Am I free?

Rayo: Still in the throne room, I gazed out the window to behold the magnificent landscape. [Karagi!, Would you allow me to ask you a question? What if I were to offer you the possibility of erasing your past mistakes, would you do it? I'll let you choose after you've heard me out.]

Rayo: ["It's the story of two farmers. One day, they discovered a water source, so they decided to dig a river to their respective farms. The first one, as he dug, the stones on the edges fell to the bottom, while the other dug perfectly without any imperfection or stone. After finishing and opening the water source, the second was surprised because the water did not reach his farm, while the first had water flowing easily. Simply because the fallen stones formed a dam, preventing the water from going underground."]

Rayo: [Here, the water represents your life, the act of digging represents your actions, the farm symbolizes your goals, and the stones represent your mistakes. The first river shows the importance of mistakes in life because erasing them would be like erasing oneself. The second river shows that in life, if everything were perfect, we wouldn't progress. As the quote goes, 'We don't seek perfection, but what we can perfect.']

Rayo: [But the story doesn't end there. After the second farmer noticed that the water was passing through the stones, he filled his entire river with them until the water stopped flowing. But as the proverb says, "Mistakes are not solutions but lessons."]

Rayo: [What do you think, Karagi? If you hadn't tried, you wouldn't have known if it would work.]

He turned towards the exit, sheathing his sword as he declared,

Karagi: [You're not wrong, but I'd like to ask you one last question!]

Rayo: [With pleasure!]

Karagi: [And what if you hadn't stopped it with your hand, what would have happened?]

Rayo: [My answer can be summed up in one word, "nothing," interpret it as you will.] After hearing, understanding, and assimilating what I meant by "nothing," he took a deep breath until his chest reached his chin, then left to deal with the participants who had come. Hori followed calmly without saying a word, while I turned my gaze to see the beautiful landscape through the window.

The first phase is about to begin; it will take place in room number 1. The number of participants is 4990, all of them were seated on a chair with a small desk, a sheet, and a pencil. Hori was in another room, holding another microphone. The first phase will proceed as follows: Hori will pose a riddle, the participants will have 5 minutes to talk to each other, then they must write down their answer with name and surname. Supervisors will collect the answers, Karagi and other examiners will review them, then Hori will announce the names of those who did not answer correctly. The others will be disqualified, simple, isn't it?

It begins! Hori announces the first question:

Hori: [What is so fragile that saying its name breaks it?]

Rayo: You could hear the pencils hitting the tables, you could see them thinking, you could see that few of them showed satisfaction with their answer, but where am I? That, you couldn't know. The supervisors began to collect the sheets one by one, then Karagi and the others corrected them, until a man arrived and handed a stack of sheets to Hori, who began to announce the names of the qualifiers. It's only the first riddle but the number of qualifiers is insignificant, to be more precise, there are only 20 participants left out of 4990.

Hori continued,

Hori: [Among the 20 qualifiers, no one had the correct answer!]

Rayo: Meanwhile, the 4970 participants left the room, and I have a question for you. In your opinion, who wrote the scale? It was indeed me, and in your opinion, what is the correct answer? Normally, the correct answer would be silence because by saying its name it breaks, but not here. In short, whatever your answer, you would have been eliminated! Now, to make it longer, let me start by listing the flaws of this first phase. The first one is that we announce the name of the one who didn't fail rather than the one who got it right. The second one is that participants have 5 minutes to talk among themselves. The third one is that they have to write a full name and surname, not just their own. Now that we have all the ingredients, I'll put you in a situation. First, you don't even need to hear the question. Second, during the 5-minute discussion, you have to find the full name of a participant and not disclose yours. Third, you have to write a totally wrong answer and lastly the full name of one of the participants. Since you will have respected the fact that you must write an answer and a full name, the fact that your name is not on any sheet qualifies you directly for the second phase.That's my plan to keep only the elite of Madina. Regarding the other participants, I asked Karagi to take those who are 14 years old or older and see who has the potential to join the army, and I have to prepare for the worst.

narrator: {Karagi didn't leave directly to test them but joined Hori in a room for a discussion.}

Karagi: [Well Hori, did you see it?]

Hori: [Yes, without a doubt!]

Karagi: [And did the other one come?]

Hori: [As expected.]

Karagi: [Do you think it will work?]

Hori: [Impossible to know until we try.]

Karagi: [And to think that our plan is going as planned.]

Hori: [In your place, I wouldn't be so confident and comfortable. Don't forget that the other one can kill us at any moment.]

Karagi: [Indeed, he far exceeds our physical and perceptual capacities.]

Hori: [Have you ever wondered what the traitor is doing now?]

Karagi: [Sir Zighko?]

Hori: [You will never change your mind, it's understandable but beware if you get in our way.]

Quote: "If you're not with me then you're against me."