• The One Who Fought a Gatekeeper

Of the thousand thoughts that marathoned through his mind in that moment, the truest one was that he was certainly going to die. There was barely anything challenging that, no glimmer of hope shone in this situation.

A roar of thunder cracked the air with the storm raging more and more, matching the fury of the knight before him. Jarren gripped hard on the small knife, but it offered him no solace now, because compared to the gleaming sword the Gatekeeper held, the knife was useless.

Seeing the Gatekeeper standing there, drops of rain sliding off his silvery steel armor, Jarren tried to weigh his chances. He had always been one for measuring situations based on probability, and he came to a conclusion that his chances of defeating this Trial was 0.3 to 99.7.

0.3! An optimistic person would say it was better than zero, but that person would be a fool because mathematically, 0.3 wasn't enough to approximate to anything tangible.

His odds of survival were still zero!

A whistle of breeze sliced through the air, and Jarren saw that the Gatekeeper had lowered his sword and was taking measured steps toward him.

His heart dropped.

The Gatekeeper's feet crunched against the wet grass, sinking into the mud with each step but there was no hesitation in his movements, no mercy. He was a master of war, and Jarren was simply a fool with a knife.

Boom! Another crackle of lightning and roar of thunder.

Jarren's bones began to freeze, uncertain if it was from fear or just the cold from the storm. He could feel the wet grass under his feet, the soil beneath the grass turning into wet mud, his soaked clothes clinging to his body, making him feel even more vulnerable.

The Gatekeeper got closer and closer, and with every step he took, Jarren's mind shouted at him that there was no way out. Every logical part of him knew this was the end. He should run.

His craven eyes looked at the blade in his hand. No. He should drive that knife into his chest now! Kill himself when he had the chance rather than die abhorrently in the hands of that ruthless knight!

Who knows? Perhaps those other five participants had made a similar decision.

But pride stung Jarren's chest. What was he talking about? He created this bastard knight! He created the Gates, he created the Trials. How was he going to let himself lose? Die?

He wasn't some coward who would turn his back on death. He wasn't just going to die. No, he'd fight. Even if he couldn't win, he'd show this Gatekeeper that he wasn't just another of the numerous, worthless extras whose only purpose in the story was to get slaughtered inside the Gates. Fodder.

He had to think of something, of a way to survive. But running? Giving up? That was out of the question! This was his own creation and there was no way he was going to get killed by it!

However, in a flash of a second, Jarren already regretted that decision.

The Gatekeeper moved like a streak of silver, closing the distance between them in a blink of a terrified eye. His sword was lifted high in the air and Jarren almost froze at the sight of the spirit towering over him.

As the sword came crashing down, Jarren threw himself sideways into the mud. It wasn't a graceful roll, just a desperate fall. Lying there, he saw the sword slice down the air where he had formerly been, and stopping right beside.

Jarren looked away from the sword and made eye contact with the Gatekeeper, seeing now the spite in his eyes that he had written of. With a rush of fear, he scrambled up from the mud and made a run for it.

The Gatekeeper reacted quickly, slashing sideways. A normal sword would have missed Jarren completely but the Gatekeeper's sword was slightly longer, and so it slashed through Jarren's back with the tip of the blade, tearing through leather and then skin.

"Arggh!" Jarren cried in pain. He rolled forward, tumbling through the mud and grass, only stopping when he had made some distance with the knight.

He let out a groan, mind scrambling with the pain and the fear. However, the adrenaline pumping through him made him forget all about the pain in his back, even as the rain beat heavily on it.

The Gatekeeper turned his head slowly and zeroed his gaze at him once again. Jarren panicked. He lifted the knife and his grip on its hilt tightened until his knuckles turned white.

'Think!' he admonished himself. 'Think, damn it!' He couldn't win, but he could survive. There had to be a way, even if it was by sheer luck.

The Gatekeeper advanced once again and his sword sliced through the air with a terrifying whistle. Jarren flung himself backward this time, barely missing the blade. His legs slipped in the mud, and he hit the ground hard, chest heaving.

'Get up. Don't stop.'

The Gatekeeper aimed for his neck, pulling his sword down to behead the meaningless extra. But Jarren pulled back, scrambling through the mud and grasses, then rolling to his feet.

Even with all this, the Gatekeeper didn't look frustrated or irritated. Perhaps he did not have the facial mechanisms to show such emotions. However, he remained methodical, calculating.

Every step forward was deliberate, every swing of the sword perfectly timed. But as Jarren sat there on the grass and mud, rain falling down his face, his wet, soiled hair plastering to his head, and his heart beating in fear, he realized that this was also the Gatekeeper's flaw.

He fought like a knight—a warrior who had always faced skilled opponents. But Jarren wasn't skilled. He was a panicked mess, sitting in the mud, his knife shaking in his grip.

In this scenario, it seemed that Jarren's weakness was his strength, and the Gatekeeper's strength was his weakness.

However, it was more nuanced than that.

The Gatekeeper drove his sword forward. Jarren rolled to his right, escaping the blade by inches, and he scrambled away like an animal. He didn't have any combat skills, but he could survive by making himself hard to hit—for as long as was possible until he figured out how to kill him.

That was the only way to defeat this Trial—by killing the Gatekeeper.

However, fighting the knight's war would be a foolish mistake, he knew that. He had to make this messy. Anything but a clean match was where he could have a chance.

After escaping that attack, Jarren darted toward the storm, zig-zagging wildly, hoping the rain and mud would slow the Gatekeeper. Although it was one of his better attributes, he wasn't that fast, not as fast as the Gatekeeper himself, but he was erratic, and every time the Gatekeeper charged, he threw himself into the muck. Let the storm disorient them both.

His knife felt useless in his hand, but he kept it up, almost like a shield, even though it couldn't block anything. His mind screamed at him to run, but he couldn't afford to.

If he ran, the knight would catch him.

If he ran, his back would be exposed.

He had to stay in the fight with just enough distance. For now, he was fighting to last and each second alive was a victory.

However, he wasn't certain that the Gatekeeper wasn't only toying with him and could just kill him in a flash of an eye, no matter what he did.

Jarren did not relent because of this. When the spirit swung his sword in a powerful overhead strike, he stepped in this time, rather than away. It was a mad, desperate gamble, but it worked!

The Gatekeeper's sword was too long and his hand and hilt struck Jarren's shoulder. Although it hurt the author-turned-extra, the sword jammed in the knight's hand and fell to the ground. It landed vertically and stuck into the soaked earth.

Jarren and the knight glanced at the sword, then at each other. Before the extra could do anything, the knight hit him hard with an elbow, causing a tooth to shoot out of his mouth with a burst of blood as well.

Jarren staggered backwards and the Gatekeeper, shrugging him off like he was a pest, walked to his sword to retain it.

At that moment, with the wild tang of crimson in his mouth, Jarren acted. He knew his tiny knife couldn't truly harm the spirit, but that wasn't his true aim.

He struck out behind the knight, jabbing the blade into the small of his back where the torso and the backplates met with the fauld. The Gatekeeper jerked in pain, leaving his sword that he intended to claim and trying to grab Jarren who scrambled away in the mud.

Clearly frustrated now, the Gatekeeper reached for the small blade behind him and pulled out the knife. He studied it with disdain, then lifted his eyes in search of Jarren.

All he saw was the storm and the grass.

Thunder and lightning struck, and the Gatekeeper stood still, looking around the expanse in search of the feeble extra. Apart from the rain hitting the moist soil and grass, it was suspiciously silent.

That was when he turned to his sword, only to find Jarren struggling to pull it out of the ground.