The room is unchanged. The crowd is looking at us in confusion.

Revenant? Legend? Did thy Trial not allowed you in? Princess asks once more.

"No... we..." I try to make sense of everything. "What happened?"

Are the thou both alright? Thou both seem shocked. Princess seems slightly concerned at our reaction.

Your highness, how... how much time has passed since the moment we touched the Trial screen? Mewtwo asks the florges, then he adds a private thought for me. Astra, the music!

None, Legend. thou simply touched the screen, then stumbled back as if slapped.

"Your highness... it has been... three weeks since we have been here." I say as I fumble to stop the music player. "We have undergone the trial, and succeeded."

Truly? What strange powers those benefactors of thine possess. She says pensively. And what was that strange tune? Were you the one producing it Revenant?

"I was... these trials have music playing during their entirety, and once we exit I gain the ability to play it at will, along with others."

Time did not move for the Ezian plane. We left for three weeks and it was barely a second here. The same might have happened with Chaos trial, but we were in no state to verify that at the time, nor did it feel like more than a couple of hours... although... did it?

Mewtwo sits down on the floor and start to make sounds between laugh and sobs, while holding his head with one hand, and shaking. I gently pat him on the shoulder.

Thou appear to still be in shock, maybe postpone thy second trial. We would still wish for the answers thou might have been given.

That might be for the best for today. I do not think either of us are in a state to do another one.

No, we will do it. Mewtwo declares, rising from the ground. His eyes are slightly red, at the edge of tears, but his expression is determined. He is willing. We will give you all the answers once we return.

Before I can even discuss it with him, he has already brought Hunt's trial window, and touched the [Enter Trial] mention.

The room once more vanishes, leaving us in a gloomy forest. Thick dark trees are everywhere, their canopy intertwining and almost completely obscuring the sunlight.

There is not a sound, only the silence of the forest.

"Mewtwo, we could have waited!" I snap, "Are you sure you're okay?" I add in concern.

No, Astra, I am not okay. These... time manipulation make all the things we go through appear meaningless! He sends me with anger tinged sadness. His expression turns into a scowl. Three weeks! We spent three weeks building this, this, this system and once we are done? Get back home, no proof, no leftovers, only invisible scars! These three weeks happened Astra! And we only have a song and screen to prove it!

He breathe heavily, his eyes filled with anger locked on mine, his body tense, almost ready to strike. I have never seen him so angry. Unsure as to what to do, I decide to go with the simplest action I can think of. I hug him. I feel him tense at the sudden contact, but it is brief. Then water falls upon my hair and shoulders, and quiet sobs escapes him.

It... I don't know why... I just... It feels like we are the only one who will ever know what we go through. I saw Princess expression, I saw her thoughs, as well as those of the crowd. It was skepticism. There was nothing else on their minds.

Something rustles among the nearby bushes, but neither of us registers it.

"I know, I know. We still went through it together. I also feel robbed. It's okay, Mewtwo, we still did it. We can even remake the entire system when we get all the materials. Or even a lesser version. It's okay." I pat his back with my fleshier hand, I also feel a bit of disappointment that our experience is not translated to the real world.

I... Sorry... He sniffles, I'm OK now. Thank... Thank you Astra.

"Don't apologize, we are both in this together, never forget it! If no-one else will be here for us, we have to be here for each others!" I declare.

He smiles, and we free each others.

The rustle returns, and this time we both register it. We are still in a trial after all.

We look at the origin of the sound, a bush with pointy leaves. We prepare ourselves, ready to react to anything that comes at us. I summon my sword and Mewtwo prepares some psychic moves.

And that breaks our concentration. I have my sword. I have my inventory! I have everything! Armor, rings, all the stuff I have yet to use or sort!

<^{Of course you do. You will always have equipment on the Ezian plane, and if you don't, you can make more quickly. No point in penalizing you here.}^>

Our attention return to the bush. The warm voice of Hunt did not come from everywhere, like Chaos or Knowledge, only from the bush.

A white rabbit with purple streaks going from the tips of its ears to its hind legs appears from the bush.

<^{Hi chosen, and welcome to my trial. You know the goal, catch me and you win.}^>

We both look at the harmless little rabbit. Its orange eyes peer at us with mischief.

Does... that count? Mewtwo asks as he envelop the rabbit in a psychic hold, lifting it from the ground.

<^{Hey! Wait! No!!}^> Hunt tries to free herself from Mewtwo's hold. Her struggle are almost cute to look at, but Mewtwo cut them short as he strengthen his hold, immobilize her.

<^{Eh, joking. This one is the template. The one you need to find. It'll vanish in soon and the real trial will begin. Good luck.}^>

"Hey wait, what about the questions?" I demand, surprised they have not come up yet.

<^{What's the point in answering them now if you end up failing? Catch me and I will answer your three questions, with the new limitations you discussed with my love.}^> Hunt's rabbit form manages to smirk, and then poofs into smoke.

Rustling fills the forest, and soon we spot another rabbit in the distance. Then another, and another.

Dozens of the critters fill the forest, and we have to find the one that was Hunt.

"Okay, how do we do that?"

Let's try to sneak on the closest, and see if it's her. Mewtwo propose.

We look around until we spot the closest rabbit. We both know it is not the one we are looking for, but decide to sneak on it anyway.

Or at least we try. The moment we get within ten meters of the animal, its ears shoot up and it turns toward us. He looks at us, and we look at him for an instant, and then it bolts. We try to chase it, but it out-speeds me.

Mewtwo manages to catch up with him, but the animal manages to reach a burrow beneath a tree. My psychic friend notices too late, and slams violently on it.

His cry of pain echoes throughout the forest. Followed by rabbit chitter sounding almost like laughter. Are they mocking him?

I join him only to find him holding his bruised cranium.

"You okay?" I ask him.

I'll be, don't worry. He reassures me.

I take out an oran berry anyway and passes it to him. "Here, that might help." He nods in thanks and devour the blue fruit.

"Why did you not try telekinesis?"

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I did! It always slipped right through my hold. He reveals.

"Shit... Did we get lucky with the example? Or was it because it was an example?" I wonder.

Maybe it was because we got it by surprise? Mewtwo adds.

"Okay let's try again. Me or you, we try sneaking on one."

We try once more. Slowly approaching another one. Once more, something alerts it, and it bolts away.

I think that was you. Mewtwo says.

"What do you mean that was me?" I retort.

I... am floating... The only sound I make is breathing. Your armor clinks, your body makes a weird whirring sound. I think you are too loud.

"I... Okay, then what do I do?" I asks as I am already removing my armor. "It's not like I have a silent running mode or something..."

I check, just to be sure. No I do not. But I could. There is a Silence chip, that is supposed to allow noise cancelling features. I am missing some material for it however.

"Well... good luck." I tell Mewtwo as I sit down against a tree. "Not like I can help here."

My companion frown at that. And I actually feel like what I have just said is completely wrong.

This would not make sense. He says, echoing my own thoughts.

"Yeah I'm with you on that one, that felt so wrong to say." I add, making a face. "But what could I do?"

Well the trial asks for us to hunt and catch Hunt. It never said anything about her being alive.

"And?"

You have your entire inventory. Maybe you could make a bow? Like those skeletons monsters, or Owl. I could do reconnaissance, trying to find the right rabbit, and then you shoot it. He proposes. Again, this is Hunt's trial. If simply coursing and catching was what she wanted, it would be a bit far from an actual hunt don't you think?

I agree with him here. A quick glance tells me I can make a bow, and I swiftly assemble one, along with arrows. I use livingwood for the bow and arrow shaft, spiderweb for the bow string, and a flint and feather to finish the arrow. The resulting bow and arrows are on the weaker side, but I can always improve on it after the trial. I could spend some time remaking another portable smeltery, but I do not think we will need too much firepower to kill a rabbit.

While I was doing so, Mewtwo has gone and tried to find Hunt's rabbit form. He returns after a couple minutes, a bit more worn out than before. They sense my attacks coming. I tried to get one with telekinesis and it dashed before I could hold it. I tried other attacks, and they always dodged them somehow. I cannot do that by myself.

So it will be a team effort. I cannot approach the rabbits as they will hear me, and Mewtwo cannot attack the rabbits as they feel his attack coming. We have to work together here. Reaffirming our plan, we get to work.

What follows is a long and arduous process of me learning to use a bow, and then hunting some rabbits. What we are looking for is a white rabbit with orange eyes and two lines of purple fur going from its ears to its rear legs. And sadly, there are hundreds of rabbits in this forest. Some are easily eliminated as they are either fully white or the streaks on their back are either the wrong color, or the wrong length, and once we find some that may be right, we stumble upon the next hurdle. Multiple rabbits have the full purple lines, but then it is their eyes that differs.

We spend hours. looking through the entire forest to the point we even discover the edges of the trial space. A some point, the forest loops upon itself. The only reason we realize it is because of the map I constantly keep on the upper right corner of my vision. As we were exploring, it suddenly showed that there was nothing in front of us. And when we reach that nothingness, the map slid all the way back to the opposing direction, putting the nothingness at our back. We could have kept going for hours without realizing we were looping through the forest all along.

While we look for Hunt, I sometime try to hunt rabbits we know are wrong, so I can familiarize myself with the bow. I get my first kill on the seventeenth rabbit I shoot at. My arrow goes straight through the animal side, immobilizing it. We finish it and collect some materials from it.

We obtain its pelt, some meat, and a foot. Each have their own use. Meat can be cooked in multiple ways, the pelts can be made into either leather or accessories. And the foot is a reagent to make luck potions.

We also learn of the name of these rabbits: Aura hares. It appears they are able to sense something close to thaumic auras, making them adept at sensing incoming type-energy-based or magic-based attacks of whatever elements they may be. It takes me another few attempts to get my second kill, then I slowly start to become more and more accurate with my use of the bow. Soon enough, I can hit my target every times. Now we just need to find our actual target.

Most of the hares either have red or purple eyes. The one we seek has orange eyes. At this point it has to be the only feature that would allow us to distinguish of prey from the rest.

More hours are spent, slowly turning into a couple of days. With the Bonsai Pot chip and the Furnace chip, I am able to supply us with food to keep us going, while Mewtwo supplies us with water through either life dew or chilly water. We continue our search, looping multiple times through the arena. We try to avoid killing more rabbits. We only need to hunt down the one, no point in targeting the others.

After five days of search, we find it.

Alone in a clearing, is our prey. Mewtwo has spotted it from his vantage point just below the canopy, and is silently trailing the animal. Orange eyes, two streaks of purple from ears to hind legs. That's our query.

I signal Mewtwo to meet up some distance away.

What? His thoughs are almost whispers.

"We should try to cut its escapes. Try to isolate it with walls and pitfalls. Let's not take any chances." I whisper back.

He nods. We tried that method on other rabbits, and used it to gauge their response to Mewtwo using moves. The reactions are as follow: Do it too close, and they consider themselves targets and will flee, do it too far and you risk missing them as they move away naturally. It took us many attempts to find the edge of their detection range.

While Mewtwo is busy preparing the isolation barriers, I observe the hare. I am too far for it to hear me, but I can still see it. It remains within the clearing, grazing on mushrooms close to some tree roots. I slowly aim a shot and awaits Mewtwo return.

My friend appears a few minutes later, hovering above the hare, and gives me a thumbs up. I let the release the arrow.

It flies true, but misses as the rabbit moves away just at the right moment. The arrow thunk against the tree, and startle the rabbit. I ready another arrow, but the rabbit is already running. Mewtwo silently follows it and I follow him by sight and through the map. the moment we get too far from each others, the old marker from the beginning of our journey points us back to each other.

After a dozen minutes of chase, the rabbit stops. Thanks to Mewtwo's walls, we were able to keep it contained. Although it did not fall into any traps Mewtwo laid. Our prey is exhausted. It has stopped next to a small stream and is wildly looking around for us. It only looks around and not up, missing Mewtwo that is still floating above the hare.

I climb atop a tree branch some couple meters high to get a better view and aim a new arrow. The moment the hare relaxes and begin to drink to cool off, I let the arrow fly.

It strikes the hare in the neck. The poor animal is barely able to let out a high pitched cry, before it collapses. Mewtwo descends upon it and make sure it is truly dead, and then hoist it by the ears.

Nice shot! he calls out as I join him.

The moment I reach him,the rabbit explodes into smoke, and Hunt speaks once more, this time her voice echoes all around us.

<^{Congratulation chosens, you have cleared the trial. Beautiful hunting feats from the both of you. I was afraid one of you would consider himself useless, or that the trial would be too easy, but it appears I was able to make it just difficult enough.}^>

Hunt cheerful tone and her exposing her worries leaves us surprised.

<^{Yeah I am not that good at designing these trials as my my love and his brother. I prefer direct action. But it appears my first attempt worked great. Well, you won, time for questions!}^> Hunt happily announces.

We look at each other, and I gesture for Mewtwo to go first. Why is Knowledge so reluctant about sharing knowledge with us? This was a question we were hesitant to ask, but with the way he answered our questions with the strict minimum while giving more detailed answers for the questions of the citizens, we decided we needed to know if there was a problem between him and us, or something else.

<^{Oh crystal, of course you would think that! I am so sorry with how my love has acted with you, but... it is not that he is reluctant to answer your questions. Far from it actually, he adores questions, always have. But... that is part of the problem. He adores questions, so if his answer can spark more questions, you can bet he will give you the most cryptic and convoluted answers possible, just so you may have more questions for him.}^> Hunt cheerfully announces. <^{There is no real limit as to how many trials we may offer you, but there will come a point when you will only take the trials for their rewards, and not to get your questions answered. Knowledge knows that, and wish for you to have as many questions as possible for as long as possible. Ask him more questions, always more questions, until you reach the final question in a long line and then prepare yourselves for a lecture, because he will give you an answer, one that will take a long, long time to be said. Satisfied with that answer?}^>

We are. It explains, at least partially, Knowledge's answers to this point. we always had more questions from his answers. It also reassures that he is does not dislike us or anything of that nature.

"I wish to forfeit my question to get one answered for the citizens of the sanctuary." I declare.

<^{But of course! Go ahead.}^>

"How much protection are you willing to offer in case of an attack, and in the event the Sanctuary shield was to fail?" I relay one of the questions Mewtwo whispers to me.

<^{Oh...}^> Hunt tone shift from cheerful to something close to pity. <^{The answer to this is... none. We will not aid the Sanctuary in the events of an attack, we will only collect the deceased souls so that they may be spared from endless hunger of the vermin ruling this world. That will be the extent of our 'help', if you can even call it that. I am... so sorry but we cannot do more.}^>

This has us wince. Ozo expected such an answer and prepared a follow up question.

Can this be changed? Is there anything that could be done for you to come to their aid in their time of need?

Although these questions should count as two, it is the same question asked twice.

<^{Hrm...}^> Although we do not see Hunt, we can almost picture her wriggling as she debates with herself on how to answer. <^{No... not really. With our takeover, the Sanctuary system is a locked, and we have already meddled with it far too much. Little Ezia will not let us meddle anymore without asking for something in return, and it will render our plans moot. So, no. We will only protect the dead from his hunger, that will be the extent of our protection.}^> Hunt concludes in a saddened tone. <^{And that will be the last of your questions. Time to go back chosens, good luck and may your hunts be fruitful!}^>

Once more the room shifts and we return to the throne room

Princess looks at us, and we look at her. We did not stumble upon our return this time.

Are thou done? She asks in her commanding tone.

"We are" I answer.

And her aide suddenly falls on the ground, his eyes wide, spit foaming at his maw. On his forehead, the symbol of knowledge flashes.