The Villain's Sword Is Sharp

When Isaac glanced upwards, he saw a large, muscular man towering over him. It was the man he'd lured a wolf to attack.

When Isaac looked past the man, he saw a wolf on the ground, lying in a pool of blood. Surprisingly, Erik had killed it – and not by suffocating it like Isaac had.

At first Isaac wasn't sure if Erik would try to kill him, but then he remembered the condition of 50 group members surviving. Many had died to this point so losing any more members would risk failing the trial. Still, Isaac would have to watch out for Erik in the future since it looked like he wouldn't just let this go.

Isaac picked himself up and quickly looked around. Many people were still alive, but there were also numerous bodies staining the snow red.

Then he heard a shout from another part of the forest,

"Climb trees, the wolves can't get up!"

He recognised Johan's voice and decided to take the advice. However, pine trees didn't have any low branches. Shimmying up the trunk would usually be an easy task for him, but his wounded arm turned it into a huge struggle. While climbing, he slipped down a couple of times, then nearly ran out of energy before he reached the first branches.

After reaching the first thick branch, Isaac lay down on it and stared up at the sky. The adrenaline was already fading and his arm hurt more and more. Compared to the wounds on his arm, the cuts on his face were just scratches.

He tried moving the arm, but a searing pain ran through it. When he saw how much it was bleeding, he removed his fur coat and tore off the arm of the top he wore underneath. He tied the piece of cloth tightly around the wound and applied pressure to stop the bleeding.

The bleeding never stopped completely, but it slowed to an acceptable level. Isaac laid flat on his back and looked at the beautiful blue-black sky between the pine branches.

The smell of pine wood and blood filled the air. Over his own heavy breathing, he could hear wolves eating. Utterly exhausted, Isaac fell asleep.

In the morning, most of the wolves were gone. They had either finished eating or dragged their meals away to enjoy them elsewhere. The group of trialees climbed down from their trees and gathered together again.

They hadn't eaten anything yesterday, except for the snow they ate to stay hydrated. When they were eating snow again in the morning, somebody walked up to Isaac,

"You bastard, I've been looking for you!" the person pointed at Isaac, repeatedly jabbing his finger into Isaac's chest, "Why did you tell us there were less than 10 wolves?!"

"I'm sorry! I'm s-s-sorry! They must have been hidden in the forest, I didn't see them, I swear!"

Of course Isaac saw all the wolves. He only said there were less than 10 because he didn't want the group to run; if he said the real number of wolves, everyone might not have decided to stay and fight. In that case, Isaac definitely would've been one of the first caught since he was already tired. However, the whole group would turn against Isaac if they knew he'd deliberately deceived them, meaning he needed to act pitifully and pretend it was an innocent mistake. Unfortunately for him, this kid wouldn't let it go,

"Come on, don't just apologise! How are you going to make it up to us?"

Ah. This kid wasn't really angry, he just wanted compensation. However, Isaac questioned his intelligence – they didn't have anything with them other than the clothes on their backs, so what did this guy expect Isaac to give him? He probably wanted Isaac to do something instead, like scouting ahead for the group. However, they had already passed the wolves so there was no danger ahead of them and they didn't need a scout...

Wasn't this guy just causing trouble for no reason?

Isaac was about to handle it himself, but a calm voice stopped him before he could.

"Who do you think said to run towards the forest in the first place? If we didn't listen to Isaac, we would've all been caught by the wild beast. This is his mistake, but he's also made contributions, so we can excuse him this once. There's no need to start any conflict."

It was Johan who came to Isaac's defence and mediated the situation. Isaac basically hid behind him and let Johan do all the talking. It was much better to let a smooth talker like Johan handle this, especially since he seemed to have a good opinion of Isaac and wouldn't create trouble for him.

After hearing Johan's speech, the guy stopped confronting Isaac and backed off. Most of the group just observed and treated this drama as a bit of entertainment, but some of the people who got injured were still giving Isaac angry gazes.

Isaac didn't care. He simply got ready with everyone else.

Then, the group gathered together and continued walking through the woods.

It didn't take them long to leave the forest. However, they still couldn't see the village, forcing them to organise a proper search. The group spread out into a long horizontal line with gaps of over 100 metres between each person, letting them search a wide area without splitting up.

They walked for most of the day, searching for the village without finding it. Just when some people were beginning to complain, a dot became visible on the horizon.

As they walked closer, that dot grew larger and larger until it began to look like a fully-fledged settlement. When the people who saw the dot became sure it was the village, they shouted to the people next to them, who shouted to the people next to them and so on. Eventually the whole group gathered together again and walked towards the village.

The village was surrounded by a low wall made of wood, meaning they couldn't see anything inside. The group walked over to the village's gates to try and get in.

Before they could get close, the gates suddenly opened by themselves.

Isaac felt his vision shake and the previously silent village became noisy. When he looked around in surprise, he couldn't see anyone else from the group.

The surroundings and noises had changed in an instant, so Isaac assumed he'd been trapped in an illusion. However, he didn't know what he had to do to escape.

After a moment, he realised this was the beginning of the 2nd trial. It was probably an individual trial, seeing that everybody had been separated somehow. He would need to have a look around and find a way to pass it by himself.

Since the gates had opened, Isaac decided to explore the village. He walked through the gates and down the main street. After 5 minutes, he found himself in a market. Stalls selling food, pots and pans, homemade clothes, hairpins and other accessories lined both sides of the street.

The sweet fragrance of street food hung in the air and chaotic shouts of stall owners could be heard. They were all loudly advertising their goods, creating a blurred cloud of noise.

Isaac obviously didn't have any money or things to exchange, so he ignored the stall owners and walked through the market. Ahead of him was the residential district, but to his right was a large courtyard surrounded by wooden fencing. In the middle of the courtyard was a building bigger than any of the houses in the village. It only had 1 floor, but it was very spacious and took up most of the courtyard. It was even in the middle of the village, meaning it had to be an important place. Isaac took note of it and kept walking.

It was already early evening when Isaac entered the village. After he had finished exploring and building a mental map of its streets, it was even later. Since he couldn't rent a room or find anywhere to stay, he had to sleep on the freezing cold streets. He also couldn't find food to sate his hunger; the only consolation was the snow he had to quench his thirst.

Not eating for another day didn't matter so much, since his hunger had disappeared when he entered the illusion. It wasn't just his hunger: his fatigue and the wounds on his right arm were also gone. It seemed the illusion replicated a person's real body, but not the condition it was in. However, if he kept sleeping on the streets in the future, he would likely get hypothermia even in the illusion.

*************************

Outside of the illusion, two trial instructors were chatting.

"You don't need to pity them, we went though the same thing."

"Was it really the same, though? I know this trial is more difficult than anything I did."

"It just seems difficult to you since you never use your brain. Need to think more, y'know?"

The instructor tapped the side of his head to emphasize his point.

The trialees were unconscious while they were in the illusion, so their bodies were laid out in the snow. The instructor was walking around them, looking at the trialees. When he saw Isaac's bandaged arm, he smiled and pointed at him,

"Look at this kid, he escaped from a wolf with that scrawny body of his! I bet he's smarter than you and he's only 12."

The other instructor just laughed.

"I guess we'll see how smart they are by how many pass! The trial's definitely harder this year though. I know it's how the sect has always done things, but to put kids in an illusion that'll destroy their minds if they die in it... just seems unnecessary."

"You know what'd really be unnecessary? Wasting resources on kids who luck out on easy trials and aren't up to standard. You should take more pride in our sect – we're a group of elites, so it should be difficult and dangerous to get in."

"Whatever. I'm gonna meditate while we wait."

The instructors stopped talking and went about their business again. Silence returned to the forest.

*************************

Isaac barely slept all night due to the cold. He was up early in the morning and went straight to the business district of the village. He hadn't properly explored it before, but now he had a goal and something to look for.

He saw several shop keepers setting up signs in the road, but only one caught his attention. He walked over to the person putting up a banner for a tavern and started a conversation,

"Hello missus, do you need some extra help around the bar?"

"No, not rea-"

"Please, please, I'm ready to help! I'll do exactly what you tell me to and work really hard, so can you please give me some food and a place to stay!"

Isaac's coat was already dirty from sleeping on the street the day before. He'd also made a special effort to adjust his clothes and mess up his hair to look as poor and untidy as possible. When the tavern keeper looked at him and heard how desperately he pleaded, her heart melted and she gave in.

"Alright... but if I catch you slacking, you'll be out! No second chances!"

"Thank you! I promise I'll be perfect!"

The tavern keeper led him to a small room in the back and brought him a plate of cold breakfast.

"Finish that quickly then go out the back to wash your clothes. When that's done, come find me at the bar. Don't keep me waiting more than half an hour."

"Yes ma'am." Isaac mumbled through mouthfuls of food.

He finished breakfast quickly and scrubbed his clothes clean using one of the water buckets behind the tavern. When he came back in 20 minutes, the tavern keeper smiled kindly at him.

"Good. Just let me just fix your hair and you'll be ready to wait tables. I have other workers coming in later so don't worry, you won't be doing everything by yourself."

The tavern keeper herself worked the bar, serving customers drinks and keeping an eye on everything. It was still very early so there weren't any customers right now; the tavern keeper only woke this early to wash glasses and plates from the night before, so Isaac helped. When the tavern's guests woke up later, the landlady cooked while Isaac served them, something she would usually do herself.

The morning passed smoothly and they reached the day's first challenge. Lunch time was the second busiest part of the day and a tavern on the main street would get lots of customers. It was these customers that made Isaac decide to work here.