Patriarch Calcetti also wasn't happy to hear that Arthur wouldn't participate. He was one of the first to hear about it. In fact, he heard it as soon as Arthur told his mother. Nothing that went on in the ship could escape his eyes and ears.
He had a lot to lose because of Arthur's decision, but he didn't try to convince Arthur to participate in the test.
He simply sighed when he heard that. Then he muttered to himself, "He is right. It is not worth it for him."
The test hadn't begun yet, so there was no one else in the room with him. He was alone physically, but there were others who were with him mentally.
Someone laughed in his ear and said, "How about that? It seems that you're going to lose this round. Your ace has decided not to participate in the test."
Calcetti scowled and asked, "Were you spying on that boy? You're such a creep."
"I have to spy on him, or I will lose like last time. I don't care if I am a creep. At least I'm not the only one."
Someone else joined in the conversation by chuckling and saying, "Hehehe. It seems you've lost your sharpest claw this time. In that case, I'll join this round of gambling."
Another person said, "Me too. Count me in."
Calcetti snorted and said in disdain, "I can't believe grown men and women like you would be scared of what one boy can do."
They didn't care about his disdain for them. They laughed him off and jeered at him.
Someone even said, "Since that bow won't be joining, let's open our secret gambling and join it with this one."
Then the same person asked, "What say you, Calcetti? Do you want to increase your bet?"
Calcetti didn't reply. He just gritted his teeth in anger because he was likely to lose the low-grade, third-rank weapon that he had gambled in this round of betting. There was no way he was going to increase his bet.
These powerful patriarchs had chosen to abstain from betting this time around. But as soon as they heard that Arthur wouldn't be joining the fourth test, they came out like sugar ants that had smelled sugar nearby.
Their behavior was honestly disdainful. But it is also smart.
Apparently, they even had a secret gambling pool that excluded him. They used the previous winner-takes-it-all style. They didn't tell him about it, and they still forced the one he knew about to be based on odds.
After hearing them gloat, he scoffed and ignored them. When the test began and Augustus and the rest came over to watch the test together with him, they found him in a bad mood with a scowl on his face.
The fourth test commenced a week after the rules were made public. Geltra, Arthur, Tyson, Lady Delia, and Lady Vena watched it from the ship.
They watched the test from Thompson's point of view. All of them were silent so as not to disturb the others. They would occasionally comment on what they saw, but they were mostly quiet. However, Tyson and Geltra were fidgeting.
Tyson was always exclaiming when he saw something interesting. He was enjoying himself immensely. The same couldn't be said about Geltra.
Geltra was restless. She couldn't calm down at all because it was her son that was in the test.
She couldn't sit down quietly. She had to stand and was pacing around.
As she paced, she grumbled, "I told him not to go. He didn't listen to me. He said he had to go. He said that the danger is low because he is weak. I hope he is right. I truly hope that he is right."
She was grumbling incessantly. It was irritating to those nearby trying to watch the test in peace.
What's more, she refused to be alone. She would always join them even if they moved away from her to gain some peace and quiet. But no one rebuked her.
They could understand what she was going through. They didn't like what she was doing, but no one was going to rebuke a scared mother.
As they watched, Geltra's heart was in her throat. She was always jumping in fright when there was danger or sighing in relief with her whole body when Thompson escaped danger.
She was a nervous wreck. But no one could blame her because what they saw also warranted a lot of concern.
Right from the moment that Thompson appeared in the forest of the test, he has had to escape from one type of danger or the other.
It was clear to the viewers that the test was dangerous. The forest was like the green forest. It was full of beasts that wanted nothing more than to eat any examinee that came close to them.
The beasts would chase an examinee and won't stop until they kill that examinee or encounter another examinee with more points. Examinees with more points were always hunted and killed first before examinees with few points.
So Thompson was right to believe that being weak reduced the danger that he was in. But things were more complicated than that.
In the process of escaping from a beast, if an examinee encounters another beast, the second beast will join the pursuit and won't stop until the examinee is dead or someone else with a higher priority appears.
So while the danger to Thompson was low, that was only compared to more successful examinees. Plus, this benefit won't show itself if there is no more successful examinee to divert the attention of the beasts for him.
If beasts begin to chase him and there is no one to distract the beasts, then he will be screwed. If the beasts chasing him are much stronger than him, then they might kill him before he encounters anyone to distract the beasts.
If he is surrounded or encounters a beast too strong for him, as long as someone with more points than him doesn't show up, it won't matter that he is weak and has few points.