The Test of Waning: Out of the Frying Pan

I had screamed so loudly that I was shocked by it myself, but... It was too late.

Maybe I had grown a bit too arrogant. Having been taught by amazing mages like Eva and Regina, I thought I was strong enough to battle adults, but... Here I was, getting knocked out by a couple of teenagers.

I already knew. I knew how lacking the teachings were from the Order. It was never said to me outright by the teachers, but I sensed that I was the outsider. I knew there would be some things they would rather not teach me at all. And they were right not to teach me everything, despite me being their "prophecy boy" or whatever. After all, I left them in the end.

I knew I wasn't strong enough for head on battles. I knew... but I suppose I might have gotten too used to the peace of this life. Look at me, defeated by a pack of noble children.

Even while my head was spinning, I knew not to immediately show signs of my waking. Based on how blood was gathering at my head, I guessed I was being hung over someone's shoulder like I was a sack of potatoes. Still staying as limp as possible, I listened to the surroundings.

The faint whistle of mild, cold wind.

The heavy breaths of my captors.

And the shouts of my companion.

The last one was especially hard not to hear. Fighting back the urge to sigh, I listened to Albert's shouts.

"Put- Put me down!" he screamed.

"Shut that one up, will ya!" someone shouted back, annoyance in his tone.

There was a grunt, and then a reply came, voice labored and huffing. "You told me... not to knock... him out."

"Well, yeah, 'cuz I'd rather not have two sleeping princesses," the voice replied. "But just shut him up. He's gonna lead those monsters to us in no time."

Immediately, Albert stopped his screaming, and then he asked, "Monsters?"

The voice laughed. "Yes, kid, monsters. Now shut up will you, or I'll knock you down like I did your friend. Con, put him down. I think this one is smart enough to know he couldn't, and shouldn't, run away."

Faintly, I heard feet touch the soil, and then Albert's voice came again. "... Thanks."

"Good," the voice said. "You seem like a sensible lad. You will come join us, right? This test is probably about building up your team. I mean, even I could get the gist of that from the instructions. So, will you join our team like the sensible lad you are?"

"... I don't have much choice, don't I, Sir Telken?" Albert replied, although his voice doesn't sound all that disrespectful.

I found myself inwardly grinning. 'What is he up to?'

Immediately, the voice guffawed. "Good! So, tell me now, what's with that friend of yours? Why is he so strong despite being so young?"

"... Well, actually, we aren't that close yet to know about those sorts of things," Albert said. "I-I only knew how strong he was just now."

"Huh... Well, it doesn't matter. We'll just have to ask him when he wakes up," Telken replied.

Then, the group started walking again. It was getting harder to pretend to be asleep as time passed by, and my head already began to hurt after all the minutes being held upside down. Deciding it was time to show signs of wakefulness, I was about to pretend a groan, when I heard something from far away.

The others didn't seem to have heard it, but if I had to take a guess, it'd be one of those "monsters".

If it was a monster that these teenagers had already seen, and possibly battled with before, then I suppose I could afford to use this opportunity to run away. The monsters probably weren't that dangerous, right?

Taking a risk, I opened my eyes just a little bit and peeked around me. From my angle, I couldn't see Albert, but I did see how I was at the dead end of the group's formation.

'Why did they decide to put me in the rear? Did they think I'd keep sleeping throughout the whole journey?'

If I was all alone, I could already flee now. They would be too caught off guard once I knock down my captor, and they'd only be surprised to see me long gone before they could react.

The only problem was Albert. Based on the voices earlier, I guessed that Albert might actually be sandwiched at the center of the six-man group. It would be hard to escape now with both of us.

So... the monster it is.

I listened out for more sounds of it, but for minutes, none came.

Getting frustrated, but even more nervous that we'd reach our destination before we could try for an escape, I decided to forgo my advantage.

I groaned out loudly, and began to struggle against my captor's hold.

"He-Hey! Telken, he's awake!"

"As I could see, Damus," Telken replied from the front, a frown on his face. "Put the kid down."

"But! You know how strong he was! I got my teeth knocked off earlier!" my captor shouted in anger, and might I say, nervousness?

Telken sighed. "Put him down, or he'll knock another one off. And if he won't, I'll do it myself."

When I was finally on solid ground, my head began to clear, and I saw how I was very much being surrounded. 'There goes my earlier advantage.'

"What is this kid? He looks totally fine," a boy from my right exclaimed. "He got hit by Telken's strongest blast, and he's already awake?"

"Calm down, all of you," Telken drawled on, and then approached me, his hand draped quite casually over Albert's shoulders. He smiled down at me. "Now, tell me, who are you?"

Knowing I only had a few seconds at most, I had to make it count.

So, the moment he stopped speaking, I opened my mouth, and screamed my loudest yell yet again. I made sure to make it as long and as shrilly as I could, inwardly praying the monster would come.

For a long moment, the Telken's group only stared at me in surprise. But I knew that they would start to realize what I was doing, and when they did, I knew I was in big trouble.

Albert seemed to guess what I was doing, and so midway through, he began to scream as well.

Seconds after, I saw how Telken's eyes changed from surprise to realization. He shouted out something in a panic, and lunged down at Albert, promptly covering his mouth. Seeing their leader like that, the others began to come towards me too.

Three seconds. I had at most three seconds before I'll be knocked down by five teenagers.

3...

2...

I cursed.

1.

A bestial roar filled the forest, and I knew I had won the bet. Seeing a brief second of weakness, I burst out of the tight circle and sprung into a shocked Albert. Telken didn't even have time to react.

"Oof!" Albert let out as I pushed him further away from the group's leader.

The next second, the monster had burst out of the trees in a ferocious show of speed and power, and while the ground shook, I gathered my notes, made tighter hold on my black-haired companion, and sprinted away from the group.

"Run!" I encouraged Albert, who was frozen with fear.

I mean, sparing a split second to stare at the monster, I too found myself inwardly shaking. It was humongous, but it moved so quickly. It had a long back that was protected by shells of shining brown, each glinting out into wickedly sharp points. Its face... was oddly... cute.

"Ugh!" I heard Albert mutter out from under me, but soon began to run with me as well.

For a long moment, everything was chaos. Telken and his teammates found themselves in the sights of the monster, and the ground kept shaking from the movement of the creature. I had to urge Albert to keep running and not keep looking back.

No longer able to see them through the thick trees, we could only listen to the screams and shouts and curses of our previous captors. I found myself laughing even while we continued to run. Albert panted beside me, and I often had to slow down to keep pace with him.

When there were no longer any sounds from the monster and Telken's group, I brought myself to a stop. I placed a hand on the prince's shoulder. "You okay?"

He was bended over and his body was tense, but he managed to chuckle. "Yeah, yeah... Gosh, that was incredible, Eleftherion."

I laughed too. "Well, at least we made it out. Do you think they'll be alright?"

He huffed once, his brows jumbled up. "Yeah. When you were still out of it, I heard Telken mentioning something about the rankings in the Mare Imbrium. I guess they're quite strong."

I nodded. "So that's how strong the students in the inner rings are..."

Albert finally straightened up, his breathing finally reaching normal levels. "... Yeah, they're definitely strong."

"But nowhere strong as that examiner," I said while I looked around, but only found more trees. I turned to Albert. "You think you can lead us back to the cave?"

He started to look around, but a frown was on his face. "It might take a while. We did travel blindly for a while..."

I nodded, knowing how we didn't even care about the direction we ran to earlier. And I had a weird feeling that the stars and the sun won't be the same in this realm. Sighing, I sat down onto a nearby rock.

"... Charles will be looking for us by now," I muttered.

Albert kept looking around, prodding at the barks of the trees, like that would help us somehow. He sighed in the end. "Truthfully, I don't really care how the test goes, but it definitely is mysterious. How do they even decide how we pass or fail?"

"No idea," I muttered back, lying down on the rock with my hands behind my head. "I guess they'd pass all those who're still alive by the end?"

Albert laughed nervously. "Although I'd like to say you're just joking, I too think this level of difficulty might be too much especially for the Sinus Fidei."

"... So?" I asked. "Are you suggesting we stop now?"

Surprising me, he sat down beside me. He looked down at me with an uncharacteristic grin. "I'm just saying it's a good enough challenge now."

I snorted. "I didn't know the Prince of Montauk could be so arrogant."

"Not arrogant," he said with a smile. "I just hold a high esteem on myself."

Laughing, I began to stand up. "Good, then. Use that high esteem to find our team."

He began to massage his temple. He smiled at me wearily. "I definitely brought that to myself, did I?"

I shrugged. "I don't know. You decide."

Then, for a while, we went around aimlessly through the forest, the trees towering over us like the giants of giants. They were tall enough that squinting straight up at it won't be enough to see its tips. They weren't that bushy, but they could provide some cover, at least.

If only we could see through them...

High ground...

"Hey, Albert." I prodded at his shoulder as he squatted at the base of a tree. "Do you know how to climb trees?"

He looked up at me with pursed lips.

"High ground, yeah?" I asked with a small smile, and then pointed straight up at the humongous trees.

Then, he sighed. "I... I, uh, can't..."

"I-I'll teach you!" I shouted, even though I've only ever climbed far shorter trees during my time with Farseer and Janmira.

"Huh..." he murmured, and then hid his face between his knees. "I just... I'm not so good with heights..."

"... We were literally on top of a mountain just now."

"... That's different."

Sighing, I grabbed at his collar. "Sorry about this."

His eyes went wide, and he tried to break away from me, but I was already set on this. We had to find our teammates, or we'll fail the test before we could even do anything. So, I was only mildly sorry when I pushed against the ground, and began to carry the boy in my arms. He was still smart enough not to shout out, even when we were practically parallel with the ground, running on the the tree trunk.

He cursed repeatedly under his breath, and when I thought we were high enough, I immediately brought us onto a thick branch. The boy cursed a few times more before collapsing onto the branch, his hands hanging onto it like a sloth.

I sighed. "Come on, now. You're safe with me, you know."

"On the contrary..." he murmured. "I think it's quite the opposite."

I allowed myself a small chuckle before collapsing onto the branch, sitting with my legs flailing in bare air.

"St-Stop that, please," he murmured. "You're making the branch wobble."

I slapped at his back. "Look around, already. The sun's going down real fast, and the light won't be here forever. I'd like to meet up with the others before scarier nocturnal monsters show up. Besides, the sooner you're done with this, the faster it'll be 'til we go back to steady ground."

And just to make a point, I bounced on the branch again, making it wobble just a bit more.

"Okay, okay, geez! Eleftherion must be the name of a demon," he murmured before finally disentangling himself from the branch. He stared around the world with a slightly pale face, not even daring to look down. Then, not even a full minute later, he announced, "Alright, let's go down now."

"Seriously?" I asked. "Are you sure you got it right?"

He growled. "Yes, Eleftherion. So, please, can you carry me in your arms again so we can go back down?"

Feeling devilish, I did begin to offer my back for a piggy ride, but when the bigger boy was now comfortable, I asked, "Which direction again?"

"... Why ask that now? Just go down first."

"Nope," I said. "I don't trust you wanting to go down this fast. What if you just aimlessly lead us somewhere else?"

"Come on, Eleftherio-!"

"Uh, uh!" I cut him off.

Sighing, he muttered. "See that mountain peak over there? I believe our cave cuts through that same peak. We should just pass through the cave entrance to go back to our teammates."

"... Is that so? Try to not shout too much then."

"What?" he asked, but I was already off.

After Malaya, I found a deep liking to flying through the air. Well, in my case, it's mostly just jumping through the air. Right now, I carried Albert through tree branch after tree branch, aiding each jump with a blast of air.

Albert never shouted out in our travel, but based on the extreme tightness of his grip around me, I knew he was just too frozen in fear to even scream.

But even though I felt bad about it, I knew we had to hurry. Besides, passing through the ground was more dangerous than through the trees. I just hope there wouldn't be any other kinds of monsters, like those with wings or...

"Th-The tree line ends here, Eleftherion," Albert murmured behind me. "P-Put us down n-now."

"... Alright," I said, but suddenly felt that something was wrong. I could already see the cave entrance from down here, but there were no signs of movement. Charles should already be searching for us, but...

"I don't think we should go down for a while," I whispered, keeping still on a branch.

Albert complained behind me, his grip on my shoulders deadly tight. "Come on, Eleftherion. I won't call you a demon anymore, so please stop teasing-"

I held up a hand to stop him. "... Something's wrong."

"Well, you do seem to have great senses for a little Sinus Fidei, don't you?"

It wasn't Albert who said that.