Jack, Loid, and now Riveria, have now been walking for around an hour now and they were starting to get to know each other.
Riveria acted somewhat odd for a person that Jack and Loid just met. She wasn’t reserved or seemed like she had anything to hide, it was almost as if she was an open book.
Funnily enough, Riveria fit right in with both Jack and Loid. Having a person be so bold and honest really helped Loid break out of his shyness a bit. Plus, it was a relief for Jack to get to finally be around someone his age. After all, even before the tournament he wasn’t really a social person and had no “real” friends.
The trio reached another checkpoint once again and stopped. Riveria yawned and slumped her shoulders.
“Man, I’m so freakin tired, can’t we just stop here for today?” Riveria asked grumpily.
Great, another weak person! Can’t anyone here have any sort of endurance or stamina at all? Sure, I know I’m the physically strongest person here without taking abilities into account, but come on! It’s only like 5-6 hours of walking.
“Fine, we can stop here for today.” Jack replied barely hiding his annoyance and resisting the urge to sigh.
“Thank god…” Loid mumbled. He was afraid of telling Jack that he wanted to get some rest so Riveria doing it for him was a relief.
“Dang Riveria, I expected Loid to be tired since he’s a kid and all but you must be pretty weak to get tired this fast.” Jack teased.
Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.
“Sh-Shut up!” Riveria replied, clearly letting Jack’s remark get under his skin.
“Anyway, this is going to be an uncomfortable sleep. Couldn’t they have given us beds or something?” Riveria whined.
“You’ll be alright.” Jack said with a slightly amused smirk on his face.
The next day, the trio once again ventured through the maze together. Since it was the fifth day, it was now the halfway point of this game. Unfortunately for Loid and Riveria, that meant Jack would make them travel a bit faster than before.
“JACK! SLOW DOWN BEFORE I BURN YOU ALIVE!” Riveria yelled at Jack, a small flame igniting in her hand.
Jack stopped walking a turned around. He stopped about 7 feet away from Riveria and noticed the flame in her hand. He walked back to her with a curious look on his face.
“Riveria…you have a fire based ability?” Jack asked.
“Yup!” Riveria answers, puffing out her chest proudly.
Wow, this girl really doesn’t have a single suspicious bone in her body.
Jack then began to smell something starting to burn.
“Hey…Riveria..I think you’re burning your sleeve.” Jack says, his voice quivering as he holds in his laughter.
Riveria’s eyes widened and she looks at her right hand as the fire burned her sleeve slowly. She then quickly dispelled the fire and groaned.
“Dang it, how am I always so careless.” Riveria says.
Jack bursts out laughing clearly showing that his attempt to hide his amusement with the situation failed miserably. Even Loid began to chuckle at the silliness of the situation.
“Come on! You’re laughing too Loid?” Riveria asked with annoyance and a bit of embarrassment.
These people…I enjoy being with them. I truly want to be friends with them but that’s illogical. Emotional attachment only gets you and others killed. They will both eventually die and I’ll be alone again. Like it was in the army and just like how it was for the past year. They are just weapons…everyone is.
After about 45 minutes the trio is still navigating through the maze. However, the floor pattern is different this time. Instead of a plain smooth surface, it’s now infected with a multitude of different tiles.
As the trio walked through this tunnel, Loid ended up stepping on a tile that pushed into the floor.
“Um Mr Jack and Ms Riveria…I think I might've triggered something.” Loid said.
“What are you talking abo-” Riveria started before stopping in the middle of her sentence as the tunnel began to shake violently.
Dang it, they must’ve set a trap for the participants.
Then, the floor began to open up under them which caused all three of them to fall into the unknown.
