The Ranch

Carnival (1)

It only took a couple days to plan everything out. Maddox and Phillip quickly set everything up, rented out the colosseum, and returned Alphonse's card to Tih after taking out about half of the items in the storage space.

Rumors have already spread due to the construction and many soldiers are planning to head to the carnival today and win some prizes.

By now, the maze had already concluded and the survivor had returned to their daily routines. The exact number of deaths is unknown but someone calculated it to be two-thirds and that became the accepted answer.

Tih heads to the cafeteria with Kai for breakfast. They meet up with Sherlock and Lucien at their usual spot.

During the meal, Kai pulls out Alphonse's ID that Tih gave him earlier. He already scrounged through its information and was extremely surprised and happy when he saw its funds.

Lucien inserts the card in his watch and they look through it.

"Twelve-million?!?" Sherlock exclaims loudly.

Some soldiers look over to see what the commotions about. Sherlock sits back down in embarrassment.

Kai looks towards Sherlock," With this, we have enough capital to start some of our plans."

Sherlock nods seriously," I originally thought we would need a couple more year to prepare, but with this we can push our plans foward."

The two continue discussing while Tih eats his food and Lucien looks through the card's info in more detail.

Afterwards, they head to the carnival to check it out. The area surrounding the colosseum is already packed with people. All the hustle and bustle creates a lively atmosphere.

Stalls of all sizes have been set up in different area, cramming as many as they could into the space provided. Street vendors have already settled down, their voices can be heard marketing their goods.

Many people have already started taking a shot at some of the games. Some more reputable people even have small crowds watching the ongoings. Cheers and sighs of disappointment can be heard every so often.

Game vendors can be heard saying classic lines such as," Step right up! Step right up gentlemen and try you hand at..."

"This place is equivalent to a casino. We need to be careful not to spend too much money." Sherlock tells the others.

Kai agreed with him," We should look for prizes that are useful and games that we can win. If this is anything like a real carnival, then the games are probably rigged."

Sherlock shrugs," They need to make a profit, after all. Offering up such good prizes to people like us is really risky."

Sherlock refers to the islanders as "us". That includes people like the five aces that have shown tremendous physical ability and instructors that are on another level themselves. Of course, not all the games depend on physical ability. Some rely on strategic problem-solving, keen eyes, or the like.

Both Kai and Sherlock are correct. Maddox might be strict with the rules and abiding by his own moral, but he's also strict with his profit margin, accepting nothing less than double what they're putting into renting the colosseum, decorations, props, and wages.

On the part about wages. They had to hire workers for the game stalls, cleaners, announcers, and a certain subset of people many like to call the "worthless batch". People with this description, in some way, ended up with a useless or unpractical occupation.

Their earnings are worth scraps and they live at the bottom of the barrel within the island's economy. Most can't afford a single thing in the Central Market, some have never even been there. Examples of these occupations include pyrotechnician, animal tamer, magician, escapologist, and snake charmer.

There are many others that are just as useless, of course as they are living on Ranch Island, they all take on more extreme version of the job than what you would see outside the island. Everything needs to be extreme since we are on the island and most people are already capable of amazing feats.

Although these good can make some earning on a few occasions, they're far and few between, leaving them with large gaps of unemployment. Soldiers in these groups are the type to take up the undesirable side jobs like farming and weeding, cutting the grass on the island, or being errand boys of the rich and reputable.

Maddox and Phillip also set up other sources of entertainment to keep the public busy for the next week. They've even set up horse racing and other gambl- betting games. The horse racing itself is also a game. Soldiers can race against each other for prizes and others would bet for kquil.

Another thing to note, Maddox and Sinclair's business are operation and managing this carnival, and they made sure everyone else know as well. Advertisements for their latest or most popular products are plastered everyone. While distracting attention from their competitors, they're bringing in more reputation and hopefully more customers.

"If we really wanna make the most of what we spend, we should come up with a plan." Kai suggests.

"We'll need a layout of the games and their prizes." Sherlock agrees with Kai's idea.

As they continue walking through the colosseum, they reach the center. In the middle sits a tall empty stage. In the center of that stage is a gigantic holographic screen that's constantly updating.

There's some interactive speaker and screen at the bottom of the stage, surround the circumference of the stage. Kai taps on it.

"Hello and welcome to our carnival.

Including the prizes, each winning game will earn a certain number of points.

After every completed round, the amount of points received with increase by five.

You're points will be ranked on the screen above. You may also view your rank through your ID.

At the end of the carnival, we will hold an award ceremony for the top three placers.

First place will receive the legendary laser staff created by silver-star physicist, Instructor Aurov.

Second and third place will receive monetary prizes of three-thousand and five-thousand respectively.

We hope you have a pleasant experience."