Chapter 268

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Chapter 268: Position and Judgment

After joking around with Turtle in the kitchen, Lolth finished drinking the calming soup.

Noticing that it was almost time to wrap things up, Lolth returned to the interrogation room in the Torture Tower, dedicated to the United Kingdom of South Sotua.

After opening the door, the first thing Lolth noticed about the changes in this room, besides the deep and serious atmosphere unique to an examination room, was the expressions on the faces of the mercenaries.

Apart from the worried faces, the more noticeable change was…

His cheeks were all swollen and puffy.

Lolth looked at this strange scene, unsure of how it happened. She then turned to Tina beside her, pointing at the faces of the mercenaries and whispered a question.

"What’s going on here? Are they slapping each other or themselves to stay awake because solving problems is too painful?"

Tina replied to Lolth with a calm expression.

"Ah… this is because, dear Lolth, they often break your rule of ‘no talking,’ so I had to give them some warnings and punishments."

As Tina said this, another mercenary, who seemed to be counting something with the tip of his pen, showed a look of pain.

"Two hundred eighty-seven… two hundred eighty-eight—dang it, why am I still twelve words short! How am I supposed to come up with those twelve words?"

As soon as he finished speaking, he received a sharp hit from a vine.

"Smack!"

The mercenary was hit right in the cheek by Tina’s magic, swelling up instantly and letting out a painful grunt.

"Alright… I understand."

Lolth watched this scene, feeling a bit strange and also questioning things in her mind.

There is no doubt that this Elf Princess is a "freak," but is she a masochist or a sadist?

Watching the vines whip, she must either be very skilled or very talented.

In the midst of this small interruption and brief contemplation, the final test time quickly passed in a flurry of frantic writing, mixed with complaints and the sharp sounds of the vines whipping.

When the time was up, Lolth turned off the magic device on the ground, "Heavenly Feelings," and put it away in her space magic bag. Then, she took out a white horn and ceremoniously called out.

"The test time is over. Please everyone stop writing. If anyone continues, it will be seen as a withdrawal from the test—please make sure your name is written on the test paper. I will collect the papers."

Two hours was plenty of time, and each mercenary felt the invisible pressure of "not finishing might lead to something very bad," so even though the number of questions was a bit overwhelming, they completed it smoothly.

After all, these questions may be strange, but they are meant to test their character, values, and thoughts, not their knowledge level, and answering them isn’t so hard.

So when Lolth said this, all the mercenaries put down their pens, feeling a sense of relief as if it was "finally over."

For them, even completing adventure tasks that are much harder than their own level feels less tense and stressful than these two hours.

Sheet after sheet of parchment flew back from in front of them into Lolth’s hands, turning into a thick stack again.

After stacking together the exam papers for one hundred sixty people, it was still quite thick, enough for a teacher to grade late into the night, catching the attention of a passing student who felt moved.

But Lolth was not an ordinary teacher; after finding a chair to sit down, she placed the one hundred sixty sheets of parchment in front of her and began grading and commenting on them.

For Lolth, this was a piece of cake.

With a spiritual strength and mental power far beyond ordinary people, she could instantly break down Forbidden Spell Level spatial magic formulas, let alone grade a few exam papers that she created herself.

Since this was not a "test", but merely a "quiz", Lolth’s grading method was not about giving scores.

By using multiple-choice questions, a simple outline of each answerer’s "basic personality" type was drawn. Then, through true/false questions and their explanations, the value systems and moral beliefs of each answerer were inferred. Finally, open-ended questions were used to determine if each individual’s differences could fit well here.

Based on this standard, Lolth made judgments on each questionnaire across two dimensions.

The first judgment was that she temporarily divided all these mercenaries into three levels based on their displayed moral standards, legal awareness, and danger factors.

"Good," "satisfactory," and "unsatisfactory."

This determined the mercenaries’ paths—whether they could participate in the life and construction of Hillenbrand Town after simple training and correction, whether they required long-term monitoring, transformation, and learning before being allowed to interact freely with others, or if they were not qualified to stay in Hillenbrand Town at all.

Of course, the content, duration, or limitations of the learning required for mercenaries of each level would vary.

This is where the second dimension of judgment comes into play.

Based on what was known from the past, besides judging their "moral and ethical education," Lolth also categorized their values and positions.

Those with corrupt morals would need to take remedial courses in ethics, those with weak awareness of rules and community would have to participate in team-building activities, while those showing clear tendencies for violence and destruction would need to be locked up for a period of time…

What surprised Lolth was… that these mercenaries, while having many different opinions, also shared quite a few similar thoughts.

"As expected of mercenaries, they seem to have no bad feelings about killing…"

Almost all the mercenaries did not feel wrong about killing others to steal money when they were about to starve—after all, this is what they had always been doing.

The reasons they gave were very simple.

"If I’m about to die, what does it matter if I kill and steal?"

"Even if I’m not about to die, I would still steal!"

"I don’t even know them, so what’s the big deal if I kill them?"

And nearly more than half of the mercenaries, when faced with the "Shipwreck Dilemma," mostly chose to throw the royal members of South Sotua overboard.

But the reasons they gave were obviously not because of something like "honor for family and country."

More often it is the reason, "If I can go back, I might be reused."

However, half of the remaining group chose to throw the members of the South Sotua royal family down first.

The reason is also very reasonable.

"I can see they have been unhappy for a long time!"