp into their stomach.
It worked well for office killing situations, abandoned warehouses or even on hunting lodges on the edge of the [Contemporary Zone]. Sometimes you needed to make blood flow but not kill immediately to keep [Viewer] engagement.
Then I’d have the option of letting them bleed out fast if they were going to be rescued, it meant that those chasing me would try and save their fellow NPC and allow me to escape.
I could always do exactly the same with Zen and the pair chasing me in the average speeding truck would stop and pause. Unless there was an unforeseen variable and they ran him over by accident.
I had narrowly avoided cutting into my younger brother’s arm with my [Blooded Machete] so hurting him on purpose was only going to be my last resort. My mask wasn’t going to work on him unless he was a fellow [Player Killer] and even then it wasn’t going to have the same effect.
Equipment belonged to the individual [Player Killer] and depended on how powerful and strong they were. There were no shortcuts in this place.
An immediate stomach wound was usually enough to cause damage but not instant death unless I was going for a full on rampage. I needed to work the [Viewers] not to lose my mind and kill as many as possible.
That kind of scenario was fine but it wasn’t one that I wanted to carry out too often. For one thing, it was harder to fight against NPCs who wanted to fight back. The other was that my chance of death was a whole lot higher when authority or the difficulty of the zone increased.
Having woken up on a morgue table before, half cut open and then having to break out and find my machete and mask with a damaged body which just happened to have patrolling security officers I wasn’t in a keen plan to die.
Death didn’t stick here. Not if you were a [Player Killer] but all that mattered was your [Kill Count] and if the [Viewers] wanted to pay attention to you. My own numbers were relatively small compared to the big players, there were those with counts in the tens of thousands but I mostly played it safe.
Another bullet came in my direction but with my hearing and [Player Killer] enhanced body I narrowly avoided it. It seemed as though the first had been a shot made from pure luck as untrained NPC civilians trying to drive a truck and shoot a rifle wasn’t easy.
One of the main reasons I supposed by psychopaths in the films didn’t use guns easily. Or they simply enjoyed killing close but I was a bad shot with any handgun, rifle or even shotgun.
I heard the voice of the shooter in the distance. Their truck it appeared had some difficulty getting started, one of the perks of me being a relatively low level [Player Killer]. The [Zone] adapted to my threat and terror level.
‘We need to...no you idjit, just hit the clutch and rev the engine to get her going. I’m gonna...no. Take the rifle and don’t you dare shoot! I’m not wasting ammo, we’re gonna get that freak real good! And then we’se gon-’ said the voice of the older woman in the relative distance.
Yeah. Not a serious threat. They were drunk, barely awake or running on an adrenalin high which was causing them to react badly. The fact that they hadn’t mentioned I had a young man lumped over my shoulder was odd though.
I had only entered a single house and killed a few people. Yes I had started a fire and smashed through a window and proceeded to run down the street but their reaction was too much, too fast. I needed to consider what the threat was.
No matter what though, Zen would be safe. The NPCs looked after their own in their own fashion. They would give him basic treatment for shock and then simply relocate him into another house in the [Suburbia Zone] where he would seamlessly join another family or group unit in the building.
If I was unlucky then the [Director] of this place would pay attention to Zen and decide to trade or relocate him to another [Zone]. I had a fine balance of keeping the [Viewers] happy and making sure that nobody realised how important he actually was to me.
The voice from the woman who had shot me called out with joy as she proceeded to shout her victory as one more small calibre round hit me again straight in my back, half-embedding itself in my clothing and I stumbled, only for a second but enough to slow me a little.
My boots were close to shuffling along and the road simply continued onwards. There was always a vague strangeness in this place, a road running down the length of the street with a few dozen picket fence houses on each side simply extended itself onwards when I was in this situation.
The benefit of the adrenalin running through my body meant that I could shrug off pain but the mask only gave me the actual benefits of full powered minor regeneration if I was alone and in hiding.
I could stop a couple of small calibre rounds inside my body from causing damage and it would close off the wounds roughly but not for a long enough period of time.
Eventually the wounds were going to accumulate and I’d drop. Different [Player-Killers] had their own styles of performance here inside this place. Mine was largely to hunt, rampage a little and then retreat. Basic, standard and not popular for constantly increasing my [View Count] but I had survived up to this point. Changing tactics wasn’t a bad idea.
‘Zen. This isn’t going to work easily. Hey, those of you viewing me are being seriously quiet today. I’m open to suggestions and minor plot corrections. Screw it, I’m going all out this time.’ I said as I pushed my body harder and saw a small wire fenced in electrical substation a little further down the road.
I ran forward and managed to drop my little brother on the side of the wire fence, he’d be noticed by anyone driving along the road or walking along the street but he’d no longer be at risk from being shot at.
Stolen content alert: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.
I hoped. His near complete lack of response to me despite a few words meant that he likely didn’t even recognise or remember me.
Taking him out of this zone could have some effect but managing to keep him safe as an NPC in a place where [Player Killers] like myself killed them in the name of entertainment was going to be hard. Not unless he became an assistant with the [Heart Eater] and even then he’d be spared but tied into her fame.
I half-stepped, half-leaped into the main road which lead in and out of the [Suburbia Zone] and saw the truck driving a reasonable speed towards me. I had expected this, the same danger scale in place applied to [Armed Vigilante] NPCs as well.
They had a gun, likely not a semi-automatic but a rifle and a pick up truck. Enough to cause me an issue but not to kill me easily unless I was stupid enough to be run over.
This time I began to receive messages from [Viewers] who had chosen the perfect time to interrupt me. Obviously they all considered this as an entirely scripted event and I was simply a highly trained actress who had signed a contract to perform, or they were insane and powerful beings who simply didn’t care.
My initial attempts to call for help had resulted in my [View Count] dropping to near zero when one of my initial [Verified Fans] saved me in a fashion. I read the messages and complaints in my mind’s eye as the pick up truck drove down towards me. The woman had loaded the rifle in both her hands and was leaning out of the window aiming directly in my direction.
The lack of speed made a lot more sense if she wasn’t a good shot, your average person couldn’t easily shoot from a moving vehicle out of a window unless they had sufficiently trained.
Fast enough for me to see them and jump out of the way but slow enough that I could see the young man who was holding the steering wheel with both hands in a tight grip.
Young. Maybe eighteen or nineteen, he could have been the son of the middle-aged woman. I didn’t know and I didn’t care as I read one of the messages.
I resisted the urge to glance at Zen. He had woken up a little but was turning his head around his surroundings, obviously resisting the urge to scream for help in case I turned on him. A smart move for an NPC but one of the usual moves for this zone, they never fought back unless they took on an authority role.
Another message popped up as the truck slammed directly into me and my instincts took over as I doubled over to protect myself and stabbed my [Blooded Machete] with both hands straight into the bonnet of the vehicle.
With my enhanced strength, I easily punched through the metal and my weapon of choice dug into the engine of the pick-up truck even as smoke began to rise out.
I wasn’t trained with vehicles but there was a chance that I had damaged the radiation. If so then I’d wreck the chances of the pick-up truck chasing after me once I survived the young adult male NPC driver hitting the breaks.
My body was lifted up and the pain of the impact kicked in seconds later as the effect of the earlier adrenalin drop wore off. The gloves on my hands helped me to grip the handle of the machete as I forced my fingers to wrap tight and prepare for the next part.
I needed to stay with the truck, if I was sent flying even a short distance the woman with the rifle would have an unfair advantage against me. Mainly they could use the truck to run me over if they wanted or she could take a stationary position and shoot at me again.
The young man driving the vehicle had a shocked expression on his face as I remained gripped onto my [Blooded Machete] embedded in the bonnet of the pick up truck.
His surprise would have made me smile under my mask if I wasn’t in a situation where I would need to cut off some of his limbs to increase my attention a little.
Blood was one thing but my blood wasn’t what they were looking for. I remembered to activate the neon lights on my mask with an unconscious effort to light up my face as I tried to set the scene a little.
People wanted the [Player Killers] to win, not be thrown around. Unless I was being dragged along and climbed up behind the truck to kill the driver and passenger.
This situation was a rough attempt I had made up on the spot. They’d get bored soon. Or worse, they might even start encouraging the idea of me killing Zen for shock and horror value just to make an example.
The fact that the young man hit the breaks immediately upon my stabbing the machete into the hood of the pick up truck meant that he was still operating at normal [Suburbia Zone] NPC levels.
The physics of reality inside the Belphus Horror Marathon operated a little differently that what I was used to, there was more flexibility with interaction then there should have been.
As the truck screeched to a halt, the older woman holding the rifle was knocked backwards hard and I saw her leave the side window and smash into the asphalt of the road. Her head hit first so she was stunned or knocked unconscious.
Grinning underneath my neon lit up mask I ripped out my [Blooded Machete] with one smooth motion and prepared to advance on the door of the pick up truck, rip the door open and inflict a fast kill.
Smoke this time poured out from the hole I’d made in the engine bonnet of the truck and obscured their vision of me a little. Yes, it’d make a me a larger target if a wandering police NPC vehicle came along but I needed to make a better scene to keep those [Viewers] happy with me at a bare minimum.
A message came straight along but this was pushed ahead of the queue demanding my immediate attention. I was almost stopped in my movement as I had closed on on the door of the pick up truck as I scrolled through it fast with one hand gripping my [Blooded Machete].
I truly needed to kill the pair or inflict enough physical damage that they didn’t draw further attention to me. A quick kill wasn’t what the [Viewers] expected from me but I urgently needed to get back to Zen.
As long as the pair was killed I would be able to reach the edge of this [Zone] and the [Viewers] would be satisfied with my base performance and unusual turn of events to move on to another [Player Killer] inside the [Contemporary Zone].
The contents of the message though were concerning. Too concerning and self-aware for my taste. I decided to read it once more but this time give myself a little bit longer to further digest it.
I used my free hand to grab the handle of the side door of the pick up truck and rocking it a little to build up tension and increase the fear of the young male driver.
As soon as I read that message in my mind’s eye I knew there was a problem. Management should have shut this down immediately as soon as the [Verified Viewer] began talking nonsense and had an implied idea of my plans.
This was going to be dangerous. A [Verified Viewer] was one who had paid for a full subscription plan and could do more than simply sent me messages and only focus on me. They could see those I had interacted with, even the burning house with the bodies inside.
Rather than a single screen focused on me like a stage performance they had access to multiple screens which meant that they were likely watching Zen right now.
I wasn’t clear on the exact details but some of the old timers in the [Cut Zone] had said that there were levels and payments made in exchange for further benefits. This was decision time. Keep Zen and leave or abandon him.
The [Viewers] wanted their entertainment or there would be consequences. It was times like this when I hated being in this place. If it wasn’t for the [Cut Zone] I would have let myself be riddled with bullets, burnt down to my bones and just quit.
Finding Zen and his two friends was my goal, along with surviving this place and leaving but even a female [Player Killer] needed a little bit of self-care and peace to herself.
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