Chapter Text
“Where are we?” Edan looked around, taking in the scene around him. They were in an island, that’s for sure. He remembered getting sucked by some huge vacuum, an audio voice telling them that the test is starting. And the voice, deep like a sound that vibrated through his eardrums (because you don’t hear them, you feel them) is from the guardian of this floor.
It took him a whole hundred eighty degree-rotation to notice that Jahad is just standing behind him. “I’m stuck with you?”
The blonde ignored his disappointed tone and walked past him. “We need to find out what the test is all about and proceed with making the contract. If things go right, we might make it out of here alive.”
Make it out here alive. As if they haven’t done it a few times before already. It was disappointing, really, that someone as powerful as him is the most boring person Edan ever met. He spouts sentences like a robot, no facial expressions, no habits, and only talks when he wanted. He was hoping Hon would end with him or Bloodmadder would have been fine too. Instead, he was partnered with this king wannabe.
He placed a hand over his waist and studied the place. It’s a contrast of what he always ought to imagine of islands where it’s usually filled with coconut trees and round sandy ground. It was spacious, and it looks more like a forest. The sand ends in a perfect straight line over the nearest tree as if it was fixed instead of the grass just overgrowing there. And that perfectly straight line continues over the horizon. Another thing, it feels like something dangerous and powerful is lurking inside the middle of this island.
“Let’s go,” Jahad beckoned. He was about to cross over the line when Edan grabbed his arm.
“Wait.” It sucks not having Tperie here. A few lighthouses would have come in handy. “It’s dark in there.”
“Don’t tell me you’re afraid of dark?”
Edan glared. “Obviously not. But darkness usually means something else is sleeping in there.”
“So what? We’ll just defeat it and go.”
“So what,” Edan mimicked. “We’re in the 20th floor now, I won’t be surprised if the guardian is planning to finish us right here, right now. So stay back and allow me to form a plan.”
“What about this,” Jahad said. “you go around the other end of this island and then we’ll meet each other in the middle?”
“And you’ll arrive there earlier and take all the fun yourself? No way.”
“Then why don’t we head there right now and finish whatever creature is in there?”
Edan turned around to look stare at the horizon, where the sea meets the sky. It looked endless, and the fact that they just arrived her several minutes ago makes no sense. How were they delivered here? How did they end up here? The blunette turn towards his rival. “Have you heard about the curse that traps people in place?”
The blonde maintained his poker face. “No.”
‘Because you have a brain the size of a peanut,’ Edan thought. “It’s a curse, commonly place in forests. Once you set foot in there, you won’t be able to leave. As even if you go back, the spell will keep you from ever taking the same path and keep you in that place forever. No matter how long you forward, no matter how distant you had travelled, you would just stay in there. Forever trapped in the space.” He leaned down and his palm caught a stone, he held it, thrust his arm upward before throwing the stone forward. It flew towards the forest, and disappeared when it passed the line where the sand and soil met.
“It disappeared…” Jahad murmured, almost gaping. “Does that mean…?”
“Just as I thought.” Khun Edan dusts himself off. “We need something to dispel the curse.” When Edan looks around, his eyes caught something. A wooden chest, lying in the shore as if the sea delivered it there. Immediately, Edan dived toward it and without thinking, opened the chest. “Clothes? Should we put it in?”
Jahad frowned, obviously not used with suddenly changing his composure. “Why should we? What if it’s a trap–” But the pigtailed blunette is already changing his clothes to try those. With a flick of his finger, a blast of shinsu hits Edan in the back of his head. “What are you doing? Take those clothes off.”
“How lewd.”
“Can you stop messing around? This test is not some type of joke.”
Khun Edan strained himself from rolling his eyes. “Do you think they’ll just put it there thinking we’re stupid? Would the guardian think: Yeah, assholes, wear those clothes and fucking die. So obviously, this has a purpose. And whatnot, maybe the guardian likes us after all.”
“And you just said it’s trying to kill us,” Jahad pointed out, and even with his usual calm composure, he looks like his patience is meeting its end. “So we’re going to wear those stuff and march inside the forest, hoping we won’t get lost?”
“You’re so excited going in there. What if the test is not really about entering it but rather, finding a way to get the hell out of here?”
“Then that feeling that some beast is resting in there is just an imagination?”
“I’m not saying that. Maybe there really is a monster but what if it’s just distraction?”
“What if,” Jahad kept his tone firmer, “that what you’re thinking is the distraction?”
Edan grunted. “That makes no sense.”
“How so?”
“Fine!” He yelled, electric shinsu spreading around him. “Go in there and fight that monster yourself. I’ll be here finding a way to get out. Whoever dies loses.”
“That seems better,” the blonde said, his red mask lightens up as he boosts himself forward. He immediately disappeared through the boundary before the forest.
Realization struck Edan too late. ‘Wait. If one of us loses, then both of us will lose!’ “Oh shit,” was all he could murmur before rushing behind the him, trying to catch up to the future king of the tower with his tremendous speed.