Since I wouldn’t become smarter any time soon, I decided to start the challenge.

“Yes, you can start the challenge.”

“You are fighting against a monster, and then you realize you aren’t strong enough to kill the monster, what will you do? Will you fight until death? Will you surrender? Will you kill yourself?”

Whoa… those options were pretty limited. I would rather not choose any of them; I would end up dying anyway. I would instead explode the monster’s head with my magic arrows. But, it seems that was a general question which ignored the skills and weapons of the survivors. I was pretty sure the others had to answer that very same question.

“I will fight until death.”

My life was on the line, but I didn’t hesitate in choosing that option. I used my pride as a basis, but even so, I was confident that was the correct answer. I didn’t know who or what have caused this whole incident, but that only happened for one single reason: to make us fight. We even received crazy powers, items, and weapons as a reward for our struggles.

“Congratulations, you chose the right answer.”

I sighed in relief, although I frowned because that voice congratulated me, but I couldn’t feel real feeling behind it. In any case, that question had been incredibly easy; I thought that I would have answer question about something more specific like math or physics.

"You and two other survivors are fighting against a powerful monster; suddenly, the monster attacks and heavily wounds the other two survivors. What will you do? Will you fight and try to kill the monster by yourself? Will you sacrifice yourself and give your allies the chance to escape? Or will you kill your allies?"

I guess I was wrong about the quiz; the questions weren't just about random things it was about fighting and survival. Again the questions were pretty limited, but that question seemed pretty easy as well. I wasn’t a hero, I wouldn’t give my life for random survivors, and I wouldn’t kill other survivors as long as they don’t point their weapons at me.

“I will fight and kill the monster alone.”

“Congratulations, you chose the right answer.”

Maybe I wasn’t in trouble; the questions were pretty straightforward. And until now, all the answers had something in common.

“You killed a powerful most all by yourself and obtained a massive amount of evolutions coins, using those coins you can learn a powerful skill but other survivors need more powerful weapons to fight the monsters which suddenly got stronger. What will you do? Will you learn the powerful skill? Or will you create more powerful weapons to the other survivors?”

Now things got a little complicated. If it were me from one month ago, I was pretty sure that I would share those coins with the other survivors. But now I wanted strength, and I wouldn’t share with anyone the things that I had earned alone. That would only make me waste time and delay my progress. Although I gave to the others, the items, weapons, and vehicles of those who were being controlled by Ann. I only did it because it would make me waste too much time searching and collecting them. Besides, they cleaned the battlefield, so they had the right to be rewarded.

“I will learn the powerful skill.”

“Congratulations, you chose the right answer.”

It seemed that I was mistaken; I thought the thing the answers had in common was the wish to fight. But in reality, it wasn’t about that.

“You are the leader of a group, and one member of your group ran away in the middle of a hard fight, after the fight you and your group caught him. What will you do? Will you kill him? Or will you banish him from the group?”

“I will kill him.”

“Congratulations, you chose the right answer.”

As I thought, the correct answer could be any of those options. I only had to answer what I indeed would do in that situation; I couldn’t lie to myself.

“Final question. You and your best friend are arguing about a weapon you two obtained after killing another survivor, he gets angry and draws his weapon ready to fight and kill for what he wants. What will you do? Will you kill him? Or will you let him take the weapon for himself?”

“I will kill him.”

“Congratulations, you finished the first challenge. The first challenge was completed.”

Soon after that, I reappeared in front of the tower. I looked around me, and I saw the confused faces of Claire and Harry, the other survivors were there as well. But, I was pretty sure our numbers had decreased. Twenty-one of the one hundred nine survivors had vanished; those were the ones who didn’t notice the objective of that quiz. It was to make us realize what kind of person we were.

I already knew my flaws, so, I wasn’t worried about the fact that I was a selfish and cold person. Claire, Harry, and the others seemed fine, but Sandra and Lucius looked a bit depressed. Those two were the oldest and less idealistic, so they had to say with their mouth what kind of person they were. Most of the other survivors also looked depressed, and even though that wasn’t surprising, I was a bit perplexed. It wasn’t a crime being selfish or being ruthless against traitors.

“Let’s return,” Sandra declared.

We lost twenty-one survivors, and we couldn’t even bring their bodies with us, and though the quiz didn’t wound the other survivors, they suffered massive mental damage.

The survivors who stayed in the hotel didn’t have many reasons to celebrate either; we didn’t fight inside the tower, but, we lost more than twenty survivors. And we had to face more challenges. The depressing atmosphere inside the hotel returned, but I just ignored because I had better things to do with my time. With the help of my secret army, I brought the corpses of those mutant lizards which I killed. Hopefully, that would be enough to fill Silver’s stomach and make his wounds disappear.

We were in a race against time, we all would die in forty-eight days if we don’t reach the last floor of that tower, but Sandra and the others decided to only go to the tower again in three days. We would use those three days to strengthen ourselves and also mourn the loss of the survivors who died.

Even though the day had just begun, I decided to spend the rest of the day meditating and creating magic arrows. It would be more efficient hunting at night alongside Silver, he would deal with the skeletons, and I would kill the other monsters. Claire and the kids won't notice anything if I disappear in the middle of the night using the skill teleport. But when night came, to my surprise, Claire noticed that I was planning something.

“You are planning to sneak out, aren’t you?” Claire asked.

“What are you talking about?”

I tried to play dumb, but I was horrible at acting. Besides, Claire was far smarter than me, and I was a simple guy.

“We won’t follow you, but we will keep an eye on you,” Claire said, showing one of the mini-helicopters. I’m sure that you just want to move your body a little. So it’s okay if we use those.”

“Why are you trying to be so cooperative all of a sudden?”

“It’s not what you think,” Claire said, showing a fed-up expression. “Frank wants to see those skeletons, and we can’t exactly take the kids with us during the day thanks to the hot weather. And we won’t take the kids to the tower, but it’s not like we can just lock them here forever. Besides, this is a good opportunity to make the children understand how dangerous the city is at night.”

“They didn’t saw the new monsters yet? We have the tower for that. And can they see in the dark with those toys? They will end up hitting Silver or me if they only put heat vision glasses in front of those cameras.”

“No, they won’t be able to see the mutant lizards,” Claire explained. “That’s your job, but they have flashlights, and they will attack the skeletons. Just don’t go too far away, or they will end up using all their MP faster. If you want to hunt for a few hours, just stay around the hotel.”

It was better than just leaving the hotel using a lot of MP. Besides, there were too many skeletons around the hotel; even Silver wasn’t enough to destroy all of them. And since the tower was creating them regularly, it was better to kill them before their numbers become too high.

“All right then. What are you going to do?”

“I will stay here with then and meditate,” Claire answered. “But first, I want you to tell me what options did you chose.”

“Do you mean this morning inside the tower? I chose only the first options.”

Even though I answered without any hesitation, Claire didn’t show any surprise; she only seemed a bit sad. I wish that I could be that naïve and idealistic, things would be so simple for me.

I left Claire and the kids behind, and I headed toward the entrance gate been followed by ten noise mini-helicopters. But when I looked at those toys, I noticed that they weren’t only mini-helicopters anymore. There were mini-helicopters, mini-planes, mini-dragons, and flying teddy bears. I sighed when I looked at those. I rarely looked at their toys when I was in that room because I was too busy creating new arrows.

Although those toys looked silly, they had high firepower and were really useful. They were more powerful than conventional machine guns, and they could be reloaded at any moment. The kids just have to push a button, and their MP would be sucked to create the ammo. With those toys, the kids were more powerful than any other survivors, with the exceptions of the council’s members and me of course. That said, Claire put some restrictions on the kids’ weapons to avoid disasters. The survivors couldn’t use their weapons and skills inside the hotel, but she also made them able to recognize humans and unable to aim at them. In any case, they would be useful, as long as the mutant lizards don’t destroy them.

I thought that I already enough surprises for the night thanks to Claire’s sudden cooperation, but that was just the first surprise. I found Harry, Rose, and Sarah near the entrance door, and it seemed they were preparing to hunt. I was pretty sure that was the first time they would try something like that.

“Hey, Ethan,” Harry said, waving his right hand. “Are you going to hunt some monsters too? Why don’t you join us?”

“Why are you guys here? I thought you guys used the nighttime to plan our future actions.”

“Mom said that we didn’t have many things to plan,” Harry answered with his head down. “She said that she will organize the files of those who died by herself.”

“That doesn’t explain why you are here.”

“We have been relying too much on Sandra,” Rose answered with her arms crossed. “She is always leading us, and because of it, she received a shock after our losses this morning. So, we decided that we should hunt as much as possible to prevent more losses and to lessen the weight on her shoulders.”

I didn’t think that was the case; she probably was feeling depressed because of her answers. But, it wasn’t like they were doing something stupid because of a wrong impression. A day without hunting made they feel restless, and since Claire learned the meditation skill to get rid of her only weakness, which was her MP, they decided to take some risks to grow in strength. They also wanted to become strong by themselves, and that was probably why they didn’t invite me earlier.

“This is surprisingly imprudent coming from you three, do you guys have a death wish or something? I don’t see any of you carrying those heat vision glasses.”

“No one will die, as long as I am nearby, no one will die,” Sarah said like it was a matter of fact.

I didn’t remember Sarah being that confident, her healing skill was a lot more efficient and faster than before, but only that wasn’t enough to make someone feel so confident. Although Sarah didn’t seem like she was being full of herself, she was only saying that we could count on her. I guess she had many reasons to feel so confident; after all, she could heal most wounds in a matter of seconds.

“Well, this is none of my business. If you guys can come with me, then feel free to do it. Ten others are already following me after all. But you two should stay on Silver’s back to avoid major problems.”