Chapter 193 (2/2)
“The third way is to be the final member of the group to be participating. If the rest of your group is incapacitated… you will move on to the second half of the preliminaries.
“There are a few more rules. Some of you may have lied about your strength. We do not care. But know that the scales beneath you work both ways. If you demonstrate 20% greater than what is expected… you pass. If you demonstrate 10% less, at any point…. You fail.
“If the weight is pressed up too high for too long, without anyone passing, it will get heavier at a fixed rate. Since the only way this could happen is if you lied about your strength, the evaluation of all the remaining participants strength will rise accordingly. If you all rush for the 20% passage too quickly… hehehe, well it is a bad idea. Finally, should anyone fail, the number they gave for strength shall be divided evenly among the remaining, making passage that much more difficult. No matter the cause of their failure.
“Ah, there will also be a reward for the first person from each group to pass, and the last individual overall to remain. These have been chosen very carefully, and will be invaluable to spear users such as yourself. So good luck~”
Randidly frowned, mulling over the rules in his head. It was a complicated series of relationships. They each had scales beneath them. Assuming there was agreement, there would need to be at least 4 people working together to have a single person pass: three people to allow their contribution to the weight to fall, and a fourth with enough strength to press up and take up the slack. But everyone would want to get out early by demonstrating that strength, so they would push up, trying to eat up that slack. Probably to the point that the weight was too high, and would slowly increase.
So the 20% strength demonstration was just a prize to distract the group and turn against each other. If they didn’t work together, it was impossible to achieve. And from the way they described the weight… it would not be easy to hold. So people would quickly turn to the second method of passing.
Making sure that they were part of the last 20% by eliminating people around them.
In this respect, Randidly probably had a large advantage. Most of the people here didn’t have spells, and likely wouldn’t be able to do this as effectively as he. But somehow…
Randidly breathed in, and breathed out. Somehow he wanted to pass this challenge directly. He wasn’t sure who Tarnak was, but it seemed like a challenge similar to Atlas. Hold up the world. If your fellow participants failed, you would need to bear their weight. The only way to pass early was to explode at the beginning.
But Randidly suspected that strategy would be very popular. He just smiled, rubbed his neck, then slowly and methodically cracked his knuckles.
****
“What’s this, isn’t this really simple?” The male spear attendant muttered to himself. “Just push up very quickly, it’s as simple as that.”
“Ha, this is why you will always be the type who fails often.”
The male spear attendant turned, surprised that the homeless looking person in a musky leather cloak had the voice of Helen. She flashed him a stern look. “Your idea is fine. If no one else has the same idea. But if they do, and people all push up… you will push it up too high and the weight will increase. Then suddenly not only the amount you need to pass has increased, but the lowest amount you can maintain without failing. And-”
Although the male spear attendant wanted to listen to what Helen was saying, he simply couldn’t. He waved at her, desperate for her to stop, one hand pinching his nose. “Please… the smell of that leather… did you dig it out from a pile of rabbit shit…?”
Helen’s face, contrary to what the male spear attendant expected, did not darken. Instead, she smiled brightly. After several seconds of this, he smiled back, hesitant, but rather pleased, all the while covering up his nose. Did his natural charm finally win her over…?
After fiddling with the straps, Helen removed her hood, shaking out her beautiful black hair. Then she grimly walked towards the male spear attendant, the smelly and rotten scrap of leather held in her hand.
“Kekeke, you fucking asswipe. You think I don’t know how this smells…? This was my entire childhood. Let me teach you a lesson about smelly leather…”
“Noooooo-grpk!” The male spear attendant tried to struggle, but she was faster and stronger, and swiftly caught him. Some other spectators looked concerned, but then caught a whiff of the smell of rotten leather, and backed away, leaving the male spear attendant to be slowly drowned in the smell.