###
“The plains of Gazeluke. We’ll do it there.”
This again.
“Yo, Human, What do you think? Will you get wiped out at the start this time, like, again?”
Human? “Who knows?” The human observer, referred to by his peers as such, snapped back at the others, “Maybe we’ll surprise you this time.”
His reply was met with a bunch of Ooo’s and Wow’s.
“Whoa, where’s the confidence coming from?” She continued, prying deeper into the secrets the human observer was holding, “This is new. You’ve never acted so… snarky before.”
Where do you think I get it from? The human observer sighed, dealing with his co-workers was an exercise in futility. They were each equally annoying as one another, the only differentiating features they had were the masks that they wielded, then their build and voices, then…
Their names, no- Our names.
It was strange that nobody in this room ever felt like using it, even though the Director gave us our names to make recognizing each other easier. We often refer to each other from the race we were tasked to observe instead, hence, he was called the Human observer. To be honest, he’d always assumed that calling him human was discriminatory, but to whom he was allowed to complain? The HR? There was no such thing in the Sanctum.
“Silence.” The director spoke, seating in a seat twice the size of his, far away in the center of the massive meeting room.
“As I said before. We are approaching the end of the preparation stage of the trial. On the fourth day, our consensus brought us to the plains of Gazeluk, where the first stage of the trial begins.” The director repeated the results of the meeting, his eyes scanning those who had attended.
Directors, observers, whatever. Before the first trial began, the races would get to meet each other, and then…
Well, if history was right, some amount of killing would be expected. Then, after the strongest won, they’d meet again in the plains and form some kind of hierarchy and build their forces together under the rule of one race. Oh, of course, they would all hate each other, but the completion of the trial had always mattered more.
“Place your hands on the core. Then, we’ll begin the voting process. This time, we’re deciding on the guardian entity…”
The human observer took this idle time to figure out his next plan. Obviously, he needed to prepare those humans for the next stage somehow, but he wasn’t keen on giving them more attention than he already did.
His mind drifted to the two anomalies of humankind, Idris; the appointed leader of the council, and Gray.
###
Munch. Gulp.
These steaks were as good as I remembered, no, they were better. I just couldn’t stop eating them.
There was nothing better than enjoying a full meal after wearing yourself out completely from an intense, 10x-enhanced workout session. Yes, my body was exhausted, and yes, it was begging for a damned good sleep. But eating was as important—if not essential—as the reps that I did when it came to muscle growth. Those muscleheads preached this stuff like it was the gospel, and from my past body-building experience, they were right.
Eating alone gave me enough time and space to dwell on my thoughts. Tomorrow, The Observer would turn the missions up a notch, ending with the Orc chief mission as the cherry on top. I struggled to brainstorm a method to deal with the Chief; My lack of firepower crippled my chances of handling the orcs on my own. Perhaps a solution would appear in the form of another spell book, but I heavily doubted that.
Before, someone like, let’s say Phillip, or Sarah, was the crux required to progress further. Finding those people now would be challenging, if not impossible; pretty much only those who stood a few meters above the rest would be able to meet that threshold. Perhaps I could ask Ameer for his help? But that would be hard since he came in here with his friends…
Let’s try the goblin mission alone and see how things go. Chewing off the last cut of meat on my plate, I searched the canteen for notable individuals.
Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on the original website.
Rows and rows of people walked past me, taking their sweet time to enjoy the festivities as time passed. For the majority of them, this would be the last meal they had together. I had told them about the requirements for the next day, but whether they decided to follow my advice was completely up to them.
Besides, if they were capable of handling the lizardmen themselves, they’d already done it. Those who didn’t either would’ve died in that mission, or knew their limits enough to understand that it would be futile.
“Ish Ghoodd!” A rowdy noise scattered the ambient sounds from the crowd, “Thry this!”
“A-Ahahahaha…”
Phillip.
Partying up with him would solve most of my problems, but that was exactly why I didn’t want to. To converse and be friends with him for that purpose was wrong in my eyes, I felt that I was using his strength as a crux for our friendship.
Our gazes met, and we nodded. At least we weren’t on any bad terms, so it wasn’t like there wouldn’t be any other opportunities for us to be friends again. I wanted him to wait, even though from his perspective, I was just another stranger he had never met before.
My knees creaked when I put force into them while trying to stand up. I never knew how bad my joints felt until I had to limp my way back into the Living quarters. Of course, my limp being a funny sight, drew a couple of eyes as I snailed past them. The noises of the rowdy scene dissipated when I was greeted with the comfort of my room.
The comfortable scene did nothing but urge my body to release all the tension that had been piled up, so much so that I simply showered and slammed the bed with my forehead. Sleep came like a freight train, hitting me so hard that I lost consciousness in an instant.
What came after was the dream. The dream of the life I led back on earth was the first one that appeared. I recalled how awful I felt then, none of my body parts were working right, and don’t even mention the constant lethargy, those were… draining. Those days were difficult to live through, and even more painful to remember.
Then, everything snapped to black. From above, bodies in the form of myself rained down, slamming the ground with a chunky quake, piling on top of each other and forming a mini-hill made of my carcasses. It was gruesome, sure, but it didn’t bother me as much as it should’ve been. But my dreams knew that it wasn’t enough.
One by one, the bodies began to tremble, shaking the mound like it was experiencing an earthquake. Then came the screams of agony—courtesy of the moments before I died—reverberated against one another, cascading from the top of the meat hill, nearly rupturing my eardrums as I pressed both of my hands against my ears.
That was the combined agony of what I had put myself through. Willingly.
The sudden click of silence replaced the terror of my death. In an instant, I was back in the realm of the living greeted by a screen, displaying a message. It flinched me awake.
[Idris requested a council meeting.]
“H-Huh? What?”
I couldn’t form a comprehensive sentence as my brain was still in complete disarray to have been woken up in this manner. Council? Idris? What the-
[You will be teleported into the council room in 10 minutes.]
“Whoa…”
The cold air in the room breezed past my naked buttocks, a cruel and important reminder that I slept nude. Imagine if I was sent to the council room without any clothes on… That picture wouldn’t compare to the nightmare I saw prior. Shudder.
I got up and headed to the closet for a suit, but that wasn’t before I noticed the mirror reflecting the image of a man I couldn’t quite recognize. It was… me, yes, but I didn’t think I looked the way I was…
Instead of a chubby, weak-looking man, I was face to face with a rather toned guy with a small belly below the center of my abdomen. I was by no means muscle-y — that was a term I’d use for someone like Ameer and his friends, and of course, the picture of perfect fitness himself, Phillip — but to say that I was unfit wouldn’t be the right description anymore. Let’s just say that I was… average. Yeah, Average.
Admiring the rapid changes, which would be considered witchcraft back on earth, I put on the suit and appreciated the smaller bulge where my belly used to be. I looked and felt better, which was a good way to start the day.
Once I was fully clothed, I washed my face and got rid of the bed hair with my utmost effort. I noted my facial complexions, which were upgraded from the always-tired look to a more pleasing one, and may I say, I looked more towards the agreeable side now.
[Teleporting you to the Council room in 1 minute.]
If I was involved in this event because I reached the top-2 spot, this meant that both Phillip and Sarah would be there too. They never told me about any of this, so I’d assume that this council was hush-hush between the top tens, but I couldn’t help but feel that there was a deeper reason for it.
I had never once felt betrayed by other people keeping their secrets. Phillip had more than a few in his head, which I could tell by the way he looked at times. Perhaps one could argue that I should have been upset, but I believed that they had their right to keep things close to themselves.
[Teleporting you to the council room.]
Replacing the lavish, warm room that I slept in, now I stood gaping in an office-looking room, surrounded by pure-white walls that almost glowed when I pinched my eyes at them, and in the middle was a round, black-granite table with golden trimmings on its edges. Behind those tables were ten seats, each one of them belonging to one of us.
At the edges corner of the table, sat a man that I had never seen before. He was of average height, topped with medium-length white hair, but the most distinctive feature about him wasn’t his body or his hair, no, it was his verdant irises that lit up like a street light, staring at me as if they were alive. There was no doubt in my mind that this man w-
“Welcome. My name is Idris.” He said, extending his arm, and pointing at a seat on his side. “Sit.”
The way he spoke wasn’t the tone you’d hear from a colleague speaking with one another. No, it was more like a command, like how I spoke to my own minions. I wanted to refuse, but somehow, my body was just… following his will. It was the first time I’d ever felt this sort of presence from a person; Phillip’s was the closest aura that was comparable to his, but Idris’ presence simply demanded your obedience.
I dragged the seat back and plopped my ass down.
Idris watched, no, eagled my appearance, which from his lack of interest, meant that he was expecting more.
“What do you want?” I asked, after waiting for some time. “Surely, you didn’t bring me here just to look at me?”
“I’m… forming my thoughts.” His reply was cold, calculating. “This... event wasn’t something that I had predicted.”
I cocked my head sideways, “What do you mean?”
“You’ve seen me before. You’re the one who crashed into Bruneheart this morning; before you began your mission.” Idris slid forward in his seat, cupping his hands together, “I’m him. Well, to be precise, I am a part of him.”
“Huh?” That was all that I managed to blurt out. The sudden revelation caught me off-guard, “You’re that… blind guy?”