Chapter 33
Several days passed after the third test.
The atmosphere of the training facility had visibly changed.
"That's Section Five."
"Over there. That's him."
"Seriously..."
"Shouldn't we at least go say hello?"
Whenever Theron passed...
Trainees from other sections stopped and whispered.
Their gazes were completely different from before.
Not caution.
Not jealousy.
Those eyes carried the weight of nearly four hundred lives.
Heavy.
Hot.
"U-Um...!"
It happened in the meal line.
A small trainee gathered all his courage and stood in front of Theron.
It was the boy from the valley.
"I'm Miro, from Section Eight."
He hesitated.
"Back then... in the valley..."
"Thank you for saving me."
"You don't need to thank me."
Theron answered calmly.
"I only wanted first place."
It was a carefully chosen answer.
One that would sound perfectly reasonable if any instructor heard it.
But Miro shook his head.
"Still..."
His eyes lowered.
"If it weren't for you..."
"I really might have died during that test."
He looked up.
"Because of you... I'm alive."
"Thank you."
"..."
Theron said nothing.
He simply walked past.
But behind him...
Miro bowed deeply toward his back.
Similar scenes quietly repeated throughout the training facility.
The invisible walls between sections...
Were slowly collapsing after that one night.
...Not a bad development.
Theron calmly observed the change.
Two months from now...
Nearly four hundred trainees would need to board one ship together.
This change was necessary.
However...
Three.
Theron's eyes moved.
No... four?
Outside the dining hall window.
Beneath the shadow of a roof.
Behind the training-ground wall.
Gazes hidden inside ordinary scenery followed Theron all day.
Berton's people.
Starting the very day after their private meeting...
The surveillance had tightened so openly that they barely bothered hiding it.
They're watching this obviously?
Theron almost smiled.
Trying to shake me?
Become nervous because of surveillance.
Or behave suspiciously trying to escape it.
Either reaction would reveal something.
Then the answer was obvious.
Move openly.
Morning...
Section Five training.
Afternoon...
Main building.
Night...
Library and cultivation room.
Nothing hidden.
Nothing different from yesterday.
The real plan...
Slip.
Would be hidden inside that perfectly honest routine.
This is only the beginning.
Three days later.
The key to starting the plan...
Was Isaac.
Theron being watched meant visiting other sections directly would attract attention.
But using Isaac...
Was different.
Isaac, leader of Section Three, visiting Section Five was no longer considered strange.
"Is today finally the day I get to collect my debt?"
Isaac asked the moment he saw Theron.
Theron looked up.
"Isaac."
"Do you remember what you said to me during the last test?"
"...What?"
Theron silently formed the words.
If you're planning anything insane again, call me first.
Isaac's eyes trembled.
He understood immediately.
This guy...
Had come up with another insane plan.
Isaac scratched his head.
"Looks like I'm not collecting my debt today either."
"We'll do it later."
Theron stood.
"I'm not going anywhere."
Then he lightly tapped Isaac's chest with one finger.
And walked away.
Left alone...
"..."
Isaac looked down.
A folded piece of paper had been secretly tucked into his clothes.
Late at night.
"Everyone here?"
Isaac spoke quietly while watching shadows gather in an alley behind the buildings.
Nine people in total, including him.
Roud from Section One.
Kane from Section Two.
Dergan from Section Seven.
Several others Isaac did not personally know.
Every one of them...
The practical leader of their section.
For years on Hell Island...
Something like this had never happened.
"...Wow."
Isaac looked across the gathered faces.
"They really all came."
Their expressions varied.
Curiosity.
Caution.
Open irritation.
"Hmph."
Roud crossed his arms.
"You thought everyone would come running just because you called?"
He was the leader of Section One.
Before the test...
He had been considered one of the strongest candidates in their entire generation.
"I only came to see the face."
He sneered.
"The great bastard who collected every badge during the last test."
"That great bastard is the reason the weakest people in your section are still alive."
"What?"
Isaac looked bored.
"Or did you have another way to save them, Roud?"
Roud's face turned red.
But no answer came.
Everyone here knew the truth.
Without that insane plan...
Several trainees from every section would already have disappeared.
Then...
Theron slowly stepped out of the darkness.
"Thanks for coming."
"Get to the point."
Roud frowned.
"I'm not planning to stay long."
Theron nodded.
"I called you here to talk about the next test."
"...The next test?"
"You all saw how the third test ended."
"The bottom fifty disappeared."
"The rules were overturned."
Theron's gaze moved across the leaders.
"So answer one question."
His eyes sharpened.
"Do you really think the Head Instructor will quietly let that go?"
Silence fell.
Theron had said aloud what everyone had only considered privately.
"...You're saying the next test will be worse."
Dergan spoke quietly.
"Exactly."
Theron nodded.
"The same trick won't work twice."
"The next test won't be something we can break with wooden badges."
"And the first ones cut away..."
He looked around.
"Will be the weaker trainees who escaped this time."
"..."
"So here's my proposal."
Theron spoke.
"Before the next test, raise every trainee in your sections to at least Two-Star."
"Two-Star?"
Their eyes widened.
"Are you insane?"
Roud snapped.
"Do you know how many Two-Stars we have?"
"Not even half."
"Most barely reached One-Star!"
"That's why you need to raise them."
"Easy for you to say!"
Roud's voice rose.
"You think advancement is like waiting in a meal line?"
"Standing there doesn't mean everyone gets something!"
Theron interrupted calmly.
"I know a way to speed up their growth."
The clearing instantly became quiet.
"...A way?"
"The Darkpin Mana Method."
Theron looked at everyone.
"The cultivation method all of us were taught."
"There are tricks the instructors never explained."
He continued.
"Change the depth of breathing."
"Change the order in which you circulate mana."
"Just a few corrections can nearly double the efficiency of accumulation."
"...If something like that exists, why don't the instructors teach it?"
"Because they don't know either."
Theron shrugged.
"They teach what they're ordered to teach."
"Do you really think most instructors would bother researching the Mana Method we use?"
"...Then you're saying you researched it?"
"I found some things while studying books in the Advanced Library."
Theron's expression remained calm.
"It helped me a lot."
That answer seemed to explain part of Theron's abnormal growth.
But the leaders' expressions only became more complicated.
"Why tell us?"
Dergan asked.
"If this method is that valuable..."
"Wouldn't keeping it to yourself be best?"
Isaac looked like he wanted to answer.
He knew the real reason.
He simply did not think he could explain Theron's strange way of thinking in a few sentences.
But...
Theron answered first.
"Even if I teach you, you still can't catch up to me."
"...What?"
"So I'm giving it to you because I'd rather you not die like dogs."
"What the hell?"
"This bastard's way of talking is disgusting."
"Think you're untouchable now?"
The atmosphere instantly became hostile.
Isaac stared at Theron in confusion.
Why provoke them unnecessarily?
Theron continued without hesitation.
"I'm saying it because watching us dance on the shitty board the instructors created makes me sick."
The leaders went quiet.
Theron's tone was rougher than usual.
He knew...
This was the kind of language that would reach these people most directly.
"At the very least..."
His gaze became cold.
"We should stop letting those bastards play with us."
"..."
Every leader looked away with frustrated expressions.
Because nothing Theron had said was wrong.
Roud, who had shown the most hostility, eventually asked,
"So."
"If we use this method..."
"Can everyone reach Two-Star?"
"That depends on how hard they work."
Theron's eyes cooled.
"But understand one thing."
The atmosphere became heavy.
"Anyone who fails to reach Two-Star..."
Theron paused.
"Will definitely die in the next test."
"..."
Silence.
Theron was a Special Trainee.
He frequently interacted with Head Instructor Berton.
And he had saved them during the previous test.
Those facts gave his warning enormous weight.
At minimum...
They knew Theron was not the kind of person to tell a pointless lie.
Theron handed over pieces of paper containing cultivation formulas.
"Memorize this."
Then he added,
"Don't throw the paper away afterward."
The leaders looked confused.
Theron finished.
"Eat it."
"If any trace remains, we're all finished."
"...You're unbelievable."
"Fuck."
"Seriously..."
They complained.
But every leader accepted a paper.
Then Roud spoke.
"I'm taking this, but don't misunderstand."
He glared at Theron.
"I'm not joining you."
"I'm protecting my own section."
"That's enough."
"...Hmph."
Roud left.
The other leaders gradually followed.
Each was already repeating the formulas in their head.
Eventually...
Only Isaac remained.
He gave Theron a meaningful look.
"You're planning something else, aren't you?"
Theron looked back.
"This preparation for the next test..."
Isaac narrowed his eyes.
"Half true."
"Half bullshit."
"That's the face you're making."
His instincts really are frightening.
Theron held his gaze for a moment.
Then answered calmly.
"...When the time comes..."
"I'll tell you first."
"..."
"For now, raise your section to Two-Star."
"That's the most urgent thing."
Isaac considered the answer.
Then turned away.
"Fine."
He spoke over his shoulder.
"But when that 'time' comes..."
There was no sharpness in his voice.
Only weight.
"I'm first."
"You promised."
Theron nodded.
From that evening onward...
The nights of the training facility changed.
During every spare moment before lights-out...
More and more trainees in each section began cultivating.
Of course...
Section Five had started several days earlier.
"Inhale for six!"
"Exhale for nine!"
"Hold it in the abdomen before circulating!"
"Valk! You're rushing again!"
"S-Sorry, Brother!"
Before gathering the other leaders...
Theron had already given Section Five the same formulas.
From the very night he received them...
Palcoat cut his sleep in half.
Perka and Renil checked each other's breathing while cultivating deep into the night.
No one asked why.
If Theron told them to become stronger...
There had to be a reason.
That was the kind of trust the third test had left behind.
...Sorry.
Theron quietly watched the backs of his cultivating comrades.
He could not tell them what line their growing strength would eventually decide.
That was the heaviest part of this plan.
For now...
Focus on what has to be done.
Theron's eyes grew cold as he disappeared into the darkness.
