221: Whack-A-Mole
“Wh-what?” Number Thirteen asked as he looked up to Thelicia with a dumbfounded look on his face. “Wait-GHLREGH—”
Number Thirteen’s eyeballs popped out violently with streams of blood while more blood poured out of his mouth along with broken pieces of his teeth from getting his head smashed in by a giant fist of the “walking double refrigerator”, Number Seven.
“BWAHAHA!!” the crowd laughed and cheered as the first volunteer fell sideways with his skull partially crushed in as if it had been struck by a sledgehammer, leaving The Cleaver stuck in the rocks with its handle pointing at ten o’clock.
“That one counts as not ‘standing’ anymore, right?” Number Seven asked rhetorically without displaying any emotion about killing a human being. He simply cracked his bloody knuckles and turned to the remaining four volunteers.
“Y-you’ve got to be kidding me!” the sole female among the volunteers, Number Sixteen, gasped in utter horror. A beastkin covered in black, brown, and white fur, with a short tail, black button nose, and long, brown, furry floppy ears. Despite the fur that covered her face and body, she was now paler than death as she slowly recoiled from the giant man who just eliminated the first participant like whack-a-mole.
“That’s my line if that is all that it takes for you to start pissing in your pants,” Number Seven said and walked toward the female, walking straight past The Cleaver as if he did not even consider it worth his time to pick up. The giant strongman wore nothing but briefs and heavy boots, and that made him all the more intimidating as he towered over the poor beastkin girl.
“Stay back!!” Number Sixteen screamed and turned tail to run but stumbled before she even took two steps.
Huh? Beatrice thought she noticed something strange for a split second as it was strange for the girl to stumble on an even surface, even if she was scared shitless.
One of the other volunteers used the distraction to dash at Number Seven low from behind, aiming a dagger in his back, but the giant swiped his attempt away like a fly by using nothing but his forearm.
“Bwfuh!” Number Thirty-five tumbled away from the sheer force of a single effortless swipe. By the time he slowed and slid a couple of feet more on the rocks, it was apparent that the would-be assassin’s arm was broken as it was bent at the elbow in the opposite direction.
“W-WHUAAAAA!!” Number Thirty-five screamed in agony and held his broken arm as the pain finally caught up to him. Those of the participants that stood the closest, saw that the man’s ankle was also twisted.
“This is bullshit!” Number Fifty-Two screamed and complained to the announcer. “We were supposed to get weapons and fight one on one! Not ambushed like this!”
Thelicia looked down at the participants without an answer or even acknowledgment of their cries and pleas. Even with her mask on, the aura of merciless indifference radiated from her as she held her arms behind her back and awaited the result of her little impromptu battle of the “brave souls”.
“What are you complaining about?” Number Seven asked and cracked his neck, treating the whole thing like nothing but a warm-up. “I’m unarmed, just like you. Why did you even enter? Has this city run out of real warriors already?”
“We have to work together and take him down first!” the second biggest among the volunteers, Number Thirty-six—a furry goatkin with thick, curved horns—called out to the others. “Get it together! It’s still four against one!”
“Are you insane!?” Number Fifty-two screamed. “He took out two people without even trying! One of us is a crying girl, and the other has a broken arm!! We’re dead!!”
“Pathetic,” Number Seven said coldly as he steadily approached the desperate, screaming man.
“Wait! No! I give up!” Number Fifty-two screamed and fell to the ground. “You don’t have to kill us! The rules said we have to be standing! Thirty-six, get on the ground, you imbecile! It will be over if he’s the only one who remains standing!”
Despite his earlier attempts at encouragement, the goatkin was quick to grasp at an opportunity to stay alive and leaped to the ground before the giant man could slay anyone else.