Capítulo 17: El and Eleanor (2)

The two ladies conversed for the next ten minutes purely about Julien and the potential ways in which they could fix his state of mind.

As the conversation flowed, Eleanor began to trust the lady in the red dress. Sure, she spoke carelessly and shamelessly, but she seemed to have a good heart when it came to her son.

"…Also, by conquering the Tower, do you mean the first 100 floors or the whole thing?" Eleanor asked.

"The whole thing."

Eleanor sighed and looked at the steam rising from her new cup of coffee, her thoughts unknown to El.

"What's up? Why do you look like a deflated balloon all of a sudden?"

"The Tower…" Eleanor looked into El's bright red eyes. "…The first 100 floors are still fine, but after that… how's my child going to fare?"

"Bah! And here I thought you had something concerning to talk about." El rolled her eyes and gulped down the hot tea like a shot of vodka. "Didn't I say before? Daddy's with Julien. He won't die."

Eleanor shook her head. "That's not it. I meant… there are going to be gods and—"

"It's just gods. Don't worry about it," El waved her hand dismissively, as if it were a trivial matter.

Eleanor sighed again, then shook her head and glanced at her watch. "It's time we leave. The results should be out soon."

"Hm, you're right. Let's go. Let's see how proud our boy's made us."

"Our?" Eleanor glared at El.

El chuckled and walked closer to Eleanor, raising her wrist to check her watch. "Look, we're getting late. Let's leave quickly."

Eleanor continued to glare at her while El dragged her away to see the results.

…..

Lobby, Floor 0.

Thirty minutes were up and the two ladies were standing in front of a large runestone pillar, watching the screen display the result.

A man in a fine suit made an appearance on the screen. This was the Floor Guardian.

[The Players this time around are fascinating. The delay wouldn't have occurred if not for their meticulous performances.]

"Hm. My Julien is indeed fascinating." Eleanor didn't hesitate to link that comment to her son.

"Not everything is about our Julien, El." The red dress El smiled and shook her head.

The words didn't register in Eleanor's ears. She continued to look at the screen and said, "To think that he would awaken just a day before the tutorial began… it is indeed fascinating."

"You're welcome." El said with a smile, which once again didn't register in Eleanor's ears because she thought of everything to be a great coincidence.

[The results of the first section — the Forest of Valor are here as follows…]

Passed: 1,537

Failed: 190

Dead: 261

"Hoooh—!"

The crowd gasped at the failed and death rate. It was considerably high this time around.

[Now publishing the top 100 high scoring Players…]

Eleanor and El were waiting for this. Both did not have any doubts of Julien failing this section and were looking forward to where he ranked.

"He has no combat or fight experience. I hope he's at least in the top 100." Eleanor said, being realistic for once.

El chuckled and didn't spoil the fun for Eleanor.

The list soon came out and it started from the 100th place where the person had scored 997 points.

Eleanor's eyes were fixated on the screen and she was delighted to know her son wasn't dead last in the list.

El watched the list alongside her with a delighted smirk on her face, as if something fun was about to happen.

The numbers decreased and soon it was the top 80.

El magically had a tub of popcorn in her hands and offered some to Eleanor.

Eleanor was too focused on the list to not miss Julien's name and unknowingly grabbed the popcorn that was being offered and munched on it.

Top 70.

Top 50.

Top 30.

Eleanor was getting nervous now. Her child was not in any of these?

Oh well… there was always the next section to look forward to!

Top 20.

"Ah well… tough luck, I guess." Eleanor said and shook her head. She had emptied half the popcorn tub by now.

"Continue watching." El asked her to not lose hope.

"It's not like anything's going to change…" Eleanor shook her head with a smile and continued to watch.

Top 10.

Top 5.

"Welp…"

4th: Christopher Ingress — 5,402 points

3rd: Kayla Loph — 5,600 points

2nd: Ivan Loph — 5,607 points

Eleanor gave up any hope she had by now while El munched on the popcorn with a big smile on her face.

[And now… for the top scorer… there was a request to maintain anonymity, so we will only be publishing the score.]

1st: Player — 107,234 points

"Whaaatttt!?!?!"

Everyone on the floor gasped in shock, Eleanor included.

El began laughing and asked, "How's the surprise? Did you expect this?"

"Definitely not!" Eleanor answered. "Who even is this that's scored so much? How many monsters did they even kill? No, more than that… were there even that many monsters in the tutorial?"

"Oh, you'd be surprised…" El smirked. She leaned close to Eleanor's ear and said, "In case you haven't figured out yet… that score belongs to our boy, huhuhu."

"What!?!" Eleanor couldn't believe it. "El, if you want to make a joke, at least make a good one."

"But I'm not." El shook her head.

"Huh? How's this possible…"

Eleanor surely put her son on a high pedestal, but she wasn't out of her mind to think such a feat could be achieved by him. He may achieve it in the future, but given how he was now, it definitely was not possible.

"Huhuhu…" El had a good laugh at Eleanor's adorable reaction. "I should've recorded your face. I could show it to Julien later and laugh with him."

"El, don't make stupid jokes." Eleanor shook her head. "My brain's overloaded with information. I can't believe someone could score almost 200 times the minimum score. It's unheard of and never happened in the history of Tower."

El nodded her head. "It has surely not happened before. But it doesn't mean that it can't happen now."

Eleanor wrinkled her nose and stared at the screen. She was too stimulated by the information and it was unbelievable to think it could be her Julien who broke all records and made history.

He was just an innocent boy. How could he even do that?

El then yawned and said, "Let's go sit there. I want to take a nap."

Eleanor was too distracted and got dragged away. When her and El sat down, El used her lap to doze off. Only then did Eleanor snap back to reality.

"What the—" Eleanor knitted her brows. The audacity of this woman to act so clingy when they barely knew each other… who did she think she was!?

Eleanor wanted to wake her up and move away, but realized that she did give some useful information and was not totally useless. Also, if she was sleeping, then she was not being annoying.

There were many conflicting feelings and eventually, Eleanor decided to let this slide and focus on the runestone screen projecting information on the tutorial.

It should be time for the second section now…