Chapter 71 - Start!

Right after hearing an explanation of how to play in the first event game in the LSO world, the participants were teleported back to the event arena.

Hiro felt his feet as if they were floating, his weight was so light just like a goose’s feathers. He tried to reach for the ground beneath him but to no avail.

There was nothing underneath, and he now had lost his sight. Everything suddenly turned very dark.

However, all of that only lasted for three seconds.

He suddenly could feel his body as if it was dropped from a good height so the speed of his fall was very fast. And he could feel the wind rumbling in his ears.

Whoosh!

Bang!

Hiro landed on the ground within seconds. His knees managed to support the weight of his body. He didn’t fall like most other players. All of that was thanks to his STR points.

He quickly regained his sight and when he looked around, all he could see was a collection of green plants that grew very tight without gaps and they were intertwined to form a giant wall in which its ends couldn’t be seen with his eyes.

[The Haunted Maze]

Hiro read the name of the place in his HUD system which was still working normally.

It was a dark maze with no sign of light at all. The visible distance was only two meters ahead, the rest was pure darkness. And he was alone there.

Hiro’s heart suddenly felt like it was beating faster than before.

Even though Anonymous had told him about this event, still, he didn’t expect that the maze that had to be a hide and seek playground would be this terrible.

He couldn’t see anything beyond his current line of sight. Under these circumstances, being a hunter would be much easier than being a survivor. Especially when they had been equipped with weapons from the start.

Hiro couldn’t do anything about his fate.

Even so, Hiro tried to catch his breath. He tried his best to stay calm so that all of his senses can work optimally.

Ding!

[Jacob joined the party]

Hiro checked his HUD system and now Jacob’s name appeared there along with information about full HP and AP. However, when he tried to use the player location-finding feature, it couldn’t work.

“Of course, Hiro. You’ll have to find Jacob yourself.” Hiro spoke to himself.

He lowered his voice and spoke carefully like a whispering, he didn’t want to make a loud sound because it could lure hunters to come to him.

It seemed like Jacob had just landed in one of the gaps in the maze because the party they had formed suddenly gave a re-notification.

Before Hiro walked away, he tried to activate the GPS system he had from completing the mission with Liberty at that time.

And…

[Mapping in progress]

“Gotcha.”

He felt lucky to have that item. Since the GPS was in the form of a system when being activated, it would be embedded in Hiro’s HUD system. Thus, it would not be considered an item to be disarmed by GM when preparing for the hide and seek game.

Having a GPS system in a maze was a blessing. That way, Hiro could create a maze map without the need for paper and pencil or manually remembering it in his memory. All of that was thanks to the GPS system that had given him a cheat indirectly.

Hiro was still wearing normal traveler boots at this time, it doesn’t have any special attributes.

However, to reduce the sound of footsteps, he purposely took off his two boots and left them on his landing spot. That was a smart trick of his.

The ground inside the maze where Hiro landed didn’t have a layer of snow like the previous place.

Instead, the ground Hiro stepped on right now was ordinary clay that had hardened and felt a bit cold when it touched the skin of his feet.

“Okay, let’s start moving for now.”

Hiro didn’t move immediately. He closed his eyes and sharpened his ears, trying to catch the slightest movement that might be audible.

Crack!

He made it.

The voice came from behind his back. It seemed that someone was very careless and swiped at the plants that became the walls of the maze.

It looked like someone desperately wanted to be found.

Although survivors and hunters had to be very careful when moving, there was no way a survivor would be so careless and purposely swipe the plants to lure people in.

In other words, Hiro’s prediction of the voice was…

“A hunter.”

A hunter could be arrogant in this case and it would make him act recklessly at the beginning of the game, after all, they were the only ones with weapons while survivors didn’t have anything on hand.

Hiro also decided to run towards the front to increase the distance between himself and the hunter who was having fun behind him.

As he ran, a notification popped up in his HUD system.

[Survivor: Noah has lit a fire torch]

[Noah gained 5 game points]

“That damn magician!”

Even though he wasn’t the first survivor to be included in the system notification, Hiro wasn’t upset in the slightest. In fact, he was a bit amazed.

After all, this game was about winning in a team at first, and he would use Noah to help him earn points for survivors. Meanwhile, Hiro had chosen a way to get bigger points for himself.

“Aaarrrggghhh!” A woman suddenly screamed out of nowhere. Her voice was high-pitched and the location of the voice was so close to where Hiro was.

“Dammit!”

Hiro clenched his fists, his brain now felt torn.

He did plan to farm game points by rescuing captured survivors, but it was too early for him to do so. He hadn’t even found a single hidden chest within the arena.

‘What should I do now?’ Hiro thought to himself.

“Help me! Help!!”

The voice of the same woman was now asking for help. She kept screaming loudly and desperately.

“Argh, no wonder she was caught.” Hiro rolled his eyes.

In front of him were two branching paths leading to two different directions.

If he ran to the right, he would get closer to the source of the girl’s voice.

And if he ran to the left, he would be farther away from the girl of course.

Even so, those two directions… neither of them guaranteed him to get a hidden chest he was looking for right now.

“Help me! Somebody help me!”

[Survivors: 1 survivor has been tied to the eliminator rocket]

[1 survivor will be eliminated in 3 minutes]

[Save her!]

“Arghh…” Reading the notification that just appeared made Hiro frustrated.

“Should I save her first?” He muttered to himself once again, contemplating what he should do.