Chapter 8. Lero Ro and the Shinsoo veil

[This person is really strong!] Mordred immediately warned.

And Isaac immediately recognized that man as the owner of the voice that administered the previous test, even though his voice was a little different in person.

However, the furious one-armed man seemed to be unaware of this as he snorted at the intervening person. "Who's this guy? He looks like a cricket. Do you wanna die, too?! Want some pesticide?"

As Isaac wondered if the one-armed guy seemed to have lost some brain cells during the last test together with his arm, he watched in amusement as a large humanoid chicken that seemed to be the man's teammate grabbed his shoulder in a panic and tried to calm him down: "S-stop! I think he's-..."

"I'm the Test Administrator... Lero Ro," the blonde man said cooly, smoothly finishing the humanoid chicken's words.

The armless man's expression sobered when he heard this. "Test Administrator? Then you are a Ranker."

"Yes, I'm a Ranker of the Tower," Lero Ro nonchalantly replied.

"A real… Ranker!" The armless man's expression turned even more startled at those words. He then turned toward the person that he argued with and spat out: "Damn it! I'm only backing down because a Ranker is here. But remember! I'll be the one to kill you!"

Isaac observed with mild interest as the Ranker began walking back.

Bam said, "Wow, he's good. He only said a few words, but stopped them from fighting!" 

"Yeah, of course. He's a Ranker and the Test Administrator," Khun commented.

"A Ranker…? What's a Ranker?" Bam asked Khun.

"... What? You don't even know about Rankers?" Khun looked at Bam weirdly. He then looked at Isaac, but saw him stay silent and expressionless, so he began to explain instead, "Rankers are people who've reached the top of the Tower. They are assigned a Ranking every season in the Tower. And that's why they are called Rankers."

"To-to the top of the Tower?!" Bam exclaimed in surprise.

"Yeah, they're amazing. Only one or two out of thousands of Regulars get to become Rankers. Quite frankly, they are monsters. They've got crazy strength."

'One or two out of thousands of Regulars?... Regulars are already said to be the chosen ones, so becoming a Ranker is really a great accomplishment…' Isaac thought inwardly.

At that time, Lero Ro's voice sounded out again, but this time louder and clearer.

{Mic test... Regulars, over here! Please focus! I will explain the next round.}

"Hm, already?" Isaac was a little surprised.

As Isaac and the others looked toward Lero Ro that could be found standing before them, the Ranker continued, {Before that, to give you some brief information about myself. I'm your Test Administrator, Ranker Lero Ro! Nice to meet'chiu!}

Seeing the Ranker greet them while attempting to imitate a 'cute voice', the gathered Regulars sent him weird glances and cringed.

'Meet'chiu!?'

'What the hell?'

[Does that guy cosplay as Pikachu?] Even Mordred commented.

'Cosplay, Pikachu… Right, Mordred still has memories from Earth that she received from the Grail,' Isaac reminded himself, slightly amused.

Lero Ro was unperturbed by these reactions and excitedly proclaimed: {Now that you've had some time to rest, let's move on to the next test!}

{But before that, there will be a little pre-test!}

{F-Y-I, those who don't pass this pre-test... cannot take the next test!}

At this, there was a disturbance among the crowd.

"What?"

"That means... It is another elimination test!"

"What is he testing?"

Among them, Bam and Khun were also startled.

Meanwhile Isaac pondered - his Shinsoo and Magic Resistance was at A rank, but would it still be as good as Bam's?

This test should probably decide his potential for handling Shinsoo inside the Tower in some way. Rather than testing strength, it seemed to test something like talent.

He received his powers and was transported to this world thanks to a wish from a Holy Grail, so his potential better be just as good.

{Ha, ha! Don't worry! It is a really simple test! Relax.}

{Alright, let's begin... the pre-test.}

Lero Ro then raised his hand and pointed near him to make the Regulars come closer. {Come here. Closer, closer, here, here…}

As the Regulars gathered, the Ranker suddenly pushed out his hand forward. {And boom!}

With a loud sound of wind, a wave of semi-transparent light-blue energy gushed out from Lero Ro's direction as the crowd was blown away.

"Arrrgh!"

"Ugh!"

"Aaah!"

"Damn it!"

"Argh, what is this?"

Among the people blown off were also Khun, Rak, Anak and Hatsu who hurriedly tried to regain their balance upon landing.

"Is this... Shinsoo?" Khun muttered as he looked up.

{Yep, I created a barrier of Shinsoo. I compressed the Shinsoo... to make a barrier that pushed you all out-…}

At the end of his speech, Lero Ro's voice gradually trailed off as he noticed that two Regulars were actually not 'pushed out' at all - the two remained standing in place as if nothing happened.

As Lero Ro stared at these two, a ghastly expression formed on his face as if he had seen something unholy.

With the attention that he was receiving, Isaac looked back at Lero Ro somewhat awkwardly. However, he felt relieved in his heart.

He was not pushed back! He really felt nothing!

Meanwhile, under the Test Administrator's strange glare, Bam became extremely nervous as he started sweating profusely. 'Did we do… something wrong?'

[Uh, are we in trouble, Master?]

Isaac didn't reply, feeling that things will be sorted out eventually.

Following the administrator's gaze, the crowd also turned to look at Isaac and Bam. They all had similar thoughts: 'What the hell? Why were these two not pushed back?'

Lero Ro continued staring at these two silently, being lost for words.

Among the Regulars, Khun, Anak and Laure, who were more knowledgeable and experienced, appeared very curious as they looked at the two that remained. They thought, 'Just who are they?'

While everyone was silent Rak's loud voice billowed through the crowd as he pointed his long spear straight at Isaac: "Ahahahaha!!! That's my prey! He didn't even budge! Ahahaha!"

Hearing this loud outburst, the Regulars turned to him, before returning their eyes back to Isaac.

Is that person so much stronger than all of them?

But then what about that kid that's with him?

Lero Ro noted Rak, then turned toward the crowd and cleared his throat. {Cough! So it seems I made a mistake... But for now let's just continue with the explanation.}

The crowd looked at him blankly.

What was that?

{So about Shinsoo, right?…} Lero Ro smiled and then continued as if nothing happened, {As you well know, Shinsoo is everywhere in the Tower, and it plays an important role because it allows us to breathe and is the source of all life.}

{However, Shinsoo is also... the source of powerful fighting strength for everyone inside the Tower.}

{However, there are people who have adverse reactions to Shinsoo. In other words, those who can't deal with Shinsoo... are not appropriate candidates to climb the Tower.}

{The people who can pass through this Shinsoo barrier... Don't have adverse reactions to Shinsoo at least.}

{The pre-test looks like this: the teams that pass through the barrier, pass the test as well, and those who don't, fail…}

{Alright then, everyone. Please come through.}

"Wait, did you say teams? What if... One of our teammates can't pass through the barrier?" one of the Regulars asked.

{Isn't it obvious? Then that team fails.}

At those words, the crowd of Regulars protested.

"What?!"

"That's absurd! It doesn't make any sense!"

{Absurd? What is?} Lero Ro asked.

"We joined teams at the last minute! It isn't fair if I'm eliminated because of a teammate! That's just bad luck!" someone replied in an indignant tone.

{Hey, if you're eliminated, it's your fault for forming a weak team at the last minute! Why didn't you gather strong allies during the test instead? Instead of attacking each other without a second thought, like most of you did, you people should have been teaming up from the start.}

"Eh?"

"What?"

The Regulars appeared dumbfounded at this.

It was supposed to be a death match…

But was it really?

Actually, they now realized that the Test Administrator was right.

If they thought about it before and were teaming up from the start instead of fighting, then wouldn't they have a much easier time when traveling in a group?

Lero Ro slightly smirked as he saw these reactions.

The Regulars here were all chosen by Headon from among trillions of citizens of the Tower. Upon being chosen from such a large crowd, one out of billions, most believed that they were extraordinary, that they were special and that they were destined to make a name for themselves in the Tower.

As such, having entered the Tower, they rushed forward with determination and slashed out with their blades during the first test, wanting to prove themselves.

But the harsh reality was that most of them were nothing but cannon fodder!

As Lero Ro thought about it, the only reason Headon sent so many of them here might be just to help nurture the true geniuses.

The sad truth is that in the end only a select few of the most outstanding Regulars would be allowed to ascend to the 3rd floor. The quota for those who can pass this floor and climb the Tower is really quite small.

And that's also why the fairness of the tests didn't matter that much because those who were supposed to make it would make it regardless.

Lero Ro put those thoughts aside and continued:

{Besides, do you know what is the most important to move up the Tower?}

He made a brief pause and then smiled.

{It's... luck.}

{The luck of being born with talent, the luck of having a strong body, the luck of being smart, the luck of being rich, the luck of escaping from death, the luck of getting a strong teammate. The only reason you got this far... is because you were lucky.}

{So you can't say that testing luck is absurd. Stop your jabbering and just take the test, you Regulars.}

As Lero Ro finished his speech, Mordred commented, [He's just saying whatever he wants.]

'Yeah... It is actually quite absurd,' Isaac sighed inwardly.

Even if luck played a role for someone to make it up the Tower, shouldn't at least the tests be fair to not make things worse? After all, the examiners were supposed to choose the strongest and most talented candidates, not simply those who happen to pass.

In the manhwa, the green-skinned Jahad Princess Anak and the swordsman Hatsu nearly failed here just because their third teammate had a weak Shinsoo Resistance. It would be quite absurd if a Jahad Princess failed on the 2nd floor like this.

If you picked up a teammate that looked strong, had a strong body or was intelligent and seemed useful, and then got kicked out of the Tower just because that teammate happened to have a low tolerance for Shinsoo, how is that fair or reasonable?

It didn't concern Isaac, so he didn't care much, but he noticed that even the First Test was greatly flawed.

It was a free for all deathmatch with no rules.

With this kind of test design, geniuses that are among top 2-5 of the strongest Regulars here, perhaps future Rankers, could all die and be eliminated on the 2nd floor if only they were a little unlucky and bumped into the 1st strongest person, for example, a reckless killer like Endorsi.

It seemed to him as if the test examiners didn't put much thought into these tests.

However, Isaac did not speak his thoughts out loud, feeling there was no point in doing that.

"And what about these two?" Someone called out as he pointed his finger at Bam and Isaac.

Lero Ro plainly smiled at this and said, {These two have already passed.}

"What?!"

"How could they pass just like this when we were all pushed back?"

"No, this is not right. How could they be that much stronger? That little kid looks like a stick!"

{Well... It seems that I made a mistake.}

"A mistake?"

{Yep. The barrier in that part was somewhat weaker than in other places, my bad.}

"What?"

"What bullshit!"

"What is this, they passed like this because of a mistake?"

"Did they bribe the administrator?"

The people grumbled while Lero Ro kept smiling, continuing to play the fool and smiling. He said, {This can also be considered as part of their luck.}

Khun's eyes were focused as he stared at Isaac and Bam. 'Part of their luck, it's obviously a lie. We all stood together, but I was still sent flying back just like everyone else. How can their Shinsoo Resistance be that much higher than mine?'

And Lero Ro also turned to look at Isaac and Bam. 'It seems that two monsters have appeared. One more monstrous than the other.'