The Zombie Tournament

Act 26 : Medal Hunt

 “Congrats, Zeno! Hey, can I call you with that, though?”

Zeno Gunnar has been awaken on the operation table once more, but still on his way to release the doze-off tension within the brawn. He was leaning above one of the available bed at first-aid facility of Minopia’s capital city. This is one of the top-tier hospital that belongs to Tonado, and many other injured survivors of the game were taken here for treatment.

‘....The city is under progress of reconstruction. To you, participant and residents of Minopia’s central city, Please standby for further information...”

The young knight heard a bland pitch of news television reporter from afar. For widespread destruction of a small city, hearing all of them as a replica made everything seemed dubious to the man. Five moguls of the city gathered for yearly competition and used numerous strangers of another country to be their subject of test. An outstanding achievement for them to manage such competition aloft, even utilizing a colossal technology just to alleviate their city’s imminent collapse.

With innumerable money to spend, Zeno Gunnar rinsed himself in agitation of their atrocity. Why do they have to arrange such competition? It is indeed a question left unanswered for the time being, hence the young knight’s determination to disclose such mystery in the near future.

(sniff-sniff)

“Ugh...”

Zeno Gunnar moaned in smothered tone.

A pungent aroma of formaldehyde across his nose are arousing many senses in an instant. He remembers of what happened, but still within haze of doubt and vengeance. Sanna Gunnar was kidnapped because of his own mistakes. Valentino Rosta robbed him away for an unknown cause, and he was intrigued of such reason that applied.

For now, The young knight can feel a funny flows of numbness down his left thigh. Whenever he clenches rows of toes on such limb, a jolt of electricity reverberates under the veins during its release hereafter. There are no calf-muscles sensation on that area, as well, to think of how much Zeno Gunnar has in trial earlier.

His inquisitiveness brings him to see bionic one below the joints. Of course, Valentino Rosta had one of them cut down. To his knowledge, Juno Rumondor could be presumed as the responsible party that had replaced it with artificial limbs, as there are nobody else in his team that has extensive comprehension of bionic parts.

(beep-beep)

It somewhat calibrated in sync to his response and following every order within milliseconds of time. Zeno Gunnar kicks down a few instances to try them on, rotated the ankle a bit, even attempted to strain his artificial calf muscles for a bit.

A voice of familiar-looking female is approaching. She whispers towards his left ear and teasing him with a breath,”You do awake, right? Hey!”

“What do you want, Rushdi? I’m tired.” Zeno Gunnar answered in reluctance,” can you wait until the next morning? Please...”

Suddenly, a bold and daunting accent of man emerged, letting themselves into the young knight’s ear like a shadow of his past,“Really? You don’t want to listen on the newsflash, Herr Gunnar?”

“Is that....”

Zeno Gunnar felt a boiling rage under his stomach. One careful annotation of that person’s most defile phrase has tilted him up to the peak of anger. A speck of veins are bustled up on the temple. It was convulsing heavily in remainder of memories he was having against such person in the past.

“Relax, Zeno! I’m just trying to mock you up, but I guess It’s all busted now.”

That person was Juno Rumondor all this time. Zeno Gunnar raised up from bed, only to be fooled by a simple catchphrase. The old man captain was propping himself on the edge of a vacate bed towards Zeno Gunnar’s right. His cheerful expression shown a glimpse of entertainment after prompting a nasty plot to the young knight. At times, Zeno Gunnar was usually in deep question of that certain person’s actual pedigree for obtaining head’s role of their fighting club, hence his loss of respect in certain points of their interaction.

“I found all the record from your wristwatch.Deep condolences to your brother, Zeno.” He said afterwards, knowing an awkward situation has emanated considerably,” We can locate his current position, and that man somewhat selected Gorand’s main region to settle.”

“What? Why?” Sounded Tanya Rushdi.

Juno Rumondor shakes his head,“Who knows? We’re not owning that much intelligence for that man, unless for both city’s rivalry at most.”

Despite marks of connection across Welodge headquarter’s building, Valentino Rosta’s decision for Gorand industries’ territory is quite mind-boggling. For many years, Gorand Industries were within never-ending stalemate against Welodge’s top-brass General at the northeastern regions of Minopia. They have been in feud over military advancement’s expertise in decades. After all, Gorand Industries has been the one in continuous improvement of Minopia’s remarkable technology at the time. Under that circumstances, they even boasted inventions that would soon substituted old-fashioned machinery of Welodge few years ago, and it caused tumultuous state of the city’s army before their influence.

“We have to- ah, I’m gonna play the record of latest competition’s news for you, Zeno.” Muttered Juno Rumondor, breaking their constant silence of contemplation,”You’ll gonna love this. We all did, for sure.”

(click)

‘Attention, my friends and colleagues! As we’re closing the competition with too many survivors, we’re now having a round you’ve been waiting for.....”

The female presenter was tongue-tied on the upcoming information for some time to put her audience’s curiosity on a hinge. She bites her lips steadily, holding her own jubilation in advance. Most announcer would do this to encourage happiness of their viewers. It has become one sort of art, even, due to its imminent euphoria and ecstatic demeanor that many people would feel afterwards.

A short time after, she clamored in shrieking tone, launching her own amusement towards the camera before her.

“Battle Royale!”

(woohooo! Whooo!)

Of course, many northern-side audience has expected this to come. Geeks of Gorand industries’ region needs this to their team’s assurance and honor. Of the kill standings, Tonado has been seated on the top for their accomplishment of beaten down Colossal zombie firsthand. They stood far-fetched against Gorand Industries and Sanza, who was occupying second and third position for the time being. On the other end of five companies’ own competition, Welodge and Shina has to concede defeat against one lone-ranger group that somewhat capable on obliterating their influence by themselves to gain fourth position on the table.

With many other small groups that has fallen in the survival game, there are about 8 of them in general. Two extra groups were formed within Colossal Zombie’s chaos and performing collaboration of resources to survive in that day. They are too small in firepower against such beast, so their group has pick a line to wait until the seventh day ends.

Unfortunately for them, Zeno Gunnar’s lunacy gave them an early-winning exit in that second day itself.

“The rules are simple! You have to obtain pieces of medals from five stellar cities of Minopia, then compete for the final one at the capital city. There are only four zombies permitted per contestants, but you have to store your zombies in every city you have attended.”

“Good luck!”

(bzzt)

“What’s that? Medals?” Zeno Gunnar questioned,”We have to collect medals?”

Juno Rumondor nods slightly, “Yeah, it was scattered everywhere, so we’ll gonna be using medal detector for it.”

In following to the captain, Tanya Rushdi shoved her hands around many stuffs crumpled below Zeno Gunnar’s bed. She was searching for something down there in a rush.

(rumble-rumble)

“Ta-da!”

Medal detector, as it was introduced, has a suspicious long antennae at the top. A pair of spherical point were latched above. Those two balls are sparkling in green and bleeping profusely in sequence, giving a hint of certain type of metal’s existence to the monitor beneath.

Juno Rumondor has been prepared for Tanya Rushdi’s action, apparently, as he displayed one shiny fragment of a coin from his pocket. The medal detector is buzzing up in quite intense fashion, showing such coin’s compatibility with the one they are supposed to rummage around for.

“Yes, this is an example for it. They have played this silly game for years to provide a reason of interaction with villagers of the city.” Juno Rumondor puts the coin back to his purse, then retrieved the medal detector from Tanya Rushdi’s palm.

“This is also a prototype. We were never meant to use this in general for locating them on the ground.”

As the old man captain performed a sneaky play on his showcase, Zeno Gunnar has started to bear impatience. He rolled both of his eyes back to such silly games of his leader and sighed, “So, what do we have them for, Juno? I’m not playing riddles here.”

“Yes, me too. We have to use this for detecting those that has similar piece of fragment with us.”