Saintess Summons Skeletons-Chapter 690: Neutral balance

Er’Gakk teleported everyone back together, arranging them in a semicircle, like this he watched over the remaining people.

“Now That Only Serious Contestants Remain, How About Some Fun Activities?”

Nobody spoke as they all stared at the Kleptra.

“Let Me See… There.”

Moon?!

In front of the group, Er’Gakk had summoned a stone statue of Moon’s humanoid form with her strange flat face, her eyes covered by a blindfold. One of her arms was behind her back while the other held a weighing scale.

“This Will Make Thing Fun! This Statue Of Moon Likes Good Thoughts. Be Careful From Now On. No Bad Thoughts!”

No bad thoughts? What’s a bad thought?

What’s a good thought? I’m going to win, good thought?

Slowly Moon’s statue rotated, its stone base scraping against the ground, until it faced one of the contestants to Sofia’s right.

Does this guy have bad thoughts?

Maybe I should just stop thinking?

One of the plates of the scale started to fall, as if weighed down by the man’s thoughts.

The form of the statue flickered. With a crunchy noise, the head of the man to Sofia’s right caved in, brain matter and blood flowing out of the crushed skull.

Ahah… One fewer contestant, yay…

The base of the statue’s scale was painted in blood, what had happened was pretty obvious, and it had gone too fast for Sofia to even notice anything other than a quick flicker of the statue.

“Bad Thoughts Are Bad,” Er’Gakk said, disapprovingly shaking his disturbing head, “I Will Go Prepare The Next Event! Stay Right There,” he announced before disappearing.

I see…

The statue spun more, it faced Sen.

Sen’s expression remained neutral. The statue faced his way for a few seconds, before turning toward another contestant. That contestant flinched when the statue stopped looking their way. The scale the statue held moved.

That must have been a bad thought…

More blood covered the base of the scale.

Did Sen willingly draw the Statue’s attention before? That might be a smart way to see how much ‘bad thought’ you can afford to think and what even counts as that in the first place.

A dangerous gamble, but it looks like it paid off. Good for him.

If that person flinching got killed, maybe they internally cursed at the having drawn the statue’s attention? What a strange statue.

Sofia intently stared at the statue.

So criticising the statue itself is not ‘bad’. Unless ‘strange’ is not strong enough to be bad.

I have a theory but I don’t want to be like Sen. Since nobody is speaking…

Sofia loudly cleared her throat, grabbing everyone’s attention.

“You can give up now. All of you,” she said out loud, doing her best to sound as haughty and disdainful as possible. “You already know I’m better. My team is the strongest. I’ve even defeated the Saint of Strength. We will win. You have no chance. You can just give up already.”

The statue did not even take the time to rotate. Three contestants died.

Woah! Three of them?! I never knew I was this proficient at inducing bad thoughts.

So if I understand the rules correctly, we just need to put a positive spin to everything we think. Pretty damn easy.

“I will redeem my honor, in due time,” Tartaros commented after glancing at the dead contestants, one of which had been his teammate.

“It was a good fight,” Sofia commented, “What did you think of it?”

“A learning experience,” he answered without saying more.

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“Will you fight me next?” Saria asked, looking at Tartaros. As she did, she walked out of the spot she had been initially teleported to, she was the first to do so.

Right, no reason to stay in place.

After the initial tension had passed, and now that it was clear that they could move and speak without anything happening, the tense standoff between the statue and the contestants was basically over. Groups formed, and started ‘happily’ discussing either the trial in general or the current event. As long as nobody thought bad thoughts, the statue was only that.

Er’Gakk came back some thirty minutes later, absolutely shocked by the sight he discovered.

The empty space in front of the statue was now occupied by bone tables, where the contestants were playing with bone dice and cards. There were fifty people left of the original sixty.

Everyone heard a series of loud bangs as the statue disappeared. It repeatedly bashed its scale on top of Er’Gakk’s head, to no avail.

“Thinking negative thoughts, boss?” Saria asked the Kleptra, looking up from her hand of cards.

“What Is The Meaning Of This?! You Play Without ME?!” he said, an insectoid arm grabbing and crushing the statue to dust. “Unforgivable. You Will Not Get Any Explanations On The Rules From Now On. Suffer.”

The ground disappeared, and everyone started falling, except for Er’Gakk and Sofia.

She had actually been sitting on the air with [Dodge - Me] so the removal of the ground and her chair was of no matter to her, she watched the others fall down toward a sea of white clouds far below.

Er’Gakk stared at her.

“Don’t mind me, I will follow…” Sofia said, deactivating her ability.

Without warning, the Kleptra struck. Pestle just barely managed to react, disappearing into the bone storage, but Sofia was too slow. Her physical form was pulverized, VPPV barely saving her, leaving her form as nothing but a glowing mass of bloodlight around a floating mana heart.

Don’t come, Pareth.

A bit of an unfair end but we knew it was a possibility, just focus on scoring, you three can get first place without me.

Pestle came out again, no longer wearing the sports clothes as they couldn’t enter the painted halls, she caught Bookie’s book form before it could fall too far from Sofia. Currently unable to fly due to the event’s restrictions, she entered the painted halls again right before she was too far from Sofia and exited again, reappearing near Sofia’s mana heart and latching onto it.

“Klepra stupid and dumb!” she fumed, pointing a finger at Er’Gakk, “Dumb and stupid!”

Pestle…

The fairy’s provocation was sure to make the situation worse, Sofia thought, but surprisingly, the Kleptra did not react. In fact it seemed like his attention was held by something else.

Since Sofia was now solely relying on her mana senses to observe her surroundings, she noticed something she had missed before, a weirdly stable rectangular zone of mana in front of Er’Gakk’s head.

Is this what he’s focused on? A system window maybe? It’s all blurry… Maybe…

Sofia froze time in the toybox, everything revealing its true nature as a simulation made entirely of mana. She observed the rectangle under this form, discovering that it was not the only one, in fact, several such rectangles were everywhere around Er’Gakk. System windows meant to manage the trial.

Oh woah!

He just has toggles?

‘No Fly’

‘No ground’

‘Skybox’

‘Flood’

‘Clip’?

Would be funny if I could interact with those. But that seems unlikely… What does the one in front of his face say?

Sofia had to focus to read the words, looking at them from behind and at a weird angle.

‘Er’Vord says: Booo Gakk! You suck! You suck! You ruin the show!

Ar’Mirr says: LAME.

Er’Etek says :Kill!

Ar’Zoth says: Fairy is riiiIIIiiight. Gakkkkkk stuuuUUpid. No loooOve.

Er’Arch says: -100 Respect

Er’Zgat says: Too impulsive for the job, as usual.

Ax’Peha says: We are disappointed.’

Er’Zgat? That’s the Seraph! Is that Cinthia’s chat but with Kleptran viewers?!

The Kleptras sound… Strangely reasonable?

It looks like they also think it was unfair.

I’m not quite dead yet, though. I also have the runes, even if it’s dubious whether they would activate here…

Ers and Ars and Ax… Is the first part of their name some kind of family name?

No, grandma said they don’t really do family… Social rank, maybe? They’re supposed to have royalty. Either way, good to know that I have a relatively good standing with them, I guess? Better than the other way around…

All these people know me and my entire skillset now… Life after this trial isn’t going to be the same… I can always go hide on the moon or in Zangdar for a while…

Feeling her control over the stopped time start to slip, Sofia tried one more time to fiddle with Er’Gakk’s toggles, but she failed again, and time started to flow normally again. Pestle growled at Er’Gakk like an angry dog, while the Kleptra was focused on his chat window.

Er’Gakk groaned. Sofia started to feel strange but she could not really do anything about it. Her body started to rebuild itself around her mana heart layer by layer.

He caved to the social pressure?!

Pestle seemed to try to say something but she could no longer make a sound for some reason, so she just returned to the painted halls to let Sofia’s body reform.

As soon as her bones were healed, Sofia summoned her bone armor to avoid appearing naked, as her sport clothes had been obliterated by Er’Gakk’s strike. She opened her helmet after she was fully healed and regained her senses.

I wonder what the Serpahs think about all this… There’s an opportunity here… A bit risky but…

“Thank you for this second chance. Plus one hundred respect,” she announced with a thumbs up directed at Er’Gakk before letting herself fall.

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