novelraw Chapter 31 : Chapter 31
Chapter 31 : Chapter 31
Chapter 31
I, Lee Ju-seong, watched as the aftermath of the game was handled with lightning speed.
At the same time the game ended, organization members wearing copper masks swarmed in, loaded Bang Su-hyeok onto a stretcher, and left first.
Then a dealer appeared, gave me a brief congratulatory greeting, and guided me outside.
When I actually came out, there were no other players in sight.
Even the bloodstains on the playground floor that could be seen after the end of the 1st round were gone.
When I asked the dealer, I received the answer that the Class President Election Game had finished first.
Now that a day had passed like that, I was lying on a soft king-size bed.
[Players who survived the 2nd round, congratulations on your survival.]
I opened my eyes to the sound of the announcement coming from the intercom.
There was a reason why I received the announcement through the intercom rather than the speakers in the area.
After tossing and turning inside the snow-white blankets, I got up, stretched, and muttered dazedly.
“Ah... I'm hungry. It was breakfast free at this hotel.”
Yesterday, as soon as the game ended, I moved straight to the hotel and checked in.
The lodging fee was 5 million won per night.
In exchange for ripping a huge amount of money from the players, breakfast was free.
Ah~ it was really great.
It was like heaven when I filled the bathtub equipped with a spa function with water and went inside.
The languid feeling was so immense that I was worried I might melt away like sugar put in water without knowing it.
I melted away my deep fatigue into the bathwater and washed it away, then ordered a chicken set through room service for dinner and devoured it in the blink of an eye before falling fast asleep.
Since then, time has passed and led to the present.
Regardless of whether I yawned with unfocused eyes or not, January's voice continued to flow from the intercom speaker.
[Considering the aftermath of holding the 1st and 2nd rounds at one-day intervals, we will take a rest period.]
[The rest period is three days, so please prepare for the 3rd round by organizing your body and mind during the given period.]
A rest period was also given after the 2nd round in the original drama.
A rest period was sometimes given after every single game, and at other times, it was given after playing three or four games in a row if it was long.
Yesterday, I slept in the gym to stop Yoon Ji-ho's scheme, but since Yoon Ji-ho no longer existed, I chose to stay at the hotel this time.
It was also because my pocket situation had become sturdy after obtaining over 2 billion won in the 2nd round.
I took a quick shower, came out, and muttered while drying my hair with a hair dryer.
“Three days, huh. The schedule is going to be tight.”
There were a few operations I had prepared to execute once this rest period was given.
By now, the dealers would be having a meeting in the control room while racking their brains.
The elimination of a strong candidate for victory.
And my specialty was revealed through Seo Ji-hye's ability.
If my prediction was correct, the organization's higher-ups would have ordered them to use some tricks to prevent me from leaving the game.
The accuracy of the prediction is infinitely close to 100 percent.
Because according to the original flow, it was an order that would have been given to Bang Su-hyeok.
‘I'll make sure to use the orders fallen upon those dealer fellows to my advantage. I'm already looking forward to the 3rd round.’
After washing and coming out, I felt a prickling pain inside my abdomen.
My stomach was protesting, telling me to cram some delicious things inside.
I should grab a meal first before carrying out the schedule.
Outside the guest room was an open-type passage where windows took up half the wall.
It was a structure similar to a more luxuriously decorated hallway of a corridor-style apartment.
Although I compared it to an apartment, the hotel itself was only a three-story structure.
The 1st floor was the lobby and convenience facilities.
The 2nd floor was guest rooms.
The 3rd floor was the restaurant.
In the case of the 3rd floor, it was a place that provided a breakfast buffet to guests for free in the morning and operated a luxury restaurant that could be used for a fee in the evening.
The luxury restaurant operated in the evening was originally so expensive that even guests rarely stopped by, whereas the breakfast buffet operated in the morning was a must-use for any guest.
In other words, if I stopped by in the morning, I could easily grasp how many people stayed at the hotel last night.
When I went up to the 3rd floor via the stairs, the players who were having a meal while occupying one table each came into view.
The headcount was twenty people.
Compared to when the 1st round was finished, the number of guests had increased significantly.
The upward trend in the number of guests meant that the number of players with thick wallets had increased.
The expressions of the guests were diverse.
People whose complexions were bright because they had rested well.
People who looked depressed as if something that would cause trauma had happened.
People who were having conversations with those they sat with using serious expressions, wondering if they were in a cooperative relationship.
All of them were those who had survived while obtaining a substantial amount in different games.
The feeling of each person acting separately was strong, but the atmosphere of the players changed starting from my appearance.
After scanning my appearance, the players whispered.
“That person was standing in the same queue as Yoon Ji-ho yesterday....”
“Yesterday when I was coming out of the game site, I saw the Bronzes moving Yoon Ji-ho's body out of the game site. I wondered if that might be the case, but to think it was really that guy's doing.”
“He's stronger than Yoon Ji-ho, but closer to a normal person than Yoon Ji-ho... I can't tell whether I should be happy about this or not.”
Many emotions were crossing inside the restaurant.
It was something to welcome that an uncontrollable freak like Yoon Ji-ho had disappeared, but since they were in a position where they had to face someone with skills greater than Yoon Ji-ho if they turned me into an enemy, they couldn't just purely welcome it.
I walked without paying any attention to the gazes of various people and submitted the meal ticket I received while checking in yesterday to an organization member.
“Since it's morning, shall I try eating lightly.”
Perhaps considering big eaters, 12-inch large plates were provided as buffet plates.
I picked up one plate and filled it with food.
Meat, meat, meat, rice, meat, vegetables, meat.
In a few minutes, meat dishes were piled high on the plate.
Spicy stir-fried pork, sweet and sour pork, beef bulgogi, fried chicken, and so on....
It looked like I had put on various menus, but in reality, it was a diet riddled with meat.
It seemed like I had put in about 2.5 servings.
The only things I had eaten while going through the 1st and 2nd rounds were two red bean breads and two packs of milk, and in my case, I even had blood drawn in the middle, so I was feeling quite empty.
I'll be able to eat it all. Probably.
I slowly savored the menu one bite at a time in order.
The other players watched me eating carefully.
Looking at me, they seemed to have many worries.
To the point where they stopped putting food in their own mouths.
Yoon Ji-ho had an intuitive personality, so it was easy to set up a strategy.
On the other hand, my playstyle was not known at all.
Even the aspects that other players knew of possessed contradictory tendencies.
The gym incident where I had lowered a thick rope to other players.
The queue incident where I had coldly ignored the help of other players.
In order to devise a strategy, one must know the opponent's tendency, but since I had shown polar opposite sides, it was bound to be difficult to set up a strategy.
The best way to find out a tendency is to clash directly.
Someone had to approach me and attempt a conversation.
However, no one took the lead.
They only watched each other's reactions, hoping that someone else would step forward first.
I enjoyed this situation while slightly shrugging my shoulders as if humming.
‘As expected of people who survived up to the 2nd round, everyone is cautious. From now on, who is more cautious will affect survival.’
In the field of games, victory or defeat is basically decided by trivial parts as one goes to the upper ranks.
Condition, compatibility, coincidence.
And mistakes.
Mistakes in the Money Game are likely to manifest in the form of greed.
In other words, the proposition of ‘who makes fewer mistakes’ is identical to its converse, ‘who acts with less greed’.
The paradox is that one must have no greed for money in order to win a game where the desire for material gain is the premise.
That was this Money Game.
Before I knew it, only the sauce that looked like it had been smeared on remained on the plate.
Moreover, I was perfectly full.
I returned the plate while passing through the worried players as if piercing through them.
And I left the hotel to carry out today's schedule.
The moment I crossed the front gate of the hotel, the ability I had been greatly indebted to disappeared.
[Park So-yul has lost her ability. The copied ability has been deleted.]
It was a message implying that Park So-yul had left the island.
It's a sorry thing to say to Park So-yul, but she won't hear good news even if she returns to society.
She will end up returning to the Money Game inevitably.
The rest period given this time was a preparation period to survive until Park So-yul returns.
I walked toward the place that would be the starting point of the preparation process.
“Hmm, I wonder if the miser female doctor has gone to work by now.”
***
I looked at the person sitting across the desk while beaming.
“Doctor, do you know? The level of the hotel breakfast buffet here is high.”
Across from me stayed the Doctor, looking at me with her chin resting on her hand and her head tilted at a crooked angle.
The expression of her emotions toward me was very explicit.
It was to the extent that I could read her expression even though her face was not visible because of the copper mask.
An expression of being dumbfounded would be staying beneath the mask.
From inside the mask, the Doctor's characteristic harsh voice flowed out.
“I know too. More than that, can you stop acting close just because I helped you once before?”
“You are being too much to a patient who came to get a checkup.”
“If you're a patient who came for a checkup, tell me the part that hurts and take your prescription.”
At the Doctor's urging, I pretended to feel dizzy while laughing.
“I've been feeling dizzy since this morning. I wonder why.”
“Who knows. Isn't it because you did strenuous activities right after having blood drawn? Eat well and get some rest. Now, next patient.”
“You are particularly prickly today. Did you get a word from the higher-ups because of your relationship with me?”
The Doctor stood up abruptly while hitting the desk with both hands.
“I've never been called by a dealer! And what relationship between you and me! Are you going to keep acting up despite being a debtor?”
“Please calm down.”
“Do you think I'm in a state to calm down when you're rambling nonsense?”
“I asked because I thought the exchange of money could become a problem. Exactly what kind of relationship were you imagining?”
Whether she realized that she had reacted sensitively on her own, the Doctor cleared her throat and slowly sat on the chair.
“Anyway, if nothing hurts, go back.”
“I will go back, but before that, there is something I want to ask. What happened to Mr. Bang Su-hyeok?”
“Sigh, so you came because you were curious about that? The surgery ended safely. But it will take several weeks until the sutured area heals.”
“The surgery fee will come out to be enormous.”
“Since the price of goods here is insanely expensive, it'll easily come out to the hundreds of millions. Since it all remains as debt and he can't be hospitalized if he has no money, he'll be kicked out to the gym soon. And he'll end up participating in the game in a state where he hasn't even recovered properly.”
If I remembered correctly, I knew that one didn't have to participate in the game while hospitalized.
I asked to confirm if the rule I knew was correct.
“By any chance, do you have to participate in the game even if you are hospitalized in this facility?”
“That's not it. During hospitalization, participation in the game is exempted. For your information, to prevent foul play, we refuse hospitalization for faking illness or injuries due to intentional self-harm.”
“I see.”
“Now your curiosity is satisfied, right? If your business is finished, go back. Go back already. Get lost.”
I shook my head from side to side.
“I can't do that.”
The real business was separate.
Before delivering my business, I tapped the Money Watch fastened to my wrist with my index finger.
Just like when I bought the Doctor's time the other day.
“I want to buy your time today as well. Please spare some time after work.”