Chương 42: 41. The Goth's Proposal

People used to whisper that deities never played by the rules, but made them up as they went along. Neither was true. From personal experience, I knew that deities didn't make, change, or even ignore rules. Those who tried were forbidden from communicating with participants, and all their existing pacts were negated. It was the rule-masters that were purely responsible for dealing with the day to day.

Harlequin and his ilk came up with the concept of the trials; they created and populated them, and they set the rewards that participants would find. The only thing he was forced to do was accommodate the powers that be as much as possible. I was last when I emerged in the preparation hall. Most of the other participants had already gone to sleep. The empty food table made it clear that they had finished eating, leaving nothing behind for me. A single card was left on the wall: the Fourteen of Rings.

Without much fanfare, I went up to it and claimed my prize. FOURTEEN OF RINGS (MINOR, RINGS) (Rarity – Common) SKILLS (1/1): 1 AETHER STRENGTHEN: increases the strength of any aether object or coating in your possession tenfold. Leave it to Harlequin to offer something valuable and present it as useless. This was a solid booster card, though the issue was that it was powerless on its own. Everyone still remembered the gold and silver cards of the first trial, so they were unlikely to find any use in a Minor Arcana.

Already I suspected that they would be wasted on gambling or traded for something worthless. With the wall bare, I went up to the food table and placed a silver coin. The payment was accepted, swallowing the coin and creating a bowl of soup instead. Soup? I thought. After all the underwater fighting, that felt a bit on the nose. Still, I had no doubt that the composition was designed to provide me with all the vitamins and nutrients I needed. The taste was passable as well.

With a loud thump, a backpack landed on the free chair next to me. Calmly, I looked in its general direction.

"You left it behind," Cathy said. Despite her tone, she didn't seem particularly angry. In her place, I wouldn't be either. Winning the trial had allowed her to claim the Magician as her reward. It was a rather good card, and the one that, in the previous run, had turned her into the powerhouse she was. By the tenth trial she would have boosted it to its maximum, as well as gained quite a few other supplementary cards.

After trial twenty, she would become the undisputed spellcaster of the group, earning the appropriate nickname, Pain Sorceress. More nicknames would inevitably appear, most of them unflattering. More times than not, she would single-handedly help the weaker members to survive until, one day, she and Marcus just vanished, leaving the rest of us scum to struggle on our own.

"Didn't make much sense to bring water on a ship trial." I continued eating.

"Unguarded," she added, arms crossed.

"Good thing you got back first. Guess I owe you one." The woman stared at me for a full three seconds, then shook her head and joined me.

"Sometimes you're unbelievable, you know that?" she muttered in a tone that suggested this wasn't a compliment.

"Where's Marcus?"

"Sleeping. He was the third to arrive, after the goth chick." That was to be expected. With the Blade Serpent dead, Harlequin had probably gone back to the original rules, placing an escape location on the ship.

"What about Seb?"

"He… made it back, though not alive." That was to be expected. After his massive mess-up, the power behind him couldn't have been pleased. I didn't expect him to end up dead, although I didn't know what relations he had established with his deity. I glanced at the backpack. Back during my previous run, I had wanted one so badly. Of course, back then no one had been given any inventory space. There were no rings of containment and definitely no pouch.

Anything, from weapons to food to water, had to be stored somewhere physically.

"You can have it if you want," I offered.

"Will give you something to keep your arrows in. I'll just take the water."

"You keep it. Or have you dreamed what the next trial would be?"

"Nope." I ate a few more spoonfuls of soup.

"Probably something nastier."

"You made it!" someone shouted from behind me.

"I was worried there for a moment!" I didn't have to turn around to know who that was. It was inevitable that Carl would make it back. In a trial without dying, there was no way he wouldn't. Hearing his voice was like finding a fly in the soup—annoying with the possibility of problems emerging further on.

"So, what happened?" He moved the backpack to the floor and sat in the chair.

"When Harlequin said that you had defeated the thing, I thought you'd already be here. I was worried when you weren't." I bet you were.

"I took a detour," I replied. Curiosity made me glance in his direction. Carl Swansen Level: 3 Cards: Archer, Drummer, Mimic, Fourteen of Rings Special: Harmlessness Patron: Morana Weapons: Poison Needle The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement. Items: Ring of Containment, Treasure Locket, Death Hourglass (20%) Coins: 12 silver, 39 gold The shock almost made me drop my spoon. How had Carl managed to form a pact with Morana?!

Maybe she wasn't in the big leagues, but she was far from a minor deity. As a goddess of death, misfortune, and nightmares, she could easily influence the outcome of events and activities, not to mention invade people's dreams. So, the dream beast attack hadn't come from Sebastian, but Carl himself. Though in that case, how had Marcus been affected? Could two dream deities have meddled in the trials? Or maybe there even were three?

I was pretty sure that the deity that had shown an interest in me was also a dream goddess.

"What detour?" the living cockroach asked. It took a great deal of self-control not to attack him here and now. His entire behavior during the previous trial had been an act. The annoying bit was that I had fallen for it. As a participant, he remained hopeless. I could see him making all the mistakes he had made. Still, at no point had he been in danger from the undead.

"I had to fight some sirens." Carl's deity had done a good job hiding the relevant information linking to her. Without the Observer card, I would never have noticed. He had also done quite well in terms of coins and items. The treasure locket allowed him to hold all his coins without a worry in the world; as for the Death Hourglass, I could only speculate that it captured souls, likely the requirement for serving Morana.

"Some people get all the luck. Am I right?" He let out a fake managerial laugh as he glanced at Cathy.

"Main thing is that you're fine. Would have been weird if you hadn't come out on top."

"I didn't come out on top," I went back to eating. Seeing his achievements made my stomach twist.

"The goth girl did. She's probably got more cards than all of us combined."

"It's not about the cards, it's about how you use them." Carl resorted to the typical manager phrases that got nothing done. That was another thing I hated about him. When he wasn't causing trouble outright, he was sucking up in a way that would make narcissists think twice about having him around.

"Have you heard anything about the next trial?" I asked. The question was casual, but it managed to make Carl's hair stand on end. Straightening up, he looked around as if fearing that we were being spied on. Since we weren't his, glance fell on Cathy.

"You can talk in front of her," I said.

"She saved our lives several times so far. Right?"

"Riiight," he said with the warmth of someone who had just found out that a fellow employee had snatched his promotion.

"I don't know anything about the next trial."

"Really, Carl?" I didn't believe him for a moment.

"It's the truth! This one was a one-off! Whatever you did during your… detour really made Harlequin pissed," he whispered.

"Apparently, things weren't supposed to end this way. There were no congratulations, no prizes, just a simple " claim your card" and that was it." That sounded more believable, but it still came from Carl. After what I had seen, everything uttered by him was suspect. Could it be that the same thing had happened during the previous run as well? He had definitely survived longer than I had expected, a lot longer than he deserved to.

"Then we're all in the dark." I ate a bit more, then stood up.

"I'll be in the gym." I left the table, taking the backpack with me. No one tried to follow me as I did. Judging by the pristine condition of everything in the room, no one had touched a single weight. Quickly, I went through the secret entrance and into the arena. Unfortunately, someone was already there.

"I figured it was you," Eleonor said, leaning against the wall at the entrance.

"For a moment I thought it might be Marcus, but he didn't seem the type."

"Not the type to gain an advantage?" I pretended I wasn't disturbed by her presence.

"Not the type to take action before he knows all the rules of the game." She went up to me.

"You know he's a psychopath, right?" Like everyone else, I had suspected, but there had never been any definitive proof. The man was just too good at controlling his lack of emotions, making it seem that he was enraged just enough to leave a sliver of doubt in everyone's mind.

"Is that why he didn't join you?" I walked past.

"You're too similar to one another?"

"I'm not a psychopath," she smiled as he said it.

"I'm just informed." She stood behind me as I made my way to the arena.

"I'm ready to make you an offer," she said, her voice progressively louder.

"It'll be in all our interests to form a team before the fifth trial. I want you on it." This made me stop. It was in the nature of the Grand Arcana: the strong grouped together, while the weak always scattered behind. I didn't expect it to start so soon, though. Thanks to my previous run, I knew who was worth pursuing and who wasn't. Normally, it would take tens of trials to come to such a determination, even with deities involved.

"Marcus is another possibility, of course." She went up to me again.

"As is Cathy. I'm still uncertain is there's anyone else."

"No one from your posse?" I asked.

"Or maybe Seb?"

"He had his chance and blew it. Right now, I'm the least of his troubles. As for my "posse," there's a lot fewer of them now that when I started. Also, their skills are shit. There's never a guarantee in these things."

"Let me guess." I turned around.

"You never expected to come across someone like me?" I smirked.

"Oh, no." She passed me by.

"All of us knew about you from the start." Eleonor made her way onto the arena. She tossed a gold coin onto the floor and drew her blade. A single undead appeared in front of her. Before it could raise its hands, the tip of the blade had pierced its skull. It was an elegant attack, although way too showy for my taste. While I couldn't deny that the girl had skills—and cards—she lacked actual experience.

I was watching someone who had trained their entire life in the comfort of an air-conditioned gym or martial arts school. The last two trials were probably the first time she had faced actual monsters. Waves came and went one after another. For the most part, she was fighting undead and skeletons, although there was the occasional group of goblins now and again. Interestingly enough, there wasn't a single siren or sea creature that I could see.

For whatever reason, that part of the trial remained locked for her, despite there being sirens on the cruise ship. The first thirty waves were slaughtered without a hitch. During the next thirty minutes, I watched the signs of fatigue build up. Her strikes took a bit longer; her defense was a bit less precise. The chains she achieved with the Minor Arcana in her possession were undoubtedly well-trained. One didn't come across such combos by accident, and in here lay the issue.

Each series of thrusts and slashes was quite lethal and aesthetically pleasing, but it consumed too much energy. If I sat on a judges' panel, I would give her a ten out of ten without hesitation. For fighting within the Arcana, I would offer a six at best.

"You'll tire yourself," I said out of habit from the times I used to lead newbies. Just like them, she ignored the comment, doubling down on her efforts. Thanks to the Observer card, I could see her breathing become shallower and irregular. For close to ten waves, she tried to hide it, after which she no longer had the strength to do even that. By the time she entered the final rounds, she was on her last legs.

Each chain of attacks still brought her a one-sided win, but the toll on her body was getting greater and greater. Why haven't I seen you before? I wondered. Even if she wasn't battle-hardened, such talent was rare for the Grand Arcana this early on. It was inevitable that she would have made a splash. At least someone would have spoken about it. And yet, I was drawing a complete blank. The final challengers emerged: a Footman and three flaming skeletons.

It was too much to expect that Harlequin would allow a Grand Arcana holder to participate this early on. If nothing else, it had already been proven that no one stood a chance against such a monster. Gripping her blade so tightly that her fingers turned white, Eleonor put everything into the last attack. A merciless burst of slashes filled the entire arena.

Familiar with her opponent, she first slashed around him, taking out all the magic circles, then focused her attacks on the unprotected area of his throat just above the breastplate. The flaming skeletons were useless; their chaotic actions were unable to keep up with her precision and speed. Seventeen thrusts struck the footman in rapid succession. Once the girl stepped back, the entity collapsed onto the floor. Several seconds later, the three skeletons followed.

"Not bad," I said, arms crossed.

"Ready to go again?"

"No," she said, struggling to maintain the illusion that she wasn't exhausted.

"I got my prize." The Arcana core appeared on the floor in front of her.

"This is enough." I took a bottle of water from my backpack and tossed it to her.

"You'll need that," I said. She didn't seem particularly grateful, yet she didn't reject the offer. There was a lot of criticism I could give, but doing so would have only pissed her off more. I had seen her type long enough to know precisely what was needed for her to listen.

"There's more inside," I shoved the backpack as she left the arena.

"Don't drink it all at once." I then went up to the arena. Instead of a coin, I used my gold token.

"Now it's my turn."