Chapter 27
"The third test will begin."
The moment Berton's declaration fell...
The central training ground erupted.
"What? A test already...?"
"It hasn't been that long since the second one!"
Everyone was shaken by the early announcement.
Berton ignored them.
"And this test..."
He continued.
"Will be different from everything you've done before."
His gaze slowly moved across the trainees.
For one brief moment...
It stopped on Section Five.
Theron noticed.
...Don't tell me.
An unpleasant feeling climbed his spine.
Then Berton spoke again.
"The third test will have no divisions by section."
"Everyone will participate together."
Then came the shocking part.
"It will be an individual competition."
The words struck the training ground like a hammer.
Individual competition.
Before everyone could fully understand what that meant...
Berton continued.
"The same section receives no exception."
"The trainee beside you."
"The person you ate beside."
"The person you trained beside."
His eyes grew cold.
"Inside the test area, every one of them is your enemy."
Nearly four hundred trainees froze.
Even breathing disappeared.
"The rules are simple."
"On the day of the test, every trainee receives one wooden badge."
"Once released inside the test area, defeat opponents and steal their badges."
"Your final ranking will be determined by how many badges you possess."
A badge-stealing test.
So far...
It was not very different from Token Defense.
Then came the true problem.
"The top fifty will receive treatment appropriate to that result."
Berton paused.
"And..."
His eyes sharpened.
"The bottom fifty..."
The short silence deliberately tightened around hundreds of throats.
Then finally...
"...are not needed on this island."
A freezing silence fell.
Not needed.
Every trainee understood what that meant.
No one had ever heard of a person considered unnecessary on Hell Island simply being allowed to leave.
"...Crazy..."
"We have to fight our own people... and if we lose, we're finished?"
Suppressed groans appeared everywhere.
Trainees who had been standing shoulder-to-shoulder unconsciously stepped half a pace away from one another.
The fear that had ruled this island for decades returned with only a few words.
"The test begins ten days from now at dawn."
Berton concluded.
"Dismissed."
He turned to leave.
Theron's gaze grew colder than ever.
...This test didn't exist before.
He searched his memories.
The third test in his previous life had been completely different.
Different time.
Different rules.
Different elimination condition.
Everything was new.
Which meant...
This was not an old Hell Island tradition.
Berton created it.
The purpose became clear.
Destroy sections.
Force comrades to fight.
Threaten the bottom fifty with destruction.
What happened when humans were placed in that situation?
To survive...
They pushed away the person beside them.
The same hands that corrected another person's stance yesterday...
Would strangle them tomorrow.
And once someone did that even once...
They could never completely return to the person they had been.
Theron had seen countless people break that way in his previous life.
That was how this island created Shadows.
He wants me to destroy what I built with my own hands.
The bonds Section Five created...
Placed directly on a test table.
That was the true purpose.
Berton suddenly stopped while leaving the platform.
He turned around.
Across hundreds of heads...
His eyes met Theron's exactly.
A questioning gaze.
Can you protect that warmth even now?
A cold smile appeared on Theron's lips.
Fine.
I'll accept.
If Berton thought he was the only person capable of designing the board...
He was badly mistaken.
Berton turned away after seeing the smile.
Then Theron felt another gaze from Section Three.
Isaac.
Even amid the chaos...
There was not a shadow of fear on his face.
Instead...
He grinned at Theron and silently formed words with his mouth.
Debt. I'm coming to collect.
...This guy.
Even now...
He looked excited.
Theron sighed.
Strangely, the tension in his own shoulders relaxed slightly.
"Dismissed!"
At the Executioner's shout...
The assembly ended.
But the cracks had already begun.
"Hey! You just looked at me!"
"W-What? I didn't!"
"You bastard! You're already planning to take my badge...!"
Shouting erupted somewhere.
Instructors rushed in to separate fighting trainees.
The test was ten days away.
But suspicion had already begun today.
Section Five silently walked back.
The situation did not feel like someone else's problem.
They could judge those trainees now...
But in ten days, they might become the same.
Bengle, following behind them, quietly approached Theron.
"Theron."
"Yes, Instructor."
"...This test smells bad."
His voice was unusually low.
Bengle had been mocked as the worst instructor for years.
He knew better than most how unusual this test was.
"I'm not talking about my own position."
He frowned.
"This section finally started feeling like people live here."
Bengle coughed awkwardly.
"Ahem."
"Anyway..."
