“Alright, then, if you’re confident in taking on the challenge, I won’t stop you.” I said to Carmine.

In truth, it would have been smart to take her to the previous challenge as well and see what she got out of that. However, we didn’t have that much time. It was already past noon, and the attack would come tonight. The commander was busy getting his army ready, but we needed to move sooner rather than later, or the mural on the wall would end up becoming a reality.

I wondered what would happen if we perished in the challenge. Would the karma disappear with us? I suppose I could return to the dungeon… or the lore could be corrupted even more and the story would rewrite itself to cut out those characters. In that respect, I imagined my role as being a lot less vital than the roles of the princess or the Demon Prince. I couldn’t even imagine the story continuing without the pair of them.

“I’m ready, Master.”

“Then, I’ll see you on the other side.”

The pair of us touched the orb, and I once again ended up in the familiar challenge room. I didn’t have any reason to look around, so I approached the door and read the new contents of the door. I wondered if Carmine was reading something similar to the last challenge I had done, or if it’d be similiar to this challenge. I had informed her of what I had to do last time, and how I thought they were similar themes depending on the order of the challenges.

Before you, lay’s one of Greggar’s challenges. If you can complete this challenge, you will be awarded a gift that helps you on your way. If you fail, your bones will rest amongst the Twilight forever.

The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

Survive!

I blinked. That wasn’t a rhyme at all! Yet, somehow, it ended up a dozen times more foreboding. What did survive mean? Survive could mean hot magma was poured on top of my head and I had to live. It could mean that I was tossed underwater, or thrown into the vacuum of space. Survive could mean I’d face anything!

As I contemplated every single thing I would need to survive against, I realized the list was large enough that I could write a novel about it. More than that, already an hour had passed as I stared frozen. Why did I cut away my impulsiveness? At this point, Carmine was probably finished and convinced I was dead. No, she had the bond. I could still feel her, and if I wanted to Party Switch, I could do that as well. However, the fort would be attacked, and if I was busy still standing here, then Carmine would face an ugly fate.

I had already once let her get attacked for nearly five minutes because I didn’t want to rush into things. It was starting to get to the point where it felt debilitating. I just needed to not think about it! I closed my eyes and shoved my way through the door. After all, I couldn’t go back. My only option was to go forward.

As soon as my feet ended up on the other side of the door, I looked up to see an arena. It reminded me a bit of the arena that the gladiatorial match was held at, except that it appeared in a cave, with a roof of rock and low seating. At that moment, a monster burst out the other end. It looked a bit like a giant pigman. It wore some armor and it had a sword. As soon as it saw me, it charged.

I tossed out a Fireball, having not had the chance to cast one earlier. It struck the pigman with ease. A pleasing smell of bacon filled the room, which when I saw the burning pigman collapse to the floor, became a little nauseating, I barely had time to take a breath, and two more pigmen appeared.

“I see… so it’s one of those tests…” I unsheathed my sword and began to fight.