Lloyd Did

"….Imoogi…. dangerous…..doomed" 

These were the few whispers that Steve could make out from Trygve's lips as he trembled in his arms.

'Imoogi? Is that what that serpent creature is?' Steve said in his head as he looked forward to look at the serpent.

Lloyd just stood still with his katana out as the serpent advanced closer.

"What is he thinking? That thing is dangerous!" Steve whispered fiercely under his breath.

Lloyd's strange courage had given some contestants some courage as they stood still too waiting to see what would happen, even Billy, Susan and Anna were among them while Steve held a trembling Trygve who was whispering lots of useless things.

Ordinarily, Trygve was larger than Steve in body size but due to Steve's strength, carrying him was not so difficult a task.

Blood Katana: Activation

Steve looked up as he heard the words only to see a vertical red beam of energy shoot out from Lloyd's katana as he swung it straight to the imoogi.

The beam flew straight and struck the imoogi straight in the chest. The impact created a huge amount of air pressure in the direction of the contestants, causing the water to form waves as high as 60 feet.

The contestants who were standing turned and began to run away from the waves that threatened to swallow them.

Steve began to make calculations in his head, if he tried to run away while carrying Trygve, the waves would surely catch up with them but if he tried to jump over it, there was a chance that they might survive. But what were the chances that Steve would be able to successfully scale the impending waves with extra weight on him?

He looked at the intimidating waves in front and looked at the backs of the fleeing contestants.  

'I have to do this…' He thought and concentrated all his Mana into his legs.

As the waves came within a few metres of where Steve stood, he jumped into the air with all his strength. 

The brackish breeze whizzed past his face as he ascended into the air. He breathed a sigh of relief as his legs crossed over the huge wave and he landed easily.

Without further ado, he took off in pursuit of Lloyd, whose strike had killed the imoogi... after dropping Trygve standing on his feet.

'Now that I think about it, it seems that the blood katana's activation is much more powerful than that of the sword of grace. It killed a fiend of that size in one hit!' He thought as he ran forward.

At the end of the test, Lloyd finished in first position, Steve in second position and Trygve in third position.

Billy was mad at the end of the test, he was screaming while pointing his finger at Trygve

"He cheated! He cheated! Someone gave him a ride forward…. He cheated!!"

But of course, nobody paid any attention to him, they were busy gushing over Lloyd who was been handed the blue pill by Williams. 

In this test, 100 contestants were disqualified and 150 were left for the next test.

"What happened back there? You spaced out" Steve said to Trygve as they walked back from the test arena.

"I've told you once that I'm from a family of historians and not swordsmen. I have a natural phobia for sea creatures…" Trygve explained

"I heard you say something like 'imoogi' during your crisis. Was that the name of that beast?" Steve asked

"Yes… Imoogi.." Trygve shuddered softly at the bare mention of the word, "…an ancient serpent Fiend specie that transforms into a dragon after a thousand years. Most of the fiend dragons on Earth that have been fought by the fiend slayers were once imoogis. They are huge serpents capable of large scale destruction and murder, believe me Steve you do not want to face off on a 1 v 1 battle against one. One bite from those scary jaws can kill you in an instant, the venom they spit can melt one of those whale fiends we encountered in the second test. Their bodies are strong enough to crush even the toughest trees. Man, we were so lucky to get out of this test alive.."

"Wow…the imoogi was that powerful and Lloyd's katana destroyed it in one strike… impressive" Steve thought, as he reflected on the things that Trygve just said

"By the way, how did we pass the imoogi? Did someone beat it?" Trygve asked

"Yeah…. Lloyd did"

"Woah…. That guy could probably be grand master level, don't you think?" Trygve said as he looked in admiration at Lloyd's back in the distance 

"Mm" Steve said as he remembered Lloyd's scornful attitude to him in the hallway

"Ah….Thanks for helping me out there, I would've died if it wasn't for you and also I'm sorry for not telling you about my predicament before the test…. I thought I would be able to survive on my own" There was a twinge of regret in Trygve's voice as he spoke

"No problem, it's nothing" Steve said blandly and branched off in the direction of the forest ,"See you later"

Trygve smiled as he left and said to himself , 'What a nice guy….'

Anna quietly watched the exchange between the two guys from behind. 

'After all this time…. I think I finally know what to do in order to stop thinking about him'

She thought as she unintentionally stared at Steve's receding figure. 

....

WHOOSH!

Steve's sword slashed through the air as he swung it repeatedly.  

Beads of sweat trickled down his face and bare body as he trained, he only had one goal in his mind…. The Fiend Slayer.

The power his slashes carried was so strong that it almost seemed like he was cutting through the very fabric of the air itself.

"Huff. Huff" 

Steve panted as he put down the sword after a thousand and something slashes, he was exhausted and his arms ached immensely.

He sensed someone behind him and he turned only to see Anna coming to meet him where he stood bare chested.

"Oh shit! My shirt" He said as he quickly reached for his shirt and Anna shifted her gaze.

"I'm sorry I'm sorry…. I didn't mean to….I was just…" Anna stuttered

"It's okay" She looked and saw Steve smiling with his shirt on.

He just looked so handsome and manly with his well built body that she couldn't help shifting her gaze again as she remembered his sinewy bare body that she just had a brief glance at.

'His body…. Dear God, Why does he look so cool?' Anna was so engrossed in her thoughts that she didn't notice Steve giving her weird stares for just standing there and looking away.

"Are you just going to stand there or what?" Steve asked

"Oh n..no, I just came to check on you" She replied, her confidence seemed to waver slightly as she stuttered her reply while barely managing to maintain eye contact with him.

"Check on me?" Steve asked perplexedly

"Yeah… You know…after you got hurt"

"Oh that" Steve said with a boyish smile as he scratched his head, "As you can see, I'm fine. Thanks for your concern"

"Okay" She replied and stood there without saying anything else or leaving.

'Okayy… That's weird' Steve thought as he looked at her weirdly.

He tried to chuckle in order to ease the awkward silence between them but the sound that came out of his throat made him ashamed of himself, he sounded like a goat in pain.

After what seemed like five minutes had passed with the two of them still standing there, staring at each other. Steve got weary of the silence and decided to speak up. "Do you…."

'Here goes nothing…' she said in her heart and shut her eyes tightly.

"Can we be friends?" The words came out of her mouth in such a hurry that it took two whole seconds for the full meaning of her statement to sink in to Steve.

Instead of replying, he just stood there dazed, blinking his eyes repeatedly as if he couldn't believe his ears.

"I…I..that was unexpected" Steve muttered under his breath, he was evidently taken aback by her question.

Even with Steve's handsomeness and body build, he wasn't popular with the girls at school, not because of any specific reason but for the simple reason that he refused to let himself get close to anyone, neither did anyone try to be close to him. The kids that attended his school were just classmates to him… Nothing more nothing less.

So he found it quite surprising that Anna, a beautiful, shapely, powerful swordswoman chose to ask him for friendship.