I smiled as I saw the man I lured separate from the rest of the pack and scramble toward my position. It had only taken a handful of Charges to pick the right words to manipulate the emotional idiot to leave, much to my relief, but what I didn’t expect was that I caught six extra Aspirants with my bait. I was happy at first at the unexpected boon, but quickly realized a problem. With 70% of the crowd going after us here, I wasn’t sure if the few villagers I had control of could actually manage to take them all out without harm. With the others chasing Orlov blind, there would be a significant delay before they caught up; I could still adapt.
“Change of plans,” I muttered to the villagers, “I need all of you to attack the three stragglers in the back.”
I wasn’t sure how strong their leader was, but surely even he would struggle against a dozen enemies. Still, it wasn’t as if this new situation wasn’t beneficial to me. I wasn’t expecting such a divide in their leadership so quickly, and I was willing to bet that it would only worsen from now on.
“We…” the villager’s spokesperson grunted with effort, his words barely coherent, “We’ll do as you need.”
As I watched them leave from the side, I couldn’t help but notice the strain that they were encountering, and whatever curse was set upon them was strong if they could barely last even 15 minutes without going berserk. It was no wonder their numbers dwindled so much if those were the constraints they had to constantly deal with. Worse, this was just one of an uncountable number of other worlds and dimensions that suffered due to the Trash Matrix and its Central overlords, and I dread to think of how much suffering had occurred in the eons that they’ve been around.
Now what to do with the seven I had here…? Could I attempt to fight Orlov alone? I quickly erased that thought from my mind, I was confident that I could finish him off, even if he was one of the stronger members of the Aspirants, but I wasn’t so confident that I could do that when I had almost no Luck Charges to work with, at least not before the others all caught up. Plus, without the fog dampening the sounds, his companions would pick up on the cacophony of a fight and book it to my position. I was sure that I’d win a one-on-one, but a one-on-seven? Not a chance.
Could I perhaps lure him toward Greta’s place and just have her deal with all seven? Maybe possible, but that’s assuming I could get them all to follow me for several hours or longer; I was pretty far away from where the hut was, and I wasn’t entirely sure that I could even find it without retracing my original steps. No, that’s way too risky, and no matter how emotional Orlov was now, he’d have to be an absolute idiot not to notice something wrong after a few minutes, let alone an hour or two.
Right, so I couldn’t fight him nor could I use others to do the dirty work, which only left me with two real options. Either I just run away and hope that the villagers did a number on the three in the back - not a gamble I was willing to make - or I did something of a mix of the first two ideas. While I couldn’t lure them for too long, that didn’t mean that I couldn’t screw with Orlov at all, but I needed to be careful.
I took on my secondary form again, digging deep into the ground, and quickly made a tunnel back toward the village’s perimeter. I shouldn’t have any issues getting lost if I just retraced my steps using the tunnels, so that’s one concern I dealt with. Now it’s time to bait the idiots so far into the forests that it’ll take a miracle to get out, or at least a very long time to do so. Was it lethal? I doubt it, what with seven superhumans with mostly unknown abilities taking the helm, but I’ve experienced how difficult it was to maneuver in the sea of trees back in that Second Trial, and there was no way that they’d be able to rejoin the others any time soon if I just got them far enough away from any trodden paths.
I hovered just outside the sight of Orlov and continued my taunts. “Please! There’s monsters here, Dad! Don’t leave me alone, not again!”
A low howl of grief echoed from the man as he redoubled his efforts to catch up to my position. Honestly, I felt a pang of guilt taunting the man like this. From the snippet I heard earlier, he’s just a grief-stricken dad who’s desperate to save his daughter, even if she’s already gone from the world. There were probably hundreds - no, thousands of similar stories playing out across all of the various Trials; an untold number of tragedies on display because the Trash Matrix decided to invade people’s lives for its own benefit. Like I’ve said before, I can’t call myself a good man by any stretch of the imagination, but this kind of suffering, on that kind of scale? Even I had limits to what I could tolerate.
Say, Noe, how far along are you with infiltrating this Trial?
“I am making significant progress, my Host,” she replied, “But I will need more time to realize any true changes to the core rules of the Trial. At the current rate, it will take several days to break its defenses, but this progress can be sped up.”
How?
“Just as the Director was a key figure in the last Trial, this location should also be governed by a local god,” Noe continued, “From my analysis so far, I have concluded that the Trash Matrix is manipulating or siphoning the divinity of those beings to create its connection between these dimensions and the Main Stage. If I can get closer to the source of this Trial - that is, the deity guarding this plane, then I can analyze how the Trash Matix is utilizing those powers and breach its defenses.”
Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit.
Got it; meet the local god, hang out with it for a while, and go from there.
“That is the jist of it, my Host.”
Well, the villagers did say that there’s some ritual or ceremony of some sort being held soon, that’s probably the best time to meet a god if I ever seen one.
“That is the most probable outcome.”
I nodded. Alright, that’s something to plan for, but let’s finish things up here first though. Thanks for the info, Noe.
“It is a pleasure as always, dear Walter.”
I spent the next 15 or so minutes zigzagging aimlessly across the forest floor (did I mention how annoying tree roots were to dig through? The damn stuff gets in the way of everything and they’re thick!), using one or two Luck Charges now and then to ensure that I was going in the optimal direction. Once I was pleased that we were in a patch of ground devoid of any kind of landmark, I finally decided to end the charade. Plus, I noticed Orlov slow down and really think about what he was doing. The others, thankfully, were still chasing the other man, so at least I knew that I didn’t lose the larger bunch. That's when I gave them the slip. Good luck trying to find your way out of this one!
I was confident, even before, that the Aspirants I'd lured would have a hard time getting back, but I was all but certain of this after it took me more than half an hour to retrace my own steps. Some of the tunnels had half collapsed, and the roots and other detritus made it hard to keep track of where my own borrows were. Half the time I had to circle around just to find where I’d come from. If I had that hard a time, then I couldn’t imagine how bad it’d be for the normal Aspirants with their mostly human senses.
For now, though, I needed to recover. I’ve done as much as I could here, the enemy was in total disarray, and with those seven gone and the last three hopefully wounded at the very least, I had effectively crippled their overall fighting force. With 20-odd people left, and a good portion of that being people who can’t fight at all, I had all but secured my victory here. But once again, my main goal wasn’t to finish these Trials as fast as possible and then leave.
I needed to establish a connection to this place, and not just with this place, but any others I encounter in the future. The only problem was to figure out a way to maintain communications between the various allies that I make. I’ll need to consult Molly and Bob later, they seem like the people who could work out transdimenion travel and whatnot. It was good to have friends in high places.
But once again, all of that could wait. I dug myself deep underground, going dozens of meters beneath the surface, enjoying the feel of the warm embrace of the earth, and closed my eyes. Er, closed my senses in any case, since Xollons didn’t have eyes. I felt the accumulated fatigue wash over me, and after making sure that Noe would wake me up if I overslept, I drifted off into sweet oblivion.
* * *
“My Host,” I heard a soothing voice say, “It is time to wake up.”
Groggly, I extended my senses again, disoriented for a moment as my mind recalled where I was, and the last wisps of a dream fading into the confines of my mind. I dreamt of… an Angel, but… I shook my head, I couldn’t recall.
“It is time to work, dear Walter,” that voice, Noe’s voice, repeated in my mind, “I hope you had a pleasant sleep.”
I stretched my feelers and sighed. Right, I was still in the Trials, and there was still much to be done.
How long was I out for?
“12 hours and 22 minutes, my Host.”
I frowned. Damn, I hadn’t slept for that long ever since I underwent the Trash Matrix’s Ascension process… Well, if you don’t count me being asleep for eons prior to this human body that is. Why the hell was I out for so long?
“You have overworked yourself, my Host,” Noe answered, “This is the first time that you have utilized so many Luck Charges in such a short amount of time, and although your body is capable of handling the strain with the limiters in place, it still places a burden on your psyche. You needed the rest.”
I nodded slowly. That made a strange kind of sense if I thought about manipulating the fabric of reality like working a muscle that is. I sighed at the wasted time, but I rest was necessary in any case. Plus, I’ve recovered a healthy amount of Luck Charges.
Luck Charge: 799/1630
Nice, I was close to half full, that gave me a lot of room to work with. Did I miss anything while I was asleep?
“Nothing in the immediate surroundings, my Host, but from my limited access to the Trash Matrix’s systems, I have detected an unknown surge of energy from the enemy Aspirants.”
I furrowed my eyebrows. Any idea what that could be?
“No, my Host,” she replied, “Without fully taking control of this Trial, my abilities to see past your own senses are severely limited. For such an event to occur, whatever happened must have been very strong.” She paused for a moment, as if in thought. “The good news is that I can lead you to where the Aspirants are, it is best to find out what new variables are in play.”
I took a deep breath and shook my head. Then I best go and see what the hell happened. I’m guessing it’s not something good.
I sighed again and followed Noe’s directions to see what new troubles awaited me.