Chapter 194: Challenge Complications
"Good Morning, contestants! We have a few surprising announcements for everyone. It seems someone of our staff has jumped the gun on releasing materials that weren't supposed to be released until this current challenge was completed, so there are some secret challenges now available for completion, but of course, we can't say what those are. Nor will we say anything about what the next challenge might be or what materials we're referring to right now.
"Next, in response to what some contestants have discussed during the day when our viewers could hear, it has been decided by the challenge committee that an individual will win the competition if they complete ten challenges. However, just because someone accomplishes that, doesn't mean the challenges will end. If they survive until the final set challenge is completed, then they will win. However, if they reach ten and decide to rest on their laurels, another challenger can complete more challenges than they had, and so take the win from them. Plus, if more than one contestant has the same number of completed challenges and are in the lead, after having completed at least ten, then all of those contestants will receive the same prize as they would have received had they been the only winnder.
"Aside from that, we now have another concern to address. In order to complete the challenges, the contestants can not receive help in completing the challenge directly from the locals of this world. Any such help will either disqualify the contestant from being considered to have completed the challenge or it will merely lessen any completed challenges awarded.
"With all that said, we hope each contestant luck in completing more challenges."
When the announcement was done, Elmo wasn't sure how to react to it. While parts of it were rather clear, other parts weren't quite as clear. Such as, they didn't exactly say what would qualify as 'help' from the 'locals' and what wouldn't.
Such as, the army that Kim had acquired. Would that hurt them or would they need to stand by while they fought the fire dragon, for example. Would them helping Jonas, Kim, Elin, and himself to get to the fire dragon without wearing themselves out fighting other dragons count, or would that not be considered 'help' in the way the announcer was referring to it?
Elmo sighed as he got up from the bedroll that he'd slept in. Kim's army had laid one out for each of their group, but Elmo wasn't sure if that was going to count against them or not.
One thing he always hated about warnings in competitions like this, was the unclear rules that were typically put in place by those warnings. It felt like they were made intentionally unclear so that those who made the rules could manipulate them in any way that they wanted to, even if it created contradictions with what decisions they'd made previously.
One great example he could think of from his world was 'trial by media.' In those cases, typically the media controlled what was shown and in some cases, it was later learned that the media intentionally omitted things that didn't help condemn the person they were going after. While that was annoying enough, there were then other cases that they wouldn't even mentions briefly because they didn't want to get involved themselves, though Elmo was never sure of what their actual reasons were.