“Rami, Rami, wake up… we have trouble,” said Bonetta as she shook Rami awake.

Rami barely opened his eyes and said, “Eh, what? what is it?”

“There is someone or something over there,” said Bonetta, pointing at a nearby bush.

The bush shook lightly.

“You’re right. Let’s wake up the others,” whispered Rami.

They quietly woke up Alice and Grimmy and explained the situation.

“So, what do we do?” asked Alice. “Do we pretend not to notice, and attack when they get closer?”

“No, I say we go and beat up whoever is there,” replied Bonetta.

“Wait a second, guys, let’s think about this for a second,” said Rami hesitantly. “Grimmy, what do you think? You’re the master strategist.”

“HEYYYY, who’s there!” yelled Grimmy.

“Grimmy!” whispered all three at the same time.

“What the fuck, man?” asked Bonetta, frustrated. “At least my plan involved us attacking first. Pretty sure a surprise attack is out of the question now.”

“Come on… let us see you!” continued yelling Grimmy.

The other three members of Team Tim prepared their battle formation and waited for whoever was behind the bush to show themselves.

A small demon-like creature stepped out of the bushes. The creature was about two feet tall with red skin and one horn on his forehead. He was wearing what looked like a mail carrier uniform with a small scythe logo on the right chest pocket. Underneath the scythe logo it read, ‘JUPS.’

“Gary? What are you doing here?” asked Grimmy.

“Wait, you know him, Grimmy?” asked Rami.

“Yeah, you all can relax. He is not going to hurt us. We worked together back in Death’s Domain.”

“Hey Grimaldi, or should I say Grimmy,” said Gary with a smirk on his face.

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“What do you want, Gary? Tired of delivering everybody’s mail at the domain or do you just miss delivering my mail?” sighed Grimmy.

“Why the long face, Grimmy? Don’t you miss me?”

“Bonetta, you can punch him now.”

Bonetta started moving towards Gary, cracking her knuckles.

“Wait, wait, fine, fine no need for violence, okay?” said Gary as he took a few steps back, both of his arms in the air. “Ms. Lucilla asked me to deliver a message to you all.”

“Ms. Lucilla? Is everything okay?” said Grimmy.

“Nothing to worry about, but she said it was urgent, so here I am.”

Gary walked forward and took out an envelope. Grimmy opened his hand, reaching for the envelope. “It’s not for you, Grimmy,” said Gary, snapping the envelope away from Grimmy’s hand. “It’s for Ms. Alice Raven, Lord Death’s chosen,” finished Gary, bowing his head towards Alice.

“For me? Is this from Joe?” said Alice.

“Joe?” said everyone but Grimmy.

“Yeah, Lord Death, that’s his name, or at least one of his names according to him.”

“You’re on first-name basis with the God of Death?” said Rami, his eyes so wide you could almost see them reaching the outside of his goggles.

Alice ignored everyone’s shock and took the letter.

“Well, my job here is done. Grimmy, nice to see you, I guess. Bye.”

A second later, he vanished before letting Grimmy respond.

“Well, he seemed… nice,” said Alice.

“He grows on you…” responded Grimmy.

"So you worked with him?" asked Bonetta

"Well, he is the guy that delivered our mail, the uniform is new."

"So you worked in an office, Grimmy?" asked Alice.

"Sort of, I was in charge of research and analytics of different worlds, including Earth and Sfiraz. I would basically research pretty much everything and anything and would make predictions on when a catastrophe would happen so that we could prepare our personnel for the influx of deaths."

"Wow, that sounds difficult," said Alice in awe.

“Open the letter, Alice, what does it say?” said Rami excitedly.

“Oh yeah, right. Let see.”

Alice opened the letter and started reading it.

“Something about the Champion’s Tournament and that us three are entering it representing Joe?” said Alice confused. “Grimmy, do you know what this is?”

Alice turned around to see the rest of the team. Everyone was pale. Well, Grimmy was already bone white so he couldn’t get paler, but Bonetta and Rami were noticeably paler.

“Uhhh, guys, what’s wrong.”

“Alice, do you know what the Champion’s Tournament is?” said Rami shaking.

“If I knew, Rami, I wouldn’t be asking.”

“It’s a tournament hosted by the gods, Alice. Only the best of the best, the elite, the cream of the crop, le crème de la crème…”

“I get it, Rami. What I still don’t get is why you all look scared.”

“Alice, we will be fighting against real monsters there, the people that go there are elite in every way. We could… no we will definitely die there if we compete,” replied Rami.

“What! We can die! What kind of tournament is this? Bonetta, what do you think? Are we going to die if we go to this tournament?” asked Alice, looking at Bonetta’s face. Bonetta was sweating, even shaking a little, but her eyes, her eyes showed something different. Her eyes showed ambition and hunger.

“We get to fight the best, nothing better than that!” said Bonetta.

“Okay… and I’m the masochist…” Alice murmured. “Grimmy?” Alice turned her head towards him.

“It’s not going to be easy,” said Grimmy, rubbing his chin, “but doable. You see there are tiers in the tournament, the lowest being C grade and A grade the highest. The tournament is in three years. Basically, we must get you guys to reach C grade before the tournament begins to even have a chance. You can enter as D grades, but you will definitely be killed if you do that. We should be able to reach D grade soon, and Lord Death should be able to power level you to C. He should have some sort of plan if he decided to enter you all into the tournament.”

“C-grade in three years?!” exclaimed Rami. “Most people take a decade before reaching C grade.”

“Relax, Rami, those people don’t have Grimmy to help them. Right, Grimmy?” said Alice hopefully.

“Don’t get me wrong, Alice, it will be difficult to reach D grade, but it will be extremely challenging to reach C grade in the amount of time that we have. Whatever Lord Death has in mind, it will not be pretty for you all,” said Grimmy.

“Well, Joe knows what he is doing. We got to trust him, right?” Alice said, really hoping Joe knew what he was doing.

Neither Bonetta nor Rami responded. They were still in shock about being summoned to the biggest tournament in the universe.

“I should have stayed a bartender…” said Rami under his breath.

“Alright, Rami, you’re up for night guard duty, the rest of you go to sleep. We will be kicking this quest into high gear tomorrow. We have three years to get you three to C grade. Chop chop!”