Forest

“Hah, a challenge?” Saga immediately seemed to perk up. She lightly raised her gleaming sword.

“What do you mean?” Kai looked between the forest on the other side of the door, the sky and me as if seeking answers.

“I swear, this isn’t me trolling you or whatever,” I said defensively. “…What the hell’s going on? What challenge?”

The distorted voice finally resumed its talk. “The ultimate challenge for you. If you wish to go back… you will have to undertake it, or perish.”

It only spoke a few lines thus far and it was impossible to glean any information about the voice’s owner, but it was starting to piss me off. I could sense an undercurrent of smugness radiating from it.

“Are you the one who trapped us here?”

“You were summoned here by the witch called Mana, in a bid to save this world from evil.” Now the voice laughed. “But that matters not. For you are now stuck here…”

“Really sounding like some generic portal fantasy bullshit here,” grumbled Kai from the side. “Are you sure this isn’t yours, C?”

I ignored him. “Sure, we were summoned to defeat evil, is that the challenge?”

“We’re going to fight?” asked Saga, her eyes blazing for a moment.

She was seemingly correct. “This world is under the control of three powerful warriors. If you want to get to the bottom of this situation… you will have to face them.”

My eyes went to the right, where Kai stood, still looking confused, and ahead, where Saga was glaring at the still-open door.

So it was this kind of deal, then? Three players to face three warriors.

“Interesting. Where can we find those warriors?” Saga asked next.

“Wait! W-we’re actually going to fight?” asked Kai, his eyes wide. “For real?”

“Who are they?” I added.

“The Three Warriors—One, Two and Three—will be waiting for your arrival,” the mysterious voice supplied.

Hearing that, I couldn’t help but groan. “For real? They’re named after numbers?” I asked in disbelief. That wasn’t creative at all.

“Says C?” asked Kai with a raised brow.

“That’s just a nickname!” I wasn’t sure why he even started using it in the first place; it wasn’t like we were especially chummy or anything. “And that’s not the point.”

“So? I’m sure those aren’t their real names, either.”

“—And so I welcome you again into Avallux, where the worlds cross. Prove yourself worthy and you might make it out of there alive!”

“This is such bullshit,” Kai called. “Who are you? Why did you do this to us? Get us out of here!”

No answer came no matter how much we waited. What were we supposed to do? Were we expected to just accept this absurd situation?

My thoughts were interrupted by someone grabbing me. “Alright, this has gone long enough. Get us the fuck out of here, C. Right now.” Kai’s eyes looked desperate. Almost crazed, even.

“I told you—that’s not me!” I protested. “I’m as much of a victim here as you are!”

“Yeah, right! You were the one who boasted about this game, remember? If this is your idea of a joke it’s not funny at all! Now turn this thing off!” He was hysterical.

“Calm down, Kai,” I said. I myself was getting quite a bit nervous at this too, but I was better at hiding it. “I think we’re… caught in something beyond our understanding. It’s not a game anymore, and it’s not under my control, either.”

“Right,” said Saga from the side in a dull voice. “It couldn’t have been him, anyway.”

“What do you mean?” asked Kai.

Saga eyed me. “You really think this loser could set up something like that?”

Hey!

“Hey!” I called out loud as well.

“How are you so calm about this, Saga?” Kai finally let go of me and turned to his supposed childhood friend with dubious eyes like he was seeing a complete stranger. “You look so comfortable here…”

“I was looking for something like this for a long time. That’s all.” Not only did she turn her back to us upon saying this, but she actually immediately started toward the open door.

“W-wait! Don’t leave us here!”

“Feel free to do as you please, but I’m going ahead.” She turned just her profile toward us, her long visible eye as cold as always, standing right on the cusp of the doorway. “Hah, don’t worry. I’ll beat those warriors and then you can go back if you want to.”

Following this, she just casually stepped into the forest visible on the other side.

“I told you, don’t leave us here! Saga!” Kai whined, then rushed after her.

After taking one final look at the surroundings—that I had created but then got hijacked by whatever being or force had done this to us—I followed them.

Upon entering the thick forest, I noticed three things.

The first was the obvious one: as I suspected, this act did not log us out from the game or bring us back to the real world. The moment I stepped into the new forest, the door behind me immediately closed and then vanished as if it never existed.

Damn. We probably had nothing to do back there except for fighting goblins and slimes anyway, but it was still one possible escape route that was now closed to us. I couldn’t deny the possibility that I missed something before.

Now we had no choice but to embark on this supposed “challenge”, whatever it meant. In this place. My third observation was therefore about this new world. Mostly how real it felt.

Not to toot my own horn too much or anything, but I felt that my starting area was a damn fine work. Except for the pain and realism of the wounds which still persisted, everything there had been the way I envisioned it—visuals, sounds and even some smells.

This place, though, was in another league entirely.

Even just the colors were much more vivid, almost blinding. It was a capital-letter Forest colored a capital-letter Green. Each and every sound, each and every smell permeated my senses, almost paralyzing me from overexposure.

It wasn’t like any game I’ve ever played or created, but at the same time it also felt realer than real life. Or maybe I was just too inexperienced in the real world? Whatever.

Anyway, this was no longer my (created) world. But it clearly wasn’t my (original) world, either.

“Ah, here we go. Finally, my dream came true,” I muttered with a smile. “I’ve been summoned into a parallel fantasy world!”

Kai looked at me like I was crazy. Well, maybe I really was, considering the situation. Nothing was normal about this.

Despite my general good mood, however, I soon felt rather uncomfortable. The thick forest was hot and humid, to say nothing about how hard it was to walk through the tall grass, pointy bushes, jutting tree roots and uneven ground, but Saga carried on as if this was nothing more than a morning stroll.

“S-slow down, Saga!” Even the athletic Kai seemed to be having issues.

“Hah. Why should I?”

“We’re in this together, aren’t we?” he said, looking between me and her. I also wasn’t enjoying this trek through the forest, but it was Kai who was having a really bad day for quite a while now.

The girl sighed. “I’ll try going slower. Just don’t hold me back.”

“Where are you going, anyway?” I asked while also making an effort to catch up. “We don’t even know where these so-called warriors are.”

“Following some animal tracks. We’ll need food at some point, so we’d better find something to hunt while there’s still light.” While she explained this, it was clear from her tone she probably thought this was just wasting time on words.

Come to think about it, I did feel hungry. We jumped straight into the game and spent some time in it… I couldn’t accurately tell the time, but it was probably close to lunchtime.

“What?” asked Kai. “Seriously? We’re actually going to hunt animals?”

“Says mister archer guy,” I noted.

“I only shoot targets! Not animals!”

Saga completely ignored us, but suddenly stopped in place, her entire body tensing. “—Something’s coming,” she said calmly.

“Huh?”

No sooner had Kai gotten that sound out of his mouth than some nearby bushes were disturbed and a large shape leapt right into our path.

It was the biggest freaking wolf I’d ever seen.