Felix realized that he struck a nerve by his heavy attacks after seeing Asna behave like this. After all, how could a shameless woman like her who ate insults for breakfast get affected by his remarks?
“Asna, what’s up with you?” Felix asked a bit worried while approaching her slowly.
Asna didn’t respond to his question, she merely kept flicking above her bed in utter silence. Felix sat next to her and sighed after seeing that she was thoroughly ignoring his existence.
“Asna, I don’t know if my insults are the reason for you behaving like this or something else. However, I am sorry if said something I shouldn’t.” Felix apologized while bowing his head slightly without fanfare.
He might be an asshole to her most of the time since that’s how their relationship was, bickering and throwing insults at each other casually.
But if he really affected her somehow or someway, he was not ashamed to apologize to her. Ultimately, she deserved this much as his partner and tenant.
“Alright, I leave you alone for now. I got a game to win.” After noticing that nothing much changed even with his apology, he stood up and walked away.
“But after the game, I will return to check on you.” He added one last time before his form dissolved into mist and returned back in the lake.
…
In front of the mirror, Felix stopped changing his disguise and began browsing for masks in the VR Shop.
He wanted to use Asna’s face as his mold since he was positive that his popularity would exceed everyone else just by his appearance. But he couldn’t use it unless he got Asna’s permission.
So he could only use a mask for the first game temporarily until he fixed his relationship with her.
After a while, he chose a black hoodie that covered half his face, showing darkness in the upper half and leaving the lower half exposed. Mainly, just his mouth and chin.
If the hoodie didn’t have a yellow smirky emoji sticker on its chest, he would have appeared a bit badass.
But honestly, who are we kidding?
Felix was literally planning to join the game wearing sweat pants, white sneakers, and above all that hoodie. He appeared more like he was heading to the grocery store to buy cigarettes and not join deadly games that he might lose his life in.
“This will do for now.”
Felix clicked purchase and closed the shop. Then, he sat in utter silence, trying to calm his mind before he gets teleported inside the game hall.
…
“Good evening contenders.” A thin man with one mouth on each side of his cheeks greeted warmly the 50 unique players that were standing under him in a massive well-lighted hall.
The hall somewhat resembled the ancient ballrooms, as it had a humongous gorgeous chandelier right in the middle, plenty of paintings hanging on the walls, and most importantly a stage with a podium on it.
Felix lifted his head slightly and gazed at this game’s MC, who was standing behind the podium, with a hint of surprise. ‘Never thought the four lipped Marlion would commentate for us. This game is getting interesting each time.’
“As usual, I will explain the details of this game, as well as provide answers to any questions you have after my explanation.”
Marlion did not waste any time as he straightway began his explanation of the rules of the game that were not listed in full detail, or were listed but need quite a hefty effort to just find them.
“Let’s start with the streaming revenue. Currently, there are 50 participants in this death race. Based on the SGA rules, the revenue will be split 80% for the Alliance and 20% for you.”
Irked, Marlion paused his explanation after seeing some newbies make disgruntled noises on this arrangement.
“On what basis does the Alliance takes 80% all at once and leave us to fight over their crumbles?”
“That’s right! We are the ones risking our lives here! At least give us 1% each as basic courtesy.”
“Tsk, if I knew the Alliance was this greedy, I would not have bothered taking part.”
Felix observed indifferently those newbies making a scene due to their laziness to read the entire SG contract.
After all, everything about the SG was within the contract, as long as one took his time to read it carefully, he would avoid those kinds of embarrassing situations.
Exactly like this case, as every veteran or smart newbie either laughed mockingly while pointing their fingers or gave a piteous look at those buffoons, who stood dumbstruck after seeing the situation unfolds beyond their script.
They believed that the revenue arrangement was truly unfair to the players. Hence, they expected some form of agreement from their peers or at least act indifferently like Felix.
Too bad, they had to learn the hard way to respect each contract they sign.
Pop! Pop! Pop! Pop!
A single finger snap from Marlion exploded their brains to oblivion, killing them both here and in real life. Not a single player got their clothes dirtied by the brain’s matter and juices that sprayed everywhere. They knew what was about to happen beforehand, thus the moment those morons opened up their mouths, they put a quite substantial distance between them.
Everything was within the contract. One just needs to read it.
“Now that we dealt with the normal pests, let’s carry on our explanation.” Marlion casually spoke after killing four players with cold blood.
Yet, no one bothered to call him out on his actions. They simply listened with concentration to him, continuing his explanation from where he left. And this time, no one interrupted him.
“The 20% will be split based on three bases. Popularity, Victory, and Eliminations.” Marlion extended three fingers and followed, “First, the popularity, the more fans you have within the viewers, whether live or on stream, the more percentages you will earn.”
He closed one finger. “Second, the victory. This one is no brainer. If you won the game you will get straightaway 3% all at once, without counting your popularity increase of course.”
He then left only one finger and continued a bit enlivened than before, “Lastly, Eliminations! The more you kill the more you excite the game for the audience. And anyone who does so will be rewarded with more revenue.”
“So you better fight as brutal as possible, otherwise even if you won the game, your revenue won’t be that high.” Marlion said while smiling creepily with only his left cheek mouth.
Some newbies got extra motivated from his claim, but still, the majority merely rubbed their ears in boredom over this weak attempt to force them to focus on fighting and not emerging as the champion.
They were not stupid to give up on victory for mere some revenue, while they could obtain a wish after being crowned as the champion. Honestly, Marlion didn’t even target those veterans who were well aware of his plan. But, the unranked newbies, virgins, who were playing for the very first time. He wanted them to seek fights instead of hiding cowardly like the majority of new players do after entering the game.
“Now, let’s move on to what you should expect in the game.” Marlion did not dilly dally anymore on the revenue explanation and moved on to the nitty-gritty details, that Felix and those veterans wanted to hear.
As only in this hall, where could they see the game map, the hidden additions, and ask about the things they didn’t understand from the listed rules.
This was the purpose of the game hall.
