Chapter 3 2. Viewers

[The viewers have arrived. They'll sponsor each survivor with Crana. Please do your best.]

Shane noticed this sentence popping up on a transparent screen above everyone else. He tilted his head in confusion. The traces of fear hadn't disappeared when this screen appeared out of the blue. Their faces were pale as they continued to stare above their heads.

'What the hell is this?' Shane could only think of one thing, "It seems like a live stream or something."

A familiar cold voice echoed in the background.

[System 12254801, you're right, but this live stream is meant to entertain all systems living in this realm. If you do good, you can earn more Crana for your survival by becoming a broker.]

Everyone had question marks on their heads after hearing some new terms.

Live stream?

Entertain?

Crana?

Brokers?

Okay, some of them could understand this, at least. Shane looked at the hoard of monsters as a thought popped up in his head.

'Could it be? I entered the novel Omniscient Reader's Viewpoint?'

As if reading his mind….

[No, you have entered the world, Imperium. We wish you all good luck.]

The voice and the screen above their heads vanished. The only thing that remained was a small digit at the right corner of their vision. In Shane's eyes, the number was 02.

He patted the shoulders of the man beside him, "Hey, what's your number?"

"05," Frank paused and spoke again, "It's 06 now."

"I have 07," another person said.

"01."

"Those are supposed to be viewers…." Shane realized something as he looked at Frank in shock, "Man, why do you have five viewers?! I'm better looking than you!"

"Shut up."

"Is this something a person should be focusing on?!" One of the people standing in front of Shane spoke with a trace of anger in his voice.

Just then, the monsters roared at the top of their lungs.

Everything was silent for a while. No one said a word as they kept staring at the monsters in vigilance. It almost felt like they would make a run for it if the monsters were to step forward, but they didn't.

Those giant things were almost ten stories taller than the people, but they only stared at Shane and the other people who had just entered through the door with drops of saliva dripping from the corners of their mouths.

The last man who came through the door was so scared that as soon as he entered and saw monsters, he turned back and was about to dash through when his nose hit a dark wall.

"Owww!" The man wanted to cry. He shouldn't have listened to that youth at all! He glanced around, and his gaze stopped when he spotted the man himself.

He walked over and grabbed the man's collar, "You f*cker! This is all your fault! Why did you tell us to enter that door?!"

"Yes! It's this man who spoke such motivating words! Now, look what happened!"

Others also agreed and surrounded Shane.

The latter just had a headache. He chuckled and replied, "Did I tell you to listen to me? You walked through that door out of your own free will."

"But we could have been saved!"

"That's right! If not for this man's words, we wouldn't have entered this door without this man's words!"

"Really?" Shane glanced at the lady who just spoke and smiled, "You think staying locked up in that white hall was a better solution?"

Everyone frowned upon hearing those words. Indeed, staying inside that hall also wasn't absolution. Then they should have stepped inside the reincarnation portal.

While they were busy thinking about their ability to make a good choice, Shane looked around the place. He tried to sneak a peek beyond the monsters, but he couldn't see anything. It almost felt like those monsters were trying their best to hide what was beyond.

Shane's eyes narrowed as he glanced back. Everyone else was so frightened that none of them noticed this. They could all see a hoard of monsters trying to eat them up, but these disgusting things could be protecting something.

But heading toward the monsters like this….

His palms turned sweaty at the thought, but he didn't have another choice other than going towards the hoard of monsters to go beyond them, straight toward the thing they were hiding. He knew it was a leap of faith, but it was the best solution. He didn't know why, but he felt staying here was probably equally dangerous.

He had never doubted his intuition. So he might as well take this leap of faith.

He tapped the shoulders of the blond youth standing beside him with a blank expression on his face and said, "Let's go."

The latter glanced at Shane with a cold expression and tilted his head, ".....Go where?"

"There," Shane pointed toward the monsters.

"Are you mad?!" Another person spoke up in anger, "You want to die, don't you? Then go ahead! Don't involve us anymore!"

"Yeah, why do you have to drag us everywhere?!" A girl butted in since she couldn't stand Shane's arrogant behavior, "The voice never said anything about going ahead! We have to survive, and since those monsters aren't crossing some invisible line to come close to us, we're all temporarily safe!"

Shane rolled his eyes as he thought, 'Are these people kindergarten students? I have to explain everything to them!'

Even after thinking like that, his expression remained the same. He sighed as if he was a retired teacher who was forced to give a lecture, "Are any of you top students? They not only study what the University provides them but also make sure to cover all the areas related to their subjects. If they end up with questions outside the syllabus, they'd be able to solve it no matter what."

He noticed at the right corner only to see that his viewers had suddenly increased to 55. Heh, they seemed to like the ones who acted cool.

None of the people understood what Shane was talking about. The girl arguing with him felt her head exploding as she continued to hear the boy's nonsense. Even though he was handsome and cool, at the moment of life and death, her veins popped up upon seeing his face.

She said, "Oi, shut the f*ck up! What does it have anything to do with this situation?!"

"Because," Shane glanced at the monsters and smiled, "I'm a top student, and I can see this is an out-of-syllabus question."

The girl was speechless as she glared at him. She had never seen someone so narcissistic in her life who kept showing off like this. She turned her head and stopped talking.

The blond youth, on the other hand, tapped his finger against his chin as if in deep thought and glanced at the hoard of monsters as he spoke, "Are they stopping us from going beyond?"

"Exactly!" Shane looked back at the blond youth and patted the man's shoulders, "Blondy, I've acknowledged you as my peer."

"Frank Allen."

"Cool."

Others behind them couldn't help but glare at those two people who walked toward the monsters without hesitation. Shane stopped his steps as he turned back and smiled, "Do you want to come?"

None of the people around replied. They even turned their heads away as if Shane didn't exist in the first place.

The boy shook his head and said, "Let's go, Frank. They don't appreciate a prodigy like me anymore."

The blond youth said nothing, but his steps quickened as if he was tired of hearing someone talking like this about himself.

As soon as they crossed an invisible wall, the monsters rushed at the duo without hesitation. If someone were to ask Shane why he decided to rush toward the monsters like this, he would say it was his prodigy intuition. He could tell that the test shouldn't be so easy as to make the people stand inside an invisible wall to pass the test.

Something was wrong with the entire situation. He couldn't help but remember a certain Netflix TV series at this time, as he had watched it recently before dying, Squid Game. He couldn't help but wonder if the others would be killed if they stayed there in one place.

But these thoughts vanished in thin air as the monsters rushed toward Shane.

Frank, for the first time, spoke on his own accord, "You have a plan?"

"What plan?" Shane dodged a monster's paw that looked disgusting enough to make him want to vomit. The sharp nails were stained with blood and mucus, "I only think we have to reach there."

"You think?"

Shane shrugged, "You can always turn back. I never asked you to follow me into this pit."

He had always been the type of guy who considered all the crossroads before finding a proper solution, and except for this, he didn't think there was anything else to do.

The blond man was silent for a while as he also rushed and dodged the monsters' attacks, "You're a strange guy."

Before Shane could reply, he saw a dirty paw with sharp nails closing in on Frank at the fastest speed possible.

'No! Move, damn it! You'll die!' he thought, but sadly, the other person couldn't read his thoughts.

By the time he even opened his mouth, the monster had already touched Frank's back, striking straight into the left shoulder! Blood oozed from the injury as Frank's entire body froze.

Shane's viewers: 169

Frank's viewers: 203