The third phase did not suddenly begin while everyone was asleep.
Nor did any applicants pounce on other examinees in the evening.
Two examinees did disappear, but they were disqualified after failing to show up even when the announcement told everyone to gather for the third phase.
Killua probably killed them.
Still, compared to the first and second phases, this was a fairly peaceful start.
The two crazy psychos had both gone quiet.
As soon as Hisoka got my promise to fight him, he became a harmless clown, while Illumi, transformed as Gittarackur, became fucking benevolent after Killua took care of about two people.
Crazy bastards.
Every last one of them has a screw loose in the way they find inner peace.
The third phase was Trick Tower.
It was the reverse version of Only Up: descend a fucking tall tower within seventy-two hours.
Unfortunately, since there was the condition that we had to make it down alive, diving to the ground in hopes of a better next life was not an option.
There was no elevator or staircase in sight, leaving all the examinees stranded on the rooftop.
At one point, a guy claiming to be a professional rock climber did start climbing down the wall...
"Aaaagh!"
Then a fucking enormous pterosaur ripped him apart and ate him.
Fuck. Why is something like that even here?
Was this actually the world of Toriko?
After watching that Jurassic Park VR experience, nobody else tried climbing down the wall.
At this point, only people with at least some brains left should have remained.
Anyway, we were waiting endlessly for some kind of solution to present itself when, at some point, the number of examinees began to decrease.
What?
Were only the smarter ones not supposed to be left?
Were there really bastards diving straight down?
If they wanted to go to another world, I would not recommend that method as someone who had experienced transmigration.
"Gotoh! Come over here."
"Young master?"
As I stood at the edge of the cliff chanting Amida Buddha and praying for the dead, Killua called me over.
A butler's proper disposition was to run over like a hungry mongrel whenever his master called.
I immediately went over to where Killua and Gon’s group were.
"There are five hidden doors here. I think everyone found hidden doors like these and went down through them."
So they had not been diving into the afterlife.
Well, if they had, the third-phase examiner would have stopped them, yelling, "Cut it out, you idiots!"
No wonder Hisoka and Illumi were gone too.
"One hidden door per person. Once someone goes in, the door seals shut. I think we’ll have no choice but to split up from here. Gon and I are taking this door."
I see.
So this exam was an individual assignment.
Maybe the intent was to weed out the people who coasted through the first and second phases by simply following the examinees around them.
‘But as I remember it, the main cast all moved together.’
I hated to say it, but the moment I forgot that the second phase was cooking, my memories lost all credibility.
This bastard was nothing more than a pink walnut that thought things and spewed nonsense.
In the end, I had no choice but to investigate myself and learn through firsthand experience.
"What about the others?"
"I’m fine with it! Luck is a skill too, you know."
Leorio and Kurapika also agreed to take the Anywhere Doors.
I had felt it ever since they jumped off that cliff in the second phase, but these guys had some serious guts too.
"What about you, Gotoh?"
"I am fine with it as well."
We were playing solo from here on out anyway.
What did it matter whether they asked me or not?
To be honest, whether there were pterosaurs or not, I felt like I could descend a tower this high if I reinforced myself with aura hard enough.
I could not free-fall from an airship like Chairman Netero, of course, but I could probably work my way down the wall by embedding coins in it.
But I did not want to.
If I made it down only for the next test to be, “All right, now kill each other,” I would be instantly slaughtered by Hisoka after wasting aura.
Better to take the exam honestly.
If things really went wrong, I could always withdraw.
"All right. When I say one, two, three, we go down at the same time. This is goodbye for now. Let’s meet again on the ground."
The five of us each stood on one of the five passages nearby.
One each.
We agreed to descend at the same time on the count.
"One, two, three!"
The instant we pressed down, the platforms flipped over.
"Aah!"
"That was a short farewell."
"Seriously..."
This was fucking absurd.
So that was why I remembered the protagonists all moving together.
The passages we descended through all connected to one place.
We had fallen solemnly, praying for one another’s safe return, only to wind up gathered in the same place again.
The one thing you should not unexpectedly do at a funeral: come back to life.
The one thing you should not do after saying goodbye: run into each other again at the station.
This Trick Tower apparently was not bound by such common sense.
"Damn it, no matter which one we chose, we were meant to land in the same room. Huh? There’s writing here!"
[The Path of Majority Rule. From here to the goal, the five of you must proceed by majority vote.]
It was a group project.
This brought back memories of my previous life.
There had been that pseudo-human who said her father had died, so we excused her from doing research—only for her to go to Lotte World with her boyfriend.
When I contacted her and said it seemed her mother, not her father, had died, and that I was sorry for her loss, she threw a fit.
So I just removed her name and put her Lotte World Instagram photo on the very first slide of the PPT. Good times.
By now, that pseudo-human must have become somebody’s mother too, right?
Please raise your children well, so they do not grow up to be motherless brats.
"There are timers. Does it start when we put them on our wrists?"
Just as Kurapika said, five timers had been prepared on a stone table.
We each put one on, like a watch.
"Whoa!"
A door suddenly appeared in the wall.
"I see. The door only appears when all five people are present."
"Good thing there are exactly five of us."
Is it, though?
Professor Jiboro, whom I respect, would disagree.
You would know if you tried it, but group projects do not originally need as many as five people.
One person for research. One for the PPT. One for the presentation.
Usually, three is enough.
So when you assign a group project, you end up with unnecessary divisions of labor, like two people handling research or people splitting the presentation into front and back halves.
Yet there is one reason people are usually grouped into fives anyway.
‘To cause conflict. Usually, one person out of five is trash.’
We approached the door that had appeared in the wall and read the message written on it.
[Open the door -> O. Do not open it -> X.]
See?
"The answer is obvious, isn’t it? We’re already doing majority votes, huh?"
Unfortunately, Leorio apparently had never done a group project.
There is no obvious answer in a group project. There are only creative trolls.
We all pressed the buttons on our wrists, and the door opened.
But there was something written on the wall...
[O=5 X=0}
Wow.
It even shows the voting record?
Fucking transparent and fair.
Perfect conditions for everyone to start fighting each other.
I did not know who built this tower, but they had to be exceptionally skilled at political maneuvering.
The next vote was nothing special either.
Though for the first time, our opinions split.
[Which way will you go? Right = O. Left = X.]
[O=3 X=2]
"What? Normally, you go right!"
Leorio flared up, saying he would feel uneasy if we did not go left.
Simple bastard.
I guess he really was still a teenager.
"I read in behavioral science that when humans are lost or faced with an unknown choice, they unconsciously choose the left. That means the left path would have been harder."
"I’ve heard that too."
"I-Is that so?"
But Kurapika and Killua’s consecutive comments sank him far too easily.
"O-Okay! Right! Let’s keep going like this. This is easier than I thought."
Perhaps embarrassed that he had been wrong, Leorio started walking at the front.
This made me uneasy.
It was easy now, but later on, we might get choices like sacrificing one of the five versus sacrificing two.
These versus games were always a cliché: torment humans with fucked-up dilemmas.
It was the kind of psycho setup where someone gets tied to railroad tracks for no reason.
The sort of idea some split-mouthed clown bastard would come up with.
Come to think of it, that bastard was a clown too.
Fucking clowns.
We followed the right-hand path, and before long, we reached a space containing nothing but sheer cliffs and a large square platform.
"Look, Gotoh. There’s something over there."
Across from the entrance we had come through stood five people, just like us, dressed in rags and wearing handcuffs.
Were they examinees too?
"Hey, the examinees are here. Untie us."
Apparently not. They were not among the faces I had seen atop the tower.
"We are [Trial Officers] hired by the review committee! Here, you must fight the five of us!"
Teaching assistants, then.
They must have it rough after ending up with the wrong professor.
"The contests are one-on-one, and each person may fight only once! The order is free, but you cannot pass without three victories! If you accept the contests, press O!"
"Again? We have to press O to pass anyway. What a waste of time."
No, actually, I had been going to press X.
Wasn’t it worth being curious?
About what would happen if we pressed X?
Well, if we were unlucky, we might fail, but honestly, I did not think they would go that far.
Wouldn’t they just give us another task in the end?
It was possible to pick and choose only the tasks we wanted in the first place, right?
I thought it was worth trying at least once.
So I quietly mentioned it only to Killua...
"If Gotoh thinks so, I’ll tell everyone."
You are way too eager.
"No. I merely mentioned it as one possibility. Since it is a majority vote anyway, I intend to go along with the decision."
"But Gotoh must have had a reason for saying it, right? I can persuade them. And I don’t really care if I fail."
No, this bastard.
You might not know it, but Leorio needs to pass and become a doctor.
Do you have no human heart?
Apparently, this precious little brat still did not care much what happened to anyone other than Gon.
"I have changed my mind. I would like to witness Young Master Killua’s growth with my own eyes on this occasion. If it is acceptable, may I have your permission?"
"What? Well, if that’s what you want... I guess it can’t be helped. You’d better watch closely, okay?"
Killua scratched his cheek, bashfully saying, "Can’t be helped, I guess."
I should just follow Gon’s group wherever they went, whenever possible.
Killua’s spoiled-brat rating was much higher than I expected.
This time as well, we all pressed O.
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