The SSS Beast King: Rebirth of the Legendary Predator
Chapter 41: Defying Fate

Chapter 41: Defying Fate

’Am I really inside a scenario?’ I asked, looking around as the others made themselves feel at home in the house gifted to us. It had enough rooms to fit each of us, not to mention the other used for entertainment. It felt like I was inside a mansion, with everything I wanted.

Why would The Core go to such an extent for us? It was quite simple if I must say. It was the easiest trick in the book. It wanted us to get comfortable around it, to let our guards down, and it was definitely working. Even I forgot I was inside a scenario, so there’s no doubt its plan had worked.

"It’s tewifying." I didn’t really pay attention last time, but she isn’t pronouncing her Rs correctly, they sound like Ws. She either had rhotacism or was just stupid.

’Didn’t think you would be able to see through its schemes. You don’t seem like the type.’ I said, walking over to one of the many sofas and sitting down. I sensed her pout, clearly not appreciating my comment.

[The first game starts in one hour.]

I sighed. ’This is going to take a while.’ Around me chaos broke out, but as expected when you put so many people together. I saw skills flying around, others playing games, and some getting more intimate.

’This is why I don’t like humans’ There are two things that are infinite in this world, The Core and human stupidity, and I’m stuck with both.

...

As the time reached zero, I found myself in a white square, together with the girl who was supposedly my teammate in this scenario. In my hand, I found twenty golden coins, and in front was an empty chest.

[Welcome to the first game, The Golden Sacrifice. The rules are simple, for each round, you would need to deposit as many coins as you want, though the number you deposit matters. The team that deposits the least is eliminated. However, the team that contributes the most gets an advantage in the next round. But don’t run out!]

Seems simple enough, just don’t deposit less than the other, and don’t be greedy, and you’ll be fine. But I do wonder if there is more than what it seems, just like everything in The Core, the rules are simple but at the same time so vague. And what is this advantage, it could be another coin, or maybe the system would tell you what the lowest number deposited is.

And it was never specified if you chose not to deposit any coins, does that count, you never deposited anything, so you can’t be eliminated, right?

I looked over at my companion who was actively trying to find a way out.

’Hey, I never caught your name. You can call me Moon.’ I said trying to act friendly. Of course, I was like the system, trying to make her comfortable, though our reasons were different. I wanted to learn more about her, to see if I could really trust someone like her.

"Oh, my name is Anw...w..ri." She said struggling to say the R inside her own name. It was pretty embarrassing to see. But she didn’t seem to think anything of it. By this, I could only mark her as the careless type. Or perhaps this was just an act, trying to make herself more approachable.

[Each round takes five minutes, good luck!]

And with that, a time started. For some, five minutes was too little, not quite enough for them to predict the other and deposit a number good enough to not eliminate them. Meanwhile, for some, it was too much time. These were the ones going after the advantage, which I personally didn’t see any point in chasing after.

I was pretty confident in my theory, as the rules state we could deposit as many as we want, and so if I wanted I could deposit zero and it should count.

I called out to the system, wanting to see if I was truly right or just stupid. There was a chance that you couldn’t even deposit zero. But then a thought came to mind, did I really want to verify this off the bat, I could wait till the time was over and then do it.

So I waited until there was only one minute, and then told Anri to not deposit any coins. She looked at me surprised, confused by my reasoning. I never expected her to understand it either way. ’Man, I feel like one of those weird artists with strange creations.’

But would this fact really be overlooked? To anyone who was observant enough, this was a clear way to cheat the system, so it was strange that it had been allowed. I needed to check something.

I closed my eyes, and around me, a purple flame erupted covering my whole body. Meanwhile, I couldn’t leave my cube, gravity was already outside and at my disposal. I took deep breaths trying to focus on becoming one with the gravity.

Soon enough, I could sense my surroundings in another way than all of the normal ones. I didn’t feel them through my body, but by gravity. I moved to each one of the chests, seeing how many coins I would sense with my pressure. Some had three, others two, and one even had seven.

But one number was more common than others. ’Zero.’ Time was almost up and even with considering some chests empty because the team hadn’t deposited yet, it was still such a high number. This made me doubt even more that the system wouldn’t think of this, so I made a last-minute decision.

’One deposit one.’ I opened my eyes and with a sharp gaze, I turned to Anri. She was taken aback by my tone and my sudden change in answer but quickly obliged. And just after this, the countdown hit zero.

[It’s time for the plot twist to be revealed. If more than one team has deposited the lowest number, in this case, zero, then there shall be a tiebreaker!]

I felt my legs tremble. My sudden change had saved me. Made me wonder if I was fated to deposit zero and this was just my passive in work. Just what was its full power, what did defying fate mean?