Translated by boilpoil Edited by boilpoil
(TL: Another word for applause is clap. A word that rhymes with clap is
 well, you’ll see)
“First episode, 500 down to 200, begin!” As the announcer announced enthusiastically, the door for the lobby opened slowly. A green world lay outside. Trees growing everywhere, a generally hilly terrain, and the boundary is out of sight, so at least a hundred miles away.
Bright is feeling unsettled. It’s too strange to see tropical large-leafed plants growing next to arctic conifers. The artificialness is obvious. This set was created specifically for a show.
He feels this world is truly unreasonable. Even if technology has advanced so much, it is solely used for entertainment. It makes one wonder how many lives could be saved if these resources were used to improve living standards instead.
This world cannot be analysed with common sense; one really wants Marxist philosophy to be taught here.
The game starts.
The people around are reacting in various ways. Some are so excited they are shouting, some are calmly assessing the situation, some are forming groups and cliques, but they all have one thing in common, which is appealing into the camera, to attract viewers.
“Oh, that anchoress sure is beautiful. It must feel awesome to fuck her! Right?”
“The rule is to survive for 24 hours. There’s 200 places, what if there’s more or less people than that after that time? The show must be adjusting accordingly; it will be safer at first, but this is only relatively. Can’t be careless now.”
“Yes, the weather and scenery in the arena are configurable. I’m an experienced fan of the Killing Gauntlet, I’ve seen every season! Collecting information and analysing the rules is very important. It’s not winnable with just your muscles.”
Facing the fist-sized spherical camera floating in midair, Bright is going “
”.
He chooses a direction with less people, and walks alone into the forest. He quickly finds what he needed, chooses a tree and climbs on it, and then he is motionless.
“Dumbass! The correct strategy is to quickly reduce the number of people to 200, so that we don’t have to release more dangerous beasts.”
In the group that is observing numbers 150 through 199, someone laughs mockingly.
There’s not few who want to hide for 24 hours to make it through like number 199. Though doing this makes the show boring, so why would the Director allow that?
The leader of the group also noticed, and says, “he’s smart. He figured the ground could move, so he chose a fixed location.”
“Coincidence?”
“Not likely. His actions were logical. Smearing plant juice and animal feces on his body; using stone, sticks and vine to make a simple axe, collecting fruit and drinking water. I saw that he’s an Outsider? It’s no wonder he knows his way around the wilderness.”
“Tch, those garbage. They’re endless like cockroaches.”
“Alright, focus.” The leader looks at the handsome face in the screen. Upward-slanting eyebrows and bright eyes, composed and reserved. It’s a standard ‘good guy’ appearance in TV dramas. He critiques, “inflexible and uninteresting. The righteous hero gag is already outdated. No need to focus on him; find an opportunity to get rid of him in the first three episodes.”
Afterwards, the leader’s focus shifts elsewhere.
A reality show must have a script.
“ Grizzlybear Andy and seed contestant number 56 are 20 meters apart. Move the rocks so they miss each other. Save the best for last.”
The show has selected some seed contestants in the planning phase. They are very outstanding in some aspects, which may be appearance, aura, personality, career or background. They are types that the audience favours. In designing the stages of the game, the show considers how these qualities could be best unleashed to satisfy audience expectations. They have even already scripted how certain contestants will be discharged from the game. Therefore, to prevent accidentally turning valuable resource into cannon fodder, they are monitored more extensively in the middle of shooting, and given certain care.
Suddenly, a staff yells, “Leader, the Beauty and the Beast CP is heading for number 199.”
He pulls out a view with the three people.
Bright’s mind is currently dead.
He was hiding just fine atop the tree, and had a beetle for breakfast. Suddenly, there’s a brushing sound from the bushes and a blond teenager is dragged out of it by a big guy twice his size. The couple is hustling each other under a tree not far from Bright and began undressing.
The teenager was struggling at first, then the big guy slapped him, “You’re out here to prostitute anyway, it’s not like you haven’t been screwed outside, eh? Now it’s just me not paying you. Make me comfortable and I’ll not feed you to the wolves this time.”
The white is oppressed by the dark. From Bright’s angle, he can’t make out the couples’ expressions. Though from the voices he can tell, the rape has become sex, and the teenager appeared to be enjoying himself towards the end.
Bright is holding onto his simple axe tightly, so as not to be unable to resist smashing the camera.
When the couple started getting on with it, he saw that the half-dead camera that has been following him immediately became filled with vigour and locked onto his facial expression. He looks coldly at the camera, a warning written all over it.
It’s already a tragedy to have to bear witness, and you are trying to do a close-up of my face?
Bright refuses to put on any facial expression.
His stare is completely unthreatening to the staff of the show.
Contestants are their puppets. The well-known, valuable ones could make them uneasy, but cannon fodder like him could be dispatched without anyone caring.
The leader has changed his opinion on him, though, “appearance of a hero, but is actually cold-hearted. He is looking at the two no different from a blade of grass or a log of wood. Record his reaction, and cut it in between snippets of the Beauty and the Beast CP, make it a contrast between ice and fire. This contrast highlights the latter, elevating lust.”
A few staff members are new, their sights glued on the bodies stacked together, not wanting to move away, “the Beauty looks nice, the prima donna of a club, pretty popular.”
The leader despises the disappointing staff, “stop watching, there’re tons of these later. That teenager is smart, knowing to attract the audience with his advantage, and choosing to partner with Beast. He might be hot stuff for now, but it’s hard to go further than that.”
“Why?”
“Which of our champions have only their appearance as their fortĂ© ? Not everyone likes that. Just look at number 199.”
“No reaction even now, is he sexually inept?”
The leader rolls his eyes. A bunch of retards with semen clogging their prostates .
Though number 199 is truly uninteresting. Maybe put him as a contender in the top 100.
It’s not that Bright doesn’t know to appeal to the show and the audience, make the show see his value so that he lives longer.
He just doesn’t want to do it.
The staff who created this cruel show is unforgivable, but then are the audience who are addicted to this innocent?
Letting lust blossom unchecked, dominated by the worst impulses of the human condition, greedily desiring sensory stimulation, endlessly pursuing freshness by challenging moral boundaries. If one learns a little more restraint, be a little more rational, would it at least save this twisted world a little bit?
He actually understands, he’s been here for just a short while, and he’s holding fast to his values. As time goes on, he might lower his own bars, be assimilated. Though he doesn’t want to consider that for now. Let him ostrich for a while longer.
After a series of high-pitch sounds, the noises from under the nearby tree finally disappeared.
Bright waited for a while, making sure that nobody was closing in. Then he slid down the tree, burying those white and red stuff completely. He removed the traces and spread animal feces to cover the scent.
After everything is done, he climbed back up the tree pretending to be dead.
Author’s notes: Bright gets new title, Sexually Inept
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