Gene sat on the edge of the rooftop with his legs folded, staring at the eight newly arrived players sitting in a rough circle opposite him.
The blue system message had finally faded from the sky, leaving them all in an uncomfortable silence.
"So, just to be completely clear here," Gene asked, leaning forward slightly.
"None of you actually got the compass?"
The eight people sitting across from him just shook their heads or mumbled out awkward nos.
'This is really bad,' Gene thought, letting out a sigh and running a hand through his dark hair.
'I have eight people sitting right here with me. Five full-grown men and three women, and not a single one of them got the compass. Was it actually a rare drop? Was Elena really just incredibly lucky to get it at the very beginning, like she always said she did?'
"Uhm, excuse me, sir?" a young woman in her mid-twenties called out hesitantly, raising her hand slightly like she was back in a high school classroom.
"I am not a sir," Gene said bluntly, standing up and dusting off his black uniform.
"I am just eighteen years old. My body is just built a little differently now."
"Oh," the woman said, her eyes widening in obvious shock.
"You sounded so... in charge."
"You mean to tell me a little brat has been ordering us around when you barely even entered college?" an older man in his late forties suddenly shouted.
He stood up and folded his arms across his chest, trying to look intimidating in his new system uniform.
"Who put you in charge of this roof anyway?"
"Literally nobody," Gene replied in a flat tone, not even bothering to look at the angry man.
"I merely wanted to know if anyone had that specific information. You can go your own way now. The stairs are right there."
Gene turned his back on the group and started walking toward the metal roof access door.
He did not have the time or the patience to argue with people who still thought they were back on Earth.
"Wait up, bro! I will follow you," Aiden called out, quickly jogging across the floor to catch up with Gene.
"Me too," the young woman said, hurrying after them.
She was pulling a teenage girl along by the hand, who looked to be about fifteen and completely terrified.
"I'm Maria," the older woman said, keeping pace with Gene as he pulled the heavy roof door open.
"And this is Kiara."
"Sup," Kiara mumbled, staring down at her new boots.
"I'm Aiden," the blonde guy said cheerfully, pointing a thumb at his own chest before pointing at Gene.
"And this guy is... uhm, what's your name again?"
"Gene."
"Yes, Gene! So, what exactly are we going to do now?" Aiden asked, his voice echoing loudly as they all clumped down the concrete stairwell.
"The big sky message said something about how we should find a weapon. Do you think there will be enough weapons lying around for all of us?"
"No, there definitely won't be," Gene replied honestly, not slowing his pace as he hit the landing of the floor and pushed the door open.
And that was the brutal truth of the matter.
Out of the thousand people currently dropped into this specific stage, the system had only generated exactly five hundred viable weapons.
It was a deliberate shortage designed to force immediate conflict.
That is exactly why he had been hoping to find someone with a compass to make things easy.
The compass pointed directly to the nearest weapon cache.
Without it, he had to rely on his ten-year-old memories and physically go to the place he found his first axe in his past life just to check whether the system spawned it in the same spot or not.
Gene walked straight into the abandoned office space where he had first swung in through the window.
He moved right up to the broken glass and pointed out at the flooded city skyline, at the tallest, most distinct skyscraper in the distance.
It was a black glass building that towered over everything else in the submerged zone.
"We will be moving to that place right now," Gene said, looking over his shoulder at the three people following him.
"Are we supposed to swim there?" Maria asked, looking nervously down at the dark water churning between the buildings.
"I saw something really huge moving down there earlier."
"Swimming is not possible unless you want to be eaten in about ten seconds," Gene said simply.
"So we have to jump across the roofs to get there. Our bodies are strong enough to make the gaps if we get a running start."
"But won't there already be people over there?" Aiden asked, scratching the back of his blonde head.
"I mean, it's the biggest building around. It's super obvious. Someone probably landed right on the roof."
"The system won't give an easy advantage like that to any players," Gene explained, remembering how the spawning mechanics worked.
"It purposely drops everyone on the smaller, outer buildings to force them to travel, and even if someone somehow managed to get up there already, we will just kick them out."
'It really is not going to take too long until people figure out the darker rules of this game,' Gene thought grimly, looking back out the window.
'Once they realise that killing someone else will automatically give them their starting points, everything is going to go to hell. And everyone starts with ten points just for entering the game.'
On the opposite side of the flooded stage in the roof of the building, a bald guy with tattoos covering his neck was currently holding a young girl completely off the ground by her throat.
His bare hands were massive, and his grip was choking the life out of her.
"What is this compass?" the bald guy asked casually, holding up a small brass instrument in his other hand.
The girl could not answer.
She was just kicking her legs wildly in the air, her face turning a deep shade of purple as she clawed uselessly at his thick wrists.
The bald guy did not even wait for a response.
He simply twisted his thick wrists sharply, snapping her neck with a sickening crunch and dropped her lifeless body onto the roof without a second thought, not even bothering to look down as she crumpled into a heap.
A bright blue notification instantly popped up in front of his face.
➢ [Player Dane has received +10 points]
Dane grinned, ignoring the text as he looked down at the brass compass resting in his palm.
The tiny magical needle was spinning wildly for a second before it finally locked onto a target.
It was pointing directly toward the black glass skyscraper rising out of the water in the distance.
"Looks like it is pointing right at that big building over there," Dane muttered to himself, cracking his thick neck from side to side.
"Guess that is where I am going."