The five people were left alone in the room, awkwardly standing around, looking anywhere but at other people. Then, the Furry, Nathan nicknamed the one with fur, spoke up. "So, I guess we should start with introductions. I'll go first. My name is-"

"No, I want to go first!" Chicken Lady said, interrupting him. Furry just gestured for her to go ahead. "My name is Candice Smith! And I lived in New Michigan! Also, I like bird-watching!"

'Duh,' everyone in the room thought.

"I'm Joe, my tomboy-of-a sister lying on the bed still, is Laura," the shortest person said, gesturing to the only spot with two beds. Contrary to his face, his voice held a lot of excitement. Candice and I were the only two to look at the beds.

"I am Alex," said the Furry. He sounded as if he spoke to children, instantly ticking everyone else in the room off. "Not completely sure why I look like this, but hey." He licked his lips as he looked at Candice. Nathan closed his eyes as he realised it was his turn.

"My name is Nathan, and please don't look into my eyes."

Nathan opened his eyes. Before he could even process the fact everyone looked at his eyes, he started vomiting. Nathan focused on opening the previous status screen before his puke carried a little blood. His status opened a beat too late.

[Level 1/???

Species: Gorgon

Health: 125/150

Mana: -40/200

Current Ailment: Mana Burn (WARNING: You have used too much mana. Your Health has been used instead. Damage has been Multiplied, according to the species.)]

The other three people were very startled and quickly backed away. "Couldn't breathe," Joe muttered, looking in horror at Nathan. The snakes on his head started to become more aggressive as they noticed the state Nathan was in, stopping Alex from rushing to his side. Soon enough, the only thing Nathan started to feel was exhaustion. Nathan stood up, after much trouble, and moved to a bed. Right now, the only thing he wanted was to sleep. When his face touched the mattress, his snoring voice started to emerge.

When the three people regained their minds, they all thought up a similar reason as to why he didn't want his eyes to be looked at. A skill. "Well, Alex," Candice began, "I guess you should say sorry when he gets up."

"Me?" Alex was speechless at the gall of Candice. "You also looked." Joe moved like a flash to get in between the two people.

"Stop. No fighting," he said. "At least, not yet." He moved, heading to where his sister was still sleeping. "Get up, Laura." He pushed her off the bed. She stopped herself from touching the ground by moving her limbs to land on the ground.

"What was that for?" Although Laura's face held plenty of emotions, her voice was drier than a desert.

"This is Laura," he introduced, not answering her question. One by one, he started pointing at people. "On the bed is Nathan; don't look into his eyes, it freezes you. Chicken Lady is Candice, and the Furry is Alex."

"I'm not a Furry," Alex huffed as if he'd heard that a hundred times before, "I just have fur."

"Furry," Laura said, almost instantly.

In a large house in the middle of NNA, a man with piercing eyes, a scar covering his forehead, sat atop a chair above the steps leading up to the man. "Where have you been, Claire?" the man asked, his voice sounding like a forming hurricane.

"Father, I was bringing an Awakened here," the woman, claire, said as she kneeled at the bottom of the stairs.

Unauthorized tale usage: if you spot this story on Amazon, report the violation.

"Then why did you take so long?" He touched his scar, showing a troubled expression.

"The first setback was that I had met a member of Tartarus appeared-"

"Which member?" She didn't respond. "I asked, which member?" His voice seemed to have roused the surrounding wind.

"Circe."

"Damn that woman," he cursed. "Did you kill her?"

"Father, the boy ran when we started fighting. She-"

"Do not make me repeat myself." He stood up, seeming to appear like a Titan, far above Claire.

"No, father. But I retrieved the boy."

"Leave." She followed his command, her head hanging down all the way to the door. Before she opened the door, he spoke again. "What was the boy's name?"

"Nathan." She opened the door and walked out. The man felt as if he had heard that name before but couldn't tell where.

Nathan was awoken by Gregory's pushing. "Get up," he said, "Or else I'll carry you." Nathan stood up but before he could look anywhere else, Gregory held some sunglasses. "These are for you. Make sure they don't fall off." Nathan took them and put them on. He instantly felt more comfortable in his darkened eyesight.

"Are we going somewhere?" he asked, seeing the faces of the four other people.

"Yes. Now, come. All of you, stay in a group." Gregory walked to the closed door, holding his hands behind his maroon-brown shirt. He opened the door with his left hand. When the door fully opened, and everyone exited.

The scene outside was very different. Alex and Nathan gave a short 'Wow', but Candice's reaction was several times more intense. "Do you all see that?" she screamed, her voice going higher, squeals occasionally coming out of her mouth. "That's rock! The floor is made of rock! So are the seats!" She was right, and it unnerved Nathan. He had never set foot on stone floors like this in his life. The colosseum-styled building they could see, plus the tiered seating, was much too expensive for Nathan to feel comfortable in. The snakes, however, kept around his head, almost as if sleeping. They were right when he was in danger, so he felt as if he could trust in their passiveness.

The pit in the middle of the colosseum was even weirder. It held a chained monster tied to the ground and too many people around for him to count. They all watched the monster, making sure it stayed. The monster itself was no bigger than a horse, but that was not what made him call it a monster. It was the teeth that threatened to bite anything that came close to it; its eyes that tried to kill, and its outrageously sharp claws.

Noticing all their gazes directed at the monster, Gregory simply said, "You five will be fighting that. First, individually. However, if you feel like your life will end, just simply scream. Then, when all of you have either won or surrendered, you will fight it together." Nathan, Candice, and Alex all gulped at the thought of fighting it, but Joe and Laura seemed to be excited. Laura's uncontained smile, Joe's excited whispering, and the fact the two were by the metal railing that stopped people from falling into the pit were obvious signs. They looked as if they had been given a chance they were waiting for all their lives.

It was dead silence, besides Joe and Laura, all the way to a different door. When they got there, Gregory said, "Which one of you would like to go first?" Candice's hand, more like her wings, shot up. Being the closest to her, Nathan felt the hair on his arms rustle. "Then, the rest of you gakusei (students) can stay here and watch." He opened the door. "After you." She entered and Gregory closed the door behind him as he followed her.

Alex felt he should say something to Nathan, for what happened earlier. So he walked up to Nathan, looking through his sunglasses, and noticed that his eyes were rather different than any he's ever seen before. 'Oh well,' Alex thought, 'I guess my definition of normal is about to be destroyed.' Alex found the words rather easily. Perhaps it was because he didn't know him much, as he could never even mutter a proper apology before.

"Sorry about earlier," Alex said, taking his eyes away.

"No worries," Nathan replied. "But in the future, don't look at my eyes. Even now, I'm still tired." Nathan didn't bother to mention the blood that wanted to drip out of his mouth and swallowed. "So, you ever heard of that monster?" Nathan motioned to the one in the pit.

"No," Alex said.

"Actually, you have heard of it," Joe said, butting into their conversation.

"You just don't know it in this form," Laura continued.

In unison, they said, "It's the three-headed hound, Cerberus."