Chapter 18: Making Through the Night!

“What do you think of Edward’s performance, Claude?”

Claude was sitting on a special seat next to Trad and Owen. The servants told them that these seats are only for the Twelve Protectors only. And they mention that if anyone who isn’t a member of the Twelve Protectors sits on this seat, they will be given a harsh punishment.

That is a really weird reason to punish someone.

“You’re his master, right? Owen asked, “Do you think he will be able to handle the pressure that is waiting for him?” Claude spun his staff once, and turned to Owen. “Owen, that, is the future, no one knows, other than the gods, what will happen in the future. The future is yet to happen, we should focus on the present.”

Owen scratched his chin, “Alright then, you don’t have to give a mini-speech about that.” “I don’t mind that.” Trad said, “Claude’s speeches are mostly the ones that will give all of us motivation. After all, he is currently the King of Paxsalam.” Trad raised his mini-binoculars closer to his eyes, and seemed to be focused to it. “Now, let’s see what these newcomers got up their sleeves.”

Claude, too raised his mini-binoculars, trying to see whether he can see his brother. Do you think he will be able to handle the pressure that is waiting for him? Claude wasn’t sure about that yet, the training that he gave him was easy. Don’t worry, he told himself, Edward is the type of person that will observe his problems really well, he can handle it…

. . . . . .

Keep quiet, I told myself.

I am now trying, to try and avoid whatever the heck is lurking in this forest, I will not want to waste energy on fending off some really territorial creature. And I will want to make it out of here as quickly as possible. I tried to minimize the times that I will step on a stick or anything else that will make a crack noise (which is why characters keep getting killed in horror media) to avoid being noticed, by the creatures, or even other contestants, if battling each other is legal.

I don’t see Felix nor Aisha anywhere, and the sun is starting to set, and the surroundings is getting darker every moment. There isn’t any creature in sight too, and that’s a good thing, I can save my energy from fighting. But my memories of the lessons that Claude taught me started to came back for no, okay, good reasons.

I remember that there will be some that will be nocturnal, and I don’t know how many species here are nocturnal… I would need something to make light when night comes, but what… oh, I have an idea.

I decided to find a really nice piece of wood, and two cool stones. I can make a torch with these, don’t worry, I know how to make one. I started to swipe the stones together, that will hopefully make sparks that will land onto the wood, which will burn it. It didn’t work after many tries for some reason, so I guess that I will have to try again and again and again and again…

Four hours later,

Nothing happened. No fire. This has been going on for hours, it’s already night now, and I still can’t make fire, what’s wrong with this? “Why?! Can’t I make a! Spark!?” I grumbled, I need to make some light, even if it lasts for only five seconds, that will be satisfying for me. “C’mon, Come on!” I started praying quietly, “Hephaestus, God of Fire, please! Please give me some good flames on my journey!”

Still, I have no luck on doing this. I think my hands are bleeding, because they hurt so much. I sighed, I feel like giving up, I had wasted too much time on making a torch. Well, guess this won’t work for some weird reason, I will have to find another way…

Grr…

A sudden growl broke me out from my thoughts. I dropped my ‘trusty’ stones and I turned to the location of the growl. And now, in front of me, stood my first, magnificent obstacle.

It was a fox, which I suppose is a fox (since its dark, it could be something else), with two horns on each side on its head, and more horns are ridged on the fox’s back, by the look of it, those horns can do some ugly damage. The creature snarled at me, revealing its sharp and pointy fangs. I remembered that Claude had gave me some lessons about the magical creatures out there. And I clearly remembered that he did teach me about this beast.

A tenghuang.

It is a creature based from Chinese mythology, and rumours said that if a person manages to eat its liver can achieve a wealthy and blissful life, so hunters all around the world started to hunt its species for this reason. So, this place must have been made to offer them sanctuary. And it is notorious for attacking anyone, or anything that enters its territory.

Well, I don’t know am I in its territory, or did it stumble upon me.

The tenghuang snarled again, and took a step closer to me. I took a few tiptoes backwards, it snarled again. There must be a reason why it’s doing this, I thought. Since this tenghuang didn’t attack me immediately after seeing me, and it just kept on snarling at me. Is it a warning to me? To get out from its territory? Or does it want to make me properly terrified before tearing me apart?

I decided to go with my first theory. The tenghuang snarled, but it sounds more threatening this time. I stepped backwards a few more times, and the fox looked less aggressive when I did that. So, it is a warning sign to tell me to back off. I kept moving backwards from the tenghuang, and I made sure to not turn my back on it, which could be a sign that I’m weak (which I probably agreed on).

The tenghuang is almost out of sight now, and I think it is safe to turn my back and move on now… I’m not sure on whether it will chase me when I’m doing that, and I’m taking that risk.

The good news, is that nothing happened, which means that I’m safe. The bad news? I don’t have anything to make a light source, I have no choice, but to move on and find some better stones to swipe. It sucks to navigate in the dark, you know. It’s almost pitch black out here, and sadly, I don’t have fire, nor night vision.

At every fifteen minutes, I will guarantee that I will bump into a tree. At least that’s better than bumping into some beast or someone that won’t be happy about it. The others must had made fire by now, maybe I should try to find someone and team up with him or her, since Owen didn’t mention that whether teaming up is allowed or not.

“GAAAAAHHHHHH!!!!!!!”

A girlish scream echoed in the distance, and who doesn’t get startled by screaming? I hear footsteps, and they are getting closer to where I am right now. Whatever this is, it is not like the tenghuang, it acts more agitatedly.

I have to be ready to defend myself. I raised my staff, and looked at every corner of my surroundings, expecting something to pounce on me. To my left, I saw a light glowing every five seconds, is there a creature that has bioluminescence here? The light glowed again, “Aah!” I heard a feminine voice from the direction where the light is glowing. “It’s not working!” The voice spoke again, I started to breath faster, is that a person? Or the creature can speak?

The footsteps sounded more louder and closer, I pointed my staff towards the darkness, ready to fight, I chanted “Element of Ice, Second Position…”

Listen closely, it is rude to freeze a girl’s face.

A girl, with crimson red hair appeared from the dark. My eyes widened, and I pulled my staff away from her face. She collapsed on the ground, gasping for air. She held a staff with the top shaped like a type of bird’s head. She wore a grey dress shirt and an orange trouser, and the thing about her that shocked me is, that there is a cut in her leg, and there’s blood leaking out from it.

I rushed to help her up, “Hey, are you alright?” I asked, she turned to meet my face. “W-what are you doing?” She asked back. “Um, I’m trying to-” “You have to get out of here!” To be honest, I don’t like it when someone interrupts when I’m talking, but she sounds horrified, I think I she has something to warn me about. “There’s something coming, it seems to be resistant to fire!”

Resistant to fire.

That explains the light glowing, she was actually using fire to defend herself. Now, I would need to calm her down, “We will get out of here.” I promised, for some reason, I started to look at the cut in her leg, I don’t like bloody images, but this time, I can’t cringe at the sight of it. “There’s this cut in your leg, we will need to-”

BOOM.

The trees behind us toppled, and a three-meter-tall rhinoceros charged out, roaring so loudly that my ears could burst. Regular rhinos aren’t this big, and I don’t remember them being that ferocious.

But this isn’t a ‘regular’ rhinoceros.

It looks like your ordinary safari white rhino, but this one has sharper horns and much larger hooves. I learned about this fellow before, this is a Pyro Rhinoceros, which is basically immune to fire. There’s blood dripping from its smaller horn, so this girl was attacked by this towering beast. The rhino roared again, and it charged at us.

I did what I have to do, I held the girl’s hand, and dived into the bushes. The rhino just missed us by a few inches. The rhino seemed dazed and confused, as if we just vanished before it can ram into us. I remember that rhinos don’t have good eyesight, and they aren’t the brightest organisms out there too. Maybe the Pyro Rhino is similar to them.

Even though I can outsmart the rhino, I shouldn’t underestimate it. This beast is literally way bulkier than an elephant, and it is way quicker than I expected. This girl can’t do anything against it, and she already has an injured leg.

I won’t allow the Pyro Rhino to give more cuts to her, I will protect her from it. That’s what kings do, we must protect our citizens and kingdoms from harm’s way

I turned to the girl, “Hey, what’s your name?” She blinked with slight confusion, like no one had asked for her name before. “Eloise…” “Eloise, nice name by the way.” “Thanks.” “Now, I will need you to hide in these bushes,” I took a peek out from the bushes, the Pyro Rhino still seems confused, but it still won’t give up on us. “I will go and distract it.”

Eloise seemed hesitant on letting me out, but she winced again. More blood was leaking out from her cut. The rhino sniffed the air, and it glared to the direction of the bushes that we are hiding in. “I think it knows where we are now.” I whispered, “It’s fast.” Eloise replied, “We can’t outrun it.” “I’m going, I have an idea. And I admit it, it’s insane.”