Chapter 4. Second Floor

Feeling an uncomfortable bright light annoy him through his eyelids, Isaac slowly awoke.

After he opened his eyes, he realized that he was laying in the grass somewhere outdoors.

Looking straight up, he saw a perfectly blue and bright sky.

'... Where am I?'

[Oi, Master, you're finally awake!]

'Saber…' Isaac thought as he looked toward Clarent that was still in his grip.

He then slowly propped up his body and glanced around.

He was in a flat plane with tall grasses around. As far as he could tell, he was alone.

He recalled what happened before this.

He was not an ordinary person like Bam, but he was still instantly knocked unconscious by that Ball and sucked in. The Ball was also made so tough, he could only pop it with a Noble Phantasm. This reminded him that the power of the beings inside the Tower could not be underestimated.

'How long was I out?' Isaac asked, inwardly calling out toward Mordred.

[I dunno. It was all darkness for me. And it was suuuper… boring. But I guess about an hour passed.]

"I see…" Isaac muttered a quiet reply.

He remembered what happened before this.

He's inside the Tower now. He killed the eel, popped the Ball and passed the first test.

Now he'd be on the Second Floor.

{Mic test! Mic test!}

At that moment, a loud and slightly excited voice of a man sounded out through the field.

{One, two, three! One, two, three!}

Isaac raised his eyebrows when he heard this and he became more focused.

Since he was now on the Second Floor, what follows is an elimination test that would happen right after.

[Huh, what's that? That voice comes from that cube in the air.]

As Mordred commented, Isaac looked up and soon noticed a yellow cube floating in the air.

After the brief pause, the voice continued speaking from the cube like from a speaker:

{Hello, everyone. All of the Regulars who have made it to the Tower… We sincerely welcome all of you to the 2nd floor, Evankhell's Floor!}

Hearing these words, Isaac looked downwards and then glanced around, thinking, 'What will happen next will be a death match. Not that I am not strong enough, but I can take this chance during the announcement to get to a better location than an open field.'

Without further ado, he began quickly walking, sword in hand, toward a rocky mound that he saw in the distance. He didn't want to stay easily displayed on a flat ground with grass only half his height.

'A hill would have been different, but this also works. What should I do here? It'd probably be best to focus on gathering strong allies and forming some kind of team of three…'

Mordred didn't comment, while the excited voice from the cube continued:

{This is Evankhell's Floor. It is also called the 'Test Floor'! Because… Here we carry out the final test to see whether you are qualified to go up the Tower.}

{Well, I will explain the details to you later. First, let's start the First Test.}

{The rule for the First Test is as follows…}

{There are 400 Regulars here. Narrow down 400 to 200. Try every possible means!}

{The test ends when the number of regulars reaches 200.}

{Ready?}

{...}

{Begin!}

Mordred commented on that, [So it's another test! Quite a brutal one! But you're quick to catch on, Master, it would be safer if we first took some cover.]

As Mordred spoke all this, and soon after the announcement ended, Isaac suddenly stopped walking as he encountered a frail-looking pre-teen boy with short dark-brown hair on his way.

The boy looked up at the sky with a dazed and worried expression while holding a black, thin needle-like weapon in his hand.

'Are you freaking kidding me?! Bam?!' Isaac looked on at the boy, feeling flabbergasted.

[Hey, Master! Isn't that the weak little boy that this woman called Yuri mentioned? His weapon is super strong too!]

At that moment, Isaac and the boy looked at each other.

After a moment's lag, a frightened expression appeared on the boy's face. 'Narrow down the 400 to 200… Try every possible means, which means…'

"-Aaaaaghhh!"

An anguished scream suddenly sounded out from the distance, confirming his suspicions.

'Right, we have to kill each other!'

Having realized his situation, the boy gripped his weapon with a panicked expression, bringing it in front of him to point its tip toward Isaac as he took a step back.

Seeing the boy point his needle at him with half-hearted determination, Isaac brought his own sword down. He smiled in a friendly manner and said, "Don't worry, I don't want to fight."

"Huh?" The boy looked at him with a surprised expression. Weren't they supposed to kill each other? Wasn't that the test?

"You are called Bam, right?" Isaac asked.

The boy blinked his eyes a few times in surprise. He asked, "You… How do you know my name?"

"I know Yuri. Come with me, it isn't safe here," Isaac said shortly as he looked around to emphasize his words, then walked over and grabbed the boy's hand, beginning to drag him away; in such an open plain they would be way too vulnerable to the attacks of snipers and archers.

After hearing Yuri's name, Bam was stunned at first and felt more relaxed as he didn't resist Isaac taking his hand.

However, before the two managed to cover any considerable distance, a tall tanned man with a large sword suddenly leaped out from the tall grasses to confront them.

The man was muscular, his hair was very long and bound into a ponytail at the back while a face mask covered his lower jaw.

Seeming to have noticed the heavily armored Isaac, the man looked at him and seemed to hesitate.

[Just a weakling. Go kill him, Master!] Mordred called out.

As if to confirm Mordred's judgment, the man quickly turned around and began running away in a hurry without saying a word.

[Coward! Go get him, Master!... Hey, what are you doing? We have to pass the test!]

Isaac ignored Mordred's anxious calls and also the man as he didn't move from his spot, and resumed dragging Bam away instead.

While looking around and walking ahead, he called toward Mordred, 'There's no point in killing him. It's a survival game, not a death match. Even if I do nothing, the others will still kill each other to lower the number to 200 eventually. It's more important to protect the boy and make allies.'

[Ah, okay... You're right, Master... Uh, my bad.] Mordred said in an embarrassed tone; she hadn't thought of that.

Meanwhile, the boy looked on with an amazed expression as the muscular man ran away, seeming to have been scared off by Isaac.

Noticing the boy looking at him with a mix of fear and hope, Isaac's heart thumped as he suddenly pulled him toward himself, his instincts warning him in advance.

It was just in time to pull the boy from a salvo of arrows that followed.

The arrows embed themselves in the ground a bit further away.

The boy saw this and his eyes narrowed in shock and fear. If he wasn't pulled away from that spot by this person, he would have ended up being skewered by those arrows!

"It's not safe here. Let's go," said Isaac and resumed leading the way.

"Oh… Okay. Th-thank you!" The boy began running after the armored man.

To get to the next floor he needed to be one of the 200 survivors, and if he followed this person he might make it!

Bang!

Not long later, a singular and loud gunshot was heard.

Suddenly recalling the webtoon, Isaac imagined the archer being killed by this shot.

He grabbed Bam and started dragging him away toward the rocky mound at a quicker pace.

Unlike arrows, gunshots would be even more difficult to deal with. Maybe it was not a threat for him, but it would be more difficult to protect Bam here.

…

"We should be safe here from any ranged attacks," Isaac said as he sat down behind a large rocky mound that provided good cover and looked at the younger and shorter boy next to him.

"Phew! Thank you…. For helping me," Bam said while catching up his breath after the running they did.

On the way, they also encountered one more huge monster that attacked them, but Isaac easily cut it in half with his sword.

"You're welcome. By the way, my name is Isaac. You are Bam, right?" Isaac extended his hand to the pre-teen boy with an amicable smile.

"Y-yes… I'm Bam, Twenty-Fifth Bam. It's the day I was born," the boy muttered as he took Isaac's hand with a shy smile.

'As expected…' Isaac thought to himself, smiling back at Bam.

At first, he felt that it was too coincidental that he met Bam so quickly, but he didn't think so anymore.

Bam and him basically started in roughly the same location, almost as if Headon wanted them to meet.

But given that at this moment Bam was really just an ordinary little boy with no special powers or strength, it wasn't even that strange. Without plot armor or someone's protection, he would simply die soon after getting here.

In canon, Khun saved and protected him. Here, it turned out to be him.

…

Elsewhere, at the same time.

After getting rid of the pest that occupied the top of the hill, a muscular 3-meter tall beast man with gray skin and an alligator-like head looked down the cliff to scout the area.

'Now, let's see… Are there any fellows worth hunting?'

Rak's eyes scanned the plains and quickly became attracted to several powerful figures.

'Hey, what's going on? There are… Oh, god…'

Rak smacked his lips in excitement.

'... A plenty!'

Then, his heart suddenly chilled from fright. '!!!'

'What is that aura? Does it come from behind that hill?'

Rak squinted his eyes.

It was powerful, overwhelmingly so!!!

As his heart turned colder and colder, he began to feel uncomfortable.

'It's too much. Let's avoid that place and find something more fitting to hunt…' Rak noted to himself, slightly nodding.

***

***

***

(AN: A small summary of the formatting:)

"Something." - is for speech.

'Something...' - is for thoughts.

[Something.] - is for thought transmission from an Ignition Weapon (Mordred) or from something similar.

{Something.} - is for voice transmission from a speaker or a Light House.

Bang! - is usually for sound effects or visual effects.