SSS Awakening: I Can Class Change at will - Chapter 242 The Ten Gates
Chapter 242 The Ten Gates
The silence that followed was suffocating.
Ten gates for ten awakeners. One S-rank beast per person.
A trial that guaranteed casualties, possibly total team wipe out, if Moon’s reading was accurate. Kael spoke for the first time in a while, “There might be another interpretation we’re missing. The phrasing is deliberately vague. ‘One has chosen ten’ could mean one entity selected ten challenges, not necessarily that ten individuals must face them separately.”
“‘To free one is to free none,'” Reid added thoughtfully. “That could mean the gates are linked, that completing them in the wrong method fails the entire trial. Not necessarily that we split up.”
Moon listened to the alternative theories but his instincts kept returning to the most straightforward reading.
It fit too perfectly with the numbers, the warnings, the entire structure of this trial. But he also recognized the devastating consequences if he was wrong and they committed to his interpretation.
Or worse, the devastating implications if he was right.
“How long do we have to decide?” Caleb asked, looking around the chamber, his eyes searching the walls and ceiling for any indication of a countdown mechanism. “Do you think there’s some sort of visible timer, a countdown, anything that tells us how much time we have?”
Grant shook his head slowly. “Nothing obvious that I can detect. But ‘this place does not reward the patient’ suggests time is already working against us just by standing here analyzing. Every moment of hesitation could be counted as failure to act within time.”
Moon stared at the ten blue gates with a thoughtful expression, continuing to work through permutations and possibilities even as the team tried to crack the code.
After ten tense minutes of attempting to decipher alternative meanings in the text, cross-referencing phrases, and debating interpretations, the team finally decided on their next course of action.
They voted to proceed with Moon’s interpretation as the most logically consistent reading of the tablets’ warnings.
At least, most of them did.
Two members rejected the conclusion entirely: Nina and Mara.
Nina’s rejection was vehement. “No way! Absolutely not! With this interpretation, Mara is guaranteed dead! Are you guys completely stupid? Killing our only healer means permanently eliminating our sustainability for the rest of this gate! This isn’t happening!”
She pointed accusingly at Moon, who stood calmly in the face of her building tantrum.
“Besides, why are we automatically accepting his interpretation as a universal truth? He’s been wrong before, disrupted our formation, nearly got people killed!”
“Because it’s the most logical conclusion based on the available text,” Moon responded, his tone betraying no emotional reaction to her hostility. “We can’t afford to leave gates unopened or attempt partial completion. We don’t know what sort of penalty mechanism triggers if we violate the trial’s requirements, but the warnings suggest it would be catastrophic.”
“I don’t care about your logic!” Nina’s voice rose sharply. “This is insane! What kind of penalty could possibly be worse than deliberately sacrificing our healer? It’s better to face whatever consequence comes as one unified team than to knowingly send Mara to certain death!”
She gestured dramatically toward Mara, who stood slightly apart from the group with a pale face and trembling hands, looking like someone who’d just received a terminal diagnosis.
The team was sending her to die after all, and everyone knew it.
‘Wait…’ Moon’s thoughts shifted unexpectedly. ‘She might actually have a valid point. This aggressive woman might have accidentally stumbled onto something useful.’
‘If the penalty for incomplete gate clearing is to face additional S-rank beasts as a team, that would actually be better for me personally. I need as many S-rank kills as possible for my evolution requirements. Forty-six more targets. If the penalty spawns multiple high-tier threats that we face together, I can contribute to numerous eliminations and accumulate lives rapidly.’
The risk-reward calculation suddenly looked different from his individual perspective.
“ARE YOU GUYS SERIO—” Nina’s escalating shout was abruptly interrupted.
“I agree with you,” Moon stated calmly, his words cutting through her building rage.
“You do?” Nina’s eyes widened in shock, her mouth hanging open mid-sentence as she processed what she’d just heard.
Moon, who she’d been antagonizing for the entire operation, who she’d blamed for every small problem, was actually agreeing with her position?
“It’s better to face the consequences as a unified team rather than splitting up to solo challenges. Although it’s not certain that the beasts behind these gates are all S-rank, the probability is extremely high given that we’ve only encountered two S-rank specimens among hundreds of A-rank creatures so far. The gate clearly has more high-tier threats waiting.”
Nina blinked several times, struggling to adjust to this unexpected alliance. “Exactly! You finally have a functioning brain for once.”
Moon ignored her reflexive insult and turned to address the full team. “Here’s what we do: Mara and Nina will enter one gate together as a pair. They’ll eliminate whatever beast waits inside, then return here immediately. Once they’re back, we’ll understand concretely what the penalty mechanism is and how it manifests. Then we can deal with it accordingly as a prepared team.”
Nina’s frown returned immediately, suspicion replacing her momentary satisfaction. “Why is it only me and Mara entering? Why don’t the rest of you also complete other gates simultaneously while we’re fighting?
This way we can kill more beasts by the time the penalty arrives.”
Moon sighed with visible patience wearing thin. He’d briefly thought Nina had finally started engaging her sound reasoning, but apparently that had been a once in a life time event.
“Because most of the team needs to remain fresh and ready to face whatever penalty triggers,” he explained as if speaking to a child. “If all of us fight whatever beasts are behind these gates right now, we’ll be exhausted, injured, depleted of mana and resources. Thus, we’ll have dramatically lower chances of surviving whatever consequence the trial imposes for our approach. By sending only two people initially, we maintain eight fresh combatants ready to respond to the penalty’s manifestation.”
Nina gritted her teeth but nodded reluctantly. The logic was sound even if she hated admitting Moon was right about anything.
“If you don’t want to accompany the healer, someone else can volunteer,” Moon offered with perfect neutrality. “Nobody is forcing you to take this risk. I’ll go instead if the team prefers.”
Nina’s pride flared immediately. “No. I’ll go.”
She couldn’t back down now without looking cowardly in front of the entire team, and her friendship with Mara genuinely compelled her to be the one guarding the vulnerable healer.
Grant looked between Nina and Mara, then at the ten blue gates with their ominous stone guardians.
“Alright. Nina and Mara will enter the first gate together. Everyone else maintains position here, ready to respond immediately to whatever happens next.”
He fixed both women with a serious stare.
“Fight smart, not reckless. Protect each other. And come back alive so we can figure out what we’re really dealing with.”
Nina nodded firmly, her hand already moving to her sword.
Mara took a shaky breath, trying to calm herself.
Moon watched them approach the leftmost blue gate, curious about the penalty and what it entails. Before their eyes, Nina and Mara stepped into the gate. And before their eyes, the gate vanished, but the head of the spider remained.
“Just like we thought…we can’t simply hope of killing whatever lay within that gate, then returning to enter and help the others with their fights…” Reid muttered, looking at the gate disappearing, removing any thoughts of external help.
**
