(Oct 16)

The Grinch is very mysterious, we don’t know much about it… it could be a monster, it could be a person…

Or it could possibly be pretending to be one of us…

The thought of such a powerful murderer hiding… interacting… walking… blending in among us, gave me goosebump.

…

Hm.

Seriously, I need to stop overthinking things…

I’m overanalysing a simple sentence from a contract.

Why do I keep doing this?

If I have questions, I can just simply ask William or Briggs. I am friends with them, so I can easily just ask them whenever I want to.

Therefore, I’ve decided to stop thinking.

An hour passed, and everyone who wanted to participate, signed a contract and those who didn’t just waited.

Roughly 90% of all the soldiers in my group decided to sign up, which was a huge amount of people!

Things are looking good; I have high hopes on taking down The Grinch!

“More information on The Grinch subjugation will be revealed soon, for now, we continue training!”

With that, Alisha began today’s training, but instead of doing our usual training routine, we did something different.

“Today, we’re going to participate in a friendly game of capture the flag.”

Capture the flag?

Oh man, I remember playing this game as a kid all the time.

“All the soldiers are divided into multiple training groups and each with their own training leader. Recently, all training group leaders—including me—has decided to participate in a capture the flag tournament.

So far, we’ve done a lot of training for you guys to become stronger, but you lack actual experience. We believe that capture the flag can simulate a real battle experience, even if it’s just a mere game.”

Alisha went on to explain how we were going to play capture the flag in a nearby forest filled with monsters.

“Don’t mistake this for a simple game. This is still training. The forest that the capture the flag game will take place in, is filled with low ranked monsters, which shouldn’t be dangerous but if you are careless…

Not only that, but the forest is also very dense, simply walking through the forest is difficult with all the trees and roots growing from the ground. Trying to run through it carelessly will cause you to trip.”

In a real battle, the environment is a very important element and can be a huge factor in determining the outcome.

By forcing us into a game of capture the flag in a dense forest, it trains us to adapt to our environment and to train us in other ways besides simply strength.

This might be a good learning experience for me too.

So all the soldiers followed Alisha, where we met up with a different training group whom we were competing against in capture the flag.

My group was group 9 and we were up against group 10.

And to my surprise, Mona (Brigg’s sister) was the training group 10’s leader.

The training group that I was going up against was Mona’s training group.

“Alright listen up everyone, we will be explaining the rules.”

“We are going to be playing capture the flag, but the rules are going to be slightly different to fit the situation. Usually, there are two territories belonging to each team and players can tag or capture opposing players if they enter enemy territory. However, we decided to make it so there are no territories, meaning you have free roam.”

Mona and Alisha both explained the rules together to both training groups.

As they were explaining, Mona pulled out a white circular badge and raised it up for all of us to see. It had the number 10 on it, which represented her training group.

“All players will be given a badge with their team number. This is your lifeline in capture the flag, if you lose your badge or it gets stolen, you are out of the game.”

A brief silence fell over all the soldiers listening.

"Do whatever it takes… steal the enemy team’s badges. Your team wins if you manage to locate and destroy the enemy flag, or if the enemy team has no players left by stealing all of their badges!!”

Capture the flag?! This was more like a team battle royale deathmatch!! It felt as if the capture the flag aspect was an extra rule added in afterwards!

“Ambush, fight, steal, deceive, knock conscious… as long as you do not kill anyone, it does not matter what kind of dirty trick you use, if you steal a badge from an opponent, they are out. No second chances and you can’t steal your badge back after you lose it!”

I’m a bit embarrassed to say this… but I was starting to get… excited… over a capture the flag game. It has been too long since I’ve done anything like this.

Something this competitive…

Training group 9—no—Capture The Flag Team 9 Vs Team 10!!!

The soldiers were getting riled up, we soldiers are pretty competitive, and we started checking out the other team players to gauge their strengths.

But then Mona and Alisha spilled the last minute game breaking information.

“Oh, and one more thing.”

“I, Mona and team 9’s leader, Alisha will also be participating in this.”

All the excitement and eagerness to begin the game suddenly just disappeared.

You could visibly see the nervousness in the soldier’s faces around me, which was understandable.

Mona and Alisha were both powerful A rankers, while most of the soldiers were D ranked.

Since there was one A ranker on both teams, a clash between them is inevitable and getting caught up in that fight would be a literal life-threatening situation for an average soldier.

Even Alisha and Mona noticed that the soldiers were getting worried, so they tried to reassure us.

“People, calm down. Don’t forget this is training, we want you to push your limits but don’t worry, you’ll be fine. We’ll hold back.”

Mona tried to reassure everyone that things would be fine, but the soldiers were still hesitant. Her attempts to soothe the soldiers were futile.

Alisha on the other hand though…

“Most of y’all signed up for The Grinch subjugation, if you’re scared of merely playing capture the flag with 2 A rankers, then how fucking useless would you be against The Grinch? It’s been confirmed The Grinch is at least an A ranker ya know.

Don’t be a pussy, we won’t kill anyone (unlike The Grinch…), so focus on training yourselves! This is a learning experience. But this is also competitive game at the same time! Have fun while training yourself… so Team 9… do your best to fucking UTTERLY crush that pathetic team 10!!! Prove that your training wasn’t for nothing and win this game against those nerds!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!”

Not even moments after Alisha shouted this, it riled up both team 9 and team 10. It was a declaration of war between team 9 (my team) and 10.

It’s amazing how Alisha just somehow knows exactly what to say to get the reaction she wants of the people.

Both teams were determined to win and were now rearing to go unlike moments ago.

Team 10 was pissed off at Alisha for calling them pathetic whilst us team 9 on the other hand, was cheering at Alisha’s mini speech.

This was the most competitive and hardcore capture the flag game that has ever taken place in this city.

Mona, who was beside Alisha, just groaned and glared at her but started the event.

We entered the forest which we were going to be playing in and both teams went to opposite ends of the forest.

Some of the other players (soldiers) on my team, ran off to hide the flag somewhere and Alisha called us together to come up with a plan.

“There’s roughly a hundred of us, they too have roughly a hundred people. We need a good split of offensive and defensive.”

Alisha made up a simple strategy of 40% defensive, 40% offensive, 10% on watchout/ scouts, and the rest was neutral.

After we were done, Alisha pulled out a gun and fired it into the sky to confirm that our team was ready and another gunshot was fired off in the distance, which I assume is Mona.

“Alright! LET THE GAMES BEGIN!”

Everyone roared and several people charged into the thick forest thus beginning the game.

I was excited to get started and was about to run off myself to go on the offensive, when suddenly Alisha called out to me.

“Yo, dragon boy!”

“Hm? Me?”

“You know anyone else here that’s a dragon? No shit, I’m talking to you.”

“Do you… need something?” I asked her while raising an eyebrow.

Alisha stared at me briefly, as if she was thinking and said:

“I’m not sure how to say this but… I need you to be our team’s trump card.”

Our team’s trump card? What does that even mean?

What’s a trump card???