Vadeem and I had scouted the area around us to the best of our abilities, and aside from the eternally smothering darkness and gloom, the forest around us seemed normal, at least to my eyes. Then again, I grew up in the big city, so I knew next to nothing about environments like this.

“Anything seem off on your end?” I asked Vadeem as we gathered in a small clearing. He moved a log on to its side and sat down.

“A lot of things,” he muttered, “for one, it’s too quiet.”

I put my little lantern down between us and grabbed a seat myself. The soft glow was the only thing keeping the encroaching darkness at bay. We had made a small campfire earlier, and some fresh tea was being brewed. I took a cup and gave another to Vadeem, who nodded in thanks.

He continued, “This far off from civilization, the forests should be teeming with noise, but there’s nothing. No sounds of birds, insects, small animals. It’s like there’s no life at all. Just look at the ground we’re sitting on, normally it’d be crawling with critters.”

I looked down and saw small patches of plants and dead leaves, but Vadeem was right. Even rummaging through some rocks and tree branches, I saw not a single bug of any kind hiding underneath.

“It’s like the whole damn forest’s dead,” Vadeem grumbled as he took deep sip of his drink.

“Least there’s nothing out to get us here,” I said.

He shrugged, “And I’ll bet you all my gold that’s going to change before long.”

I sighed, “Yeah, like these Trials will make it that easy for us. You think Jae-Hyun’s right, that something’s wrong with our Trial?”

Vadeem shrugged, “Not sure. I was never the kind of guy who gave these kinds of things much thought, but I trust Jae-Hyun, and his judgement’s been solid so far.”

I poked the fire with a stick, causing some sparks to flutter out. It was odd conversing with Vadeem like this, I had grown so used to pretending to be someone else that just having a normal conversation without the constant need to keep my identities in check jarring. I guess it was kind of nice to just be myself for once, even if we were stuck in some nightmare forest.

I looked at the relaxed man before me and continued, “Say, why did you choose to trust him? I mean, you’re a lot older than Jae-Hyun, so why didn’t you decide to lead things instead?”

He laughed again, “Do I honestly look like the type of person to lead anyone?”

“Yes?” I answered honestly. I haven’t met the man for long, but he was good natured and charismatic, not to mention intimidatingly strong. I can only imagine that people would naturally want to follow him. Seemed like a solid candidate for a leader in my eyes.

“And that’s where you’re wrong, Walter,” he explained, “I know my own strengths, and my faults, and I can say with confidence that I was not born to lead.”

He drank the last of his tea and went to get more, “I’m more of a doer than a thinker, and I’ve found over the years that a good leader’s got to be good at both. Point me towards a problem and I’ll get rid of it for you, but ask me to find that problem first? No can do. You got the wrong guy.”

He took another sip of his drink before throwing a few more dry sticks into the fire, “And as for why I chose to follow Jae-Hyun? He’s got… I don’t know how to describe it, but he has this aura of someone who will stop at nothing to achieve his goals.”

He paused for a second to tend to the flames, “That, my friend, is a good quality to have for a leader, and it’s why I chose to follow him. You quickly find out that age has very little to do with ability once you’ve seen enough of the world. I think it’s the same for Noel, although I can never tell with that one.

“Well, unfortunately we’re on our own this time, friend,” he continued as he stashed his cup away, “but we got our instructions. Let’s see if we can find something that sticks out from these lifeless forests. Say, Walter, how good are you at climbing trees?”

I found out, much to my disappointment, that I was very, very bad at climbing trees.

“What are you doing, Walter?” Vadeem shouted as I stumbled for the fifth time, causing more tree branches to fall and hit the other man in the face, “You’re trying to climb the tree, not destroy it!”

“I don’t see you trying!” I shouted back, “And it’s pitch black, I can’t even see two inches in front of me, what did you expect?”

He laughed, “Fair, and if you can find a tree that can support my weight then I’ll gladly swap with you!”

“Just a little bit…” I muttered, my hands waving aimlessly for something solid to latch on to. You would think that something like climbing a tree would be a piece of cake for my new superhuman capabilities, and it was true that my enhanced strength and endurance made the actual climb easy, but you try to find something to hold in total darkness.

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I made it up as far as I could possibly go, and clearing away a few branches that obscured my view, I was able to survey some of the land. The dim of my little lantern was enough illumination to just about make out my immediate surroundings, but bigger trees were still obstructing my view.

“Goddamn it!” I cursed, “I need to climb a bigger tree. I can’t see anything from up here.”

“We’ll all die of old age by the time it takes you to blindly inch up another one!” Vadeem grumbled, “I have a better solution. Walter, you can grab on to something up there, right?”

“Yeah,” I answered, “Why?”

Before I could speak another word, I felt the tree I was latching onto shake, then move. I clung on to dear life. Peering down, I saw Vadeem had grown to the size of a two story house, and he casually plucked the tree I was on. I felt some more violent shaking as the now even more ridiculously huge man lifted the trunk above his head.

“How’s the view up there now?” he asked, his voice the low rumbling of thunder.

I clung on tighter before looking down at him in disbelief, “Class active?”

He smiled, his mouth now the width of my entire body, “You know it, my friend!”

Then a thought occurred to me. Vadeem had expanded in size by who knows how much, but he was still wearing the clothes he had on before.

“How come you’re not naked?” I asked, the dim lantern light showing that he still had his normal button-up shirt and jeans on, although those had become giant sized as well.

“You noticed that, huh?” he said awkwardly, “I hadn’t the first time, and Noel will never let that down after she first saw me use the skill. I uh, I made sure to buy appropriate clothing from the shop after that incident.”

I laughed wryly. I can only imagine how that event unfolded.

“Anyway, stop gawking and see if you can spot something up there!”

“Alright, alright, just hold the tree still!”

Adjusting my position, I peered out into the seemingly endless expanse of darkness to see if I could spot anything that was different or distinct. In the absolute absence of light, finding something that stood out wasn’t hard.

Far out in the distance, I could spot a very faint orange glow. I couldn’t make out anything around it, or even tell if going towards the only illumination was a good idea, but it was something to go off of.

“Yeah Vadeem,” I shouted back, “There’s some light in the distance, it’s a little to our left; can’t really tell how far away with the damn darkness though. Let me down and we’ll head towards it.”

Vadeem chuckled again, only this time it sounded like an industrial worksite with how low his voice had gotten, “Walter, you really don’t know anything about traveling in the woods, do you?”

“I mean, I grew up in the city,” I answered, “Why?”

“Trust me when I say that you’re not going to be able to walk in a straight line without a compass, much less trying to go at it when we’re half blind! We’ll be walking in circles if we did that, then Noel’ll have something new to make fun of us for!”

“What about the compasses we brought?”

“It doesn’t work, obviously,” he answered, “Did you honestly think it would?”

I just slumped my shoulders and sighed.

“Then what’s the plan? I tell you were to go while you hold the tree up?”

“Exactly!”

And you know what, as stupid as that plan sounded, it actually worked. Vadeem would walk – read: trample through - the dense flora underneath while I would correct his path every now and then. The only thing that made me angry about the whole thing, aside from the horribly bumpy ride, was that his class skill could be kept activated practically indefinitely. The only “downside” that he told me was that it made him really hungry after.

Seeing that everyone around me was so much stronger than I was actually got to me a little. Sure, I was used to being the underdog most of my life, but my new friends could casually tell the future, or transform into a literal giant. Who knows what Noel could do with her new class.

Then there was me. I had Noe, and I had my status as an Arbiter, but what else was there? If I tried to fight Vadeem, then I highly doubt that any amount of luck could defeat him. I couldn’t even use my only useful ability in front of others, and even then the Xollon form only lasts 40 minutes. I needed to find a way to at least catch up to the rest of my party’s abilities, if not exceed it.

But there was just so much I didn’t know! And worse yet, it seems like the Origin Matrix had a thing against me and was doing everything in its power to drag me down. The very first thing I had to do, no matter how damn difficult, was fix this worthless class of mine. I’ll even settle for a D rank class at this point!

“Hey, Walter!” Vadeem said, taking me out of my thoughts, “I think I can see the glow from here. You can come down now!

Without asking for my opinion, the poor battered tree I was on was tilted to its side so that I could just hop off instead of embarrassing myself by trying to climb down it. Vadeem returned to his normal size – fully clothed thankfully – and started to chow down on some energy bars.

“Give me a sec, Walter,” he said, sounding a little out of breath, “Need to refuel.”

“Take your time,” I said as I tried to get the small leaves and pieces of bark off my clothes and hair.

I squinted my eyes to see if I can make out what was causing the soft glow, and I could just barely perceive what looked to be a couple of medieval style torches hanging off what appeared to be a gate. I could just about make out the shapes of some simple houses behind the gate, with everything being surrounded by some crude stone walls. I couldn’t make out any more details from where Vadeem and I stood.

“It seems like… it seems like we’re heading to the entrance of a village?” I said, “You seeing the same thing?”

Vadeem swallowed another mouthful of food before answering, “I think you’re right. Creepy little village in any case. Do we head towards it?”

Every instinct I ever had told me that going towards the creepy village hidden in a forest consumed by everlasting darkness was a terrible, horrible idea.

“Yeah, or at least get closer to scout it out,” I answered, “Unless you got a better plan.”

Vadeem seemed unconcerned and shrugged, “We’re not exactly spoiled for options, so let’s go. Maybe we can find out some information about this place.”

I looked at him in confusion, “You know the people living in there’s almost certainly not going to be human, right?”

“Eh,” he answered, “Doesn’t mean they can’t communicate with us! Worse case we solve things the Vadeem style!”

“And what is the Vadeem style?” I asked, raising an eyebrow.

He grinned, “Solving your problems with overwhelming violence of course!”