RD 3 Ch 23

Chapter 23

"I was walking through the forest with Merlin using her incredible ability. She had termed it 'League Step,' and surprisingly, it was one I had not heard of before. 

"Pause for a minute, Merlin," I said, frowning. We were two days into our journey and something had started to bother me. I began fishing around my spatial ring before squinting back up at the sun. 

"What's wrong?" she asked. 

"The sun. Something's wrong with the sun, but I need to check."

She could tell I was looking at my spatial ring and raised an eyebrow. "Are you missing something? You seem to have a talisman or an inscription for everything."

"Yeah, I need a piece of tinted glass," I said, still searching. 

Merlin pulled out a pair of expensive sunglasses. "Like these?"

 "Uh, those will work," I said. "I don't think this is a real sun. That would burn my eyes, but I need to be able to look at it." Her sunglasses were a little small for my head, so I closed one of my eyes and held them out in front, covering the sun with them and squinting ever so slightly to get a good look at it. 

"It's not perfectly round," I said, my suspicion confirmed. 

"So what if it's not perfectly round?" Merlin asked, holding her hands up for the sunglasses. I gave them back.

"I think the sun is slightly dimmer than it was before. If I had to guess, it's going to grow dimmer every day." I answered.

Merlin opened her mouth with a look of realization. "So the sun is being eclipsed?" 

"Exactly," I smirked. "The question now is, how fast is the darkness coming and how much time do we have?" 

Merlin was already nodding along. "Because when the sun is fully eclipsed, the trial will likely change or end." 

"My thoughts exactly.” I said. Half the trouble for each of these trials was going to be figuring out what exactly we were supposed to do.

Merlin took a look at the sun herself, holding up her thumb and trying to get some sort of measurement on it. Rather than use something as inconsistent as a thumb, I made a quick ruler on paper. Even though it wasn't perfectly accurate, we just needed a standard. She used it and held it up. 

"We'll call it one and a third," she squinted. "We'll see how much we lose for tomorrow, and then we can make an estimate of how long we'll be here. Do you think the fruits will ripen before the sun is eclipsed? After?" 

"Probably near the eclipse, if I had to guess. The trial will likely force some sort of high-pressure situation on everyone. That's how these things normally go." I realized the slip of the tongue as Merlin's eyebrows rose higher and higher on her forehead.

"These sorts of things.” She studied me.

“I might have records of a similar place." I tried to recover.

Merlin nodded. "I had looked for something like that, and had been unable to find any. Your resources are surprising." 

"I'm a resourceful person, Merlin. Anyway, shall we keep going? I'm eager to find the rest of my group." 

"The third woman still can't be located?" she asked. Her question bothered me. It was one thing for Simone and Gloria to show up a little after me. Their trial up the stairs could be slightly longer than my own. Or perhaps they joined some conflict in that room. But now, several days later, Nyx still had not appeared.

I didn't want to assume the worst, but once I got to Gloria and Simone, I would know more. However, if she did pass through the first trial, then I could only assume the demons had taken a special interest in her. 

From what I had seen thus far, everyone was now together in this trial. We had met at least six other individuals or small groups heading in various directions. My hunch at present was that we had been placed in the second trial in a tiered fashion. Stronger individuals had been placed further apart on one spectrum of this forest, while those who had lower stats and lower performance on the stairs were sent to the other end of the force and clustered tighter together.

We were moving, using Merlin's League step, when a warning talisman went off inside my spatial ring. I pulled it out, the thing was burning up and vibrating in my hand. 

I had put a small tracker on Simone and Gloria's emergency talismans. This was the blinding glitter talisman. Apparently, Simone had used hers.

"Merlin, can we speed this up?" I asked, glancing at the woman beside me.

"We can go faster, but it's a greater drain on my mana. Each step takes a little bit from me, so running full out will rapidly deplete my reserves."

Three powerful mana potions appeared between my fingers as I dangled them out in front of her. "How much can I buy with these?"

Merlin snatched them out of my hand, inspecting them. Each of those mana potions should be able to mostly restore her reserves. After all, they were high-quality ones from the Heros Clan alchemists. By the way she seemed satisfied with them, I continued, there wasn’t time to spare.

"Good. Now, rather than keeping up with you, does it work if I just carry you?" I asked, her expression immediately turning into a frown.

"Technically, it would." She didn't get another word out.

I scooped her up with the mana potions in her hand and bolted forward, sprinting as fast as I could move. The pine trees blurred past as I sprinted through the forest. Her League Step ability allowed for each step of my sprint to cover a mile. Meanwhile, my feet beat a rapid staccato of cracking pine needles with each stride.

As I tore through the forest, Merlin slugged back the first mana potion, only about 30 seconds into my sprint, she had a stern look on her face, but she wasn't complaining. Instead, she glanced down at my hands that were holding her in a princess carry.

Only after she glared down did I realize how much her heavy cloak had collapsed around her form. Merlin actually had a rather lithe figure underneath it, it seemed.

But my mind had a singular mission. I needed to get to Simone.

I pulled out Simone's tracking talisman as we rushed forward.

Merlin slugged back a second mana potion as I quickly drained it by continuing to move forward at a blistering pace.

Soon, there was a rapidly expanding billow of smoke just off the angle I was rushing towards, and I realized we must be close.

Pausing, I let Merlin deactivate her League Step, and she pocketed the third mana potion. "The third is an acceptable price," she said, as it disappeared into her spatial spring.

I shrugged, having bigger concerns about losing the one potion. I put her down on the ground, scanning the surroundings before moving forward again.

There was no immediate danger I could see.

I headed straight in the direction my talisman was pulling me. Two figures appeared, flickering between trees in the distance, and even when they were nothing but dots in the distance, I could tell it was my Simone and Gloria.

"Simone," I roared through the quiet forest, and the two of them came to a screeching halt, only for me to catch up a moment later, picking up both of them, and wrapping them in a giant hug.

It felt so good to have them in my arms.

I had always been a bit of a loner in my past life. I traveled constantly, and with that came a lot of separation. I had become used to the distance that caused in relationships.

However, I was starting to realize that might not be how I wanted to live in this life. I was clearly changing, because suddenly I wanted to squeeze them so hard that they became part of me, and could never go anywhere far from me again.

Not that either of them seemed to mind by the way they were squishing themselves to me in turn.

I put both of them down. "Where is the danger?" I said, looking at Simone, staring into her emerald green eyes. She pointed towards the forest fire.

"A group came after us. Gloria got greedy." Simone reported succinctly.

My eyes flickered to Gloria. "How many of the fruits did you take in the first trial?"

"In the first trial?" Glorio blinked. "Whatever do you mean?" Surprise etched on her face, only for me to chuckle.

"Come on, there's nothing of value here thus far, unless you somehow stole a spatial ring off someone's finger. If you got greedy, that means you took the fruits from the first trial." The picture was falling into place.

Gloria had a grin on her face, similar to when you catch someone with their hands in a cookie jar. "I might have taken a few," Gloria admitted. "But in fairness, they just made it too easy."

I rubbed the top of her head. "As long as you stay safe. Then take all of the fruits you want. After all, they are incredibly valuable. We just won't eat them just yet." The two of them had hard looks in their eyes and nodded, understanding the unspoken words. But there was, in fact, a catch to the fruits. 

Simone wrapped herself around me, squeezing me like her arms were two pythons and a giant grin on her face. A flutter of kisses landed along my shoulder, my neck, and up to my cheek. Then one heated, passionate kiss melted away at my lips. Everything else disappeared for a moment as I squeezed her and returned the kiss. With everything I had, I was telling her that I was okay and that I loved her. 

Simone came up for air, pushing back off of me. They had just been running for their lives, and now she seemed completely content with me next to her. Simone gave a happy little sigh before she started into new information. "There's a group still in the fire. They had one man with 3,000 agility and 2,000 strength and vitality. We had to run. It looks like we stole some of the fruits from his subordinates and they were out for revenge. That, and Gloria killed two of them earlier in the forest when they attacked us. No idea where Nyx is, she walked through the first trial with us."

I stored away the comment about Nyx for later, it seemed we had a more urgent issue. "Well, if all they did was lose a few measly fruits and then attack both of you, I think it's time I taught them a lesson in who they can and cannot mess with." A sword made of blood slid into my hand and I turned towards the fire. "While I deal with this, Gloria, if you would, please help me put the fire out." 

"I'll assist her with that," Merlin spoke up and I turned, having forgotten she was there after the reunion with my two favorite people.

"Thank you, Merlin." I gave her a nod.

"Who's she?" Gloria narrowed her eyes before Simone happily jumped over in front of Merlin. 

"Hi! I'm Simone." Simone held out a hand and Merlin hesitated before shaking it. 

"Nice to meet you. I'm Merlin." The older woman couldn't help but have the corners of her lips turn up slightly at Simone's exuberance. The saintess had that effect on everyone.

"You'll have to forgive my Bran. Sometimes when it comes to us, he can be a little single-minded," she said, continuing to shake Merlin's hand and not letting her escape. "But don't worry, he means well. And at the end of the day, he always pulls through. It's my favorite thing about him." 

Merlin looked at her hand that was still shaking Simone's with a slight frown before her eyes roved up Simone's ensemble. "I can see why he keeps you around." 

Simone giggled. "You haven't seen anything yet. It only gets better from here."

There was a strange interaction between the two that I couldn't quite decipher. Not that it mattered. 

The moment was broken when a man came roaring out of the flames, his dated attire burning at what used to be lace and baggy sleeves. He had a rapier held out as some ability caused him to shoot forward towards Gloria.

But I was ready in an instant. Without even thinking, I activated Blood Boil, my muscles swelling. I stepped between Gloria and the man. 

My blood blade knocked his rapier to the side, and my other hand came around a fierce left hook that caught his jaw and sent him tumbling to the ground. 

"How dare you," I roared, closing the distance between us as he tried to right himself only for my foot to catch his chest and kick him hard enough to send him slamming into one of the towering pines.

The man was clearly unstable, his eyes were reddened either from grief or the smoke. His clothes in tatters, not to mention his suicidal attack on Gloria.

I caught him by the neck before he hit the ground and slammed him down against the pine needle cushioned dirt. And then I put a foot on his chest before my blade pinned his sword arm to the ground. "We're going to have a nice little chat now," I said, smirking down at the duelist.