Game of Extermination

Aditya woke up with the sun glaring on his face.

He opened his eyes groggily as he sat up on his bed and looked around. His body is still sore all over and his muscles are aching badly. On top of all that, he has a slight headache due to the lack of proper sleep.

Last night, he had several nightmares about the mosquitoes and he woke up many times.

He couldn’t help but feel frustrated. He looked around and saw that his roommates were still sleeping soundly which made him look at his phone for the time.

It is just 6:00 AM.

He looked at the morning sun through the open window to feel the warmth.

He then went through the messages and missed calls from his home.

He called his Mother.

“Hey, Mom.”

“Adi, why didn’t you call me yesterday?”

“I was busy Mom.”

“What are you busy with? You just went there yesterday.”

“Ask your loving daughter, she is the one that swapped my supplies with the snacks and stuff. I had to go back to town to buy them.”

“*sigh*. Son, it is not that I don’t understand your problem, but don’t you think you are a bit obsessed with insects? You need to tone down your vigilance a bit.”

“I know Mom.” He replied and their small talk went on for another five minutes before he hung up.

He didn’t know what to do. His first class is at 9:00 AM. There is still three hours until then.

He laid back down on the bed and muttered.

“Ram.”

The old man’s holographic image appeared in front of him.

[What do you want?]

“Connect me to the Player’s Chat.”

[Okay]

The holographic screen appeared and showed a chat interface. There are many messages in the chatroom. Some are about what is happening and how crazy the situation is and some are afraid and just want to know how they could get out.

He looked at the names of people in the chat room. There are many names of different national origins. He looked at his own which had the number ‘90’ without his own name.

“Why is my name like that?”

[It is to give some privacy to the players. You can change it to whatever nickname you want. If you want to expose your identity you can do so as well.

But I recommend that you make a nickname that wouldn’t give any hints of your real identity.]

“Why is that?”

[Just take it as an advice from a wise old man.]

Aditya rolled his eyes, but he still changed his name to ‘Syam’.

Aditya means Sun and Syam means evening. Aditya didn’t have a good sense of naming, so he just went with the opposite so that people wouldn’t relate that much.

As he is looking through the interface aimlessly, Ram spoke.

[Why are you wasting your time?]

“What do you want me to do? The class is in three hours. And I don’t have anything to study since this is the first day. Even if I want to socialize, my roommates are still sleeping. There is not much I can do.”

[Do you not have any understanding of the situation you are in?]

The little old man looked at me with a weird expression. Is that disappointment, and pity? I don’t know.

[Kids these days are really useless. Even if you have half a brain cell you would understand that you need to train.

Last time, you got lucky with that supermarket. Maybe all the lucky stars exhausted their favor to you and gave you that idea.

But you wouldn’t be as lucky next time. You should train as much as you can and increase your strength.

The remaining tasks would be dangerous. So you better study up on them and prepare yourself.]

“Why are you so talkative suddenly? Yesterday, you didn’t even answer my questions, now you are giving advice?”

Aditya replied with a pout, but he still took the advice to heart.

“Tell me one thing, are you the game assistant for everyone?”

[No, the game assistant for each person will be different.]

“What is the criterion for assigning the assistant?”

[You don’t have enough authority to know the answer at the moment.]

“Of course, what else can I expect? Another deflection.”

With that, he closed the interface and got out of the bed. The old man’s advice is good. But his arms were too sore to do some heavy training, so he decided to go for a little run in the campus ground.

He came back after half an hour and took a shower to get ready.

He then sat on the study table and took out an empty notebook. He started writing things about this Game of Extermination.

He wrote down all his observations. How the game started every word the game manager said and the things Ram said about the game.

He once again looked at the chat interface as he went through the messages that were sent by different people.

“Oh My god. Those termites almost killed me. Luckily, I managed to go to our pool and jumped into it.” This is the message left behind by the person who ranked 95th.

“You got termites? I was working in the barn and a bunch of mice attacked me. Damn, they are as big as a bulldog. They chased me so far and luckily, I managed to hold on because of the shovel I was holding, I managed to kill some of them and escaped.” This is left behind by someone who ranked 70th.

“Haha, I am lucky in this aspect. I am a soldier and I am in my military base. I was attacked by a bunch of mosquitoes. I killed most of them with an assault rifle.” This is the message of the first-ranked person.

He scrolled down and looked at some other messages, most of them were nonsense about how shocked they were and some were about how excited they were. But some caught his eye.

One of them is left behind by the first ranker as well.

“My Game Assistant is Awesome. He is a former soldier and he has great tips.

I only recently started in the army, and with his experience, I will be doing great both in the army and the game. I am the chosen one. Hahaha..”

“My Game Assistant is an experienced hunter. He is good at these things. In the next round, my rank is bound to increase.” This is the message from the tenth ranked.

“My Game assistant is a Samurai. Hehe, I will train like crazy and after the next round, I will have the first rank.” This is the message from the third ranker.

Aditya was surprised by these people’s reactions. He doesn’t know exactly why these people managed to accept the situation so fast and how varied these game assistants are.

Of course that confusion didn’t stop him from burning with Jealousy. He looked at Ram who is looking around dorm in silence.

Other people got soldiers, and samurais, while he got a good old man.

“Hey, Ram. What was your profession before you became the Game assistant.”

[I did many things. But my main profession is being a farmer.]

Aditya was speechless for a moment and said.

‘Great, a good old farmer.’

“Among those many things, were you by any chance a hunting expert?”

[No.]

“Were you an expert in bashing things with a shovel or a hoe?”

Ram looked at him weirdly and said.

[What is wrong with you Kid?]

“Then what are ‘some other jobs’ you took other than being a farmer?”

Ram thought for a moment and said.

[I have done so many. I worked in a handloom workshop for a bit, I did some carpentry. I worked in construction a bit. I worked for a potter when I was a kid…]

“This is fucking unfair.

Oh, God. I just wanted to become a devout believer but now you are playing a joke on me by giving me this useless game assistant.” Aditya muttered as he held his forehead in his hands.

Ram’s frown deepened and his little figure trembled violently. He appeared right in front of him and folded his sleeves as he rambled on.

[I was the best farmer the whole state has ever seen. I alone can farm five acres of land without anyone’s help. Not a single pest managed to damage my field back in the day.

If there is a title like King of the Farmers, then I would have been the one. I worked on so many soils in so many places that I can grow anything anywhere and I can tell which pest attacks which crop just from the sight…]

As he is rambling on and on, Aditya suddenly feels that this Old man might be useful.

“Wait, wait. Do you know how to deal with the pests?”

[Of course.]

“All kinds?”

[Most of them.]

Gears started turning in Aditya’s mind. Just when he was about to speak, he felt something touching his shoulders.

He jumped out of his chair and turned around to look at a young man in shorts looking at him weirdly.

“Bro, I know that Engineering drives people crazy, but the classes haven’t even started yet and it seems like you have already gone crazy. Are you okay?”