Chapter 17: The Naivety of Examinees

"Take this your ugly piece of shit!" Darren jumped at one of the half-giant corpses and tried to chop off its head, but the sword could cut deep enough. Darren was grabbed and thrown across the room but managed to catch himself. Karl went after the same one that Darren had attacked and started to climb up its body and attack in the exact same that Darren had hit. Karl grew a Sickle panther blade out of his back and swung it at the wound which deepened the cut as well as applied the Sickle Panther's acid to it weakening the flesh further before Karl jumped off.

"Lua, now!" Lua ran up and jumped off of Karl to deal one last blow with her sword that was now completely covered in lightning. Just as she went to swing a large fist came from the side and knocked her away. Karl watched as another one of the half giants had just hit Lua across the room. Karl went to see if she was okay when an arm of darkness grabbed him and started to crush him in it's grip.

"AAAGGHH!" Karl tried to pry himself free but couldn't. "It seems that you all forgot that I was here there is more than one foe that you need to defeat. That's fine though, because you all have given me a new plan." Cren motioned with his hands and one half giant went in front of Lua, one stood in front of Karl, and two went in front of Darren. "As long as I keep you three separated, strong as you all may be, you'll still struggle to defeat even one of my puppets. So have fun!" Cren released Karl from his grip, but Karl didn't time to think about that as the half giant in front of him was quite fast for a 15 ft. tall monster.

"Why the hell am I fight two of these guys!?" Darren was currently doing his best to hold off one of the half giants while the other one swinging at him. "Be careful guys! I think we might die if we lose focus for even a second." Darren managed to push one off of him and slid under the other one's legs changing his weapon into a pair of axes as he did.

"I think we already know that much, Darren!" Lua called out as she was doing her best to not get hit by another one of these thing's punches seeing as she was still recovering from the first one. " Lua tried using her ability to disappear from her foes sight but then it started to slam the ground wildly which almost got her crushed, so she gave up on that idea. She tried using her lightning on it and it worked but not nearly as much as she needed it to.

"Shit! I need more time to conjure an actual spell, but this thing won't get off my ass!" Lua drew her bow and started to run away as best as she could while shooting lightning arrows into joints of the creature to slow it down but couldn't aim well due to her injury. "Damnit! My arm is shit right now!" Meanwhile, Karl was currently dodging as best as he could against the smallest of the half giants that was quite fast.

"Hey Lua!" Karl called out. "WHAT?" Lua said as she just barely managed to dodge out of the way of an attack. "I understand that you don't like using it, but now is probably the best time to use your...curse!" Karl swung the sickle on his back at the back of his opponent's knees to try to tip it over. "Why the hell would I-" Lua went to yell at Karl but was cut when she saw him get kicked into a wall.

"He's right, Lua!" Darren called out while he was on the shoulder of one of the half giants that he was fighting. He swung his twin axes at its neck wildly and jumped off when he saw its hand coming to grab him and landed onto the other one's chest. "If you just use your curse to kill these things then we can just work together to beat the real boss!" Darren stopped for a second to catch his breath but didn't have long as he was slapped to the ground by a half giant and to roll out of the was as a foot went to stomp on him.

"But I..." Lua went to refute when a giant rock came flying at her causing her to need to dodge out of the way only to get kicked into the air. Lua hit a wall and coughed a bit of blood but knew she had to get up. She looked around the room and saw her teammates also struggling to fight against the half giants while the boss was just sitting in the far end of the room on a throne that he had made. "Oh, don't mind me. I was just enjoying the show." The boss said as he waved at Lua causing her to get even angrier.

"FINE! If it's the only thing that we can do to in this situation, then I'll use my curse." Lua lifted herself off of the ground and slowly started to release her curse as the energy from earlier started to come off of her again. The boss was watching this strange scene with intrigue. "It seems you may have had an ace up your sleeve after all." Lua looked toward the half giant that she was fighting and ran toward it. 'The closer I am to it the faster the curse will affect them. Let's get this over with so that I can punch that smug son of a bitch in that big smile of his.'

Though as Lua got closer, she felt like something was off the half giant started to pick up more rocks and throw them at her seeming to be trying to keep her away, but it wasn't retreating. Normally, when monsters are around Lua's cursed aura they try to retreat because they feel something off but the half giant was just standing there throwing the rocks even as Lua got closer. In fact, as Lua got closer the half giant wasn't even slowing down like everything else did. Despite the half giant's attempts at stopping her Lua managed to get directly in front of it, but nothing was happening. "What the hell is going on?"

Lua was so thrown off that she had let the monster pick her up as she looked at it in bewilderment. "Lua! What are you doing hurry up and activate your curse!?" Karl called out with slight weakness to his voice. "I did." Lua said.

"What?" Darren called out as he didn't hear what she said seeing as he currently had made a shield to block an incoming attack. "I said I did! I-it's not working for some reason. This never happens! Everything dies when I use my curse so why isn't this thing dying!" The half giant that held Lua started to squeeze her cracking a few of her bones in the process. "So that's what you were trying to do. Well, that won't work here" Lua slowly looked up through her tears of pain and saw Cren sitting on the half giant's head.

"W-what d-did you j-just s-say?" Lua tried her best to speak through the pain. "I said that the 'curse' that you're trying to use won't work in this situation." Cren got off of the half giant's head and walked onto its arm to get closer to Lua. "You see, Lua. Your ability oh, I'm sorry, your curse drains the life energy from anything that gets close to you, is that right?" Lua stared at Cren in shock as her curse also wasn't working on him.

"If that's the case then you'll just have to remember the type of monsters that you are fighting here." Lua glared at Cren as she tried to struggle free as best as she could. "The the hell are you blabbering on about. What do you mean type of monster?" Cren looked surprised. "I guess you all really aren't adventurers if you don't know this simple knowledge." Cren sighed and signaled for all of the half giants to meet in the middle of the room with their opponents and they did just that.

Once everyone was in the middle of the room Cren said, "Dark Prison" and trapped the three examinees and smirked. "What I'm about to tell you is knowledge that even the lowest ranks of adventurers know so listen closely." Cren walked towards them. "I am a Lich Prince, and I am an undead creature." Once he said that relization started to appear on Lua's face. Cren turned and gestured to the half giants, "These are half giant corpses that I reanimated with my magic, so they are also undead. Do you understand what that means?"

Darren and Karl looked at each other confused while Lua turned paler than she already was now that she was realizing what was happening. "Lua what's he talking about?" Karl asked.

"What does them being undead have to do with this situation?" Darren asked as he also wanted to know. Lua swallowed deeply as she completely understood how bad the situation was.

"Don't you fools get it!" Lua shouted. "My curse drains life energy, but all of them are already dead so it won't work." Karl and Darren were just now understanding how bad the situation was. "But if we can't use your curse then how will we win?" Karl grabbed Lua and asked. "Simple." Cren jumped in.

"You can't." Cren turned to his undead slaves and gestured to the examinees. "End them, I'm getting tired of this now." Cren yawned as he started to walk back to his throne and the half giants went to finish what they had started. "Well, shit. I guess this is where we fail the test." Darren said with a helpless sigh. "At least you both get to die with a model like me." Karl said with a nervous chuckle. "Let's hope that dying in the simulation doesn't end up really killing us." Lua said as she prepared herself for what came next.

"Damn, I disappear for a few hours, and you all get yourselves in a situation like this." A voice resonated through the room as a bright yellow streak of lightning shot in and removed the head of one of the half giants. Cren turned around and watched as one of his puppets fell to the ground the lightning shot through again and got another one down. "What the hell is going on?"

"You guys really need to be more careful." The three examinees covered their eyes as the lightning had landed directly in front of them. "What would have happened if I hadn't made it in time. You would all probably be dead." They slowly uncovered their eyes as they looked towards the voice that they now realized was quite familiar to them.

"Well, I guess this is also my fault for falling into a trap and leaving you all to fend for yourselves, so I apologize for that." They looked up and saw their final party member that had gone missing standing in front of them. "It's about time that you came back." Lua said to Mill she saw his face. Mill laughed and swung one of his daggers at the cage that they were in which freed them.

"Now, let's really get this party started. Okay?"