by Aaron Oster
Roy debated simply leaving the island right now and striking out in a direction until he found land. But his tired and aching body immediately protested the idea.
Besides, he thought to himself. Aika might find her way here at some point.
If he wasn’t here to greet her, who knew when, or even if, they’d find one another? It was also still quite bright outside, which meant that if any monsters were coming, it would probably be later on, when darkness began to creep in. In the shape he was in now, Roy knew he wouldn’t stand a chance. So, his best bet would be to go lay down in the shade of the trees and rest. If Aika still wasn’t here by tomorrow, he could decide what to do then.
His mind made up, Roy trudged back down to find a comfortable spot to relax. He hoped desperately that his friend would show up soon.
20
Aika broke the surface of the water with a gasp, her hair clinging in wet strands to her face and back, and her robes trying to drag her under. Thankfully, she was more than strong enough to handle it with relative ease, though the amount of water she found herself surrounded with was quite alarming. For just a few seconds, she began to panic, but reason quickly asserted itself and Aika began to take stock of the situation.
Both she and Roy had been sent through some sort of portal to a pocket dimension to complete some sort of Trial. This place had to either have some similarities to a Dungeon, the Trials of testing for new Belts, or a mix of both. She and Roy had been separated, and she couldn’t sense him anywhere. She was fairly confident he wasn’t beneath the water either, as Power Essence, even a small spec, would have stood out amid the sea of blue.
She turned a few times, getting her bearings. The sun was high in the sky, which told her that time in this place ran a bit differently. When they’d left, it had been just past seven in the morning, but now, it appeared to be past noon. The sky was blue and cloudless, and from the water that had entered her mouth – and didn’t taste salty – she knew she was either in a river or a lake.
Several small landmasses stood out in her Spirit Sense, each spaced perfectly apart from one another. If that wasn’t a sign that she was in a strange place, then she didn’t know what was. The only question now was which direction to go. She was worried about Roy, as he was still a bit helpless without her around.
Okay, she admitted to herself, maybe not helpless.
Roy had come a long way since she’d met him, and he could hold his own in a fight, even against those of a higher cultivation rank. She just didn’t want to admit as much to herself, wanting to shelter and protect him, even though he was more than capable of doing so himself. She couldn’t help it. She cared about him, and in a way that was continually growing more towards the side of romance than regular friendship.
She wasn’t exactly sure when the change had begun happening, but somewhere along the way, she’d begun viewing Roy in a different light. And though she’d denied it, even to herself for the last few months, Ferry’s transformation into a humanoid shape had opened her eyes to her true feelings.
Aika shook herself out of her thoughts, remembering that she was in the middle of a massive lake with Beasts potentially lurking nearby. She needed to head for land, but she wanted to make sure that whichever land she went to would most likely have Roy.
Okay, she thought, reduce your range to what you know Roy can handle, then go from there.
Calming her breathing, Aika allowed her field of perception to shrink, flowing back towards her and showing the world in greater clarity. She wouldn’t exactly get the same view as Roy, because her senses were so much better, but if she reduced it enough, she should get a general idea. After about two minutes, Aika figured she was about as close as she could get.
“Well, this isn’t ideal,” she muttered, realizing that had Roy landed in a similar spot, he wouldn’t be able to sense land at all.
Her brow creased slightly as she began to think, trying to puzzle out how Roy would act in a situation where he couldn’t sense any land. He’d probably start to become annoyed, perhaps even panic a bit. But Aika remembered that Roy wouldn’t be alone. He always had company – the Dungeon Core that had given him the ability to become a Martial Artist. With Geon around to center him, Roy may very well have been able to expand his Spirit Sense.
It wouldn’t have been by much, but enough to sense the closest landmass. Aika expanded her senses again, more slowly than before. It took a few minutes of her inching her perception field forward until she finally found the first island. She immediately stopped the advance of her Spirit Sense and turned to face the land in question.
She was making a lot of assumptions, but Aika really had nothing better to go on. Roy thrived in life-threatening situations, and that was where he tended to see the most growth. Angling herself towards the island in question, Aika set off at a brisk swim, streaking through the water at an easy speed that she could maintain for hours if needed. Sure, it would take her a bit longer to reach land, but this looked like something that would take them a while to figure out, and if she didn’t pace herself now, she could end up burning herself out.
Roy would probably stay on his island for a day, maybe two, before heading out once again. He was much better at survival in the wild than she was and had lived around water his entire life. He was strong and capable, even if he didn’t know it himself, and Aika just hoped he’d survive until she found him.
***
The first attack came just as the sun was beginning to set. Roy had set himself up a small camp by then, scrounging around the island for materials that might be useful for survival. He’d found a few shells that were large enough for him to use as a makeshift drinking vessel, and after searching the tops of the trees, had found some hard fruit growing high in their leafy canopies.
Unfortunately, the fruit seemed to be more water than actual fruit, and seeing as they were in limited supply, seven to be exact, he had to ration himself to a single one, not knowing when he might find his next meal. The fruit wasn’t unpleasant, though it contained a very hard outer shell that needed to be cracked to get at the insides.
He’d actually wasted the water within by smashing the first one open, shattering the hard shell to get at the insides. However, as he sat, scraping the thin layer of white flesh off with his teeth, Roy noted that these could probably be used in the place of the seashells as far as water was concerned. In fact, he might very well be able to fashion some other things from them, and the first rule of survival was that everything was useful.
After eating, he’d spent his remaining time talking to Geon and relaxing, trying to decide in which direction to go next. He traveled in a mainly eastward direction to reach this small island, but did that mean that if he continued heading east, that he’d find more land? Or would he simply swim on forever and eventually drown, due to exhaustion and hunger?
At some point, Roy drifted off to sleep, only to awaken to a sound other than the gentle lapping of waves on the sand. His eyes flickered open, yawning expansively as he wondered what could have woken him up. The sun was beginning to set, painting the water in brilliant shades of red and orange. As far as the eye could see, water reflected the light of the setting sun, illuminating everything, even the strange little creatures coming up the…
“What the hell are those things?”
Roy sprang to his feet, instantly alert as he began cycling his Essence through himself.
“No idea,” Geon replied, sounding oddly sleepy himself. “I’m guessing they’re not here to make offers of friendship, though.”
The creatures, seeing they’d been noticed, stopped trying to be stealthy and instead rose to their full three-foot heights, and charged. There were four of them, all slimy and wet looking. Their skin was a muddy gray-brown and covered in tangles of long wet weeds. They walked on two legs, though their backs were oddly hunched so that their knuckles were nearly dragging across the ground.
They had bony fingers tipped with long black claws, and their faces app
eared to be amphibian in nature, complete with slitted yellow eyes, slits for nostrils and large mouths full of needle-like teeth. They let out loud hissing cries as they neared, clumping up together in a way that told Roy they weren’t the most intelligent of creatures.
He stayed put, keeping the high ground and waiting for them to come to him. He could sense their power now. Though they didn’t have their own Cores, their bodies were glowing with Essence enough to indicate that they were in the late Yellow stages of advancement. That wasn’t too alarming to him, but Roy knew better than to underestimate an opponent because of perceived weakness.
Essence flowed up from his Core as he used his Void Sphere, calling the small ball of Essence into being and hurling it at the lead creature. It let out a hiss and attempted to dodge, but it was ultimately too slow. The sphere slammed into the creature, tearing its head clean off and leaving its corpse to collapse onto the ground.
Roy was so shocked that his attack had worked that he failed to follow up, giving the others the chance to close with him.
The lead creature let out a hissing spitting sound, then swiped at him with his long claws, now trailing blue light. Roy easily stepped back, avoiding the clumsy swipe, and used his superior reach to lash out with a low-kick. The Exploding Fist was channeled through his kick, and upon impact, detonated against the smaller creature, literally blowing it to pieces.
Roy recovered, now feeling a lot more confident, though still quite baffled at the ease in which he’d taken out the first two. The last two came at him at once, one going left and the other charging straight in. Roy stepped to one side, avoiding the clumsy swipe of the leftmost creature, and using it to block the other.
The second creature stumbled, nearly colliding with the first and causing a very convenient distraction. Roy’s next attack caught them both, the powerful low roundhouse kick impacting their bodies and sending them flying. One was blown clean in half, and the other’s body let out a sickening crack as it bent almost double.
Their corpses landed in pieces along the waterline, greenish-brown blood already soaking into the sand.
“You…beat them?” Geon said, sounding both shocked and amazed all at once.
“I…guess I did,” Roy said, still in shock as well. “I didn’t expect it to be so easy.”
“Yeah, neither did I,” Geon replied. “Guess all that training you did was actually good for something.”
“Yeah,” Roy said, looking down towards the beach and the line of corpses littering the sand.
He’d yet to win a single fight against Aika, and even when training by himself, he never seemed to do well enough to please Hermit. He’d supposed it was because he was too weak, and even after having Geon tell him he was strong, he hadn’t really believed it. Even now, he was having a hard time, his brain making excuses and giving him reasons not to overinflate his ego.
They were only at the Yellow stage, after all, and he was at 2nd Dan Orange. It was only natural that he would win without too much fuss. After all, an entire advancement stage offered a vast difference in power.
“I think I can sense something else coming,” Geon said, snapping him from his thoughts.
In truth, Roy was almost glad for it. Right now, he didn’t need anything undermining his confidence, not when he was the only thing standing between life and death. When it came down to it, Roy knew that he was on his own right now. If he didn’t pull himself out of this situation, no one would.
The creatures that began to emerge from the water looked similar to the last group, but these were a couple of inches taller. Their skin was a bit darker as well, and their teeth looked even nastier. As the lead monster let out a hiss, Roy got into a fighting stance, preparing himself for the long night ahead.
21
Roy let out a long breath, his chest rising and falling just a bit faster than normal. His hand moved up, wiping a line of blood from his cheek before he examined the color. Red. So it had been his blood that he’d felt. The creature that had managed to inflict the wound, a much fiercer and more terrifying version of the smaller creatures from before, now lay halfway down the beach, bleeding out from a massive hole in its stomach.
It was full night out by now, the moon shining bright overhead and illuminating the entire area in a brilliance that the moon on Buryoku couldn’t hope to match. Roy had been fighting for well over an hour, only getting a few minutes’ reprieve between each wave of attacks. They’d been getting stronger as time went on, though the time between each successive wave seemed to be lengthening.
“Do you think that was the last one?” Roy asked.
While the first waves had contained four creatures, the numbers had been slowly dwindling. The last one he’d fought had been comprised of a single monster – the one that had managed to cut him – and it had been pretty tough.
Roy estimated the creature to be at Base Orange, the first to be above Yellow since he’d started fighting.
“Somehow, I doubt that,” Geon said, crushing his hopes.
“Why would you say that?” Roy asked, scanning the beach for any signs of another creature rising.
“Because the last creature wasn’t challenging enough,” Geon replied.
Before Roy could ask what he meant by that, Geon continued.
“Trials are designed to challenge those who enter into them. The way this one has been working, by slowly raising the difficulty, tells me that this is a Scaling Trial. In other words, it’s a trial that will continuously grow more difficult until you’ve been sufficiently challenged before allowing you to rest.”
“Are you sure about that?” Roy asked, watching the shoreline nervously.
“Nothing is ever sure inside a Trial,” Geon answered. “But I’m fairly confident I’m correct.”
“Great,” Roy muttered. “Just what I need. To fight waves of monsters without getting anything in return.”
None of the creatures had any Cores, and even if they did, they’d all be full of Water Essence. In fact, the only way he’d been able to recover any amount of Essence was from the Power stirred up by their fighting, and that hadn’t been nearly enough to replenish what he’d spent.
“No need to worry about that,” Geon said, surprising Roy, as he’d been sure the conversation was over.
“What do you mean?” he asked suspiciously.
“What I mean,” Geon said, his voice sounding very smug, “is that you will be rewarded upon completion. This is a Trial, after all. What sort of Trial wouldn’t reward those who successfully complete a task?”
Before Roy could comment further, the water by the beach began rippling once more, indicating the rise of another creature of the deep. The first thing Roy saw was the broad, amphibious head – at least twice the size of the last – immediately followed by a pair of massive, wide shoulders rippling with muscle. As the creature continued to emerge, it because clear to Roy that this one was nothing like the others.
While this creature still carried the same overall appearance, it was far more intimidating. Its back was straight, its shoulders were pulled back, and it held its head high. Its arms, torso, and legs all rippled with knotted muscles, and the clumps of weeds hanging from its body looked more like ropes than anything else.
Fully emerged from the water now, the creature looked up to him, its slitted eyes narrowing. The creature was at least half a foot taller than him, that much was obvious. By the feel of its Core, Roy could tell that it was at 3rd Dan Orange, or so close to it that he couldn’t tell the difference. Either way, this monster was one far more intimidating than anything he’d faced so far, and Roy didn’t think he’d have such an easy fight with this one.
The creature’s body was suddenly outlined in blue, and it shot forward, sliding effortlessly between the scattered bodies of its comrades, despite its massive bulk. Roy didn’t need to be a genius to recognize a Movement technique and activated his own, flooding his body with Power Essence. He dashed forward, knowing that momentum was more valuable
than position right now, especially when the creature in question was technically stronger than him.
His hands glowed with the power of his Exploding Fist as Roy closed, then struck out at the monster. The creature flowed to one side, its Water Essence nature allowing it to slip Roy’s attack with ease. Roy had been counting on this, and even as his fist passed through empty space, he triggered his technique early, detonating the built-up Power Essence in a wide blast.
Though it lacked the power of a proper technique, due to not having made physical contact, the blast was more than enough to take the creature by surprise and throw it off its feet. Roy followed quickly, using his Shockwave to pounce on the off-balance creature and begin raining down attacks. He was now using his second-stage Physical technique, Exploding Fist-Increase.
Each blow that struck the creature landed with more force than the last, the blasts of displaced air and detonating Essence increasing with each landed attack. The creature threw up a defense, a layered, watery barrier that sprung up between it and Roy. Cursing silently to himself at his inability to conjure his own Armorer technique, Roy continued pummeling the creature, driving it further down the beach and keeping it from retaliating.
He was burning through Essence quickly, and had this been a few months ago, he’d already be out. Luckily for him, he’d gone through some intense training, so the amount of power he had to call on was more than enough to keep him going. His fist struck with a massive boom, sending a visible shockwave away from the point of impact as his glowing fist struck the barrier once more.
It gave beneath his fist this time and Roy drew back for another blow. This time, though, the creature reacted in time to stop him. As Roy’s fist was coming in, the creature’s own hand snapped out. Its movement was graceful and smooth, catching Roy’s blow at the wrist and directing it to the side. Then, its other arm came around as well, snagging his shoulder and throwing him off balance.
