No Time

Chapter 78: Mission #1

All 32 contestants were introduced one by one.

They didn't get to show off anything besides their good looks I suppose.

Shui Yu introduced himself, "Hello everyone, nice to meet you. I'm Shui Yu."

I asked him with our #1 question requested by subscribers.

"What's the one thing that has to be in your partner?"

He pondered for a while and then replied, "Strength."

Concerning how he was most likely the strongest -THE STRONGEST- on Earth, there had to be clarifications.

"How strong? We can't expect there to be someone even more powerful than you!"

Shui Yu chuckled, "Well, of course, a sparring partner would be nice, but I hope they wouldn't be weak mentally and physically. I don't want a damsel-in-distress waiting for me to arrive and solve all their problems. I'm a busy person and I've got my share of problems."

"What a great answer, especially during these trifling times, during the apocalypse, we really need this type of fortitude!"

After getting a unique but strangely pleasing answer, we focused back on our mission.

The props manager quickly handed me several cards.

"Alright! On these cards, there are missions written! And today, you get to decide the fate of these contestants! Your first pick is...?"

Shui Yu reached out for the one closest to him.

Shui Yu looked confused.

The corner of my mouth twitched.

That card was supposed to be for later...

Oh well.

"Ehem...What luck! There will be two missions going on at once! Hurry, pick 2 cards!"

This time the results were normal.

Perfect, we had an even number of people, they could be split into teams.

Suddenly, Shui Yu asked, "Do I participate too?"

Oh dang.

Uh, change of plans.

"Yes! You'll be chasing them down!"

There was an outcry from the participants.

It was to be expected of course.

"But! You can't use your abilities! Close them! Using only an average human's senses, you've got to track them down and spray them with paint! You can only hit each person with 3 paintballs and they're out by the time they get hit all 3 times."

Shui Yu nodded and smiled like an excited kid as he was handed paintball ammunition and gun.

It was a cute but terrifying sight. Especially for the contestants...

"As for you contestants, you can be safe when you find your scavenger hunt item or don't get hit with 3 paintballs until time's up. Good luck!"

For the sake of the contestants, we decided that there should be a 5-minute head start before Shui Yu was "released". Ehem, bad word choice, it should be "introduced to the game".

Each of the contestants got a paper slip and would have to go into or around the school to look for their designated items.

I shouted behind them as they ran off, "Remember! If you survive this, you'll get to introduce yourselves!"

This no doubt increased some people's paces. They must be the fame-seeking ones.

In the 5-minute head start, a few people had already found their items.

They came out through the school gates with relieved smiles on their faces and waited for their comrades to come out.

Quite a few came out early. 6 people in fact.

The first was Xia Jiayi.

This kid was definitely a genius.

The cameraman who had followed after him described to me what had happened.

Xia Jiayi's item was .

Xia Jiayi had quickly run into a math classroom, wrote several equations on the board, and asked the dedicated math teacher to trade their plan sheet for the few equations' answers.

Teachers in the base were top-notch teachers and they were all dedicated to their profession and subject. So of course, this math teacher eagerly agreed.

The other 5 who came out early had either easy items or used their own means to get their items.

The one person who had to use their efforts was a girl who had the random ability an ability most famous people had gotten after getting the zombie trial reagent. Shui Yu's older brother, Shui Jing was a person who had it and the ability was very revered for only being in beautiful and handsome charismatic people.

This girl's item was .

She had used her charm ability to get people to quickly write love letters for her.

When she arrived at the gates, she was holding a stack of colorful notes.

After the 5-minute was over, Shui Yu looked over at the contestants who already passed, and smiled.

The brief smile was barely captured by the cameras before he set off.

That smile... was probably meant for Xia Jiayi.

They were friends and it would be bad if Xia Jiayi had been eliminated so quickly.

Fortunately, the boy was smart and quick-witted.

Anyways, Shui Yu had been released, I mean introduced to the game, so I now didn't have much of an MC role.

I watched through the other camera screens projected onto a large screen.

The crew and I planned captions, sound effects, and how to arrange them later for this episode's release. There was no need to worry about translations since today's technology had everything under control, gotta thank the base's excellent programmers for that.

Meanwhile, Shui Yu was chasing the contestants down.

The crew, contestants who already passed, and I saw the case of a cat playing with its prey.

The contestants used all sorts of abilities but they couldn't escape Shui Yu.

He was the one who knew most about abilities, random abilities, and how to use any of them to their fullest.

Whenever a unique ability he didn't know pop up, he would even go assess them with a team of researchers who had perception abilities. There was a record for all the abilities we knew so far, and it was Shui Yu's job to check it for revision and add new information.

Sigh, he truly was the most powerful.

Even toning his abilities down and being a regular person, he had enough physical abilities to shoot people with paintballs quicker than they could react.

We lit a candle in our hearts for those who "perished".

Soon, everyone came out.

There were those with gloomy paint-covered faces, those with a relieved smile, and those who were just... there was no third type.

Shui Yu came out with a satisfied smile.

He probably forgot that this was a show for finding a partner...

It wasn't a survival game show!

Well, probably.

Out of the initial 32 contestants, only 16 had "survived".

That was killing off half directly at the start!

This program was scheduled to go for a long time, this couldn't happen yet!

So the crew and I took out our secret weapon, !

was a series of fast-paced questions. Each eliminated contestant would be given 3 questions about Shui Yu, and if they answered all of them correctly, they would get to pass.

Since even the public didn't know too much about Shui Yu besides his face, this event would let us gain more support from the audience.

Hehe, we were cooking up a scheme.

Anyways, the questions were random and one might get all easy questions, medium questions, hard questions, or a mix of any.

And in case the eliminated contestants truly didn't know anything, it was all multiple choice.

"Eliminated Contestants, are you ready?"

With the reply of a hearty "Yes!" we started.

"Alright! We'll give you three questions and you'll have to choose the right answer. Don't worry, it's multiple choice!"

For the first eliminated person, the question was:

"Shui Yu thought about being a _____ if the apocalypse didn't happen. What is _____?"

A. Teacher    B. Model    C. Designer   D. General

The answer was B, but the contestant answered D. Well, we all thought of him as powerful, I guess.

For the second eliminated person, he got through all the questions.

"How old is Shui Yu?"

A. 18        B. 19       C. 21         D. 17

"A!"

"Correct!"

"Shui Yu has how many siblings?"

A. 1        B. 4         C. 3         D. 2

"3, I mean C!"

"Correct!"

"What is Shui Yu's favorite dessert?"

A. Donuts    B. Caramel  C. Tiramisu    D. Pudding

"C?"

"Correct!"

Just like this, several contestants made it over. Whew, we gained back 11 people.

But we had still lost a large amount from just the 1st mission.

I hope that these contestants will be able to survive to the end...

It would be bad if none of them could make it... because...

I don't want bad ratings!