Gene's memory kicked in the second he saw that face.
He remembered exactly who that group belonged to.
They were the loyal attack dogs for a guy named Dane, the worst kind of player who had managed to reach the black skyscraper first in his past life.
Dane was the first person in their entire instance to clear the stage because he was the first one to figure out the math of the system.
He realised that killing other players was the fastest way to increase his starting skill points, and so he used a high-level gauntlet he got as an accessory to crush anyone who got in his way.
These three specific guys running across the rooftops right now were the ones who had ambushed Gene during his first confused run through this flooded city.
Because of them, he had been quickly eliminated, his neck broken before he even knew what was happening, and unceremoniously sent back to Earth just to be forced into another recruitment trial.
'Those fuckers,' Gene thought, his jaw clenching tight as he watched them move.
He turned back to his new team and quickly motioned with his hand for them to get down low.
"What happened?" Aiden asked in a whisper, immediately crouching down behind the metal ventilator unit next to Gene.
"Is there a monster?"
"Give me your shurikens," Gene ordered, keeping his voice low.
"At least five of them right now."
Aiden did not even bother asking any questions.
He just reached into his deep uniform pocket and quickly handed over five of the sharp metal throwing stars.
Gene tucked the stars into his own belt and looked over at the teenage girl huddled next to Maria.
"What did you get for your starting item?"
Kiara silently reached into her pocket and pulled out a completely smooth black sphere, holding it out in her shaking hand for him to see.
"It's a smoke bomb," she whispered.
"Nice," Gene nodded, actually feeling a tiny bit of hope.
The thing about starting accessories is that they are all unlimited in their uses.
Even if Gene's enchanted rope were to snap in half or get lost in the water, the system would just automatically spawn a brand new one right back into his personal inventory after a short cooldown.
The same rule applied to Aiden's throwing stars and Kiara's smoke bomb, making them infinitely useful if you knew exactly how to play the angles.
Gene carefully peeked over the top of the ventilator, watching the three men as they landed on a flat roof just four buildings away from their current position.
"Maria, I need you to do exactly as I say right now," Gene whispered, outlining his quick plan while keeping his eyes locked on the targets.
Over on the fourth building, the three men had stopped to catch their breath.
A tall guy was wearing glasses, a rough-looking guy with a torn leather coat over his uniform, and a fat guy who was currently panting as he had just run a full marathon.
"Why are we even going to that specific building anyway?" the fat guy asked, wiping sweat off his forehead and pointing toward the black skyscraper in the distance.
"Because this compass thing was pointing straight at it," the guy in the glasses replied, adjusting the frames on his nose.
'He got this with a bottle and had no idea how to use it.'
"And the system message clearly said we have to find a weapon in three days or we fail. So I want us to go there and secure the place before anyone else figures it out."
Both of the other guys nodded in agreement, ready to start jumping again, until a scream suddenly cut through the quiet air.
"HELP!"
The three guys immediately stopped and looked across the open gap toward the sound.
Over on the next roof, they saw Maria standing near the edge, waving her arms wildly and looking terrified.
"Oh man, that woman looks so hot," the guy said, actually licking his lips as he stared across the distance.
"And she looks like she is totally alone over there."
"Let's go be heroes and save the lady," the guy in the torn coat laughed, completely ignoring the obvious trap.
He backed up a few steps and started sprinting toward the edge of the roof, eager to get across the gap first.
"Hey, wait a second!" the guy in the glasses yelled, trying to grab his friend's shoulder to stop him.
"We don't know what is over there!"
But it was way too late.
Both the guy in the coat and the fatty had already leapt off the edge, flying through the open air toward Maria's building.
"HELP!" Maria yelled again, keeping up her desperate act perfectly right until the two men were completely committed to the jump and hovering over the dark water.
Just as the guy in the torn coat was reaching the apex of his jump and preparing to land on their roof, Gene stepped out from behind the ventilation unit.
He pulled his arm back and whipped one of Aiden's metal shurikens across the gap with speed and perfect accuracy.
The metal star hit the guy in the coat right in his left eye.
"Ahhhhh!" he screamed in pure agony, losing his balance and his momentum in mid-air. He missed the safe landing zone entirely and fell hard against the side of the building, his hands frantically grabbing onto a rusty metal drain pipe to stop himself from falling into the churning water below.
"What the hell?" the fat guy yelled, his eyes widening in complete shock as he saw his friend get taken out.
But he was already in mid-air himself and could not change his direction. Before his legs could even touch the roof, he suddenly felt a rough rope wrap tightly around his waist.
Gene had already thrown his enchanted rope the second the shuriken left his hand.
He planted his boots firmly, grabbed the end of the rope with both hands, and used the guy's own forward momentum against him.
Gene spun his body hard, yanking the rope tight and completely redirecting the falling man's trajectory.
Instead of landing safely on the roof, the guy was violently swung sideways in a wide arc directly out over the open space between the buildings.
Gene let go of the rope right at the peak of the swing, releasing the tension.
The guy screamed the entire way down before hitting the dark, monster-infested water with an incredibly loud splash.
➢ [Player Gene has received +10 points]