Friend or foe? (part 1)

Filona and Brutalina had been monitoring the Ryu siblings for a while now. They had to admit that only the word "extraordinary" could do justice to such promising red challengers.

Only the last surviving Black challenger surpassed them in terms of potential, but that guy ended up going crazy because of the trial itself, resulting in his current whereabouts being unknown to this day.

So the goddesses felt hope for Ogoro and Sheyla. What truly drew their attention at first was the difficulty. Red trials scaled to the challengers' limits of what they could handle. For example, the goddesses had never seen a wave of two hundred zombies at the start of the second month for only two challengers. Even if those creatures were extremely slow and mindless, their sheer numbers made them a real threat.

Those two were truly strong, but that was also the reason they couldn't have handled the black portal. Even gods would find it difficult after all because of the monkeys' ability to equal or even surpass the challenger. Therefore, the stronger they were, the harder it was to survive that trial.

Right now, the siblings were fighting off the second special zombie. A tall and thin creature that spitted acid. Sheyla saw it coming from afar and shot three consecutive arrows at the monstrosity.

"Ihaa! That's my gal!" Brutalina said as her arms opened wide before being interrupted in their courses by a painful groan.

"Hey! Look at where you spread your arms, you damn muscle-head! Also, don't you see she's using a bow? It's like she was born to be one of my children. You can have the brother tho. I mean, look at that impressive swordsmanship, he fits you perfectly. And don't you think you and him share something in common?"

Brutalina sent her sister a quizzical gaze. "What you mean?"

"Well," she said, smirking. "From what I've seen so far, the sister is the brain. And that guy is a muscle head, almost following her every order, just like you do with Zalon. Aren't you two alike? Hahaha!"

"You bitch." Brutalina said, the bulging vein on her forehead clearly highlighting her current volcanic emotional state.

"Hahahaha—" she laughed, before being interrupted. "Ouch! Hey, stop pulling my beautiful hair! Stop, you crazy meathead!"

Zalon sighed. Those two had not stopped their bickering since the start of the trials. Not that he could blame them. The Four rarely had breaks from the War and monitoring the trials allowed them to loosen up for a bit.

Of course, a part of their consciousness had to manage the War decisions, but their other part was monitoring the trials. Belmand was the sole exception. He had to split his consciousness in three because of another important task, thus leaving him extremely fatigued most of the time.

'I will leave them alone for now. They should make the most out of their break.' He thought, completely bored.

In a way, he envied his two sisters. White and blue challengers weren't that entertaining to watch, considering the same thing happens every time.

Amongst the white challengers, a few people would emerge as group leaders and monopolize the resources.

The same could be said for blue challengers, apart from the fact that they had to deal with monsters once a week.

Well, there was an interesting event that happened in the white trial but nothing to write History with. A challenger, going by the name of Kai Tsubame, had monopolized a great majority of the city's resources and now reigned over the whole trial area like he was a king.

Zalon thought he had the potential to be a leader-type figure in Iris. His shrewdness could come in handy when dealing with the world's other races. Especially those the gods couldn't extend their influence to.

Then, a sound he hardly ever heard interrupted Zalon's boredom.

"Hehehe…"

The two goddesses stopped bickering and stared at the source of the noise.

"Hehehe…"

An awakened Belmand was giggling amidst his sheets and cushion.

Brutalina sent a mental message to her two other siblings, asking what was the god of sloth laughing for, but received no reply.

If something interesting was happening to the point of keeping the ever-sleeping god awake, she wanted… no; she needed to know. After all, she had been originally tasked to monitor the Black challenger. "Brother, what's that laugh for?"

"Hehehe… are you curious now, sister? Promise me you won't take the monitoring rights from me and I'll let you have a look."

Brutalina nodded, and Belmand gestured for her to come closer. The two other gods, even if uninvited, quickly moved next to him.

Belmand clicked his tongue at the unwanted guests but coped with it. Aito appeared on the ethereal screen, bashing an evol monkey with the reward Belmand had granted him previously and twisting around to give a warm welcome to his other furry enemy.

Filona's white eyebrows lifted to manifest her surprise. Zalon neatly readjusted his glasses, a glint of interest flashing by his deep blue eyes. Brutalina…

"Barf! What's so special about him? He can fight, I'll give you that. But the Ryu siblings are three times if not five times the fighter he is."

The god of sloth sighted before zooming in on a little "side-detail" she had missed. Brutalina noticed nothing at first, but her expression quickly shifted from bored to curious, then interested, and finally captivated by the never-before-seen event.

"What the fuck? Give me back the controls right now!"

"Bed Zone."

WOOSH

An invisible barrier pushed the three other gods back, leaving Belmand the only one in the red zone.

He lightly dusted off his pajama and cushion even if there were no specks of dust in the room.

Outside the barrier, Brutalina was madly punching the invisible wall. "Open, you damn bastard! Open it, I said!"

The barrier being soundproof, Belmand couldn't hear Brutalina's curses, nor did he care.

He summoned a cup of brum tea, lay down on his bed, and took a sip. The liquid unaffected by gravity seeped down his throat as he let out a satisfied "Ah", obviously taunting his sister.

Then he returned to watch his current favorite reality trial show starring Aito Walker with a rekindled interest.

However, he still thought that the main character would die during the third month. So he wanted to enjoy every little bits of the show until then.

***

AROUND TWO HOURS BEFORE DAWN.

Jack had watched the man-thing, lighted by the moonlight, wet the earth for one hour and couldn't understand why would it water a dead tree with its eyes for so long. What was the point? Although he did feel weird inside by watching it being completely defenseless.

At some point, the man-thing calmed down and started cutting the fallen tree into round parts and sorted them by size. Once done, it took one of the biggest pieces and crudely carved it into a rounded shape.

Jack giggled, mocking the man-thing's clear lack of carving skill, but he gave it an honorable mention for trying.

Around an hour later, the man-thing had finished its nonsense activity. The final result was… trash-looking at best.

It had dug a small hole in one side of the piece of wood, big enough for one of his hands to fit in, but not as deep as to create a gap.

What picked Jack's interest was the small untouched area just on top of the hole that resembled a bridge.

He thought it was dumb. If you dug a hole, you should finish it properly. However, the man-thing looked satisfied, at least as satisfied as a sad man-thing could be.

It held the crafted item in his left hand and did some… ridiculous moves Jack didn't know the purpose of.

But then the man-thing's facial expression changed from satisfaction to… dissatisfaction when a thing exactly like the one it had in hand, albeit better looking, appeared in his right hand.

What sorcery was that for even the man-thing to have such a reaction?

***

BING!

[Congratulation! You have crafted your first wooden shield! A reward will be granted!]

[Scanning the target. Proper reward found. Will you receive the reward? Yes or No?]

Aito's still puffy eyes stared at the notification window before he pushed "yes." Suddenly, a wooden Viking spiral shield appeared in his right hand.

He glared at the neatly crafted item's brown and black color. A long leather strap linked both of the shield's extremity, making it possible to wear it on one's back.

He looked at both shields, comparing the craftmanship, and sighed, bringing his shameful creation into the inventory before tossing his reward on his back, wondering how that reward system worked.

At first, he had thought it was each time he created something, but the passing weeks proved otherwise. Now he had another far-fetched theory: Filona was monitoring him and would give rewards each time she was satisfied with his performance, or simply to mess with him. That was the only explanation he could think of at the moment since he wasn't in the mood to ponder on it.

"Why did I even cut down that tree?" He muttered grumpily, striding away towards the beach.

***

The sun shyly showed itself on the horizon. Its first rays of light pierced through the morning clouds, dispersing the night's veil and progressively awakening the island from its slumber for the start of a brand new day.

On the beach, seated on a huge rock protruding out of the sand, Aito watched the sunrise.

He had never awakened in time to catch a glimpse of it, but since today he had, Aito felt like seeing dawn wouldn't be such a bad idea.

Now he wondered why he hadn't done it before, as gentles sea breezes ran past his long black hair and the warm touch from the still sleepy rays of sunlight brought him some well-needed comfort.

There was something special about the sun rising. Something unique. No matter how many you've seen before, each and every one of them will never be the same. However, it will always remain beautiful.

He felt somewhat better after that as if the sun had chased away his worries like it did the darkness of the night.

Truth be told, it was nothing profound or mind-blowing like some deep revelations or enlightenment that had temporarily quelled his grief.

In fact, it was just the beauty of it. As simple as it sounded, it was just that, "beauty." And that, to Aito, was enough for now.