WARNING: The following contains spoilers for Season 1, Episode 3 of Tower of God, streaming now on Crunchyroll.
The third episode of Tower of God brings with it even more devious tests, wackily-designed characters and tantalizing insights into some of the Tower's principal climbers and officials. But it ends on the biggest tease of them all -- a possible glimpse of the very reason that Bam wants to ascend to the treacherous Tower's top in the first place. Is Rachel about to re-enter the story in a big, bad way?
Like Bam, we know very little about who Rachel is, other than a familial sense of belonging to our young hero and her desire to see the stars she thinks are visible from the Tower's highest floor. This dream is something that Rak Wraithraiser, Bam's huge, reptilian teammate, insensitively taunts Bam about when it's brought up at the episode's start. Khun, his other, more human ally, gently explains to Bam that the sky and stars are simply a legend. The clear, blue expanse they can currently see above them is simply an illusion created by Shinsu, the divine substance that fills the Tower.
This doesn't seem to deter Bam much, however; his desire to simply be reunited with the person he feels the most attached to trumps his curiosity about which of this world's treasures are actually myths. Little does he know that this reunion looks as though it might happen sooner than he -- and we, the audience -- may have anticipated. While Bam, Rak and Khun puzzle their way through an especially tricky test of the mind -- overseen by Test Director, Hansung Yu -- and progress to the all-out Crown Game brawl, another set of hopeful climbers is undertaking the battle royale test in the wheat field. This time, however, the rules are different -- as are the results.
Overseen by an Administrator called Quant, the killing spree's two parts are condensed into a single "untimed deathmatch," which Yu admonishes the sheepish Quant for. What's even more alarming is that, rather than a couple of hundred left like last time, there are just three survivors of this test -- and they slaughtered the rest of their competition in a staggering 30 minutes. Yu asks whether or not an Irregular or a Princess of Jahad are among the trio, which Quant responds with an unconvincing, "I don't think so..." Through quick cuts of the group standing among the piles of bloodied bodies, a telltale flash of golden hair peeks out from under one of their hoods.
Quant begs Yu to try and get him "off the hook with the higher-ups" for his mistake, which Yu reluctantly agrees to do. By enlisting Lero-Ro's help, the Crown Game is created as a bonus test to seemingly course-correct for Quant's error of judgment. This violent Capture The Flag-style game seems to be intended to bring the new, killer trio into the mix with their predecessors, which is how Bam spots the familiar, yellow-hair and can't stop himself from daring to hope: "Rachel?"
This could, of course, be a case of mistaken identity, but if this cloaked person really is Rachel, Bam should be extremely wary of getting too close to someone who can emerge from a mass bloodbath unscathed.