NOVEL NEXT Introduction Round
Mosquitoes.
The buzzing abominations that annoy you with their sound and make you want to flip the world upside down by constantly biting you.
The one thing that Aditya hates the most. He can tolerate almost anything in this world including the bland food, pineapple on the pizza and even the milk first in the cereal bowl, but mosquitoes are a big no.
If he was a criminal with some important information, all the interrogating officer must do is throw him in a room full of mosquitoes and he would sing like a bird.
And at this moment, a bunch of mosquitoes at least two dozen of them are coming at him. As for how he managed to count the mosquitoes that easily, it is because each one of them is the size of a football.
On top of each mosquito, there is a red number ‘1’ hovering. And when he moved his eyes to the top left corner he could see the timer showing five minutes and each second going down.
The mosquitoes made their way towards him and Aditya felt his legs shaking. He involuntarily threw the tomato in his hands towards them and ran straight ahead.
“OH MYYY GOD. SAVE ME FROM THIS NIGHTMARE.” He yelled at the top of his lungs as he ran.
The tomato hit the mosquito on its head and a health bar appeared on it, even though there is a negligible change in it, the health bar did appear. But Aditya is too panicked to see anything.
He just ran like crazy, but the mosquitoes are catching up pretty quickly. He looked around to see if he could find anything. He picked up the first thing that he felt could be used as a weapon.
A weight.
The vegetable market shops do not use digital weighing machines, rather they use the balance weighing scales and they use specially made metal weights for the measurement. He picked the weights of around 200 grams and 100 grams which are not bigger than stones and threw them at the mosquitoes.
He looked at one mosquito that took a clean hit on its head, slowing down a bit and finally noticed the health bar.
The remaining weights barely grazed past some more mosquitoes, but still managed to trigger the health bars. He looked at one mosquito that has the least health, but that is still three-fourths of the health bar.
He took advantage of the small breathing space he had and had an idea. He ran towards the upcoming intersection and was about to turn right to go to the store he was supposed to go to.
But to his dismay, he also saw another dozen mosquitoes coming from that side.
*BUZZ*
He immediately changed the direction and turned left. He looked around as he threw all the small weights, he could get his hands on along with some stones he could pick up.
The occasional health drop is the only thing that is making him feel a bit hopeful about the situation. As he ran and thought about his decreasing energy, he suddenly saw a board and finally his eyes brightened.
*BUZZ*
He ran faster expending all his energy and turned into the supermarket abruptly, turned around, and jumped upwards as he pulled down the rolling shutter.
*BAM* *BAM* *BAM*
The mosquitoes crashed into the shutter creating large bumps.
Aditya took a deep breath as he tried to catch his breath. He looked at the timer once again and it still showed a little less than three minutes. He felt like an eternity had passed, but it was a little more than two minutes and he barely covered five hundred meters. But it felt like he ran halfway past the world.
Then he noticed that some mosquitoes moved to the glass wall of the supermarket used for the display and started crashing into it.
He could see the cracks forming and that almost made him pee himself. He is sure that the glass will not hold on for a long time.
He ran around looking for something and finally caught a hold of a hammer in the hardware section, he then went to the mosquito repellent section and crushed a tube to apply all over his body. He didn’t even care about his face. He completely applied a large amount without any restraint.
His hand then went towards the Mosquito spray cans, but his hand stopped as he held one. He doesn’t know whether these mosquito sprays work on these large gigantic abominations. He thought for a moment and ran towards the glass wall with the hammer in one hand and the can in another while he pushed all the boxes on the shelves on to the floor.
He doesn’t know how well the mosquito spray works on these gigantic things. But he cannot just count on it.
He sprayed it on the mosquitoes through the glass cracks. The mosquito that was directly targeted by the spray slowed down. He looked at the timer as he flinched with every impact of the mosquito.
Even he is impressed with how calm he is. He really thought he would be shitting in his pants.
He looked at the mosquito that took the spray head-on. It barely slowed down for three seconds and he is sure that he wouldn’t be able to do shit in three seconds.
He changed the direction of his thoughts and looked at the large bottles of cooking oil nearby. He smashed the bottle to crack it with the hammer and threw it towards the aisle he just came through. He didn’t even bother opening the bottles and luckily for him, the hammer he picked is a claw hammer.
He kept looking at the timer and when there is a little more than one and a half minutes, he picked two smashed open bottles and poured it while he ran to the end. On his way he tried his best to knock the boxes out of the shelves with his legs.
He walked to the end of it and finally looked at the glass wall.
*CRASH*
Luckily, the glass crashed a little later and gave him enough time.
The mosquitoes started swarming inside as they came through the aisle that he destroyed. When they are right in the middle, Aditya lit the matches and threw them into the oil one after the other. He didn’t count on lighting it all up with one like in the movies, but it is actually way harder than that.
Even after lighting six, the fire didn’t catch on. He felt his heart beating faster and moved a bit forward and lit up a box finally catching a fire that spread rapidly.
There is only forty seconds left and the fire is spreading faster. He counted every single second and still every second felt like an hour.
The mosquitoes that are coming at him are troubled by the fire. They slowed down significantly for the first time.
They caught on fire and the health bars declined rapidly.
But Aditya didn’t show a single hint of relief on his face, he was still anxious. And his anxiety grew even more as he suddenly felt something wet coming from above.
He looked at the ceiling in horror as the fire sprinklers were triggered.
“For fuck’s sake. Why don’t you just kill me and be done with it.”
He muttered as he held the hammer tightly. The fire on the mosquitoes died down and they started coming towards Aditya with their health bars barely filled.
“Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.
God, I never really worshipped you, but if you want a real devout follower, this might be the time to give a live presentation of your powers. Trust me, if I am committed to something, I can be real good at it. You should know that. My obsession with these abominations is a great proof of that.”
He talked inside his head and slammed the claw hammer into the mosquito that was the first to reach him.
The mosquito crashed into the ground and didn’t move. He proceeded to swing it on the second one and soon his vision turned black as the whole scene in the supermarket changed.
Everything froze. The mosquito’s trunk that was half burnt and half an inch away from his face stayed in that place and a holographic screen appeared in front of him along with that shitty mechanical voice.
[ROUND FINISHED
KILLS: 5
OBTAINED FIVE POINTS.
ALL THE PLAYERS OVER THE WORLD ARE EVALUATED.
HUNDRED PLAYERS WERE SELECTED.
YOUR CURRENT RANK: 90
THE COUNTDOWN FOR NEXT ROUND
04:23:59:59
Hidden Function “Game Assistant” has been activated. The Player can check it in his Interface.
The Reward for clearing the Introduction Round has been given. The Player can check it in his Interface.]
The screen disappeared and Aditya suddenly found himself standing in the middle of the market street.
He is extremely sweaty and the whole world turned back into a normal color from the extreme grey.
He started panting heavily as he collapsed on the ground. Everyone looked at him in surprise and someone helped him sit on a stool at the nearby store and gave him some water.