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As Mari and Wooyoung got closer to the bulk of the crowd, it got louder and harder to hear on the ears. They were getting closer to the cage-like structures, where the fights were taking place. Near these arenas were several spread out groups, altogether but not at the same time. In a way, it was a sort of organized chaos, as there seemed to not be any rules in the Utopia.
In one corner there is a rather small group of people. All of the people in the area seemed to be rather young, ranging from the ages of sixteen to mid-twenties. There was an outlier in the group, a man who seemed to be either in his earlier or mid-thirties, but other than that no one else was there. However, there was a woman who sat a makeshift counter, a permanent foxlike smile on her face as she spoke to the unsuspecting teenagers in front of her. In her hands, she held a few papers that Mari couldn't read from where she was but was able to spot the barcode tattoo that ran across her face.
Mari could safely assume that's where people became Players, signing their souls off to the Utopia. But the barcode didn't make any sense to her, it's a purpose not as obvious as the rest. The girl immediately began scanning the crowd for the defeated Players, searching them for anything that looked similar to the tattoo on the women. Though because of how fast Wooyoung and her were walking, she only caught blurry glimpses of black tattoos on their skin. She could only assume that they were the same barcode tattoo.
Directly opposite from the Player sign up was a more rowdy crowd. The people on that side seemed slightly off their rockers, slamming their fists into the tables set up for them and starting at small unnecessary fights between everyone present. At the same time, she spotted people laughing and grinning as they snatched money up from the unfortunate, counting their fortunes and slamming even more money down on the tables. The area she was looking at was probably where most of the betting took place, unorganized and untamable betting.
"We're here," Wooyoung spoke, though Mari almost didn't catch him talking to hear. The duo had reached the cages, the cover-up of the fight club's illegal deeds. The noise in the area was deafening as the Watcher screamed their lungs out, cursing and growling at the Players in each ring. They banged their fists and shook the cage's bars in fits of fury and excitement as they watched the Players battle it out in front of them, though the Players didn't seem to mind. They were equally as pumped as the crowd as they attempted to stand their ground, facing an embarrassment.
She spotted the tattoos again, the similar ones all of the Players she had seen before. Every one of the Players that we're fighting in the cages had one of the tattoos, just in different spots unique to every one of them. "Those barcodes," Mari mentioned to Wooyoung, gesturing towards her shoulder where a Player had theirs. "What are they for? All of the Players have one but not the Watchers."
"It does a lot from what I've heard from others," Wooyoung responded, struggling to think of what to say in such a loud crowd. "Players get it during an initiation of sorts that binds them to the Utopia. It's used as a check-in for whenever Players come in and out of the Utopia, keeps track of their ranks and how many fights they win or lose... and acts as a tracker to hunt down the Players when they break their contract with the Utopia."
