Chapter 4: When Adults Play Hide and Seek

After an hour of thoroughly questioning my challenger, I had a much better idea of what the Court and the world were like. It was a mostly medieval system with some amount of mysterious magic. Apparently, the Court had some affinity for shadows. Though they weren't the only organization that used magic, not by a long shot. It shouldn't have been a huge surprise, but for some reason, the fact that magic exists absolutely floored me. I also learned we were in a small country, completely landlocked, surrounded by much larger neighbors.

The only reason we were our own country, instead of a province in a neighboring one, was because of the mountainous terrain completely surrounding our small nation. It made it so that we were a relatively insignificant branch of the Court, with a small roster of only 22 blades. And there was very little demand for our work. So most of our trainees ended up getting transferred out to a neighboring country.

Still, we did serve some important services in the world by providing a neutral ground for the warring factions to meet and negotiate on. Which did sometimes get our branch business, but those were very expensive contracts. That was on top of the fact that we oftentimes turned them down as we wanted this to be a mostly safe place.

I learned a bunch more about the various nobilities and facts about the world and the philosophy of the Court. But never once did I ask a challenging question. Honestly, I wasn't even sure what those challenging questions would be. But if anything, Gerald proved that he was a quite capable member. Not only did he have a high affinity for the Shadow magic, but he also clearly knew his stuff. At the end of the knowledge portion of the challenge, I finally managed to rile him up to the point where he was practically frothing at the mouth.

At some point, I figured he would understand what I was doing. He clearly was intelligent enough, but he seemed emotionally unstable in some ways. Perhaps living the life of a hired killer was not the most mentally health-conscious life choice he could have made. After the questioning period, I looked around and found most people watching passively. Gerald looked at a few people, and I noted who they were. Did he have some allies?

I glanced at Nine, and she gave me a confused smile. I just grinned back at her. The more I learned, the more I realized I might not know what I was doing. But at the same time, things made a strange kind of sense to me. The connections between the nobility and the machinations of people just felt right, and I could feel it click into place in my head. I wasn't as unprepared for this as I thought. While I might not know anything, I did have a lot of ingrained skills or natural abilities. Whatever it was was carrying me through.

Luckily, I was saved from having to guess what we needed to do next. When the time was up, the shadows in the room started to flicker. They moved, abandoning their hosts in the stands, and gathered in the center of the arena before Gerald and I. A few seconds later, they congealed into a plain arch with a gooey veil in the center, hanging down, fluttering in a nonexistent breeze. Gerald met my eyes and glared before stepping forward. He reached out with a hand, touching the veil of shadows and pushing his way through. Once his arm had disappeared up to the elbow, he vanished.

I waited a second and took a breath to process my surprise. This was not at all what I expected, but it was the confirmation of shadow magic that I needed to fully accept it was real. Luckily, I hadn't made a fool of myself earlier. Magic just seemed so interesting that I wanted to stop and study it and ask questions. I don't know why it struck me as more abnormal than a cult of assassins, but it did. With an affected sigh of disappointment, I reached out and touched the shadowy veil and found it was a light substance that I could barely feel with my touch.

But I could feel a slight tingling as if I was touching the end of a battery. Pushing my hand through. I stepped forward, parting it from in front of my face, and as the darkness washed over me. Pushing my new sixth sense, I tried to grasp what exactly I was feeling and put a name to it. But before I managed to, the feeling was gone.

Blinking my eyes, I realized things were shaping around me. I was in a strange world with no color and no source of light, but everything was muted, colors of gray shaded upon gray. I could see for a decent distance around me, at least to the point where the walls turned. It was a maze of thin walls and random passages, but also cutouts and blocks and low walls and protrusions from the ceiling, all made out of shadowy stuff.

The story has been taken without consent; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

I reached out to my side and touched the wall. It felt firm, like a brick, but didn't conduct heat at all. Clawing my fingers, I tried to dig into it, and at first, it resisted, but after a second, my finger sunk in just a tiny bit. Interesting. I wonder how much weight it could hold.

I reached for the knives strapped amongst my clothes and felt nothing. Under my clothes was just skin and the empty leather of the harness. All weapons were taken from me, except for a small knife at my belt and another one on the other hip.

Each was about four inches long and had a short hilt flaring at the base so it could be gripped, either like a normal knife or a punch dagger. I drew my weapons and remembered that I was the hunter this round. So, I had a few moments to figure some things out. I tested the shadowy blades on my thumb and found that it just passed through. It didn't feel as if it was doing any actual damage. It would explain why this was incapacitation rather than an excuse to simply remove your target before the final obstacle.

Looking around one more time, I tried to figure out what exactly I should do. Eventually, I just shrugged and started walking. I would make no attempt to be stealthy at first and simply get used to this and see if I could pick up any clues. I kicked at one of the walls and heard a slight thump echo around the room around me. Very interesting. So, sound traveled fairly well. I was glad of my soft-soled shoes. But even as I became more conscious about the level of noise I was making while walking, I realized it was well beneath what the simple shoe should make.

Instinctively, I was easing weight onto my feet in a practiced, steady rhythm as I walked that left no scuffing, noise, or impact, just purely based on habit. Again, I was impressed with the instincts and skills this body lent me. I technically didn't need to find Gerald and incapacitate him. I simply just had to see him, and then I would be considered winning for all intents and purposes. So, the knife seemed rather superfluous.

Would Gerald also have the same knives as me as well? I assumed so when he was hunting, but I didn't know if he would as the hunted.

Five minutes of aimlessly wandering, and I had mapped out the majority of the maze. It was a large circle. I guessed at least 100 yards in diameter. And the paths wound all throughout it. There were two levels that were each about ten feet tall, but sometimes, there were large sections where they were combined. There were also all sorts of places to hide and climb. I made sure to check all the corners in the rooms and everywhere. Just a casual glance, but not anything too thorough yet. So far, I found no sign of Gerald, but I had started to develop a plan.

The pattern of the maze was starting to become clear to me. I had noticed an interesting way I could sweep the area with a set path that would force him to move out of my way if I was thorough enough. It made sense that whoever designed this challenge wouldn't want it to be able to be won simply based off of luck. If someone just curled up in a spot and made no sound, it would be very difficult to find him in this area without a searchable pattern.

So I went to where I found the start of the pattern and began to walk through it. Each time I reached a branch, I would take the upper left section if possible. As I did, I moved in a spiral going inwards. Now, technically, Gerald could get far enough ahead and double back, but I was hoping that if he sensed me coming, I would also be able to sense him. I was practically making no noise as I moved. Also, I started to take advantage of the shadows and slide between them, trying to make it so my movements would not be obvious. I would come across him soon, assuming that he was staying still.

Only a few minutes in, I heard a scuff that I didn't make. It wasn't the scuff of a foot but the sound of fabric sliding against the shadows. An ever-so-soft noise. It came around the corner to the right, and I froze. All senses were alert, trying to find any other hint of my prey. Starting up again, I crept over to the side of the wall and dug my fingers, dug my shadow knife in, and pulled myself up arm over arm till I was halfway up the wall. And I clung there waiting. Feet braced against the wall, I slowly peered around the corner.

As I expected, I found my prey halfway up the wall on the other side. He was clinging to the wall in an awkward position behind a ledge that jutted out trickily. His position would have been almost impossible to see from the ground until I had passed him. It was a very good hiding spot. However, it seemed that what I had heard was him repositioning his grip on the wall. Had he really been hanging there for the last 15 minutes? That had got to be exhausting. I imagine his hands and forearms must be cramping something terribly for him to be able to hold on that long.

That was honestly quite impressive, but at the same time, rather stupid. Would he really be able to fight so well if he was this exhausted? Did he think he could hang there for so long without making a sound? Our training must be brutal for him to be able to do this as well as he had. I Didn't have confidence in my ability to climb all the way over to him without being detected. So I slowly eased myself down the wall, being extremely slow to make sure that my clothes didn't make noise, brushing against each other or the shadows. Technically, the round was already tied, and we could move on to the next portion, but I still wanted to try to send a message.