6

  LEVEL ONE: THE DRAGON STONES

  REMAINING CONTESTANTS: 9,960,227

  TIME UNTIL CULLING: 59 days

  NAME: JACK REN

  CURRENT RANK: 4,555,234

  The ogre—and I have no clue if it’s actually an ogre, but ‘ogre’ will have to do for now—is lumbering toward us with concerning speed, its ax digging a deep gouge in the earth as it’s dragged along. Earl doesn’t hesitate. He’s up against the wall, an arrow nocked, his mouth becoming a firm, hard line.

  “Didn’t know special forces guys trained with bows.” It’s a stupid thing to say, and definitely not the right time, but I guess just because I’m afraid, the words come out of me regardless.

  “They don’t,” Earl says absently. “But I bow hunt in my spare time. Or I used to.” He glances at Elizabeth. “You going to help or not?” And then, before the lady can even respond, he lets loose.

  At a rough guess, the ogre is around a hundred feet away from the castle walls when the arrow slams into its right shoulder. The impact staggers the thing for a second moment, but then it just keeps on coming, somehow even faster, as though all Earl’s managed to do is piss the thing off.

  Elizabeth fires her crossbow.

  She misses, only just, but a miss is a miss, and I feel a surge of despair.

  By the time Earl has another arrow ready, the ogre is only fifty feet away. Earl shoots. He hits it again, this time in the chest. Blood wells from both wounds, forming bright red rivers that flow down the creature’s rough, gray flesh.

  And then, a second or two later, it’s at the gates. Pushing them open. Charging into the courtyard below.

  For several moments, one of the castle towers is between us and the beast, so it vanishes from sight.

  Then it’s back and staring up at us with wide, furious eyes, each the color of a glowing ruby.

  It’s angry; that much is obvious. It lifts that stupidly large ax and swings it in our direction, and even though it’s far enough away that there’s no choice it’s going to hit us, I still flinch back.

  Earl, clearly a more collected individual, just shoots it again. He misses this time.

  But Elizabeth doesn’t.

  Her bolt strikes it in the forehead. And the moment I see that, I’m hit with relief, because surely we’ve done it and are once again safe—at least for now.

  Instead, the bolt bounces off of the thing’s thick skull.

  It roars, revealing a mouth filled with long, sharp teeth.

  And then it charges.

  I shit myself. At the same time, I move, compelled by a fighter’s instincts, and leap to the side, narrowly avoiding being hacked in half by that immense axe. Elizabeth and Earl scatter in separate directions.

  Earl calls, “Jack! Distract the fucking thing while I shoot it!”

  But maybe the ogre isn’t as dumb as it looks. Its red eyes find Earl and, deciding he’s the greatest threat amongst the three of us, it climbs the wall with surprising speed and agility and joins us on the parapet.

  “Well, gentlemen,” comes Elizabeth’s voice. “It’s been an honor. But I believe it’s time for us to die now.”

  The ogre swings again at Earl. Earl manages to dive out of the way, but then the ogre’s free hand, curled into a fist, comes from the opposite direction and slams into his side.

  Earl goes flying.

  He hits the crenulations with a sickening impact, head jolting.

  He doesn’t get back up.

  My mouth is dry. I’m breathing hard. The ogre turns to once again face me.

  I think of Sarah.

  I think of her on her knees proposing to me. I think of all those nights we spent together dreaming about our future, about how many kids we’d have, where we’d live, how we’d live.

  I will get her back.

  The ogre runs at me. I’d expected that.

  My instinct is to run in the opposite direction—to flee.

  Instead, I charge. And as I do, I let out a warcry, raise my spear, and wait for the right moment.

  When the moment comes, when only a few feet separate the two of us, I jump.

  I jump hard. I launch myself straight up, the wind in my hair, and plunge the spear downward.

  Straight through one of the ogre’s eyes, metal sliding through flesh, then coming into contact with bone. The beast topples backward, topples beneath me, while I continue to fly through the air with no way to slow my descent or cushion the impact that’s about to come.

  I hit the ground, grunt, roll, the breath knocked out of me, the world spinning.

  Slowly, painfully, I rise to my feet. I don’t feel much pain—the adrenaline is working hard to suppress it. But soon enough, I know, the adrenaline will ooze out of me, and all that pain and exhaustion will be right there and waiting to drown me.

  But that’s a problem for later.

  I whirl around to face the ogre. It’s lying on its back, my spear protruding from its face and sticking straight up.

  Unauthorized use: this story is on Amazon without permission from the author. Report any sightings.

  The beast isn’t moving—except for the subtle twitching of its fingers, which cease a few moments later.

  Glowing, golden words appear in the air before me, dominating my vision:

  You have leveled up!

  Name: Jack Ren

  Contestant level: Three

  Current rank: 1,235,008

  Reward: Class specialization

  Choose from one of the following

  Ranger

  Wizard

  Rogue

  Brawler

  Warrior

  I stare at the words, heart pumping. I know what each of the words mean, at least superficially speaking, but I have no clue what they actually involve in this context. But what does it matter? The choice seems obvious. Brawler. Because that’s what I am. That’s what I always have been. And why not play into my strengths?

  It’s the only thing I have.

  “Brawler,” I say out loud.

  The effect is immediate. Strength surges through me, as well as a deep sense of restfulness, as though I’ve just woken from the best sleep of my life. The ache in my bones goes away. My hunger goes away. I feel suddenly better than I have in a long, long time.

  I curl my hands into fists. I feel…powerful. In a way I can’t even describe.

  You have selected Brawler.

  Your speed, strength, and resilience have been adjusted accordingly.

  Skills granted: Masterful Evasion and Devastating Blow.

  But I don’t even have time to process these words because Earl and Elizabeth are with me. Earl is rubbing the back of his head, his eyes a little glassy in that familiar way that tells me he’s likely concussed. Elizabeth is still looking at the ogre, as though not entirely confident it’s going to stay down. She has her crossbow loaded and ready and pointed at the beast’s corpse.

  “Nicely done, lad,” Earl grunts. “That was damned impressive.”

  “And stupid,” Elizabeth says, but there’s admiration in her voice.

  When I walk toward the ogre, I expect to be limping, to be sore all over. Instead, I feel lighter and faster and more agile than ever. I reach for the shaft of my spear and pull it out.

  Except the head breaks off, lodged firmly as it is in the ogre’s head. I stare at the shaft, which is now little more than a long and useless stick.

  “Shit,” I hiss.

  “What class did you pick?” Elizabeth asks me. An innocent question on the surface, but she asks it warily, her eyes now watching me intently. She’s a sharp one, I sense, and I don’t trust her. I think she’s asking because she’s in the process of weighing up just how much of a threat I might be. Whether or not, should it come down to this, she could take me in a fight.

  “Brawler,” I say, deciding there’s no point in lying. “And since you’re level four, you must’ve picked a class of your own.”

  Elizabeth nods. “Rogue. Was tempted by wizard, though. Who doesn’t want to use magic, eh? But then I thought, what if I set myself on fire by accident, or turn myself inside out? Nah. Anyway, the key, I think, is to be fast, and to be able to move unseen when you want to.”

  “Classes,” Earl says, shaking his head. “Like fucking Dungeons & Dragons or some shit. This is crazy.”

  “It is crazy,” I agree. My voice is hard. “But it’s not a game. Even if they think it is.” I wave a hand, anger building inside me, because this, all of this, is so sick and twisted that it’s almost comical. “Don’t let the numbers and the classes and everything else fool you. This is life or death. Pure survival.” I look at Elizabeth. “What did they take from you?”

  Elizabeth turns away from me. “You don’t need to know that.”

  “I do, actually. Consider it a trust exercise. If the three of us are going to work together, I think it’s for the best if we can be honest with each other. If I know why you’re why, and why you’re fighting so hard to survive, I can at least understand you.” I smile as best as I can. “I’ll go first. They took my fiancée. And I’m not going to stop until I get her back.”

  Elizabeth’s shoulders sag. She meets my eyes, and this time, she’s not cold or calculating. She’s sympathetic. Maybe even conflicted. She says, “They took my little sister.”

  And I mean it, then, when I say, “I’m going to help you get her back.”

  I’ll save her sister, and I’ll save Sarah, and if I can do anything else to hurt the people who have done this to us, to cause them harm, to sabotage their Games…then I will.

  I don’t believe in God, so, instead, I simply swear it to myself. That’ll have to be enough.

  “Alright,” Earl says, stretching. “Time to have a look around this castle and see what else we have. But listen, one of us needs to be up on the walls at all time. A sentry. Do laps around the perimeter. If you see anything or anyone, call out. The very last thing we want, friends, is to be taken by surprise.”

  “I’ll stay here,” Elizabeth says. “You two have a look around.”

  I can tell Earl still doesn’t trust Elizabeth, and neither do I, but even still, we leave her there to keep lookout on the walls. We climb down the steps and stride across the courtyard, at the center of which is a single oak tree. There’s also a well with an accompanying bucket, which is an immense relief because now that the adrenaline is gone and the danger is past, my thirst is hitting me like a hammer. My mouth is so dry that the discomfort is just about all I can actually think about.

  Together, we draw up some fresh water and drink until our bellies ache. Then, we close the front gate of the castle and lower the steel arm that acts as a lock. We enter the main tower of the castle. On the ground floor, there are three rooms. In one of them, the storage chamber Elizabeth had told us about, we find the corpses of the elves, piled up on top of it each other, their gray tunics stained red. We take a long look at them, neither of us saying anything. They look just like people, except they’re paler and taller than average, and their ears are pointed. I also get the sense that, in life, they were exceptionally beautiful, but whatever beauty they had possessed is lost in death.

  We close the door, start up the spiralling stone steps. A heaviness settles around me. The dead goblins, the ogre, whatever it really was—they’d been so monstrous that their deaths hadn’t seemed real. Psychologically, it’d been far easier to distance myself and detach from the violence traded with them.

  But these things—these elves—may as well have been actual people. Human beings.

  Until today, I’d never seen a corpse before. Not a humanoid one.

  I have a feeling I’ll be seeing a lot more soon.

  “Be careful around her,” Earl says quietly. “Probably doesn’t need to be said, but just in case.”

  “Yeah, I know.”

  “Keep an eye on her at all times, Jack. I mean it.”

  “Are you keeping an eye on me at all times?”

  Earl frowns. “Do I need to?”

  I shake my head as we make it to the second floor. “I’m not harming either of you.”

  “But at some point,” Earl says slowly, “things are going to turn nasty. You realize that, right? One winner. That’s what the Whispers told us. At the end of the day, son, only one of us is making it out of here alive.”

  I say nothing as we explore the four rooms on the second level. Two are bedrooms, wide and spacious but sparsely furnished. One is a dining hall. Another, an armory. Here, more crossbows decorate the walls, as well as spears, shields, swords, knives, and plenty of accompanying sheathes.

  “Only one makes it out alive,” I finally say, “assuming that we follow the rules.”

  Earl looks at me. “Elaborate, son.”

  “I don’t know about you, but I have no intention of simply doing what I’m told just because. Might be that there’s another way.”

  “I like the way you’re thinking. In theory. But you gotta remind yourself, if they have the power to arrange for all of this in the first place…” Earl grimaces. “Not sure there’s anything we can do.”

  And maybe he’s right—but it doesn’t matter.

  I refuse to be helpless. To simply resign myself.

  I will find a way to make them hurt. No matter what it takes.