“Face? Oh, right! Forgive me,” the fake grandpa with the terrifying face said after being reminded. His one hand swiped in front of his face and a more normal face of an old man appeared. The old man gave him a big smile.
Jack didn’t respond in kind.
“What the hell, old man! Do you get off from scaring a younger man like me?” Jack scolded.
The old man gave him a wry smile, “young man. It is called a test of courage. In order to test your courage, of course, it has to be something that frightened you. All this is constructed from the images in your memory. It is simply manipulated to become something that is most likely to terrify you.”
“What is the requirement for me passing?” Jack asked. He didn’t really understand how he had passed the test.
“When you decided to overcome your fear and faced it instead of running from it. Or in your case, punch at it, I might say,” the old man replied.
“Pretty simple,” Jack commented.
“Is it? But very few can pass this test. It is not easy for someone to conquer their fear and face them head-on.”
“How do you fail this test then?”
“If you continue to run till insanity, or if you are overwhelmed by terror and completely froze up.”
“Oh? That makes me curious. What if I froze up and stopped running?”
“The apparition will capture and consume you.”
“Uh… What happens if it consumes me?”
“What happens if a monster consumes you?” The old man asked back.
“Hm…” Jack nodded in understanding. “So, what is this place exactly? I thought I was back to my real world already and all that had happened before was just a dream.”
The old man chuckled. “What an irony. It is this one that is a dream.”
“What? Are you saying I am in a dream?” Jack uttered with a surprise. “So you are just a figment of my imagination?” Jack added as he used a finger to poke at the old man.
“How rude!” the old man said as he swatted Jack’s hand away. “You are one impolite lad. I prefer it when you are just running around fleeing from your imagined horrors.”
“If you are not a part of my imagination, that means you are the one that manipulates my dream into scaring me. I am already polite enough to not hit you for all that horror I experienced just now,” Jack countered.
“Kid. Did you forget already that you punched me not long ago?”
“That doesn’t count. That is for passing the test. Now since we are speaking about the test, what the hell is this test for? Does it allow me to leave the valley?”
“It got nothing to do with this valley. The point of this test is for you to qualify for the next test.”
“What the hell? Why is there another more test? I’m not interested! What do I get from it anyway?”
“Even if you want to, you can’t take the following test. Your level is too low. You will need to be level 50 to proceed.”
“What? You forced me into this non-consensual test and now are telling me that this test is pointless since my level is too low? Are you kidding me?”
“Don’t be too agitated, young man. You can come back when you are level 50, we can continue then with your next test.”
“Don’t be absurd, who wants to return to this horror house anyway? And who the hell are you, old man?”
“Hmph, if I am my real self, I would have taught that disrespectful mouth of yours a lesson. My name is Majus. Though I am actually just a part of the consciousness from my real self, left behind to oversee this trial site.”
“So you really are a figment of imagination, except not mine. Okay then, sir Majus. What can I do to leave this dream world?”
“I can send you out now if you no longer have any questions.”
“In that case, can you help me escape the valley outside this dream world and go back to the plateau up above?”
“I cannot, you have to find a way up yourself.”
“Fine. How about you point me the way for leaving this valley? So I can walk myself back up.”
“In my knowledge, passing the next test is the way to leave this valley.”
“What the…! Are you saying I am trapped here until I am level 50?!”
“No, I am saying that you should be able to leave if you pass the…”
“All right, all right! No need to repeat! Bloody heck!”
Jack was morose. He was glad that this game world was not a dream, but he was not keen on spending his time here grinding monsters until he was level 50. He would rather this be a dream and go back to the real world if it was so.
“By the way, what’s the point of these tests anyway? Why did the next one need me to be level 50 before taking it?”
“Because you need to be at least level 50 before you can become a special class.”
“A special class?” Jack thought for a bit before remembering. Wasn’t that the next class upgrade after elite class which Peniel had mentioned before? He did remember Peniel mentioned as well that one needed level 50 for that. But then he thought of something.
“Wait! To become this special class. Do I need to be an elite class as well?”
“Yes, you will need to be an Archmage.”
Mother f*cker…! Then didn’t this mean he was trapped in this valley forever? He couldn’t go back to the city to upgrade his class, he couldn’t pass this test if he was not of Elite class, and he couldn’t escape this valley if he didn’t pass the test. In other words, he was f*cked…!!
“What’s wrong, lad? You seemed agitated,” Majus said.
‘You think?’ Jack responded in his mind, but he calmed himself. There was sure to be another way out. He just needed to find it. This old man was only a leftover existence from a powerful mage, put here to run this test site. He probably didn’t know everything about this valley.
With that resolution, Jack said to the old man, “Okay, I’m ready to leave.”
“All right. When you reached level 50 and is an Archmage. Come back here again, we will pick up where we left off.”
Jack didn’t reply. Majus also didn’t expect one. He stretched both his arms and the room where they were in started to distort.
“Oh, almost forgot to mention. There is also another reward waiting for you once you wake up. It’s for passing this test,” Majus said.
Jack was about to ask what the reward was, but he felt his entire vision spun abruptly. He was overcome by a severe sense of vertigo. He thought he fainted. When he opened his eyes, he was on the floor, lying on his back. He saw Peniel floating above him, her face full of worry.
“You finally wake up!” She exclaimed with relief.
Jack sat up, he felt some migraine on his head. There was also some liquid on his face.
“I’ve tried to wake you up several times,” Peniel said. “I tried to pinch you, I slapped you, stepped on you, kicked you. Even splash some water on you. Nothing works. You continued sleeping.”
‘Ah… That’s why my head was wet and hurt,’ Jack thought. He then stood up. There was a light appearing in the middle of the room, then a gold-colored treasure chest appeared.
“Ah, so that is the reward,” Jack uttered.
“Reward for what?” Peniel asked in confusion.
Jack recounted about the dream he had, which later he found out to be the test of the quest he received when they entered the cave down there. He also informed her that there was no exit in this place to the plateau above, they would need to look for another way out there.
“Well, considering the S difficulty of the quest. Getting a gold treasure chest is normal,” Peniel commented. “So, what are you waiting for? Let’s open it. Luckily, you have stocked up on lots of lockpicks already.”
After his last experience with the last gold treasure chest in the Temple of Divine Squall, Jack had stocked up even more lockpicks after returning to the capital. He currently had possession of 1000 lockpicks inside his bag!
Yet, at the moment, Jack was not looking at the gold treasure chest, because a marker had appeared on his God-eye monocle.
‘Odd, the monocle didn’t show the marker at that place when I first came up,’ Jack thought. He walked over to the place. Peniel also came over.
There was nothing unusual about the wall in front of him, but the monocle said otherwise. Jack brandished his Storm Breaker and hit on the wall. A damage number appeared. With that affirmation, he continued his attack on the wall until its HP bar was depleted. The wall crumbled.. Behind it, he saw a black horse that was enshrouded with raging flames.
