Chapter 17: Exploiting Loopholes x The Benevolent Examiner
"The Path of Choices"
Lorin frowned as he looked at the rules before him.
"What a troublesome challenge!" Lorin cursed inwardly.
It wasn't that the difficulty of the challenge was high. He was confident that even the hardest challenge wouldn't be difficult for him, but…
This challenge clearly required three people to proceed, just like how the protagonist group needed five people to begin their challenge.
Lorin scanned the room and quickly found a speaker on the wall.
"Can you hear me, examiner?" Lorin called out.
"Candidate 406, do you have a question?" A somewhat sharp voice came through the speaker.
"Does this challenge really require three people to proceed? What if we never gather three people? Are we supposed to wait here forever?" Lorin asked, frowning.
"That's right. This challenge will only begin once three candidates come to an agreement and the doors open. If you can't gather three candidates, well, that's just bad luck for you!" The examiner's sharp voice carried a hint of schadenfreude.
"Will… open the door?"
Lorin suddenly caught onto something important.
"Mr. Examiner, according to the message delivered by Beans earlier, the third stage of the Hunter Exam requires us to reach the bottom of the tower within seventy-two hours, correct?" Lorin asked abruptly.
"That's right. The content of this stage is simply to reach the bottom of the Trap Tower within seventy-two hours, as long as you don't break the rules of the tower's challenges," the examiner's voice replied.
At this, a smile spread across Lorin's face. "So, Mr. Examiner, it's not that three people are required to start the challenge, just that the doors will only open if three people make a selection, right? If I break through the door myself, that should be allowed, shouldn't it?"
Meanwhile.
In the central control room of the Trap Tower.
Examiner Leiber, who was overseeing the third stage of the Hunter Exam, paused mid-snack and grinned as he looked at a particular monitor screen,.
Reaching over to press a button, Leiber spoke directly, "No, that's not allowed. The rule of this challenge is that the doors open after the candidates make their selections. Breaking through the door would be against the rules."
At the top of the Trap Tower, in the starting room, Lorin heard Leiber's response, but he simply smiled and walked over to the wall next to the door marked Easy.
"In that case, as long as I don't open the door, I can go another way, right?" Lorin said, plunging his hand into the wall next to the door and pulling out a brick.
"After all, the condition is to not break the rules, not to follow them to the letter, correct?" Lorin turned toward the monitor and smiled.
His earlier questions had been nothing more than a way to trick the examiner into confirming that this approach wouldn't be considered against the rules.
As someone who knew the plot and how the protagonist group passed this stage, Lorin had his eyes on the walls from the start.
Although Lorin didn't understand why in the story Gon and the others had to struggle so much with weapons to break through the walls of the Trap Tower…
In reality, the walls of the Trap Tower weren't that strong.
In the story, even a criminal whom Killua easily killed had managed to break through the walls with his fingers. Lorin's strength, which exceeded two tons, made this an easy task.
Breaking a wall was as easy as pie!
Back in the control room of the Trap Tower.
Leiber was frozen in place, staring at Candidate 406 on the monitor, who had already started tearing down the wall. He really wanted to disqualify this candidate, who had found a loophole in the challenge that he had painstakingly devised.
But as a Hunter Examiner, he couldn't do that.
After all…
Whether it was Lorin's physical strength to break through the wall or his cleverness in exploiting the exam's rules, he was undoubtedly a top-tier Hunter candidate.
Out of sight, out of mind. Leiber simply stopped watching, pushing the monitor displaying Candidate 406 to the side.
There was no point in watching a candidate who had already basically passed the stage.
As the one who had designed the challenge, Leiber knew exactly how simple the Easy path was.
To make it tempting for the candidates to fight over, he hadn't set any traps on the Easy path—he had just made it a bit longer by adding a few extra twists and turns.
On the other side, Lorin noticed there was no more response from the speaker. He knew then that this challenge was no longer a problem for him.
With just a few swift moves, Lorin dismantled the wall beside the door, creating a large hole, and walked straight onto the Easy path.
Not long after Lorin had left, with a dull thud, another Hunter candidate dropped into the room.
Then…
Staring at the large hole beside the Easy path and listening to what sounded like a spiteful explanation of the rules from Examiner Leiber…
This candidate fell into deep confusion.
According to the rules, they needed three people to open the door. But now that one person had sneaked through, how were they supposed to gather three?
Without three people, how would they open the door and pass the test? Were they supposed to break through the wall too?
The candidate stared at the fifty-centimeter-thick stone wall with a look of despair.
"No"
"Big brother, come back! Big brother, I support you taking the Easy path!"
…
On the Easy path.
Lorin had already walked five kilometers through the winding path and arrived at the doorway to the next floor.
Before opening the door, Lorin glanced back in confusion.
"Strange, it sounded like someone was shouting?"
But he quickly shrugged it off.
It was probably just noise from other candidates passing the test. Lorin remembered that in the story, the protagonist group had been chased by rolling boulders, so it wasn't unusual to hear some noises through the walls.
Thinking this, Lorin stepped into the next level, eager to continue down the Easy path.
Hmm.
The Easy path couldn't have been more to Lorin's liking. Not only were there no traps, but it also took numerous winding turns, deliberately extending the distance.
Wasn't this a perfect place for him to grind experience?
The examiner was truly a kind-hearted person!