The Challenger's Return: Rebirth of the Rainbow Mage
Chapter 36: The First Floor (4)

The man quickly figured out that something was wrong.

There were definitely three pots of food there a minute ago.

His face paled as he thought of something.

"Captain! Captain!"

The captain looked annoyed at having been interrupted from his speech.

The others also shot disdainful glances at the man.

But the captain wasn't an unreasonable leader.

He looked over to see the man's urgent expression.

The man's face was white as a sheet. He seemed to have gotten a serious fright.

"Ghost!"

He pointed at the missing pot of stew.

The captain looked to where he was pointing, and also noticed the missing pot of stew.

His analysis was a bit more levelheaded.

He looked around the campsite.

"Check for enemies."

As one, the men and a few women sitting around the campfire grew vigilant.

They stood up and formed a circle facing outward.

*snap*

One woman heard the indistinct snap of a branch a meter in front of her.

Her brows furrowed. No one was there.

Then, she shook and thought of something.

She immediately shouted,

"Here!"

She pointed to Otto's position.

At this point, if the captain hadn't figured out that an enemy had stolen a pot of food, he wouldn't have been a captain.

He snorted disdainfully at the intruder that was about to come under heavy fire, then roared,

"Get him!"

Otto moved like the wind, dodging spells and arrows that came at him like rain against the beautiful forest backdrop.

The dim afternoon sun that could hardly shine through the trees failed to illuminate Otto's figure.

Otto also occasionally fired back with a [Lesser Fireball].

With every shot, another died.

As he did so, he also exposed his position.

But his eyes were superior to those of an eagle, and any projectiles that flew at him were smoothly avoided with cat like agility.

Suddenly, an arrow came at Otto from a tricky angle.

Otto looked up to see the captain holding a bow, a wicked glint in his eye.

The captain had made his shot!

Otto's eyes widened.

There wasn't enough time to dodge…

SHLECK

The arrow grazed his leg.

The group's eyes widened as they saw a thin red stream of blood flow onto the ground.

The blood seemed to come out of nowhere.

Seeing this trickle of blood, the eyes of the Throskarts present turned red, expressions fierce.

"Human!"

They screamed as Otto rapidly dashed away.

In two seconds, he was gone, leaving only a group of dumbfounded Throskarts.

The captain's annoyance quickly spiked as he found they had lost some of their food along with a few lives of his subordinates.

Subconsciously, a few wanted to chase.

But the captain held them back, curving his lips into a sinister grin as he looked at his game profile.

He reassured his subordinates,

"He'll get his comeuppance."

HIs men seemed to think of something, and their faces slowly morphed to reveal similar eerie grins.

None of them saw the terrifying, conniving smirk on Otto's lips as he vanished into the forest.

******************************************************************

Krystal was having a terrific day.

She had managed to join up with her super powerful brother in this thrice-damned forest ring, and had claimed an important position among his subordinates thanks to their familial relation.

Moreover, their tearful family reunion had earned them quite a few gifts from the audience members paying attention to her fights, and those paying attention to her brother's.

If only the gifts had been...more appropriate...

No matter, ignoring the awkward atmosphere between her and her brother's subordinates, she had earned quite a lot of points.

These points strengthened both her own body and her brother's, giving her the ability to fight on equal or even advantageous terms to all of those stupid men.

This new strength, in turn, solidified her brother's leadership position over this loose collection of people who had gathered for benefits.

All in all, Krystal now felt quite comfortable.

She felt like she was over the moon as she compared the morning's dirty, bloody fights over coins to the afternoon's warm, peaceful atmosphere with her brother and his friends.

Krystal cooked a giant pot of hearty meat over a similarly giant bowl of grains, seasoning everything with just the right amount of spices, humming joyfully as she worked.

She was in such a good mood that she didn't even mind that everyone had scattered as soon as she started humming.

But right as she put her spoon back in to stir the meat, she felt something odd.

Why was there no resistance when she stirred?

Krystal looked down to find, to her horror, that the pot had disappeared.

Looking around, she couldn't find anything odd, until she suddenly heard something.

SNAP!

Krystal's eyes widened as she looked up, only to find that there was no one there.

But now she was certain of her guess.

She hollered at the top of her lungs,

"ENEMY ATTACK!!!"

The whole group was instantly roused and alert. It wasn't possible to truly let down one's guard in the forest.

But it was a shame.

Since they'd all scattered after hearing her earlier 'humming,' they were too far away to reach her in her moment of imminent danger.

A moment later, Krystal's body dropped to the ground, missing a head.

Just like that, she breathed her last.

Only a deafening cry of rage: NO!!! KRYYSTALLLLL!!!!!!!

And a drop of bright red, HUMAN blood was left to remember her existence in the cold, heartless ring of forest.

******************************************************************

Similar scenes happened everywhere in this section of the forest ring as Otto visited the campsites one by one.

Otto quickly ran to the next group in his planned route.

His 'wound' quickly healed up, leaving no scar, as if it had never been there.

Obviously, getting wounded was entirely a farce.

If he hadn't let that arrow graze him, there was no chance in hell a projectile that slow could have entered his range.

There were actually two reasons he had done that.

First, and most importantly, he needed an opportunity to reveal his blood.

One of the few cosmetic differences between Throskarts and humans was the color of their blood.

When Throskarts bled, their blood came out in a distinctive, dark reddish purple color easily recognizable to the naked eye.

Human blood, on the other hand, was initially bright red. The two were distinguishable at a glance.

The second reason he got hit was a roundabout way of playing the pig to eat the tiger.

This way, the Throskarts would be more confident in their future chances against him.

Otto grinned happily.

He didn't even remember how many Throskarts he had killed to successfully rouse them to action.

He was confident the audience would end up doing most of the work for him.

A few seconds later, Otto reached the next campsite, and basically repeated his earlier actions, this time with a bit more finesse.

He even 'accidentally' stumbled when he was 'escaping,' creating a loud commotion which made it easier for the enemy's attacks to pinpoint his position.

Otto left after 'inadvertently' getting grazed by an arrow once again.

The hardest part was properly luring these groups of Throskarts back to his base.

To do so, Otto had come up with a few strategies.

The simplest strategy was to rely on their own personal desire for revenge.

If the leaders were angry enough, they'd be willing to come find him of their own accord and set up an ambush by his living place.

Especially…

Otto grimaced in secondhand discomfort as he remembered his own experiments in drinking his magic poison in his mental space.

It only dropped his health a little bit, but the side effects…

Were not fun to imagine again.

If revenge wasn't viable, the second strategy was greed.

Otto had also purposely revealed his deeply orange token to the camps he visited.

Even if they weren't particularly angry about the loss of food, the death of their subordinates, or the disgusting poison, they would surely feel greed when looking at his token.

Ideally, that greed would quickly morph into ambition once the leaders realized that Otto had 'relied on a special skill' to kill his enemies, and, in reality, wasn't as strong as they imagined.

Finally, if even greed wasn't an effective lure, Otto would have to rely on the audience.

The audience could play a very large role in this game show, and they knew it.

Many of them were skilled at coercing contestants to do as they wished, with a promise of benefits, a boycott of their channel (which meant no more gifts), or a threat to lure other contestants over to kill them.

The audience participation was by now considered part of the game.

Otto had no doubt his audience wanted to 'help' him arrange a nasty surprise.

Once Otto had hit dozens or hundreds of these small communities, he was certain that the audience would start banding together to pressure all the Throskarts to head over and ambush him as one.

It would satisfy their desire to get revenge on an 'enemy' while also providing sufficient excitement via the thrill of a large scale battle.

Otto brushed his shoulders with a twinge of arrogance.

If he did say so himself, his plan was excellent.

****************************************************************

Otto continued to attack these small camps of Throskarts, circling around the area in an inward spiral, starting from the camps the furthest away, gradually making his way to the camps nearest to his abode.

He wanted to time it properly so the ambushers arrived in one stretch.

After a few dozen hits on these camps, Otto had his attack down to an exact science.

Seconds after arriving, Otto, who was still stealthed, would immediately sneak into the camp and steal some food.

This way, the audience was less likely to suspect he was 'luring' the Throskarts.

Instead, Otto wanted them to believe he was both unwilling to spend points on food, and unwilling to fight a large group of people, so he conducted small scale raids on many camps to gather the necessary food all at once.

Next, as Otto moved the food into his spatial storage ring, he would stealthily slip poison into the remaining food still cooking.

Then, after two seconds, Otto would create some kind of disturbance, leading to his discovery.

A fight would ensue.

Otto would spill a trickle of blood while accidentally getting 'grazed' by either an arrow or a spell, and then he would immediately escape, looking scared of the large group of Throskarts attacking him so ferociously.

Every time, Otto would meet eyes with a raging leader, 'accidentally' undo his stealth, and make a prompt 'panicked' expression before he recast his stealth and left like the wind.

After many tries, Otto was in and out in under thirty seconds.

The best part was that, with his astonishing agility, it also didn't take him very long to travel the distances between camps.

But with such a giant radius of detection, Otto still took a full eight hours to visit almost 400 camps in total before sprinting directly back to his stone house.

By the end of his mission, Otto wasn't able to slip poison into the food anymore.

It couldn't be helped.

It was now mid-evening, and the sun was setting. The food had long been eaten.

He could only regretfully kill a few more subordinates before running off.

But Otto didn't make it back as quick as he wanted.

Midway through the journey, he received a slight surprise.

A boy with brown hair was standing under a tree with his head down.

He looked up as he saw Otto approach.

Otto was surprised to find that the usual features of the Throskarts weren't present on this person.

Otto had a faint suspicion. Was this boy waiting for him?

Otto released his killing intent and prepared a fireball to quickly send the boy off to the afterlife.

He needed to return quickly, and wasn't in the mood to deal with trifles.

The boy immediately panicked and waved his hands,

"Please don't! Please don't! I'm human, okay, I'm also human! You don't have to kill me!"

Tears and snot streamed down his face, confronted with Otto's sharp pressure.

Otto thought it was quite an ugly sight.

But he was intrigued by the boy's words.

He previously thought that the only humans among the contestants were actually 'challengers.'

AKA, he believed that right now, he was the only human in the entire forest ring.

But the boy didn't hesitate to prove his words.

He took out a dagger sheathed on his back.

Then, he made a small cut on his finger.

He held the finger out to Otto.

The blood was red.

"See, I'm human!"

But Otto didn't recall his killing intent.

Inwardly, he was a little amused.

Did this guy think that he would show mercy just because they were one race?

Otto genuinely couldn't remember how many humans he'd killed in the past. Too many to count.

In other words, Otto didn't discriminate against species.

He killed anyone who stood in his way.

Plus, wasn't this boy a bit too naïve?

Everyone on this show was an enemy.

They were naturally competitors, anyway.

The racial difference and enemy designation only served to exacerbate the problem.

Sensing that things weren't going well for him, the boy immediately brought out his final card.

"I have information that you might need!"

Otto's audience chat instantly exploded.

[No fucking way!]

[Is he going to tell him about *it*?]

[Ahh, no! Spam the chat with xx to bury above's comment!]

[xx]

[xx]

[xx]

[xx]

[xx]

[xx]

[xx]

[xx]

[xx]

[Pfft, this human is stupid. He wouldn't believe the words of a stranger anyway.]

[xx]

[xx]

[xx]

[xx]

[Jeez, you're all so paranoid. So what if he knows? What can he even do about it? I can't see him at all, but after all the wounds he got, he's probably bleeding out!]

Though Otto's 'designated' magic eye hadn't been able to follow him on his romp through the forest, the audience was quick to pick out circumstantial evidence of his actions.

[Didn't you all see how many camps he attacked?]

[The whole forest is in a fury!]

[Hehehehe, this boy is dead meat]

[So is the kid for betting on the wrong horse...hahahahahah]

[Death to all humans!]

[Spit on the human race!]

[+1]

[+1]

[+2]

[+3]

[^^ is right, you're all cowards!]

[Who the fuck are you?]

[my bad, my bad, slow magic net]

[xx]

[xx]

[xx]

[Who is that guy anyway? Since when was there another human in the forest?]

[kill him! more blood!]

[Probably some random cannon fodder. He must have been hiding the whole time.]

[It's always the crafty ones that survive the longest! Don't underestimate him!]

[I'm leaving to go watch a fight. Who wants to stay and listen to this shit?]

[Sponsor gifts! sponsor gifts!]

[Dumbass, why would you want to give gifts to humans?]

[lolol even if he wants to, he can't anyway.]

Otto, as usual, paid his chat no mind.

Actually, he was quite curious as to how the boy actually found him.

He was still in stealth, after all. It was also didn't look like the boy could actually see him.

His eyes were still focused in the general direction of his voice.

Seeming to understand Otto's unspoken question, the boy remarked,

"I actually can't see you, but I can sort of tell where you are because I can hear the wind."

A dubious claim. Even Otto didn't have the power to do that.

Then he kicked himself for underestimating others.

What, just because he couldn't do it also meant that no one could do it?

How arrogant of him.

After Otto got his ego under control, he quietly declared,

"Information or death."

His tone was airy, but his blue orbs bored deep into the boy's brain.

The boy could sense, instinctively.

That there were indeed only these two choices.

He spoke in a rushed tone, unwilling to spend even a second longer under the pressure of imminent death.

And if he didn't speak now, he'd die.

"Information!"

"There's an ambush! A huge ambush! I caught wind of two of my commenters talking about it in passing.

They said that almost every camp within a few kilometers was participating to ambush you at your house."

His voice was breathless.

Then, Otto spoke, voice deep,

"When?"

This was the most crucial point.

Otto had to get back to the stone abode to upgrade his trap before the majority of the Throskarts arrived.

It wouldn't be disastrous if he couldn't make it, but he would certainly prefer to be there first.

"Right before night falls. In an hour and a half."

Otto's eyebrows rose.

Where exactly did the boy get this information?

And...

"What do you want?"

The boy suddenly bowed his head and started to babble frantically,

"Please help me! Help me survive! You are very strong, and you're the only other human I could find. A commenter told me where to find you, he said you'd help me, please, I just want to survive is all."

Otto looked him up and down. There was no doubt that said 'commenter' had bad intentions.

He'd probably sent this kid here to see him die.

"What can you offer me?"

His voice hadn't warmed in the slightest.

"I'm very familiar with the forest. I can help you gather food and cook it. I can also spend all my points to buy you any materials you need.

Look!"

The boy showed Otto his game screen in a rare display of trust.

[Points: 223]

It was good amount of points for a boy who clearly wasn't a fighter.

He must have spent all his time hiding and collecting coins.

Otto pondered for a second, before he made an ambiguous murmur.

But he also withdrew his pressure.

To the boy, who was on the verge of kneeling from the force, it was a great relief.

"What's your name?"

"Jackal!"

"Let's go."

Then he picked the boy up in a fireman's carry and sprinted back to his ugly stone house.