As they walked beside one of the cracked pillars…
Ryota suddenly noticed it.
A slight disturbance in the movement of the air.
The faintest sound of cracking.
A subtle sound of a few fragments of rock falling.
A tremendous warning of mortal danger struck his mind.
His pupils contracted to their utmost.
And immediately, without looking upward and without wasting even the slightest fraction of a second considering any other possibility, he shouted at the top of his lungs:
“Get away!!”
…
He was too late again…
Two people…
were crushed beneath the falling rocks…
…
The survivors stared toward the rubble, the mangled bodies, and the splattered blood, their faces filled with utter shock.
Some of them were even striking their own heads, unable to believe what had happened.
One of them rushed toward the rubble and tried to move some of the rocks with his bare hands, his features contorted and his eyes trembling violently as he screamed a name:
“Yukio! Yukio!…”
He continued trying to move the rocks, screaming his name frantically, until Yukio’s head finally appeared, the upper half of his body exposed while the lower half was crushed beneath a massive rock…
He was already taking his final breaths.
His friend embraced him, tears streaming from his eyes.
With an extremely hoarse voice, Yukio spoke his final words:
“I wanted… I only wanted to be useful…”
He coughed violently and spat blood…
“He told me that if I became a warrior, I would… I would…..”
The light faded from his eyes, and Yukio passed away…
He had been no more than sixteen years old.
And now he was gone…
Gone, leaving behind hollow eyes and a shattered dream… The source of this chapter is g.com.
Hitoshi approached him, placed a hand on his shoulder, and tried to console him:
“Rin, I understand your grief over Yukio’s death, but…”
Rin interrupted him:
“He didn’t want to enter the test…”
Hitoshi was startled for a moment.
“I was the one who insisted. I told him that I didn’t want to go alone. He had a feeling that he wouldn’t survive. He even told me his final wishes…”
Rin shouted at him, tears streaming down his face:
“Do you know what he said?! He told me, ‘If I die, go to my father and tell him that Yukio gave his all until the very end. Tell him that Yukio brought honor to his name and that he did not die a coward!'”
Having said that, he began embracing the body of his dead friend and weeping bitterly…
Even Hitoshi wiped his eyes to keep his own tears from falling.
Then, little by little, he tried to comfort Rin until he finally managed to get him to release Yukio’s body and stand.
Hitoshi then looked toward Ryota and saw him standing there in shock, staring at the rubble.
Meanwhile, Ryota was thinking:
“I tried… I tried desperately to focus to my absolute limit. My eyes didn’t even blink for several minutes… My ears could hear even the faintest cracks from dozens of meters away… My mind never wandered for even a moment… Then why?! Why am I still too late?! Are there really no solutions?! Do I have to keep making this desperate gamble on senses that are no longer capable of keeping up with this test?!”
As he was lost in thought, Hitoshi interrupted him by placing a hand on his shoulder and calling out to him:
“Lord Commander, my lord, are you all right?”
Ryota came back to his senses and looked at him, then turned his gaze away and stepped toward the group.
“Let’s continue…”
………………
As they walked beside one of the cracked pillars…
Suddenly, a tremendous cracking sound pierced everyone’s ears.
Ryota immediately pointed toward a certain area and shouted at them:
“To the left! Hurry!”
He ran, and the others followed.
Barely a second passed before he pointed toward the rubble of the first fallen pillar and shouted at them:
“Move! Quickly!”
And this time, everything went smoothly, with no casualties. Visit g.com for the full chapter.
While Hitoshi waited for Ryota’s order to continue moving, he noticed that Ryota was standing still, staring at the rubble of the first pillar, his face filled with shock…
Hitoshi was startled for a moment and thought:
“Was there something unusual this time?”
Meanwhile, Ryota was thinking:
“Wait…
Has it really always been like this?!
Although the second trap was extremely shocking, perhaps it isn’t actually that difficult.
In reality, the second trap differs slightly from this trap in the way the pillar falls…
In this trap, the pillars collapse at a full angle, meaning the rubble covers a wide area, making the area around the intact central pillar extremely dangerous.
But in the second trap, the collapse is only partial, with the fall occurring at an angle of roughly half that.
It’s almost as though the pillar were broken in half, allowing the rubble to spread only a short distance—so short that it barely reaches the central pillar at all!
And that was obvious from the very beginning.
If the pillar had fallen at a full angle with its full range of debris, at least ten people would have been killed instead of four…
In that case, perhaps the solution to the second trap is simply to walk safely beside the central pillar!
But…
What about the first trap?
If we take the obvious approach to dealing with the second trap and walk beside the central pillar, then encounter the first trap, there will be casualties again!
Silence…
This is not the time to hesitate…
I already know the effective strategy.
Even if it means making a complete gamble on the sharpness of my senses once again, there are no other options at this stage.
At least, this strategy might…
It might actually prevent any more casualties.”
He then turned his gaze toward the group and spoke firmly:
“We’re going to change our direction slightly… Follow me, and pay close attention to even the slightest signal I give… In fact, your reactions must come even before I finish speaking!”
Ryota took a path between the cracked pillars and the central pillar, and everyone followed him.
Ryota thought to himself:
“There is no other choice but to balance between both traps and place everything on the speed of my reaction and the speed at which they respond to my orders.”