Three months later.

“Move, move, move!!” The officer screamed at the top of his lungs as the thirty-five or so remaining trainees surged towards the end of their ten-mile run. By now, we’d been taught army rankings. In the process, we’d learned that he was just a drill sergeant, but his “low” rank didn’t really matter to us.

To us, he was just the devil who facilitated our suffering.

After a month of exercise, training, and soaking in the performance-enhancing serum, we were all far faster than before. Most of us could run the first mile in about four minutes, and we could complete our ten-mile run in about fifty. Beyond that, we could all bench about seven hundred pounds, deadlift eight hundred…

My stats had improved, massively.

Intelligence: 82/99

Mental Ability: 76/99

Health: 89/99

Fitness: 184/99

Personality Points: 50/9999

Social Points: 9999/9999

Bank: $250,342

Citizen Class: VVIP

Notes: Employed by Caliber Intellect.

My fitness and health had greatly improved, but my mental ability/state had lowered somewhat. Also, due to being stuck in this training hellscape, my personality points had almost been wiped clean. 

But none of that mattered! Because… I’d been given the maximum amount of social points possible, and C Systems had followed up on their promise of a million dollar salary and VVIP citizen class. Not that I was able to take advantage of either of those, down here.

Oh, and if you’re confused as to why my fitness was over 99, it was because I was superhuman, and the scale was meant for normal humans.

As I alluded to just a bit ago, we’d been extremely busy, taking classes, learning and practicing all kinds of things that would be useful to us in the “field”.

This included techniques to avoid security technology and personnel, gun training ranging from shooting, dismantling, putting together, and caring for various types of guns.

There were even foraging and wilderness survival classes.

But perhaps the most interesting was something called the “kill house”. Basically, we were sent in by ourselves, armed with naught but a single suppressed pistol, two flashbang grenades, one smoke grenade, two EMP grenades, and a miniature drone.

Alright, we were equipped pretty well, but still, it didn’t feel like it when we were in the kill house. Maybe because that was exactly what it was designed for. It was designed to kill anyone who entered it.

It was filled with traps, robots meant to emulate enemy soldiers, and even feral animals were sometimes brought in to defend the kill houses. It was a situation that was maximized in terms of danger per square inch. Or at least, it was supposed to simulation such a situation.

The traps were nonlethal, and any enemy soldiers/robots were armed with rubber bullets, so even if they hurt like a bitch, they weren’t lethal, either. As for the feral animals… well, one trainee, a young lady by the name of Molly, was torn apart by a pack of wolves before help could arrive.

That was just the thing about the kill houses — with C System’s resources and the use of modular architecture, they could change the layout, size, and dangers in the kill house on a nearly daily basis. One day, it’d be a small, thousand square foot apartment, and the next, it’d be a multi-floor complex.

Standing at the doors leading into the kill house, you never knew what to expect inside. And I knew this quite clearly. 

The day we were introduced to the kill house, we’d done it as a team. As the leader, I’d had the “privilege” of going first.

I’d walked right up to the front steps, only to be blasted away as a foam cannonball hit me in the chest. Yep, those bastards had booby-trapped the damn front steps.

That kill house had stayed for an entire week, as we’d slowly learned how to properly clear space and efficiently move around while keeping ourselves safe from as many angles as possible.

After a trip to the restoration room, hey look, it was my turn to go through the kill house. On my way over, I saw one of the fellow trainees.

“Yo Kevin, what’s up!”

Kevin had morphed into my best friend — at least, amongst the “agents”. It’s really amazing what sharing struggles with a similar person can do for you. Crawling through miles of mud, learning how to loop video camera footage, and training with sniper rifles in different wind and terrain scenarios didn’t feel so horrible anymore. 

As long as I let myself believe that he was really my friend, at least.

And, well, there were other side-effects of the training that helped me deal with it, too. For example, I looked really, really fit. And not to make commentary on people’s body images and stuff, but fit people look a hell of a lot better than lazy fatasses, and I’d definitely been the latter until recently.

It felt nice to be fit and handsome.

And the unlimited food available in the mess hall didn’t hurt, either.

Anyway, back to narrating. I’d just seen Kevin Nguyen, and called out to him.

“Yo Jim, what’s up.”

“I’m headed to the kill house.”

“Aw man, I just finished that. It’s… it’s pretty tough today.”

“Dang. Any hints?”

“Um…”

“C’mon man, you don’t wanna see me die in there, do ya?”

“Yeah well, I don’t want the sarge yapping at me cause I gave you help. Alright, alright. How about this? Be really careful of your feet in this one, okay?”

“Okay, so what is it? Pressure sensitive plates? Trip-wire? Lasers? Holographic flooring? Holographic stairs?”

“Man, you know I can’t tell you that. They’ll have me out of here on my ass.”

In other words, shot and dumped.

“Alright, alright.”

We waved each other goodbye and I made my way to the kill house preparation area.

“Morning, C9-S2.”

“Good morning, Agent.”

Humans were in charge of group activities and lessons, while robots were in charge of what most of our classes were — individual exercises. 

As only one “agent”, as they called us, could enter the kill house at a time, the kill house was overseen by a robot.

I moved forward to a bench and began equipping myself. I’d listed the gun, grenades, and drone, but I’d neglected to mention the combat suit.

Ah, yes. The combat suit. 

I actually was able to bring this over to the new world, and it’s still my greatest possession.

Its official name was the Zen Suit, and it was simply splendid. It was a full camouflage suit. Basically, it could read the information from the surroundings around it, and apply imagery on itself to be basically “invisible”. It was perfect, of course. Anyone who looked directly at the person wearing the suit would definitely see a bit of warped imagery and a faint outline, but it was quite good, otherwise. 

More practically, because it could “recolor” itself, it could be changed to look like any number of outfits, thus giving oneself the ability to hide into a crowd with ease.

Furthermore, the combat suit was bulletproof, could protect the wearer from harmful gasses, and held countless tools.

Even more impressively, the entirety of the suit could fit inside a watch. Of course, watches were technologically defunct by now, but many people still wore them for fashion-related reasons. 

The combat suit could be deployed with just a press of a button, and it would cover the wearer’s body within two seconds.

Not bad, eh?

Unfortunately, we’d only been allowed to use the combat suits as of recent, or that poor girl never would’ve been torn apart by those wolves…

Still though, even with the combat suit the kill house was quite dangerous.

After all, if you fell into a meat grinder, it would only be able to protect you for a few seconds. Or if you were shot through the heart by an anti-tank laser…

There were just too many nightmares that could be in the kill house.

Having prepared myself, I turned to the robot. “C9-S2, anything I should know before I head in?”

“Retrieve the mission target. According to our intel, it is in the master bedroom. The layout of the house has been uploaded to your assistant.”

“Thanks.”

I sighed. “Alright, S. Show me.”

In the air before me, I could see a detailed map of the inside of the kill house. Of course, only I could see it, as it was actually being projected into my vision by S. Today, it would be a small house, about two thousand square feet big in total. The size didn’t help me feel better though — the smaller the size of the kill house, the more concentrated the dangers were.

“Alright, doesn’t seem too bad. Let’s get going.”

With a tap of my watch, the combat suit enveloped me.

I took a deep breath, then walked forward, pistol in hand.

There can only be one king, and there’s only one crown. While the others were friendly with me, at least on the surface, I knew too well of humanity’s greed.

Before our training ended, the others would come for my crown.

And I’d be ready.