As the boy gazed at the scroll with a confused look on his face, the demon chuckled:

“Take a look.” Balam gestured.

The boy grabbed the floating scroll and unwrapped it, revealing its content. Inside was a general drawing of a forest, seemingly the one right in front of them, with two glowing spots on two of its opposite ends – one in the shape of an anvil, and another in the shape of a hammer.

“What are these?” Pointing to the strange drawings, Peter asked.

“An anvil and hammer, what else?” Balam snickered. “But not just any anvil and hammer, of course. Those are magical items possessing special powers, and you’re going to need both for your trial.”

With another wave of the staff, the demon called out a giant root that pierced the sky. It coiled around a few laps like a python before resting itself before the two, on its tip was a bud as big as a human arm. As he tapped on the bud, it bloomed into a beautiful flower, but inside was no stigma – instead, a rusted sword lay, its crumbling brown outer layer creating a hideous contrast with the flower filled with life.

“Your trial is to find the hammer and anvil within this forest, and use them to reforge this – the strongest sword known to man, Excalibur.”

“Doesn’t look much like one to me,” Peter smirked, his eyes shifted from the sword to the demon with a hint of sarcasm.

“We’ll see when you’re done,” unsurprised by the matter, Balam grinned. “Now, there is no time limit, but you do have to be quick, lest your real body can’t take the wounds anymore. You can use the map just now to navigate through the forest, it’ll show you everything you need to know. Do you have any more questions?”

“... All clear.”

“Well, then, good luck, and let your trial begin!”

A storm of petals surrounded Balam once more, and the demon disappeared on the spot, leaving behind the boy with nothing but a map in hand. Peter, now all by himself, focused his gaze on the dividing roads that lay before him.

Where he stood was the outskirts of a dense forest with two long-winded pathways: one going to the southwest, across the thickest of trees, its destination being a drawing of a small hammer; while the other went towards the northeast, following the path of a river to a similar drawing of an anvil. Of the two paths, the one to the anvil was much more linear, while the path to the hammer was longer and had more turning points, combined with the navigation needed among the various trees and bushes made it a much more arduous road.

“I see…” mumbled Peter. “Choosing which way to go first is a riddle in itself.”

There was no doubt that the boy needed to bring back both items, but the nature of the test meant that he couldn’t do both at the same time. In other words, he had to choose between taking the easy way first, but ending up with the much heavier object to carry around for the rest of the journey, or taking the harder path first to save his strength for the latter half of his trial.

“... All right, I’ve decided,” after a moment of thought, the boy clapped his hands, trying to bring up his morale. Scrolling up the map and putting it away with the rusted sword, he headed out towards the left side – the southwest.

True to his prediction, the path of the hammer was undoubtedly a tricky road to traverse. Just a few steps into the woods, Peter had already detected a brush of prickly thorns in front of him. But that was the least of his problems, as cleverly hidden among the thick green hue of the leaves and branches were a few dots of reddish pink. They were none other than that of the small fruits on the bushes, though their sprouting, but small thorns gave them a more similar appearance to iron spike whips and maces. If those weapons of destruction brought about physical pain, then these fruits would bring a slow, yet arguably even more painful death.

“Castor oil plants…” Peter mumbled. The sight of this poisonous plant wasn’t rare on the isles, with the boy himself also having his fair share of encounters with the species in his past. Though they would only pose a real threat if you ingested the seeds, the fruits themselves were still nothing to trifle with, requiring protective gloves whenever someone needed to touch them. Going around it wasn’t an option, either, as the brushes, for some reason, had grown into a long, continuing line blocking off the initial path like a great wall against prospective intruders. The only option was to go through it, either by risking touching them or cutting them off.

“Not making it easy for me, I see…”

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With a sigh, Peter drew out the rusted sword. The sensation of tiny, dusty rust crept into his hands, sending goosebumps all over his body. The boy didn’t have much confidence in the old sword, but given his circumstances, it was the best, or rather, the only weapon he had.

The boy swung the sword towards the brush with all his might. There was no clean cut, nor was there the sound of shredding wind at his target. Instead, it was a swing filled with resistance, more akin to cutting a piece of dough with a dull knife rather than slicing vines with one. Nonetheless, a good chunk of thorny vines and fruits still ended up falling to the ground just due to the physical pressure the sword brought, opening up a pathway barely large enough for an adolescent child to go through.

Drawing the sword back, Peter clicked his tongue in annoyance as he saw a new crack appear on the blade. I have to be careful with using this thing in the future, the boy thought.

After the wall of deadly brushes, the boy ventured deeper into the forest, following the barely visible pathway. More vines and branches stood in his way, but luckily, they weren’t poisonous anymore, so he could make do with just swiping them away using his arms alone. Before he knew it, his sleeves were in tatters, exposing his bruised skin while a few prickly leaves were stuck in his arm. However, the boy had successfully made it to the end of the long and arduous pathway.

Lightly shaking off the weariness in his arms, Peter cleared the last set of brushes, joyously making his way to the prize. But it was never so simple as just a single step and a grab of the hand.

Before the boy was the same kind of grassy field as before, with the only difference being a large stick being planted into the ground. It wasn’t hard to imagine the hammer’s head being buried underground for the sake of the trial, but that was the least of the boy’s concerns.

Lying in wait right in front of the planted stick was a towering beast.

Sporting the same kind of brownish fur as the demon governing this realm once was, the bear slept soundly, as if daring any unfortunate soul that crossed its path to take another step and see what the result might be.

Peter let out an audible gulp and took a step forward. But a step was all it needed to wake the creature from its slumber.

Though unlikely, Peter still kept a small hope that the beast was none other than Balam, purposely appearing in his monstrous form for a nasty prank. However, as soon as the bear opened its sharp, but clearly not flaming, eyes, he knew that any hope of that small victory had gone into smoke. Letting out a booming roar, the hulking creature stood up on its hind legs and swiped its giant paws towards the boy with the intent to tear him in half.

Reflexively, Peter jumped backward, barely escaping certain doom by the skin of his teeth. His outfit, however, wasn’t so lucky to escape such a fate. He was barely grazed by the bear’s claws, but his clothes were already in tatters. The boy shook wildly, every fiber of his being screaming at him to run away as fast as he could. But he knew that turning his back to an opponent like this was like offering himself as food for the creature. No matter how much he tried, he couldn’t hope to outrun a predator, and without his eyes in front to keep it in check, he could never dodge the incoming deadly mauls. And so, desperately fighting his primal desire to turn tail and run, Peter kept his eyes forward, carefully observing the bear while slowly but surely backtracking his steps.

At this point, any attempt at actually getting the hammer was out of the question for him, and only at this moment did the boy realize the intention of burying the object in the first place. It was to prevent him from having a contest of speed – utilizing the bear’s rather slow swings to grab the hammer and run (though the boy doubted his speed could ever match that of the bear in the first place). But conversely, since the creature was there mainly as a guard to the hammer, if he played his cards correctly, just surviving the situation would be all but guaranteed.

Peter took longer jumps backward, quickly closing his distance with the dense forest behind him, hoping to use the latter’s natural form of a maze to mask his presence before the hulking beast. The bear, meanwhile, had also seemingly realized this, its steps turning quicker and its breathing heavier as it accelerated towards him as a response. However, it was one step too late, as just in time when it decided to switch to running on all fours, the boy had already successfully returned to nature’s best shield, fully braced for a war of attrition.

A smirk formed on Peter’s face as he saw the bear stop completely as soon as his figure disappeared from its sight, and quickly returned to its old position to curl up and fall asleep once more.

There were two possibilities as to why it stopped: either the bear was ordered to only chase him away from the hammer, or that inside this forest had something that it feared. And with its slight pause along with a face of panic, the probability of it being the latter was substantial enough for Peter to make a bet.

The boy took off his shredded tunic and made his way back to the poisonous brushes. Carefully wrapping the tunic around his hand to act like a glove, Peter scooped up a fistful of the red fruits lying on the ground from before, before returning to the slumbering bear.

The creature, as expected, instantly opened its gleaming eyes upon detecting the boy’s presence. However, unlike before, with the handful of castor oil fruits as his charm, Peter calmly took a step forward and raised the fruits towards the beast’s face.

As soon as its nose caught the mild scent of the toxic threat, instead of a loud, intimidating roar as before, it only let out a whimper of defeat and quietly retreated to the side, leaving the hammer for the taking.

Peter, upon seeing his victory, breathed out a huge sigh of relief and began to dig up his prize. With a head as big as his own, indeed attached to what was presumed as a stick on the ground, the hammer stood tall, waiting for its rightful owner.

“Somehow, this feels more like a sword than the sword itself.” Peter let out an unceremonious chuckle before putting the hammer on the other side of his waist and returning to the other half of his journey.