The Challenger's Return: Rebirth of the Rainbow Mage

The crowd that was now in front of her watched on indifferently as Julia was forced by some unknown power to approach the machine, its wicked blade dangling ominously above her head.

Julia's eyes widened.

Her heart rate sped up to the extreme.

Her mind raced as she pondered how she'd suddenly appeared on the stage.

She found that her feet were completely restricted.

She couldn't move them at all.

Her mouth also wasn't able to open. She couldn't call out a single word.

But her hands were unaffected as long as she continued to move towards the guillotine.

The seconds slowed to a crawl as Julia desperately tried to remember the correct information.

It was a special role!

She just needed to remember which one…

Julia thought back to Ramesthes's lengthy lecture on the various special roles of the second floor.

She suddenly felt thankful that he had chosen to use the virtual pod's 'punishment' to shock them harshly as soon as their attention wavered.

For this was now information she found herself desperately needing.

Soon, her brain came up with the answer.

[Inheritance Thief]

Inheritance thief has two opportunities to switch one voted contestant with a different contestant at least 5 seconds before execution.

If the deception goes unnoticed, the inheritance thief will gain all of the merits of the deceased contestant.

If the deception is noticed by two or fewer people, the inheritance thief must split the inheritance equally among them.

If the deception is noticed by more than two but fewer than a third of the remaining contestants, the switch will fail and the original execution will proceed.

If the deception is noticed by more than a third of the remaining contestants, the inheritance thief will be executed instead.

Julia's eyes glittered.

The [Inheritance Thief] was taking a big risk here!

He must have known that Julia had quite a few merits stored up after killing so many spiders.

Perhaps, he was banking on the fact that Julia would take too long to understand her situation.

The thief had even done an excellent job of switching her with the only other woman who approached her height, weight, and build. Even their hair colors were similar!

It was the perfect opportunity to use his power.

It was a pity.

Now that she had figured the situation out in advance, his bet was doomed to fail.

Julia's feet continued to approach the guillotine.

There were exactly three seconds remaining.

With her hands, Julia rapidly retrieved a small knife from the back of her suit.

The knife was a secondary weapon for when she wasn't using her hammer.

She struck resolutely down on her arm, cutting open a large slash on her wrist.

The crowd quieted as bright red blood dripped down onto the sand below.

Gasps soon echoed across the stage.

Everyone's eyes met Julia's.

Her smirk widened.

It was in moments like these where she felt she most resembled a bad ass.

Her blood continued to drip onto the ground before her suit quickly injected her with a healing powder.

The wound scabbed over.

And suddenly, Julia was returned to her position on the sand to leisurely watch the proceedings.

In her place, a young male Throskart had appeared.

He glared at her venomously and began to walk forward with no choice but to approach the guillotine.

His bet had failed in the worst possible way!

And now, he was going to pay for it.

Julia just stared at him provocatively.

She raised a perfectly manicured eyebrow as she mouthed a word at the man just as the blade fell.

"Loser."

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

Elliott pondered over the contents of his card, brows locked deep in thought.

His hand held steadily to the glass of water in his right hand.

Though perhaps all the roles were special, he would consider his own role 'extra special.'

Mostly because its function was weird.

It was also a role he hadn't learned about in the large list of roles Ramesthes had taught them.

His card displayed a title in bold font.

[Karmic Executor]

The role did exactly what its title suggested: it repaid the group's karma, both good and bad.

Elliott read the lengthy description through once more.

Rules

Executor may not tell group members or otherwise hint at the nature of this role.

Violations will result in immediate death.

Executor may attempt to solicit donations.

Donations are defined as one time transfers of merit from one contestant in a group to the executor.

Merits received from killing [Terrentia Malerachnis] reduced by 75%.

Donations

For 0 merit in donations from others, all prices for facilities and water will triple for the night.

For 1-2 merits in donations from others, executor may steal 20 cumulative glasses of water from other contestants to store or drink, anonymously.

For 3-4 merits in donations from others, executor may steal 10 cumulative glasses of water from other contestants to store or drink, anonymously.

For 5-10 merits in donations from others, executor is idle.

For 11-15 merits in donations from others, executor receives 20 glasses of water to donate to the group anonymously, as well as 5 glasses of water to drink.

If the executor receives 16-25 merits in donations from others, all price for facilities and water will fall by half for the night.

If the executor receives ]25 merits in donations from others, all contestants in the group will receive an unlimited supply of water during the five hottest hours of the day.

Elliott had a serious headache after reading this.

Especially after learning about his mission:

[Mission: Clear the qualifying round with over 100 cumulative merit in donations.]

In other words, even if he himself would prefer to screw everyone over and raise the prices each night, his mission from the [Tower] required him to legitimately solicit donations.

But who would donate merit to a human, a member of a hostile race?

If anything, they would most likely prefer that Elliott take his karma and die first.

Elliott sighed and rubbed his forehead.

Until he glanced at the glass of water in his hands.

He re-read the definition of a donation.

'One time transfer of merit from one contestant in the group to the Executor.'

In other words, he wasn't strictly prohibited from selling something in return for the merit.

But could he really sell water for merit, when water was sold every night?

Suddenly, a wicked grin appeared on his face as he glanced at the Throskarts next to him.

Hehe.

If he didn't take donations for the first day, the prices would rise by 3 times, making everyone that much thirstier.

Plus, his water had one major benefit over the game show's water: it could be used during the day!

Unfortunately, that didn't mean Elliott's troubles were over.

The biggest problem he faced now was that his merit was greatly reduced compared to others.

Which meant not only that he would have less money to buy water for the days when he needed it, but also that if he ever got pushed out of the center lane, he would very quickly be at risk of getting voted out by the evil audience.

Especially if they found out that he was a human…

Elliott's finger steepled together as he carefully attuned himself to the nearby mana fluctuations.

Then, he lined up directly in front of the future center lane.

Because the Throskarts were completely in the dark about what these lanes did on the very first day, their reactions toward the lane in the center would be sluggish and easy to preempt.

But in this case, with Elliott's life hanging on the outcome, he dared not take any chances.

He also tried to cast a water element spell: [Water Ball].

In return, a notification emerged in front of him.

It was from the [Tower].

The message was expected.

[Water element spells will be forcibly altered on this floor.]

His ball of water became a transparent blue ball instead, looking only slightly bigger than a mana bolt.

Of course, its attributes were the same, and Elliott didn't doubt that the damage it could cause would likewise be equivalent.

But being unable to properly cast an entire half of his magical arsenal still left a bad taste in Elliott's mouth.

He sat on the ground with his head tucked in between his legs to try and escape from the heat.

It wasn't long until the partitions emerged.

Just as expected, Elliott managed to snag the very first spot in the center lane.

The spider monsters emerged.

Elliott put his game face on.

Small rings made of heavily compressed air wound their way across all eight of the spider's limbs.

It was [Winding Restrictions] which Elliott only just recently gained enough 'intuition' to learn and make it part of his wind arsenal.

The spider's speed slowed drastically under the shackles of wind..

Elliott maintained his concentration and continued bombarding the nasty thing with [Wind Blade] after [Wind Blade], with [Air Bullets] and [Lesser Vortexes] occasionally interspersed when he couldn't wait for [Wind Blade's] short cooldown.

After a mere 44 seconds, the spider died, producing a muted THUD as its body hit the ground.

One down, only 199 to go!

Elliott sighed and looked helplessly up at the blazing sun.

This was about to be a long week…