Challenges

Sefilio decided to hold the flashlight as we slowly walked through the mountains. It was pretty eerie as the only sounds heard were the crunching of our footsteps.

“Welcome travelers!”

A counselor dressed as a knight waved towards us. There were a few other groups behind him at a table, working on something.

“Before you proceed, we must test your abilities as a team.”

He handed us a box.

“You must complete this puzzle before moving on. Good luck!”

“What is this, some children bonding exercise?” Ivey muttered under his breath.

We headed to a free table to begin working on the puzzle. When we opened the box, it became clear this wasn’t an ordinary jigsaw puzzle. Instead, there were 3D shaped parts.

“Well… is anyone good with this type of stuff?”

A brief silence filled the air. This was going to take a while.

After a few minutes, more people had gathered and started working on their puzzles. I had seen Walker and Azuno’s groups arrive and were struggling on it too. Our group was about halfway through.

“Oh, that piece there should go next to that one. And then add this piece on top.”

Ivey pointed at some blocks and started coordinating, as if he was a construction manager. We did as he told us and our progress grew rapidly. It wasn’t long before we finally slotted in the final piece and called the knight over to inspect it.

“It looks good. Here’s a coin for completing this part. You may move on.”

We made our way to the next part as other groups watched on in confusion.

“That took a bit longer than expected. Luckily Ivey helped save a lot of time.”

Rei was genuinely impressed with his spatial awareness and gave him a thumbs up.

“Oh it was nothing. I cheated after all.”

“... You what?”

“I just looked over at other groups. I didn’t want to waste time doing some stupid puzzle.”

Sefilio sighed.

“Some things never change. And for once you could have looked cool.”

Ivey shrugged it off and we continued to walk on. He was a pretty immoral guy.

We came across a fork in the path. We had to make a choice. Left or right.

“Well you know what they say. Right is always right,” Sefilio chanted, as she started strolling towards the right path.

“Nah, let’s go left.”

Ivey objected. I followed along with him to the left side.

“Why do you want to go left?”

“Just cause... You know what they say. Left is good for theft.”

I didn’t know what he meant by that.

“Mrgh… Fine.”

She eventually caved in and we set towards the left path. I pulled up beside her and lowered my voice.

“Couldn’t help but let him have his way?”

“No! It’s… It’s not like that… It’s because… he helped us out with that puzzle. That’s all!”

Right… She’s totally fallen for him.

At the next stage was a row of tables with a jester waiting for us. She had a silly costume on and went heavy on the make-up.

“Oho~! It looks like we have fellow adventurers. Choosing the left part is pretty risky…!”

She smiled and had a loud voice.

“The mountain only wants the very best of competitors to move forward… Legend has it that chess is a staple of how warriors are chosen. You must play against another group and win the match to proceed.”

There was another group waiting for an opponent, so we joined their table. They were all boys and had noticed the 2 stars in our group. I could feel their jealousy from miles away.

“Wow I didn’t expect to see you two in the same group,” one of them said.

“Well, we are friends. ”

“What about the other two? Do they have some dirt on you guys? Cause there’s no way you’d actually choose to partner up with a random and gloomy dude.”

The rest of his friends laughed. Rei and Sefilio were staring daggers at them, which was pretty scary. I had a feeling that you didn’t need to be able to read minds to know what they were thinking.

Meanwhile Ivey was trying to hide his own laughter.

“What’s so funny?” I asked him, confused.

“He… Heh, he called you gloomy…!”

He also joined in on the trash talk, only to get noticed by Sefilio.

“You know, since you seem to be on the same page as them you can represent us.”

“Huh? But-”

“It looks like we have a match! Good luck to you guys!”

The jester started the timer and the match began. Ivey looked at Sefilio and she smirked. Ivey had signed up for a chess match he didn’t want to play.

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“There. Checkmate.”

Ivey moved the final piece that trapped his opponent, and won the game. He yawned and stretched his arms out, as his opponents had stopped laughing ages ago and stayed silent.

“Congratulations team! You may now move onto the final challenge.”

She gave us a coin and we moved to the final challenge.

“I didn’t know you played chess.”

“Eh, from time to time, I sometimes play. Whenever I’m bored.”

“Have you played against Azuno?”

“Nope… That guy is way too crazy.”

“Or maybe you’re scared of losing?” Sefilio chimed in.

“As if. Also, why’d you put me in that game? You could’ve done it.”

“I could’ve… But you were being dumb so no.”

“Huh?”

She pouted and continued to talk to Rei leaving him quite confused.

“I will never understand women.”