The Eternal Games - Book 1 - Chapter 2 - Rabbit Hunt (Patreon)

Complete rewrite. This is a different chapter 2 entirely from the original.

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                                                                                   Year 1049
                                                                                    Month 5
                                                                                   First-day

                                                                                       Leon

Unsurprisingly, almost every participant here ignores me after a simple cursory glance at my cloak. Which I do admit is a little shabby around the edges, despite its high quality. Mostly due to how much I’ve worn it over the years.

Not to mention the few burn marks on it from it having touched my bare skin. Because while my armor is immune to my poisonous blood and flesh due to being made from both metal and the hide of wraiths, my cloak certainly is not.

I glance around at the participants, making sure I study each one of them before the time runs out.

The waiting area we’re in is basically just a simple, square room with an invisible floor that lets us see the forest we’ll likely be hunting in. And overall, there appear to be around four dozen participants here right now. But more are still more coming in each second, which makes sense considering that it’s a Red league game – also known as the beginner league. The one where everyone starts out, including the overzealous rookies that think they’re going to reach the top despite having been spoiled their entire lives only to end up dying in the first or second game.

Which is rather sad, I’ll admit. But it’s life.

In fact, I think more people die in the games than in the war against the wraiths.

Kind of ironic if you ask me.

Anyways, most of the people that I can see don’t really seem to be much. A lot of them aren’t even wearing any armor, which is a little… reckless. Although the few that are do at least seem to be smart enough to be studying the opposition just like I am, most of whom are actually people I’ve seen in previous Red league matches from last week. Meaning that they’ve already at least survived a game.

Some of them even seem to take notice of me and give me a nod. So I nod back just to be polite before moving my gaze one until I eventually find someone who I recognize from the newspaper.

Someone from a bloodline family, just like me. Although unlike me he’s obviously fully human.

They might be a problem.

Bloodliners tend to be both aggressive and cautious at the same time. They play smart – fighting when they feel it’s safe and running when it’s not.

I furrow my brows as I try to remember what his bloodline was, only to come up blank.

Eventually, I’m distracted from my thoughts by a friendly voice from my left. And when I look, I find someone from my workplace walking up to a group of people near me and asking, “Would you like to work together?”

Unsurprisingly, the group they approached is one with armed individuals in it. And just as you’d expect, they immediately reject the kid’s request.

Not really sure what the point of making a team this early in the game is. After all, it’s a solo game. Just like most of the games.

What would the point of making nice with someone be when you’re just gonna have to compete with them in the end?

I look around for a few seconds before finding a nice corner and claiming it for myself for the remainder of the time before the game. And once the timer gets close to just a minute left, I hear the MC’s voice echoing throughout the room. So I stand back up while taking my gloves off and hanging them on a clip at my waist while being careful not to touch my cloak with them.

“Welcome, one and all, to the very first game of this week!!!” the MC’s voice says. The man has gray hair, with blue eyes and a clean shaven face as he wears a strange blue robe. “For this game, we’ll be seeing these lovely contestants as they run around killing rabbits! How exciting!”

I raise an eyebrow at that.

What part of killing rabbits is exciting? I’m pretty sure people are more interested in seeing us fight each other than they are seeing us run around murdering little balls of fluff.

The countdown continues to tick down as the MC keeps talking until it reaches three seconds remaining, where the man shouts, “And here!”

Two seconds remaining. “Weeeee!!!”

One second. “Goooo!!!!”

The floor falls out beneath us while at the same time we each get teleported somewhere random in the forest below. And as soon as I feel my feet touching the floor of the forest, I take off at a sprint towards the first rabbit that I see before reaching out and grabbing it by the neck.

As soon as my bare fingers touch it, a sizzling sound comes from the creature along with a screech of pain as the creature’s neck begins to burn from my poison. The pain seems to lock the creature up as I snap its neck before grabbing its foot with two of my fingers in a ring and squeezing. Slowly my fingers begin to sink through with any gore that touches my fingers melting as well until I sever the foot and quickly toss it into the spatial pouch I find attached to my waist that wasn’t there before entering this game.

Sorry bunny, but a man’s gotta do what a man’s gotta do.

I continue running through the forest killing one after another for a while without using my Partial Incorporealize bloodline power. Because I want to save that for when I actually find an opponent that’ll need it so as to keep it a secret till then.

After killing about four more rabbits in the same cruel manner, I run into my first other contestant. They’re a young man at about the same age as me, but without any armor, and likely not with any courage either considering how they run away the instant they see the other guy who approaches us from the bushes with a sword in his hand.

My eyes narrow at the guy, just to find them smirking at me and looking down at where my spatial bag is covered by my cloak.

Guess this guy isn’t gonna leave without a fight.

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                                                                                      Spectator Bleachers
                                                                                   A few moments prior

“Ohoho, another bloodliner is among us today! That makes three!!! Three in a single Red league match of almost a hundred people!” the MC who goes by the name Archer Frost says with a faint chuckle that echoes throughout the bleachers that are currently going wild, not to mention the many spectators watching from the city proper itself.

Archer swipes his hand to change the current focus of the main screen to show one of the three bloodliners as the man smirks at another man wearing a slightly tattered black and silver cloak.

“I’m not sure how this fella will do, but I think I can make out some nicely made armor beneath the cloak,” Archer says before glancing at a rerun of the last few moments showing the man’s sprinting over here, but he’s interrupted by the bloodliner charging at him so he returns his focus to the main screen as he adds, “we’ll just have to wait and see if he can handle a bloodliner!”

The MC’s face takes a turn for the worse though after the man in black and silver simply raises his fists out of his slightly burnt cloak and reveals himself to be weaponless.

“Why would he come here without a weapon?” he mutters in confusion, only to notice his fighting style, “Oh. Does he specialize in unarmed combat? That’s not common.”

Archer waves his hand to make the man in black and silver’s name appear above him, just for his eyes to widen as he exclaims, “Holy shit, this guy has a-”

He suddenly cuts off at the sight of Leon dodging a sword slash from the bloodliner and returning the failed blow with a punch to the man’s gut, which immediately makes the man’s leather begin melting where his fist hit.

The MC bursts out in laughter and exclaims to the roaring audience, “It’s another bloodliner! And this one even has a System Given Title!!!” and the audience only grows louder and louder as they watch Leon avoid another sword swing from the man – this one having the blade itself coated in a sheet of fire – before kicking the man’s legs and pulling him into a choke hold.

After just a few seconds of the armor around his neck melting before his neck itself begins to melt, the bloodliner hoarsely shouts, “I surrender!!” making the System immediately pull him out of the game with his spatial bag dropping to the ground.

“Give a hand to the Emerald Ghost!” Archer shouts with a gleeful laughter while staring at the man in the screen with sparks in his eyes. “I have a feeling we’ll be seeing him a lot!!”