The Fallen Merman Chapter 6

Published at 5th of August 2022 01:27:01 PM

“Even trash participates in ATWL… I just shouldn’t have promised my dad to take this test, this isn’t fun.”

On the other side of the flag-raising platform, there was a team all wearing the same purple team uniforms. On their chests hung a square nameplate “Shrill Winds Rise.” All four team members were Italian Greyhound glands, with configuration of three alphas and one omega. The captain was a tall alpha, he gave a provocative glance at Bai Chunian, “What’s your team name? If we meet again later today, we won’t beat you guys so your team won’t get eliminated on the first day. It would be too humiliating.”

Bai Chunian laughed, “Just playing casually.”

Lu Yan took a step forward, blocking Bai Chunian behind him. His rabbit ears rose up, “Why the fuck are you acting so arrogant, trash-talking before the test to collapse other people’s mentality. People like you are stupid jerks. Fuck you, you son of bitch. Is your team name Shrill Winds Rise? I’ve remembered you, don’t get placed in the same district as us, or I’ll knock your head off!”

Bai Chunian held the rabbit’s head, whose fur flared up. “Lu-ge, calm down.”

That other team’s alpha captain was clearly enraged and had just rolled up his sleeves when the omega team member next to him pulled him back:

“Captain, let’s go.” His voice was cool and calm.

“Xiao Xun, since when is it your turn to talk?” The alpha shook off the hand pulling him back. Luckily, it was the omega’s words that gave him a way out of there. He turned around and left.

The greyhound omega’s body was slimmer and had little strength. When the tall alpha pushed him, he stumbled two steps backwards. Bai Chunian stretched out the back of his hand to support him.

“Thank you.”

The greyhound omega said his thanks with a lowered voice. He lifted the backpack from the flag-raising platform and turned to follow his team. His walk was quick and very nimble, unlike the kind of weak omega that would hold the team back.

Bai Chunian came back to his senses and looked around for Rimbaud, who had already put on the skintight black team uniform prepared by Bi Lanxing. Then, Rimbaud bowed his head down to look at his tail in the suitcase. There was nowhere he could wear his pants, so he ate them. Soon after, he let out an electrical discharge from the tip of his tail, manipulated the rollers of the electric suitcase, and ran to the self-service admission machine to receive the team name tags.

Below, the self-admission machine popped an acrylic name tag out of its ticket pickup opening. Rimbaud picked it up and stuck it to his chest.

Bai Chunian went over and looked at the team name tags.

“Casually Playing.”

Bai Chunian: “WTF, was it your idea?”

Rimbaud pointed to the voice bar on the screen. When he was retrieving the name tag just now, the self-admission machine requested for the team names to be voiced inputted. At that moment, Bai Chunian just happened to be beside the machine, and he said, “Just playing casually.”

Lu Yan had put on the team uniform and also walked over to retrieve the name tag. He asked in passing, “What’s our team name?”

Bai Chunain clutched his name tag and hid it behind his back. “Uh…”

The ATWL test site was vast, divided into ten districts marked with the Greek numbers of 1-10.

The entrance security was extremely strict and mired with minor details, with each person having to go through a black box system full body scan to check for embedded metal weapons in their bodies. Followed by individual blood tests to make sure they hadn’t injected dope and energy supplying drugs to their glands.

Bai Chunian’s four-person team was randomly assigned to the Tenth District. The invigilator had each of them put on a pair of contact lenses in turn. Then, the invigilator guided the four separately into small cubicles, similar to stand-alone telephone boots.

Bai Chunian once again opened his eyes, realizing that he was already in an unfamiliar bedroom. He squatted down, feeling the wooden floor that his feet were standing on. It was indeed the feeling of wood.

In the bedroom was a floor mirror. Bai Chunian looked at his own reflection, seeing himself wearing a black military team uniform. Then he looked at both of his hands, there was really no question.

He tried to pick the contact lenses out of his eyes in front of the mirror. The moment the lenses came out, everything around him changed back to the way it was, to the same small cubicle test room that the staff member had just led them into.

Abruptly, a red light shone in his cubicle. An ear-piercing alarm alerted the invigilator to go over. He impatiently took out a pair of new contact lenses for Bai Chunian. He also severely warned Bai Chunian that one more violation would be treated as a disruption of the test room.

Putting his contact lenses back on again, Bai Chunian once more returned to the bedroom he had just seen.

“Aiya?” Bai Chunian blanked out for a moment, looking at both of his hands. He clenched his fist, “Solid realistic sensation invisible VR? How’s this test so advanced?”

He tried to walk a few steps from the bedroom to the balcony. Then from the balcony to the living room. He sat on the soft sofa, stepped on the ice-cold floor, and felt them having no slightest difference from the real world.

Looking carefully into the mirror, he found that the black team uniform on his body not only had the acrylic team name tag “Casually Playing” hanging on it, but there was an additional belt with 10 metal grooves on his waist. Also, there was a 20cm long rubber tube embedded on his chest, filled with red liquid.

Bai Chunian opened the window and looked around. He was in an ordinary residential neighborhood, all encompassed by apartment buildings of the same appearance. There were women on the balcony sun-drying their clothes. Old ladies were walking dogs downstairs, standing together, and chatting.

It seemed that this test didn’t only simulate the battlefield. It also completely replicated the real world circumstances. He could guess that harming these ordinary people would result in having marks deducted.

It seemed a bit interesting. 

Instead of leaving the house hastily, Bai Chunian searched carefully in every corner. He found a map and a small round button part in the TV cabinet drawer.

“Hello, test candidates!”

Bai Chunian jumped in fright when the electronic broadcast suddenly sounded. He raised his head to look at the ceiling stereo sound system.

“Welcome to the advanced team combat level test. The following are the rules and regulations of this examination—

“The map you selected this time is [City], and the test time is 48 hours. Please do not take off the simulation glasses during the test, or else the test will be considered as abandoned.

“The tube with red liquid on each test candidate’s chest simulates blood measure. When attacked, the damage will be calculated by the system. The candidate will be immediately eliminated when the blood-measuring tube is empty. There will be recovery serum placed in the site’s ammunition box. This system is in place to prevent candidates possessing recovery-type differentiation ability from maliciously inflicting wars of attrition, affecting the fairness of the exam.

“To prevent test candidates from being passive and avoid fighting, test candidates are fitted each with a bomb belt on their waist. One anti-detonator wears off after one hour and will automatically fall off. When all anti-detonators fall off, the belt will explode, and the test candidate will be eliminated immediately.

“Each test candidate needs to complete three random tasks. For the total exam score, successfully surviving for 48 hours will count as three stars. And in the end, only one person in the four-person team is needed to survive to count as the whole team’s survival. On this basis, when each individual successfully completed one task, the personal score will be added by one star. When the full team survives, all team members’ scores will be added by one star. For every ten opponents each test candidate defeated, the score will be added by one star.” 

Bai Chunian listened and calculated at the same time. He could earn three stars if he lived to the end and three stars if he completed three tasks. If the whole team survived, there would be an additional one star. That was to say, if the test is completed without fighting others at all, the highest score would be seven stars. As Uncle Jin said, he should lay low, but still had to get a good score. Therefore, it should be pretty good to let the Little Rabbit get five or six stars.

“There is a mission book in the room where the test candidate is. On the back of the mission book is the [City] map. The fixed locations of the ammunition box are marked on the map. Firearms, melee weapons, recovery serum, anti-detonators, and other materials are randomly placed inside the ammunition box.

“There is one anti-detonator in the room. Please find and install it in the groove of the belt within ten minutes, otherwise, the bomb will explode, leading to immediate elimination.

“The test begins now.”

Bai Chunian grabbed the round metal button in his hand and pressed it into the groove of his belt. The belt buckle lit up, counting down one hour to the explosion.

“Tsk, made me quite nervous…” Bai Chunian rubbed his hands together. The test details sounded a bit difficult. He had to find his teammates as soon as possible. Any later, they’d all be eliminated. 

He didn’t use the door. Instead, he raised his foot to kick open the anti-theft bar of the window, then fastened himself onto the upper edge of the window frame with both hands. Using only his arms’ strength, he flipped over to the rain-cover awning and climbed the drainage pipe to the top of the building, getting a panoramic view of the entire city.

Sure enough, his other team members weren’t far away. Bai Chunian looked down on the surroundings and quickly found Rimbaud.

Obviously, Rimbaud didn’t listen at all when the test rules were broadcast. At this moment, he was lying in the fountain pool, playing with his tail sweeping the water. Bai Chunian sharply caught the black shadow flashing outside the flower bed. Two alphas in red team uniforms wearing “Death Row Prisoners” name tags, each holding a tactical dagger. They were slowly approaching Rimbaud. The intention of the sneak attack was obvious—everyone wanted points for getting people’s heads.

Chapter end