Chapter 169: Bet [1]

"I guess that’s a deal."

Kaelen pulled his hand away from the ’weirdo’ and hurriedly wiped it on his pants. He didn’t even bother hiding his disgust as he looked ahead. The man before him looked like he’d just crawled out of a dumpster. His hair was unkempt, his clothes wrinkled and dotted with stains.

’Let’s not even talk about the smell.’

He smelled like a dead corpse. No, even corpses smelled better than him.

Just thinking about it made Kaelen wipe his hand onto his pants with even more vigor.

’Ah, fuck. This is so disgusting.’

Looking at Kaelen with hints of pity, Sarah turned in Kyle’s direction, her gaze falling on Kyle’s laptop where the game was loaded.

"It’s best if we get this over with. Should I go first?"

"Go first?" Kaelen turned to stare in her direction before looking back at the ’weirdo’.

"Didn’t you say that you can make us all play at the same time?"

"Yes."

The ’weirdo’ replied, his eyes hidden beneath his unkept bangs as he turned to look in the direction of the laptop.

"So...?"

Without answering, the ’weirdo’ picked up the laptop from the desk and moved towards his office. Just one glance at it was enough to make anyone’s stomach churn. If he smelled this bad, what about his office?

"Wait. Hold on."

Suddenly realizing something, Kaelen called out for the ’weirdo’.

"Wait, where are you going? Aren’t we supposed to play the game? Why are we going into that place? Don’t tell me we have to play there. If it—"

"No, I need to add some tweaks to the game."

"Tweaks?"

"Yes."

The ’weirdo’ replied flatly while fiddling with the laptop.

"In order to make multiplayer work, I need to start syncing the different angles and commands. Since we’re using LAN, I can cut corners in some aspects. It should take me about a day or two to sync."

"Wait, what are you saying?"

Whatever the weirdo was saying sounded like a lot of gibberish to Kaelen, who found himself at a complete loss. He wanted to ask more, but the moment he tried, he was met with the direct sound of a door smack as the ’weirdo’ faded from everyone’s sight.

Clank!

"That..."

Kaelen stared at the office speechlessly before turning around to look at the others. They all wore similar expressions to him, mumbling things along the lines of, ’What just happened? Did he just leave like that?’

On the other hand, Kyle and the rest had grown used to Seth’s behavior. They didn’t really think there was anything strange about his actions.

In fact, they’d be more worried if he didn’t do that.

"So..." Sarah’s voice trailed off, looking at the others in confusion. "Is the bet off or something? That’s a bummer. I thought we had something."

"Just wait, like he said."

Kyle suddenly chimed in, leaning back on his chair with both a smile and an exasperated expression.

"We’ve all seen the bet. You also don’t have to worry about him suddenly running away. He may be like that, but he usually is a man of his word."

"Two days, huh?"

Kaelen scratched his chin. However, although he wasn’t there the entire time to see Kyle play the game, Kaelen had been in the office long enough to see Kyle look rather unfazed during the time he played the game. It was that sight that made him smile.

’If it doesn’t scare him, then it won’t scare me.’

It was as simple as that.

"Alright, then. We’ll wait."

So what if he was the star of the containment department? Kaelen had already shown that he could handle this stuff. To him who had stayed in the Containment Department for almost a month, he felt that things weren’t that much different than his usual work.

In fact, it felt easier to him.

One day. Two days. It no longer mattered to him.

These were easy fragments for him.

"...I hope you’re right and he keeps his word. It would be pretty embarrassing if that weren’t the case."

Kaelen proceeded to turn around and head for his own cubicle. As he did, the others started to disperse, leaving Kyle and the rest standing around his cubicle.

The first one to break the silence was Zoey, who looked rather worried.

"Do you really think Seth will hold up the end of his deal?"

"...I don’t know."

"Huh? Then..."

"He looked confident, so..."

"Wait, wait, wait."

Zoey’s mouth hung open as she looked at Kyle in shock.

"Then what about the game? Was it at least scary?"

"Scary?"

Kyle’s lips trembled as he recalled the game he just played. From the old lady whose features were sharp to the monster that was clearly inspired by the ’Twisted Man’ and was trying to outsmart him into falling for its tricks... Kyle recalled everything.

And as he did, he shook his head.

"...No."

"Ah, shit."

Zoey covered her forehead as she looked at Kyle with pity. Who told him to be like this? Well, it was just six fragments... She also looked at the pale-faced Rowan. From the looks of things, he was going to chip in too.

But that only made Kyle feel worse. He buried his face in both hands, gloom weighing heavily on him as he fought the growing urge to slap himself.

’Why did I even speak? Even if I don’t have to fork out the fragments, just thinking about giving it to them... That’s a lot of money. Damn it...’

Kyle really wanted to cry at this moment.

If only he weren’t so overprotective...

***

"That fool really fell for it."

By fool, I meant Kyle. He really was going to pay my debt in case those from the exchange program didn’t scream or show any reaction. They were also fools for taking up the bet, but given their position, I could understand.

However, I was more confident with them than with Kyle.

While they were all star members of their own departments, they weren’t like Kyle, who was a seasoned Containment Expert. Besides constantly facing monsters, they didn’t know true fear.

This was why I was certain that I could scare them with the game.

’And the best part of it all is that if I do end up winning the bet, I’ll get a lot of fragments.’

Considering how I needed twenty fragments in order to reach the Third Order, this would prove to be a massive boon for me. Just thinking about the next possible skill that I could gain made me salivate.

Not only that but perhaps once I reached the third order, I’d be able to find out what Mirelle’s skill was. That would certainly help me out for future scenarios.

Of course, I needed to take into consideration the purity of the fragment.

There was no way they were going to give me pure fragments.

In fact, they were probably going to give me some scrappy ones that could be used to convert to money.

Thankfully, I wasn’t worried about that.

I had the fax machine!

"....."

Never mind.

I was fucked.

"Well, whatever. They’ll still serve as good testing dummies."

Putting the laptop on the table and loading the app, I immediately booted the Game Developer Mode and got to work.

"Two days. That’s all I need. Just two days..."