Equipment Shopping

Four players stood at the firing line, hearing-protection headsets clamped over their ears, pistols leveled at the targets with faces drawn tight in concentration.

If I wash out here, I'll be a complete laughingstock. Don't tense up. Just shoot like you always do…

Yunus Kabak — the Turkish film actor whose name had been steadily climbing in Hollywood — worked to quiet the tremor in his chest.

Shooting had always been a hobby of his. Türkiye allowed private gun ownership, and the firearms industry there was robust. He'd learned from his father as a boy, so guns felt familiar in his hands; after moving to America, he'd even leveraged his clay-pigeon skills at high-society gatherings to grease the wheels of his career.

He'd tried paintball a handful of times, though not since his face became recognizable, so his experience was thin. Still, there was no way he was going to pass up a chance to appear on a show produced by Blue Whale Gate.

Even without a glittering résumé, you had to act like you had one. Even if you didn't know this world, you had to pretend you did.

At least the first round is shooting. Small mercies…

He knew perfectly well that range work and real combat were nothing alike. But he'd put plenty of rounds downrange in his time, and with two genuine experts on the roster, he'd figured something would work out.

Then ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠he watched the other players shoot, and his confidence withered on the spot.

Especially the man from the previous group — Ryu Yeon-woo — who had posted a perfect score and claimed first place overall.

As a fellow actor, Yunus knew his work intimately. Failing to have seen the Golden Bear–winning film from Berlin, or the drama series that had topped Netflix's global charts, would have been professional negligence. If someone asked whether he was a fan of Ryu Yeon-woo the actor, he would probably say yes. He'd watched most of the man's other projects, too.

But I ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠never imagined he could shoot like that.

No — thinking about it, he had known Yeon-woo could shoot. He'd watched Survival Island, after all. But after arriving here and hearing players from other countries casually dismiss the show as television fiction, Yunus had started to wonder if he'd been the only naïve one taking it all at face value.

That doubt had just been shattered by the shooting he'd witnessed.

I was wrong.

The ones who'd been wrong were the people spouting off about Yeon-woo without knowing a thing. The shooting skill Yunus had seen with his own eyes carried a far heavier sense of menace than anything he'd watched on Netflix.

"Hoo…"

Bearing down against that pressure, he squeezed the trigger.

Bang—!

Ah…

Too many stray thoughts. He'd botched the final shot — he felt it the instant the round left the barrel, the bullet flying well wide of center.

Clack-clack-clack—.

The other participants had already finished. The moment Yunus fired his last round, the targets rode the rails back toward them. Most of the bullet holes clustered between the eight- and ten-point rings. One round, though, had punched clean through the four-point zone.

That would be the last shot. Ten rounds. Yunus's total: eighty-four.

Not a terrible score, in isolation. But this was a gathering of people who, among ordinary civilians, could fly and soar with the best of them.

…D-damn it. Am I out?

Yunus stared at the ranking board with a face full of dread.

"Huh?!"

Seeing his name sitting just above the elimination line, color flooded back into Yunus's face. It wasn't so much leaping joy as a lurch ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠of pure relief in his chest.

…Thank god.

He'd thought shooting was one of his strong suits — and yet every single person except one had outscored him. The realization was almost frightening.

And then there were the players at the very top. Above all of them, the overwhelming presence of Ryu Yeon-woo. Once the survival proper began, Yunus's only hope was to somehow avoid crossing paths with him at all.

Meanwhile, even as the final group's shooting was still underway, every player's gaze had locked onto the shelving units.

The warehouse was so vast that simply pulling down the black tarps covering the racks took a considerable amount of time, so the crew had already begun racing around to prep the next segment of filming. They started by stripping the tarps from the far side of the space — the end farthest from where the players were gathered. And since there wasn't a single person here who wasn't a military gear enthusiast, even from a distance they could tell exactly what they were looking at.

"…Are all of those pieces of equipment?"

"Whoa, check out those rigs hanging over there — the ones with the weird shoulder cuts. Those look like special forces plate carriers."

Some of the gear was commercially available depending on the country, but a few pieces were still under exclusive military contracts — things they'd only ever seen online. The mil-tech nerds assembled here were losing their minds. To them, this musty dockside warehouse smelled more luxurious than any VIP boutique.

Confirming the players' reaction, MC Tony Williams took the mic.

"And with that, Round One comes to a close — and unfortunately, we have our first elimination. Paweł Kamiński of Poland, please follow security out of the facility immediately."

Watching the production side demand an instant exit with zero mercy, the lower-ranked players wiped cold sweat from their brows. The top-ranked players, for their part, couldn't have cared less — they were already busy ogling the gear.

In that same stretch of time, Yeon-woo studied the weapons and protective equipment now visible on the shelves and began mapping routes through the space in his head.

They didn't unveil all of this just to show off what they managed to rent.

It almost certainly meant the players would be choosing their own loadouts.

Right on cue, Tony's voice rolled out through the speakers.

"I can feel your curiosity and your heat traveling through the air and straight into my skin!"

He swept a proud gaze across the equipment spread throughout the vast warehouse and continued.

"Everything you see before you was specially airlifted here with the assistance of the U.S. Army and modified by our production team for survival use. Most of it is identical to the real gear — only the firearms have been adapted to fire specialized survival rounds. A scale of production possible only in a place like this."

Yeon-woo nodded. A visual sweep confirmed it: Tony was right. This was a scale that would have been impossible if Blue Whale Gate hadn't built it. The composition of the equipment was thorough. Even military gear used only in extreme environments — alpine, desert — had been placed here and there among the racks.

Though you'd have to know what you're looking at to take any of it. If someone accidentally grabbed alpine gear, they'd cook to death from the heat long before anyone shot them.

From the outside, the alpine protective suits didn't look particularly thick, so the odds of someone snatching one were real enough. Alpine gear was never designed out of some humanitarian desire to keep wearers warm. It was built from materials that thoroughly blocked heat exchange with the outside air, specifically so the wearer wouldn't light up a thermal camera. Putting that on in a Central American arena was effectively suicide.

So the ability to recognize good equipment is part of the skill set. From that angle, this round actually has decent discriminatory power.

But the angle Yeon-woo was considering was different.

Is it really just my own gear I'm supposed to pick?

The thought had barely formed when Tony's voice crackled through the speakers with uncanny timing.

"From this moment, you have approximately twenty minutes to collect the equipment you and your teammates will use and bring it back. However — the instant you set any piece of gear down on the floor, your selection ends, and the remainder of your kit will be supplied as basic issue determined by production."

Yeon-woo shook his head. Three full combat loadouts including firearms would easily outweigh an adult man. And the moment the weight forced you to set anything down, selection was over — which meant you somehow had to hang every last piece off your body and keep running. On top of that, the warehouse was absurdly large.

"Hoo. Looks like we're starting with a sweat session."

Tweet—!

A whistle cut the air, and the scramble for gear was on.

As an actor, Yeon-woo was at a physical disadvantage. There were plenty of actors from various countries here, but meeting the aesthetic standards demanded of performers in Asian markets meant constantly maintaining a lean, slender frame. Western actors, by contrast, more often projected a macho physicality — and the ones invited to this particular event leaned into that even harder.

And no matter how much of a legend Yeon-woo had been in his previous life, that had nothing to do with the muscle mass he currently possessed.

I'll need a solid plan…

So he chose rucksacks and weight reduction.

While everyone else sprinted to claim the best rifles and armor, Yeon-woo and a handful of other players with their heads screwed on straight bolted for the corner with the military packs.

They said the moment you set anything on the floor, selection ends. So the pack comes first.

Pack secured, Yeon-woo raced to the rifle corner to pick his primary weapon and, with quick efficiency, claimed everything he needed. From that point on, as he ran, he repeated a single mantra under his breath.

Lighten the load.

In a survival game modeled on modern warfare, "armor" really just meant a plate carrier — a vest whose sole job, true to the name, was to carry ballistic plates. This wasn't the Middle Ages; strapping on plate armor wouldn't meaningfully raise your survival rate.

It's not like live rounds are flying around. This is a survival game. There's no need to fight over top-tier protective gear.

Light was king. Full stop.

At the corner with the combat boots, Yeon-woo paused, rubbing his chin in thought.

Hmm. For the operation I've got in mind, these would be useful to have.

What he was looking at were rubber plates slightly wider than a boot sole — shaped almost like the insoles a giant with size-thirty-five feet might wear. They were auxiliary attachments for desert running, designed to distribute body weight over a wider surface so your feet wouldn't sink into the sand. Yeon-woo stuffed three sets into his pack.

A few more pieces of auxiliary gear went in after them. Then, with rucksacks totaling roughly his own body weight hanging off his back and both arms, he waddled off at a run toward somewhere specific.

The place Yeon-woo arrived at was a shelving unit in the farthest corner of the warehouse — sealed off from the entrance by a red curtain, with two security officers standing guard at the approach.

"This is the special equipment corner. Please present your pass to enter."

This was why he'd finished selecting everything else at breakneck speed, deliberately leaving about ten minutes on the clock. Yeon-woo pulled out the gold card the production staff had handed him at the end of Round One.

The two officers stepped aside and held the red curtain open for him.

"Confirmed. Go on in."

Yeon-woo nodded and stepped through. Looking around, he found every kind of specialized equipment laid out before him.

"You may select only one piece of equipment."

Beside the staffer explaining the rules sat a medium machine gun capable of dumping two hundred rounds without reloading.

Can that thing even fire survival rounds…?

If you dug into high ground and poured fire from something like that, no team would be able to stand against it. But Yeon-woo turned away almost immediately. Season One had taught him that remaining ammunition counted — and in a situation where he had no idea whether equipment scavenging would even be possible, an inefficient weapon like that was meaningless.

He walked straight to the shelf holding the sniper rifles.

The reason he'd spent the entire scramble grabbing only the lightest, most maneuverable gear was so he could devote a full ten minutes to choosing a sniper rifle.