DAY ???

DAY TWO OF THE HELL PIT BOND EVENT

THREE DAYS UNTIL EXTRACTION

“Seiji, we’re going to be late. Please just let me pick something for you–”

“No! I have something. I picked! I just wanted… other options.”

He didn’t have to turn from the armoire to know she was scowling at him. She’d woken up before him and gotten dressed already. She picked out an all-black outfit – everything from the long coat to the skirt to the boots was the same color as the bed they slept in. Seiji wanted to match with her, but couldn’t find an outfit that paired well with hers. That being said, it had been an hour, and they had work to do.

Reluctantly, Seiji picked up the armor he’d spotted a few minutes ago and headed to the bathroom to change. It covered every inch of his body, save for his face. The plates in the middle seemed to bend to show the face of a screaming man trapped in metal. The bottom half was more kilt than pant, and the mobility… Well, Seiji had to admit it didn’t inhibit his movement in the slightest. Regardless, it seemed far too ostentatious for his tastes. When he stepped out, he didn’t even look at Cora.

“Let’s head to the dining room. We don’t want to be late.”

Cora hissed.

When they entered the dining room, Seiji was surprised to find Alexandros and Alexandra were the only two occupants. Alexandros wore armor similar to Seiji’s, though the upper portion had white metal bones over the body leading to a red crystal where the heart would be. He leaned on the brown wall munching on a purple aura fruit from the tip of a serrated sword like a skewer. Alexandra sat at one of the plush red chairs of the circular dining table, jabbing at a slice of jerky with a fork. She also wore armor, though hers exposed bits of her forearm as well as her fingers. When the door creaked open, both of them smiled and rushed over to greet Seiji and Cora.

“Yo!” Alexandros waved. “There are weapons in the closet here, they’re Unaspected but they’re pretty cool!” He ran to the back of the room and opened the door of a closet. He pulled out a massive black metal scythe and a glowing red spear. “They have everything!”

“Mhmm!” Alexandra nodded. “If I saw them yesterday, I would’ve gone out!”

“Thank you for sharing,” Cora smiled. The two of them brightened.

Seiji wasn’t sure what to make of the ‘Alex Twins’. On the one hand, they seemed harmless. They were adrenaline junkies and they were childish. There was nothing inherently wrong with that. On the other hand, he’d sensed their bloodlust firsthand. It reminded him far too much of his own bloodlust from his time on The Ardor. He’d been cocky. Cocky to the point that a challenge was his idea of a good time. While others would avoid life-or-death situations, he’d embrace them, treating a fight to the death like a trip to the arcade. If they were anything like him, they’d be in for a rough time.

“Hey,” Cora called from the weapons closet. “Come here! I need help picking a sword.”

Seiji abandoned his train of thought for now, though he promised to himself that he’d keep an eye on the Twins for now.

After helping Cora pick an onyx-colored sword from the weapon closet, Seiji sat at the table and ate the same fruit and jerky they’d eaten last night. While the kitchens were equipped with loose ingredients for cooking, the cookware was rusty and molded – leaving them with the dried foods, iron vegetables, and aura fruits lying around in the kitchens. As Alexandra had been complaining about the lack of a ‘real meal’, Selene strode in alongside Lirio. Selene wore a black corset with black pants and the same thigh-high boots as Cora. Lirio wore an all-black nobleman’s outfit with a silver belt and silver armored right sleeve. Alexandra directed them to the weapons closet, but they insisted on fighting unarmed.

“Seiji,” Lirio said, taking a seat at the table. “Have you completed your map markings?”

“Yes, I have.”

Seiji turned to Cora who revealed a folded sheet of paper from her coat pocket. Before they’d gotten ready, he and Cora had gone over the map and everything they remembered from the day before. They’d tried to find the pattern that governed the floor plan of the tower. While they didn’t find any patterns, they did find plenty of inaccuracies. Some of the rooms on the lower floors were far smaller than the map depicted, while others were in completely different areas.

“Maybe the tower is alive?” Alexandra posited. “Maybe it’s a monster and we’re in its belly?”

“If it were alive, it likely would’ve killed us in our sleep,” Selene answered. To Seiji’s surprise, she didn’t have any hostility towards Alexandra in her voice.

For the next hour, everyone gave their own theories regarding the nature of the tower. Alexandra and Selene were both convinced that the tower was alive to some degree, with Lirio adding that it could potentially be shifting the positions of its contents. Cora and Seiji both thought the opposite. They believed that it was static, but the map is inaccurate to hide its secrets from people like them. Seiji had seen that kind of thing plenty of times on The Ardor. The only one who didn’t contribute to the discussion was Alexandros. He’d been a bit more quiet than usual, barely commenting even when Alexandra spoke to him directly. When Lirio called him out for his lack of input, the boy stood from the table and began to pace about the room.

“Okay,” Alexandros murmured, arms at his hips. “The floors get tougher as we go up. There are fifteen floors. Yesterday, the first three floors were about Tier 2 in terms of difficulty. Three, six, nine, twelve, fifteen. Floors four through six are probably Tier 3. Then Tier 4 for the seven through nine,5 for ten through twelve, and 6 for thirteen through fifteen. That would mean that the ‘Pit Demon’ is higher than Tier 6. No one would respect a king they didn’t fear.” He stopped under a painting of a black cat matted with blood sat atop a dead lion. “If we all take three floors, we can clear the Tower by tonight. We can run through the place and find the grotto tomorrow, then gang up on the Pit Demon the day after that.”

If you spot this story on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

Alexandra leaned back into her chair and gave the room a smug smile. “My big bro is super smart! That’s why he’s gonna be a Servant!”

Alexandros didn’t react. Instead, he was intently focused on Selene for some reason. She pressed her lips, glanced over at Seiji and Cora for a brief moment, then turned back to Alexandros. When Lirio began to glare at Alexandros, Seiji began to suspect something was up.

“That won’t work,” Selene muttered.

Alexandros crossed his arms. “Why not?”

Selene glanced at Seiji and Cora again with a more pained expression before turning back to Alexandros. With a deep breath, she spoke up.

“The demons revive after an hour. When they do, they’re stronger than they were when they were killed.”

“How do you know that?” Cora asked in an accusatory tone.

Selene sighed. “We went out while everyone was asleep. Lirio and I were looking for the hidden grotto, but the demons had all come back. Rather than search, we decided to use it as an opportunity to train.” She leaned back into her chair and grabbed her horns. “If we clear out the tower, we’re just making things harder for ourselves.”

Cora slammed her palms on the table and shot up from her seat. “Is this not a group mission?” She shot a finger at Selene. “If you aren’t here to work as a team, then what are you doing here?”

Rather than jab back, Selene nodded grimly. “You’re correct.” She stood from her seat and turned to meet everyone’s eyes. “Going forward, Lirio and I will be fully transparent with any and all of our plans. I am sorry for leaving you all in the dark.”

Though her tail still lashed behind her, Cora sat down and folded her arms.

“So…” Alexandra intoned. “What now?”

“We should still split up,” Alexandros said. “Maybe just the lower floors, though? I think we can handle a few Tier 3 demons, right?”

“I already told you–” Selene tried.

“We won’t find the hidden grotto in here, will we? There’s only so much we can do with an incomplete map and guesses about how the tower works. If you have a better plan, say it now. Otherwise,” Alexandros walked to the door and waved for Alexandra to join him. She hopped up from her seat and rushed to Alexandros’ side. “Me n’ my lil sis’ll just kill everything.”

“Hey! That isn’t–” Selene tried again.

“That may be our best course of action.”

Cora stood from the table, positioning herself between the twins and everyone at the table.

“If we section the tower into chunks of three as Alexandros had, we can work within a manageable area to search for the hidden grotto. If we find nothing on the first three floors, we can move to the next three.” She tapped at the map on the table. “We already know that the floors have the same layout. Let’s not waste any more time here.”

When no one objected, Cora called for Seiji to walk to her side. He did so, eager to leave the room. He’d barely contributed, though there wasn’t much to add.

“I call the first floor!” Alexandra beamed.

Selene stood from the table with Lirio. “We’ll clear the third. We spent the least time there.”

“That leaves us with the second,” Seiji said.

To the surprise of no one, Alexandra and Alexandros were the first to leave. They cloaked themselves in fire and raced for the stairway. Selene and Lirio left soon after, dashing away cloaked in a red-white aura.

Seiji turned to Cora. “We can’t let them all show us up, can we?”

Cora smiled. “No, we can’t.”

They cloaked themselves in Dragon Fury and dashed down to the second floor

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Just as Selene had said it’d be, the second floor was inhabited by the same gause-faced demons they’d seen yesterday. Unlike yesterday, however, they now stood on shriveled red legs wielding bladed weapons. There were about thirty of them in the room, and their heads snapped to Cora and Seiji the moment they stepped off the staircase.

“Seiji,” Cora called, lowering into a battle stance. “Are you still willing to fight together?”

“Yup,” Seiji said, unsheathing his dragon-hilted dagger. “Let’s go for it.”

Seiji waited for her to move as demons let out terrible shrieks like death whistles. Cora turned to him, her calm expression slowly turning more and more uncomfortable by the second.

“I’ll go,” they said at the same time.

They began to laugh but were interrupted when a massive steel axe descended between them. Seiji leapt to his right while Cora leapt backward. Seiji twisted the dagger in his hand and lunged for the demon before him, preparing to slam the blade into its skull when a ball of blue fire blasted the demon apart before he could attack. Black mist clouded his vision as the explosion launched him back into the staircase.

“Sorry!” Cora shouted.

“It’s… fine.” Seiji panted. Thankfully, the armor wasn’t just for show. He rose to his feet, wiping debris and ash from the plating as he loaded Dragon Fury into his legs.

In a single kick, he stood at Cora’s side. Another demon approached, running full speed at them both while it dragged an oversized claymore with both hands.

Communication. I need to communicate.

“I’ll sweep its feet, you kill it.”

“No, there are four demons close behind. If you sweep it they can attack you before you can recover!”

“I can get out of the way, we just need to move!”

“There’s no way for you to–”

The demon’s claymore slammed against Seiji’s side, launching him like a torpedo into a pillar on the east side of the room. When he stood to his feet, he couldn’t stop his annoyance from overtaking him. He wasn’t mad at Cora, he was mad at himself. Seiji’d done the occasional team mission, but not only were they rare but he never took the lead on them. Quite frankly, he didn’t know how to work with Cora. As she slashed the head off of the demon that’d sent him flying with her sword, Cora zipped to his side, sheathing the weapon.

“We need to clear the room, Seiji!” Cora said in a pleading tone.

Seiji heard the unspoken truth of those words. He rose to his feet, sinking into a battle stance as he cloaked his body in Dragon Fury.

“I’ll take the right side, you take the left.”

“Alright.”

Seiji kicked off at the same time as Cora. He immediately targeted the demon preparing an overhead slam of his axe and stabbed it in the stomach with his dagger. With the strength Dragon Fury gave his body, Seiji raised it up and through the demon’s head, leaving it to fade to ash. As he tore through the crowd of demons, Seiji tried not to think of how much easier it was to work alone. Regardless, when he’d approached Cora at the center of the cleared room, he couldn’t help but give her a dejected look. She did the same, though she’d forced a bit of a smile.

“They say Haven wasn’t built in a day. When this is over, I’ll buy us some training equipment to help with our coordination.”

Seiji walked to the staircase up in silence. He could only assume everyone else had finished, likely before they did. When he reached Tier 3, he’d felt like he was easily the best Servant in the Exam. Not only had he beaten a fair amount of them in the Botanist’s Bond Event, but he’d managed to advance relatively fast. Now? His combat experience didn’t matter much if he couldn’t apply it in a team setting. He wondered how Cora felt. Was she upset? Disappointed? He tried–

“Psst!” a familiar voice called from behind them.

Seiji’s eyes widened for a moment, but he managed to keep his composure. Cora, on the other hand, jumped and hissed at the newcomer. Alexandra stood there, hands behind her back with a wry smile on her face.

“Come here, we found something!” She said in a half-whisper.

“What did you–” Cora began but was cut off when Alexandra grabbed Cora’s and Seiji’s hands and pulled them into the staircase downstairs.

When they entered the familiar lantern-lit stairway, Alexandros stood there, leaning against the stone wall and smiling like a kid in a candy store.

“What did you find?” Cora asked in a low tone.

Alexandra beamed but didn’t say anything. Instead, she nodded to Alexandros. He nodded back, turning to face the wall. The Servant removed a brick near the bottom corner of the wall, laughing maniacally as the wall he’d been leaning on slowly descended into the floor beneath them. Where there once was a wall now revealed a long corridor with stone walls carved to depict various anamorphic demons and mutated, bipedal livestock. The corridor was lit by many lanterns and torches.

“Is this…” Cora trailed off, mouth agape.

Alexandra stepped into the corridor and Alexandros followed, standing at her right. They turned back to Cora and Seiji after taking a few steps in.

“Come on! The door’ll close in a few seconds!”

“Ah! Right.” She turned to Seiji. “Come on, let’s go!