They enter the arena.
They move slowly.
Silence blankets the surroundings.
The situation is eerily calm, but…
Not entirely…
The sound of heavy breathing.
Their hearts are pounding violently…
so loudly that one could hear the heartbeat of a companion standing several meters away.
They were not confused.
They were terrified!
They walked alongside pillars that looked as though they could collapse onto their heads at any moment!
While the intact pillars stood right before them!
Even under the authority of a leader like Ryota, resisting this temptation was far from easy.
And indeed, some tried to slip away from the group and move slightly toward an intact pillar, only to be met immediately by that terrifying look from Ryota.
They immediately backed down and returned to the group.
This continued for some time…
Ryota glances at the crowd behind him from the corner of his eye and thinks:
“Good. At least they’re listening to my orders.”
“I deliberately walked slowly at the beginning to test them. With this performance, perhaps we can make it past the next trap.”
…
After they had covered roughly seventy meters…
A tremendous cracking sound tears through everyone’s ears!
Ryota immediately raises his hand, pointing toward a certain area, and shouts at them:
“Faster! To the right!”
Ryota runs toward that area, and everyone quickly follows him.
Not even a fraction of a second passes before the pillar crashes to the ground!
They barely have time to catch their breath before they see Ryota running toward the wreckage of the fallen pillar.
He raises his hand, points toward it, and shouts at them:
“Move! Quickly!”
Hitoshi and several others immediately follow him without question.
Some hesitate and say:
“But it just fell…”
Ryota shouts at them:
“I said move!”
They immediately fall silent and hurry after him toward the first pillar.
A few moments later…
A tremendous impact tears through their ears!
The second pillar has fallen!
Silence reigns for several seconds…
One of them gasps heavily:
“Did we… survive?” This chapter was taken from g.com without permission.
No one answers.
They simply look around…
At the pillars.
At the wreckage on the ground.
At one another.
Some tense their expressions.
Others widen their eyes and stare in shock at the wreckage of the second pillar.
One of them looks at his hands, trembling violently, and mutters:
“It didn’t fall on us…”
A moment passes…
Then…
His voice suddenly rises:
“We survived!!”
As though those words had set them free.
The voices gradually rise:
“We survived!!”
“We survived!!”
Then the cheers erupt:
“Long live the leader!”
“Lord Ryota is our savior!”
“I owe him my life! I’ll follow the leader to the death!”
Amid the cheers, Akira stands with his pupils constricted to their limits, thinking:
“How…”
“How did he know?!”
“He only watched the arena for a few minutes!”
“No matter how brilliant his analysis is, no matter how precise his observations are, no matter how accurate his predictions are…”
“The most he could have discovered was a recurring pattern: whenever one pillar falls, another falls shortly afterward.”
“So how could he know the exact timing of the second pillar’s fall?!”
“How could he know that the second pillar wouldn’t make a sound?!”
“How could he know that the more heavily cracked pillars were safer, while it is true that the intact pillars don’t fall, anyone walking alongside them would suffer tremendous damage from the flying debris?!”
“In other words, the area we moved toward on the right was the only safe area—but only temporarily!”
“It would remain safe for only a few seconds, after which we would have to return to the wreckage of the first pillar!”
“And even stranger, this is the only strategy for survival!!”
“And the question remains…”
“How?”
“How could he know information this precise?!”
“How could he devise such a brilliant strategy?!”
“There is no way this could be mere coincidence!”
“Is he a spy among the supervisors?”
“Impossible! Besides, he has a follower like Evander, and that contradicts everything he has done since the beginning of the test…”
“Did he obtain secret information?”
“Impossible! Even the members of the Akitaro Clan themselves don’t possess this kind of information. Besides, information regarding the first test is completely concealed from everyone by one of the mightiest entities in the world—an Upper Stage Titar, Julian Silva !! ” Enjoying the story? Read on at novelping(.)com.
“Could it really be nothing more than sheer genius—that he discovered all of this simply by observing the arena for a few minutes?!”
Silence…
The mere thought of it was truly terrifying…
“But if there is even the slightest possibility that this is true…”
“Then perhaps following him…”
“is more dangerous than defying him…”
His thoughts are interrupted as the crowd’s cheering grows even louder!
Akira begins looking around, his eyes trembling violently as he thinks:
“Are you really this stupid?!”
“Do you really not realize that…”
His thoughts abruptly stop.
His eyes widen, and sweat begins to trickle down his face…
Silence…
He continues thinking:
“No… Absolutely not…”
“But when you place survival despite your ignorance on one side of the scale, and the risk of leaving Ryota, the savior, and his formation on the other…”
“Especially when there is a logical justification, such as the limited time of the competition…”
“The first side has to outweigh the other!”
“There aren’t even any other options to begin with!”
Hitoshi notices Akira’s tension and quietly makes his way toward him through the crowd without anyone noticing.
He reaches him and places a hand on his shoulder…
Akira notices him, but before he can speak, Hitoshi interrupts him and whispers into his ear:
“Akira…”
“Don’t think too much…”
Akira’s pupils constrict to their limits…
Hitoshi continues:
“The senior brothers are already dead…”
Amid their cheering, Ryota exhales heavily and struggles to catch his breath.
He looks toward the crowd, quickly surveying them with his eyes, then thinks:
“No casualties.”
“Good.”
“We survived one.”
He breathes calmly, wipes the sweat from his forehead, and notices what is happening between Hitoshi and Akira.
A faint smile appears on his face for a moment.
It is quickly replaced by a serious expression as he steps forward and addresses the crowd:
“This is no time to celebrate yet.”
“We’ve only survived the simplest of them.”
“We have no time to waste.”
“Move!”