Volume 7 - CH 9

Chapter 9: Determining

Atlantis  1:50 PM

When it was almost two, I dragged along a pair of hands that almost turned into scrap from firing too many shots, as I was carried back to the lounge by the five-colored rooster head.

“You’re back.”

As soon as they saw the door open, the two people in the lounge turned around at the same time. “You’ve worked hard, take a break first.” Gasai closed the book in his hands and stood up from the window ledge. “Did practice go well?”

…I had a both-hands-about-to-snap-off kind of feeling, if this is also called “well”, then I give up.

Oh please! The most shots I’ve ever fired in my whole life was with a toy gun, just who would be able to use a real gun to the point of wielding it naturally in such a short period of time!

Two hundred octopuses and two hundred sharks!

You think I’m a god!?

“It didn’t go well at all, from start to finish, he only hit a hundred of the octopus legs, and that’s not even half of them.” The five-colored rooster head sighed, “Sure enough, the radish in the field won’t be able to grow in just a single day.”

To be compared to a radish by you, I’m not happy at all.

“Where’s Ran?” Senior climbed up from the sofa, and casually asked a question.

“He said he had something to take care of, and left halfway through.” And because he left first, no one knows how to send the octopuses and sharks back. Now the open space is still in that crowded state.

I wonder if there’s any kind-hearted passerby who could help us return it to normal…

“Nn, it’s almost time for us to leave too.” Senior stood up from the sofa, and then picked up the black robe and wore it. From the side, Gasai also started to get ready. “Something unexpected occurred for the third competition, so some adjustments were made, including to the second competition. It’s already different from the scheduled route.”

Different?

I’m a little curious, I wonder what could have happened for the competitions to be affected.

”You’ll know once the third competition begins.” After Senior very naturally threw out this sentence, a huge teleportation array directly appeared on the ground, ready to send everyone to the venue resting area.

”The second competition won’t take too much time and only the two of us will go on stage, so you guys don’t need to prepare. Hurry up and come along.” Gasai interrupted my action of looking for the team clothing, pushing my back as he went into the teleportation array. The five-colored rooster head didn’t take a second to follow us in.

The second competition won’t take too much time?

Just as I was filled with questions, the surroundings suddenly exploded with the roar of cheering.

“Hello ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the General Assembly venue for the second competition.” The voice of the announcer directly sounded out above my head, the huge volume drowning out the noises of the audience. “Before the competition begins, I’ll first announce a certain matter. The site of the third competition was originally supposed to be at the Illusionary Island in the Northern area, but because some unforeseen situations suddenly arose, the third competition will have two sites. In other words, the current teams will be split into half and proceed to different destinations. And the second competition will determine which of those destinations each team will go to. Please look forward to it!”

Determine each team’s destination?

“It’s said that the Guild received two SOS signals from the north and south, so they were changed to the third competition’s locations. The two separate groups will be dispatched to compete at the SOS locations by solving the problem in actual combat, and getting scored on that. It’s considered a rare opportunity for both sides.” Standing at the side, Gasai smiled as he explained to us.

Oh, no wonder there was a notice of changing the players, it turns out that the third competition had changed into actual combat…

Actual combat?

Which is to say, after this I’ll have to follow Senior and the others to resolve the legendary actual combat that needs so many experts at once!?

Mama…I want to go home…

“Don’t worry, it’ll be alright.”

During my trance, I seemed to have heard a female voice, very low and gentle.

I took out the illusionary soybean that was faintly issuing sounds from my pocket, and the fine bell-like sounds quickly disappeared.

…It shouldn’t be that, right?

***

The stage started vibrating.

Under the gaze of all the audience, a huge array suddenly appeared on the stage. An immense white pillar that would require dozens of people forming a ring to be able to surround it, rushed up towards the sky. At the same time and place from above, a similar white pillar lowered down. Both pillars met in midair, and just a few seconds later, a huge column that reached up to the sky appeared.

”I haven’t seen this thing in such a long time.” Senior looked at the huge pillar that appeared on the stage, and then began cracking his knuckles.

”What is this?” No matter how I looked at it, I could only feel that it really is just a huge column.

”That’s right, it’s a pillar, can’t you tell?” Red eyes eyes looked over at me, using a contemptuous and doubtful gaze to stare at me.

Basically, what I couldn’t tell was what this thing’s purpose is.

“Ladies and gentlemen, please look at the viewing screens provided on the stage!” Following the announcer’s instructions, the pictures on the big screens all simultaneously switched to the same place. It was a white surface, and on it was about a dozen colorful boxes. “This is the top of the Sky Reaching Pillar, which has an elevation of about a thousand and five hundred meters. Contained within those boxes above are the real locations of the third competition, but some of them also contain traps. This is a level that tests the players’ judgement, speed, cooperation, endurance and so on. The first teams to reach the top will be the first ones to choose their boxes, but please note that each team only has three chances. If a team doesn’t choose the correct box within all three chances, the team will be disqualified from continuing to the next level, and will be declared as forfeiting their identity as competitors.

Disqualified?

Then wouldn’t this level be very important!?

I secretly glanced at Senior and Gasai, starting to worry a little.

“The second competition forbids you from using any large-scale spells. You’re also prohibited from using movement-based arrays and curses. Other methods of going up the pillar will be up to each team’s discretion and only two hours will be given.” The venue announcer quickly finished explaining the rules and raised her hand up high. “Then, let the second competition begin!”

As soon as the last word ended, I saw the representatives of each team appearing on the stage at the same time. Almost every team had only sent out two people, the most was three, and then no more came.

An icy breeze drifted over from the stage. I subconsciously turned around to look and nearly every hair on me stood up.

I saw among the Clear Wind representatives, that Andellar, who had turned into Tenju, really didn’t die. He was even standing there perfectly fine with the unsuspecting black robe.

As if he also noticed my gaze, he slowly turned around, and revealed a strange smile that caused my scalp to tingle; I suddenly felt like a frog that was being eyed by a poisonous snake.

“Yang~ what are you doing?” The five-colored rooster head gave a pat on my shoulder, which incidentally caused my mind to return. “The people from Seven Hill Academy are definitely mysterious; up to now they still haven’t taken off their cloth hats, it really makes me want to burn down their mysterious hats!” He issued a dangerous declaration that would cause good people to call the police to take him away.

Speaking of which, Seven Hill’s players really are mysterious. I followed his line of sight and looked across. Standing in an inconspicuous corner, were two Seven Hill Academy players dressed in sacrificial clothing. Both of them were discussing something in low voices. Maybe because the chance of proceeding to the next level was at stake in the second competition, so this time the sounds between the teams wasn’t amplified, only images were shown on stage.

The white pillar that reached up to the sky was completely smooth. Some people seemed to have originally tried to use ropes but it was to no avail. After trying a few times, they began having a brief discussion about other methods.

Senior and the others started moving. At the bottom of the white pillar, Senior’s group that appeared in the front didn’t even have any discussions when Gasai straightened his hand, and instantly swung his illusionary weapon, a black whip.

“The whip’s length shouldn’t be more than a thousand meters long, right?” I leaned over the railing in the lounge, my mind full of question marks.

“Who knows.” The five-colored rooster head shrugged too.

At almost the same time, the other teams also started to move.

Holding onto the black whip’s handle, Gasai didn’t swing the long whip. Instead he pulled about fifty centimeters of his whip taut, and at one side, Senior jumped up high. Stepping on that short part of the whip, he directly leveraged the force from it to rush up. Probably after reaching a certain height, a silver line extended out in his hand, and then the illusionary weapon, the silver spear, appeared.

Some kind of sound was made as Senior stabbed the long spear into the pillar. Thin ice immediately spread out around the spear like large wings. And then he bent his body to pull the whip that Gasai had flung up, pulling his teammate up.

From start to finish, the height they got to was around a hundred feet or so.

“They used the leveraging method to go up, but if they want to use this method to reach the top of the pillar, it’ll take them a very long period of time.” The five-colored rooster head watched the movements on the stage, and frowned like this wasn’t such a good idea.

Just as I was thinking so too, the outer ring of the thin ice that Senior’s illusionary weapon made began to change. As if it had a life of its own, it started climbing upwards. In the few seconds that it takes to blink, it already began to wind its way around the pillar. A spiral staircase made of thin ice thus attached itself to the entire white pillar.

Using the ice stairs, the two used quick movements to disappear at the other end of that height.

“This isn’t considered a large-scale spell?” I looked at the five-colored rooster head beside me and questioned. The five-colored rooster head looked at me, “This isn’t considered one. That’s an ice staircase made by controlling an illusionary weapon. It’s basically not even considered as a spell.”

So illusionary weapons also have this sort of use.

I suddenly thought that if it was Minas, what other additional usages she has. The only one that I know of is the legendary bubble gun. Wait a minute, it can’t be that I could also use it as a watering tool!?

According to the law of buy one get one free, I felt that the possibility of having this feature is highly likely.

“Yang~ look!” Just as I was thinking hard about the additional features of the water gun, the five-colored rooster head suddenly grabbed my neck with the suspicion of murdering someone and turned my head towards the other side. “This side is also very interesting!”

The two non-robe-level players of Seven Hill Academy simply tapped their toes gently at the ground, and sang a short song that I couldn’t hear; not long after, the two people actually weightlessly floated up.

“This is a request to the atmospheric elves for help, so it doesn’t count as a spell.” The five-colored rooster head, who was very interested in that floating method, released his hand that almost twisted my head off. “The other ones just don’t have any creativity.”

I took a glance at the other teams. Most of them were using a couple of small spells to go up the pillar, but because the pillar was too smooth, some of them nearly fell off after climbing halfway.

“Five minutes have passed, now may everyone please follow our lens and look at the top of the Sky Reaching Pillar. The first to arrive was the second representative team of Atlantis Academy, immediately followed by the players of Seven Hill Academy with only a few seconds apart.” To convey the movements on the scene, the announcer abruptly flew higher. The surrounding screens also followed suit and returned to the top of the pillar that was covered with lots of little boxes. “At the same time that the two teams were about to pick their boxes, the third team also took seven minutes to reach the top, it’s Atlantis Academy’s first representative team!”

Appearing on the screens were senior Geng and Randall. Both of them had obviously climbed up easily as well, but it’s just that they took a little more time.

Just after them, one after another, within ten minutes, the other teams each climbed up using their own ways.

I had an all-robe-levels-certainly-aren’t-humans kind of impression.

An ordinary person should find it very difficult to scale a pillar over a thousand meters in such a short period of time…

Ghost!

They’re ghosts!

There’s a bunch of ghosts here!

I once again realized that I, being an extradimensional creature, really am the most normal person.

***

Each screen was paused on one of the teams.

I found the screen with Senior and the others, just in time to see them lifting up a white box from the top of the pillar. The box had a small pattern of vines, and looked much plainer than the other boxes.

“Atlantis Academy’s second representative team has already acquired their box, and now it’s the crucial moment of opening it…Aih?” Originally thinking that they would open the box right there on the top of the pillar, the announcer was stunned for a bit, and then continued, “Unexpectedly, the players of Atlantis Academy’s second representative team didn’t open their box, and instead directly took it and jumped off the Sky Reaching Pillar!”

In less than a few seconds, I saw Senior and Gasai simultaneously landing on the ground.

They didn’t even open it up there to confirm and just came down; if they chose the wrong one then won’t they have to go up again? Or were they really so confident that they’d get the correct box?

After landing, Gasai opened the white box in his hands. The inside was covered with snowy white fur, then in the middle was a silver key, and that was all there was.

This counts as winning a prize? Getting the legendary door and the like?

…That’s impossible.

“Atlantis Academy’s second representative team has successfully obtained the key to the third competition, the proof to go to Lake Town!” As soon as the announcer spoke, a warm round of applause immediately resounded from the surroundings. “Seven Hill Academy’s players has opened their box on the top of the pillar, everyone please take a look together. Nn…it’s actually the same proof to Lake Town!”

On the screen, placed inside the box the two Seven Hill players held was also a silver key.

Holding the box and walking straight back to the lounge, Senior and Gasai really did complete the second competition in a short period of time just as they said.

It’s just that I had a huge question about how they could be so sure.

What if they took the wrong one?

“We definitely wouldn’t have taken the wrong one.” Taking the water that Gasai handed to him, Senior threw these words at me with a hundred percent confidence. “Did you forget how Gasai won against his opponent during the elimination round?”

Elimination round?

How Gasai won against his opponent?

For some reason, I suddenly remembered that match where you’d be hacked apart by N amount of knives if you answer incorrectly, and the reason why senior Gasai was able to win in that match was…

“Perspective!”

No wonder they were so confident!

So to say, Seven Hill Academy’s players, who also chose a key quickly, definitely used a similar method, right?

“Should be, since Seven Hill waited until we picked before starting to choose.” Looking at the second team that came down, Senior narrowed his red eyes like he was thinking about something and snorted.

”Senior.” The five-colored rooster who didn’t say anything until his existence was almost forgotten, all of a sudden interrupted my thoughts. I lifted my head, just in time to see him looking at Senior with an inexplicable expression. “I’ve kinda wanted to ask you this before, every time that you’re talking to yourself, who are you actually talking to?”

“Me!?” Senior was clearly dumbfounded for a bit.

Beside him, Gasai secretly laughed with a “pfft” sound.

See, I told you already; every time I think about something, you’ll always respond to it, so there’ll definitely be a day where you’re regarded as an expert of talking to himself!

After all, not many people know that you’re practically always eavesdropping on my thoughts, so to be treated as someone who talks to himself is something that you asked for. It has nothing to do with me at all.

”Chu, you want to owe someone to help you scratch your itch!?” Fierce eyes glared over, and I hastily stepped back.

“Could it be that you’re having an ‘exchange’ with some interesting things?” Completely couldn’t feel the murderous fire directed at me, the five-colored rooster head was filled with interest as he used a sort of sparkling eyes to look at Senior. “So is that why you’re always talking to yourself? Can you tell us the secret to it and also teach us how to play…”

Sometimes people that are too talkative die very quickly.

Two seconds later, the five-colored rooster head was violently hit by a certain person and was hanging on the wall.

Patting the dust off his hands, and ignoring the matter of beating a teammate into the wall being a bad thing, Senior took out his phone and dialed a few numbers. Then without even any dial tones, it was answered right away. “Nn. I want all the data on Lake Town. Find it for me immediately.” After three sentences, he hung up.

Really does have his own way of doing things…

“If one of the locations is Lake Town, I wonder where the second location is.” Looking at the stage, Gasai tilted his head and said, “Recently, the places with level three and above alerts…”

“The second one is undoubtedly Black Willow Ridge.” Folding his arms as he said in an very sure way, Senior coldly snorted. “That place still has an unresolved problem. They probably want to take advantage of this to take care of it at the same time.”

“Nn, however Lake Town didn’t sound any alerts recently, could it be that it’s something that just happened these past few days?”

“Otherwise, what do you think the General Assembly changed the third competition for?” Giving a glance at Gasai, Senior casually responded.

While both of them were having their conversation, the third team had jumped down as well.

“Clear Wind Academy’s second representative team received the proof to the second location, Black Willow Ridge!” Exactly the same as what Senior said, the third team  that came down had a golden key inside their box.

Right after them, the next team to come down was the one that the ghost king’s first expert had infiltrated, Clear Wind Academy’s second representative team. They similarly held an already opened box in their hands.

“Oh? Clear Wind Academy’s first representive team drew Lake Town. Three teams have now been determined for Lake Town, leaving only the two last chances. Let’s see which two teams will be the ones to determine it all.” The announcer’s voice suddenly became very elated.

There was a second where I had a cold-till-it’s-like-a-freezer kind of feeling.

“Se, Senior…”

”What?” Red eyes looked over.

“That…face-changing person will be going to the same place as us…” I had an extremely bad premonition, completely creeped out to the highest point. Now I feel like I should just shoot at my temple on the day of the competition, so that I can leave the stage fair and square to rest, and wouldn’t need to go to the same area as that strange face-changing person.

“What’s there to be surprised about, it’s simply something to be expected. If his location is a different one, then you should be afraid, because that means he wasn’t the only expert the ghost king sent.” Senior curved into a cold smile, the kind of cold smile that had some intention behind it. “And if we really do meet him, you can just shoot his head again. This time the competition’s location isn’t at the school, he’d stay absolutely dead!”

This boss…please don’t speak about that fierce manner of murdering someone in such a natural way, alright?

“The General Assembly doesn’t have a rule that forbids us from attacking other players. And anyway, in the end, he’ll take the initiative to attack us, and during that time, you can just make his head explode again and that’ll be it.” It seemed like he already planned out the entire murdering trip, as Senior revealed an evil smile, making me feel a certain horrifying unease that I’ve never felt before.

“That’s a good idea.” At one side, someone approved of it.

Senior Gasai…please don’t agree to it, alright?

“In order to successfully make his head explode, Yang~ let’s go practice shooting octopus legs again!” The five-colored rooster head who felt very excited about the word “explode”, made a terrifying decision, and then stretched out his hand to grab the back of my collar. “If you don’t finish hitting every one of them today, I won’t let you go back and sleep!”

Save me—!

You head exploding murderers!

I quit!