13 Chapter 11 - The Third Trial
As Lewin went home, he started to wonder what could have happened on the Globe in his one day absence.
What kind of development could have happened there, was it a good one? Or a bad one?
Lewin was mostly a pacific person and didn't like to resort to violence in most of the cases, but he knew better than anyone else just how bad his personality could in cases, and if the people at the globe had personalities matching his, then it would be bad if a tyrant, serial killer, psychopath or rapist appeared.
While thinking about this, Lewin became anxious.
'...Well i don't want to interfere much on the Globe much, but... I just can't leave a person like that roaming free on that globe!' he though and started rushing back to his house, with a not to great speed thanks to his aching body and tired muscles.
When he got home Lewin went upstairs to take a quick shower and went to the basement with his body still wet, he just started drying himself after he sat down at his chair and closed his eyes processing all the information that had happened in the last 4 hours.
....
3 hours have passed since the old man started his third trial, and he had finally died.
No, actually, he had died 1 hour and 14 minutes after the third trial started, but he gave up and asked to leave, but as the dragon had said, if someone wanted to quit in the middle of a trial, it wouldn't move a finger to help them, and so for the next 2 hours and 56 minutes, the man tried incessantly to come up with a plan to leave, but the old man wasn't the brightest person, and just tried to jump to the other side of the lava lake that surrounded the rock, but the old man's body was too heavy, and he himself wasn't too athletic, and fell to his death after.
30 minutes later, the dragon had stinguished the lava, and was preparing 2 rocks altars for the remaining 2 humans that participated on the experiment, and after it had finished it's preparatives, the human's finally had reached the end of the florest.
The dragon didn't stall much and told the both of them right away what was the deal.
"You two reached, respectively, in second, and third place, so none of you will be getting rewarded" It said. "Do you still wish to continue?" The dragon asked.
The green haired man put a hand on his chin and pondered, wondering what would be better. These trials were very dangerous, if he wasn't careful he could be gravely injured or in the worst case, die.
But on the other hand, what this beast was offering wasn't any kind of punny reward, it was "Gold"!
Minerals were very rare and expensive resources, even finding a single piece of bronze, the most common mineral of them all was very rare, and could feed a whole family for 2 months! So even if he got his hands in more 2 or three pieces.... No, forged 2, just 1, 1 was enough! With this apple sized piece of gold in his hand, he would no longer have to work for a whole 2 years! If he got another one, and did a good bargain on them, maybe even a decade was a possibility!!! He had to take his chances!
"Yes! I am willing to participate!" He yelled. He was almost eaten by a spider beast, what could be worse than that!
The dragon nodded at the green haired man's response and looked at the blonde woman.
The blonde woman was completely stiff, almost like a stone statue with her arms crossed and had her eyes closed.
After a minute of so with her like this, she finally opened her eyes and firmily replied. "Yes i will participate!" She replied "But, i would like to ask something." She asked looking at the dragon.
The dragon nodded at her words "Agreed, as long as i don't consider it cheating." the dragon replied
The Blonde woman then pointed at the green haired man at her side, and with determination said "I want to start after he's done with his trial, whatever he passes or fail, i don't care, just let me start mine after he's done with his trial, and i would like to ask for him to start as soon as possible" The woman asked while staring daggers at him.
The dragon saw this situation and wondered. 'It seems like this yellow furred one has a grudge against the green furred..... What could have happened?' It though
At the womans words, the man was speechless and put a hand above his mouth.
But all of a sudden, his speechlessness disappeared and he started to laugh.
"Hahahahahaha! Laila! You really are stupid, aren't you? Letting me go first? Are you trying to help me? Did you get crazy?" He said mocking the blonde woman. In his head, she was just doing that to get on his good side, something that wouldn't happen due to the green haired man's personality.
The woman didn't show any kind of reaction to his teasing, the only thing she did after hearing his words was look to the dragon and ask "Is it fine? If it is, then make he start the trial as soon as possible"
The dragon was looking at the woman and then said. "If it's for me, then i allow it, but..." He glanced at the green haired man. "Are you okay with this? Donb't you have any objection?"
The man heard the dragons words and giggled a last time, he then deeply bowed his head towards the dragon and answered "It's completely fine by me, actually, i would like to start the trial imediately" He said with a stern voice.
The dragon heard his words and nodded it's head and pointed to one of the rock altars it had made.
The green haired man understood the messageand climbed the altar.
After the man was on the altar, the dragon took some deep breaths, and once again breathed fire, imediately making them start to boil and reducing them to a little lake of lava taht ran around the altar.
"Your task is to endure 5 hours in there, if you fail, like all others trials, you die" The dragon announced as it turned to the woman and spoke to her. "You have 2 hours, after the time is up, i am gonna be back, and at that time you will have to start your trial too, if you refuse and wish to quit, i am gonna forcibly start your trial and you will have to leave by your own. Don't even try to run away." It threatened with its huge yellow eye close to the little blonde woman on the ground.
The dragon spread it's wings and flew to the distance
But the woman didn't had a wish to escape, she just attently looked at the Green haired man while he struggled to sit still on the scorching hot rock.
30 minutes passed like that, at this point, the mas was constantly shifting his position on the rock, trying to not get his skin too burned. The thin frabric of his clotches already had fallen apart and the leather of his leather armor became black
And while the man died of disconfort and agony, the blonde woman just contantly watched the man trying to survive at the altar, but after she had watched enough, the woman got up and went into the florest, sat down close to a three, and started to meditate. She had came up with a plan to survive this Trial, but said plan required extreme mental strenght to be realized, strenght she didn't have, so she tried to get the courage to realise such plan in the short while the man was passing through his trial.
....
Lewin watched it and was quite speechless.
This woman was very bold, her ideas were miraculous and she acted like she knew everything that was gonna happen, so while the information of the trial that entered his head wasn't showing anything interesting for now, he tried looking a bit into the blonde woman and the green haired humans.
He searched for a bit, and finally found some information about them.
Laila, the blonde woman, was an orphan born in Triy Village, she was the daughter of a prostitute and a wondering mercenary, but except for Lewin, no one knew that, not even her parents knew the who the kid was from, after all laila's mother was a pretty famous prostitute, and slept with many man, for her this child was a nuisance and she threw her on the streets as soon as she was born.
But for some kind of miracle, Laila had been born with perfect control over her body, and at the age of 1 day, she was already able to crawl, so she was able to survive on the streets by eating... This was too disgusting for Lewin so he just skipped.
She lived on the streets util she was 9, and at this age, she found out about the world of "Knights" and "Mercenaries", and she was imediately amazed by it, and from that point onwards, she had set her life goal; becoming the greatest mercenary int he world!
And she worked very hard for all her life to reach this goal.
She trained the majority of the martial arts, mastered the use of every single weapon existent, and using the only gift her body gave her, her body, Laila fooled many man to get their money.
But life as a solo female mercenary wasn't easy at all. Less jobs, less respect, less money, and much, much more danger.
Laila lived in the brink of starvation, but occasionally she would have a drink or two at the bar.
On one of those days when she went to the bar to clean her head from her troubles, a interesting Mercenary group called "The Blunt Blade" approached her.
The group was constitued of 5 members, a black haired bealtiful woman called Selina who was the daughter of a merchant, and took care of their expenses, Gharrar, a Dwarf(Not the race, he was just unnable to grow) that acted on the front line of the battle field, a petite white haired mountaineer called Dara, a very arrogant green haired Alchemist called Vhali, that also worked like an assassin, and the leader of the bunch, a brown haired young swordman called Tomas.
At first The group was just some guys that frequented the same stabilishment as she, but as time passed they got along with each other, and Laila ended up joining the group.
In the group she had a lot of fun, amde friends, talked a lot, got out of her financial crisis thanks to Selina, and even had an opportunity of love.
She and Tomas, although pretty diferent from each other, were very compatible and after some drinks on his house, they had their way.
Laila and Tomas were perfect and sweet, they went out often, cuddled a lot and expressed their love in public without any consideration for the gazes of the people around them.
One day, their group was called to a noble's mansion for a proposal of work, they had to go to a neighboring town and get a certain item for him. The group was a bit hesitant if they would accept or not, but in the end they decided they would take the job.
The job was simple, take the item from the mediator, kill him, and bring the item back safely. And so they did, but on their way back, another group of mercenaries attacked and they fought.
The battle was dangerous and Dara the mountaineer, Laila, and Gharrar got seriously injured so they fled, but they were unlucky, and ended up running into a cliff. The Group split up and each of them went to diferent sizes with two identical boxes, but one countaining the item, and the other one a stone.
Tomas went with Vhali and Dara, while Laila went with Gharrar.
They went like this because Gharrar and Laila were the more visibly strong of the group, so the chances of they having the item was higher since they could protect it better, but it wasn't actually truth, they had the fake box in hands and Tomas had the real one.
The plan worked, the majority of the other party mercenaries came after Laila and Gharrar while just 2 went after Tomas and the rest.
They ran for a while and then engaged on battle, the fight went smoothly and Laila and Gharrar whiped the other team mercenaries.
After finishing their role, the two of them went back to the village, just to find out about a unabiveable notice.
Tomas had been arrested and setenced to death after trying to rob the item the noble asked.
While veryone in their village was surprised and lamented his fate, Laila had already guessed the whole situation,a nd so did Gharrar.
They went after Vhali and Dara, they searched the whole village and discovered Vhali had made a greement with the noble, for "Catching The Robber" that tried to steal his precious item, he wanted to live in his mansion, wich the noble promptly accepted.
Laila cursed and complained a lot after knowing of this, but Gharrar didn't care, he just rushed to the noble's mansion and bashed everything trying to kill Vhali.
Gharrar furry was so destructive, and Vhali was so close to the noble at the time, that he though Gharrar came for him, and with Vhali's accusations, he also sentenced him to death.
Selina, after knowing of the situation, usde all her conections and money to try to free Gharrar and Tomas, but the noble didn't like it, and constantly used his influence to dificult the proccess.
In the end, the best Selina could do was prolong the sentence for 5 years, but if in the mean time they found enough proff to prove them innocent or paid 50 thousand Naoris(Name of the currency made form the blue wood), both of them could be released.
That was the best Selina could effort, if she did more, her father's merchant group would bankrupt, and she couldn't to this to him.
Laila was alone now, but she didn't give up, and everyday, she tried her best to both find proof to free her friend, and to each 100 thousand Naoris to free both her best friends.
4 years and 9 months passed, and nothing happened, Laila still tried her best everyday working to the bone, but still nothing. her suffering was such, that she was starting to consider doing the same as Gharrar, so she would at least pass her last moments with her loved one.
Util, one day while walking on the streets with a dead beast on her shoulders like a robot, she heard some rumors.
"A Giant beast has landed on a mountain close to this village, and the great Pharmacist Vhali from Sunflower Industries is leading a scout group to explore it" The rumor said.
On that day, Laila's blood boiled, and she was again reminded of who's falt it was that her friends were arrested and sentenced, who's falt it was that her happy days ended, who's falt it was that the only person she loved the most on her life... Had disappeared(Not dead tho).
On the next day, she imediately went in search to the requirements to join the scout group, and with that found out that Dara, the young mountaineer genious, that had lead many group to dangerous adventures and returned with minimal losses was coming too.
Laila couldn't be more determined, no matter if she was humiliated, no matter if she was glared at, nothing mattered, she just had 1 objective: Kill those soons of bitches, and even if she couldn't kill them she would assure that they died miserably.
And like that, everything happened as util now. Her first victim was Dara, as soon as the first trial started, Laila hrabbed her by the shirt and procceded to spank her.
If someone else saw this scene, they would think this was some kind of child abuse, a 29 grown woman beating to death a person half her size, it clearly wasn't normal.
Dara even tried to fight back, but Laila just dodged or defended her attacks.
After finishing with her, and fearing that the dragon would notice she killing one of the participants and kill her just like back at the cave, she went and climbed the wall halfway to the top, and then dropped Dara's body on some debris that remained on a certain corner of the mountain wall.
