[Warning! You have exactly 15m left!]

  “Shit, shit, shit!” I hissed, pacing the clearing, arms crossed tightly around my chest in an effort to control my panicky breathing.

  “Could you stop that, please? I can’t think,” Rounin requested, curled up on the floor with his fingers pressed to his temples. “You know, we don’t know what the penalty for failing is, and maybe dying isn’t so bad—“

  “Rounin!”

  “Okay! Okay, here’s the plan. I assume you can’t, like, magically make stairs of ice that are non-slip?”

  “Almost definitely not.” I sat down in front of him, resisting the urge to shake him until his brain started working again. Today was not a day he could afford to be common-sense deficient.

  He closed his eyes again. “I really need to sleep more. And eat brain foods. But I hate cooking. Okay. I can do this. Come on, Rounin, you especially should really know how to beat this. It’d be really sad if you couldn’t!”

  A pause.

  “I’m pathetic. I am so useless. How am I this stup— oh, wait, no, I got it. Okay. Great!”

  Well, that was quick. I didn’t even need to encourage or comfort him.

  “Okay, here’s what’s going to happen.” Rounin stretched his hand out, and thread shot out of it.

  After a moment, the thread stilled, and Rounin smiled victoriously. “Found it. I love my abilities. Right, so, anyway, let’s swap keys. I’m gonna climb a rope up there, and you’re going to run as fast as you can to the other end of the arena, because it’s very far. Okay?”

  He grabbed my hand and tied the other end of the thread around my hand, squeezing it with both hands and then letting go, running over to the discarded ladder.

  “Wait, but if you fall?” I asked, reluctant to leave him.

  Rounin shrugged. “Come here and help me get the ladder up again. I got it from there.”

  “Why didn’t we do this in the first place?” I asked, obliging.

  “Because this is definitely not even a little safe, but we don’t have time for safe right now,” Rounin said dismissively, waving goodbye. “When I drop the log, start running. Can you pull a little faster?”

  “Yeah. Yeah, okay.” I had to trust him. He would be alright. He had made it through his other Challenges without me, so he could make it through this one without me, too.

  “See you on the other side!” He called after me, and then the log dropped.

  “Till we meet again,” I responded, letting the rope go and following the golden thread. I did not think I’d ever be quoting Hamilton at my best friend in the middle of a rain forest as we parted ways and hoped we both lived, but they say fact is stranger than fantasy.

  Or was it fact is stranger than fiction?

  Oh well.

  As I ran past a gang of people, one of them stuck out a hand and grabbed onto the Coat I’d bought from the Shop, ripping it.

  “Hey, you! Hand over any keys you have!”

  My eye twitched. Perhaps the people in all the webnovels and manhua I read were cliche because people in real life were cliche.

  I was not going to be cliche. I punched the guy in the face, heard a crack that was probably his nose, and kept running. Everyone got out of my way after that.

  Rounin was right. It was in fact, very far.

  I was almost out of breath by the time I reached my gate. A woman stood there, staring up at it, a strange smile frozen on her face.

  I tried walking past her, but the voice she spoke in stunned me still. It was oddly commanding, yet soft.

  “Not so fast, snowflake.”

  Her hair was cropped short in a long pixie cut, sticking up and out chaotically, like a cat had tried grooming her and made a mess of it. She beat Penelope out when it came to unusual outfits, and she was pretty the same way Penelope was, despite not looking much like her. Her eyes were too round, and her nose wasn’t sharp enough. The lips were the wrong shape, and she was much tanner. Her face was rounder than Penelope’s, as well.

  All in all, a cliche villain. She looked as one might expect a softer female villain to look in your average manhua. Perhaps the one who ended up helping the protagonist at the end of the story.

  The woman turned and smiled at me, snake-yellow eyes narrowing. It felt more like a threat than a gesture of camaraderie. “My, what do we have here? And I was just thinking this Challenge was boring as hell. But we’ve got a special little snowflake today. What. A. Treat.”

  Yep. Cliche.

  I was ready to just clock her in the face and leave, but something threw me off. Something about her…unnerved me.

  “This doesn’t need to be a fight,” I warned, trying to diffuse the situation.

  “Oh, but I want it to be!”

  My body was in the air before I knew what was happening, flipping easily and landing on my feet.

  “My, you’re a fast one. It looks as though that carried over. Not quite fast enough, yet, but still! How deliciously entertaining for me and my babies,” The woman cackled, a snake winding around her arm. “That cute little snake that just struck at you? I’m her mother. I created her to have the nastiest little blend of venom. I don’t think even your cute little healer friend could do anything about it. Pretty, isn’t she?”

  My gut twisted, and my chest suddenly felt constricted. “How do you know Rounin?”

  “Rounin? Is that his name? Oh, well, who doesn’t? Ah, I’d love for the chance to meet him, maybe study him a bit, but he wouldn’t be happy to see me, and we would hate to upset someone like that!” She gave me a pout, but her eyes were glittering too maliciously to pull it off.

  “Leave him alone, you freak. He’s not for you to dissect,” I threatened, stepping forward. My dagger materialized from my Inventory, landing in my hand.

  The woman giggled. “Oh, don’t worry, snowflake. I’m not after your harmless, innocent little friend today.” She laughed at her own words, as if she’d made a joke. “Innocent. Imagine that. Ah, anyway, I’m only after information. Say, do you have any information on a very specific woman? Rather…unusual eyes, the prettiest long dark hair. Beautiful, in my opinion. Bit of a, ah, funny accent, not to mention that damn egotistical smile of hers.”

  “What do you want with Penelope?” I snapped.

  “My, so you do know her! Wonderful.” The woman clapped her hands twice, excited. “See, Penny and I— we’re old friends. We go way back. A little like you and that cute little healer friend— except we’ve got this score to settle, you see. Now, Yule, snowflake—“

  A shiver shot down my spine.

  You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author.

  How did she know my name?

  “— I suggest you give up her location to me before I have to get nasty.”

  What a cliche line.

  “She’s not even here,” I admitted truthfully, pointing my knife at her. “But she saved my life. I’m not going to send enemies her way without at least doing some of the work for her.”

  “Poor, stupid snowflake.” The woman rolled her eyes. “You’ve never been the brightest, have you? Ah, if only I had all my power. Then I could squish you, her, and that stupid blond boy to a pulp.”

  I wondered if ‘stupid blond boy’ meant Icarus. Then again, there were probably plenty of stupid blond boys here. It wasn’t as though any of the three conditions were uncommon. I wasn’t certain Icarus fit into the first one, but to be fair, I didn’t know him particularly well.

  “But still, I’m a force to be reckoned with. Especially in a rainforest. Here, kitty kitty~”

  A few hundred pounds of force slammed into me from behind, cracking my nose against a fallen branch. Pain exploded in my face.

  A low, feline snarl rumbled over me, and I froze in fear.

  Claws dug into my back, making shallow puncture wounds.

  “Well, that was, uh…pretty disappointing,” The woman sighed. “You, tyrant, are a far cry from the man you used to be.”

  “Tyrant?” I asked.

  The cat’s paw moved to my head. I shut up. Which large feline was found in rainforests? Jaguars?

  All I needed to know was that it was a large cat, it was a hunter, and it could smash my head in very easily.

  “Don’t worry about it,” She patted the parts of my head she could reach. “Okay, that was so easy it was pathetic, so I’m gonna give you a second chance. Kitty, off.”

  The cat’s weight was lifted off me.

  “Okay, to make this a little more fair for you, I’ll fight you myself. None of my babies will—“

  I lunged for her eye.

  Not fast enough.

  She caught my hand as it went over her shoulder, her grip painfully tight.

  The woman grinned, blood dripping down her cheek from the shallow cut I’d made. “Good! Playing dirty already, are you? Strange, they said you were rather nice at first.”

  “Stay away from Penelope, and stay away from Rounin.”

  Her grip tightened, and my dagger clattered to the floor. “I don’t think you’re in any position to be giving orders.”

  She backhanded me across the face so hard I was surprised my cheekbone didn’t shatter.

  “Ow. Has anyone ever told you your cheekbones are awfully pretty? However, they are very sharp and painful to hit.”

  [Warning! You have exactly 1m left!]

  She slapped me this time, humming as she bruised both sides of my face. “Ah, well, I’ve beaten you, but that was just a little too easy to be fun. So here’s the deal— you get stronger, and we’ll have a fight that’s a lot more fun next time, okay? You were such fun before. It’d be a shame to waste that much potential. Not just anyone can cut me.”

  She slipped my dagger into my boot and used my hand to stick the key in the hole, smiling that mildly threatening smile once again. “Besides, I really, really don’t want to upset your little friend quite yet. And as for Penny. Well, if you see her— tell her Eden the Otherworldly Beast Queen is hunting for her.”

  I materialized next to Valerie, who screamed and grabbed Icarus, who also screamed and leaped backwards.

  “Oh, it’s just you,” Valerie mumbled, releasing Icarus’ Coat. “You scared the crap out of me!”

  “Geez, you look horrible! What happened to you?” Icarus gasped.

  “Uh, long story. Where’s Penelope?” I asked.

  “Over there. With Rounin. Are you okay?” Icarus asked, worried. “Were you, like, bullied?”

  “I need to talk to Penelope,” I insisted. “Tell you later.”

  “Uh, okay. Valerie, come here, let me fix your hair…”

  “Crap, where are they?” I asked again.

  Icarus pointed again.

  “Can’t see,” I muttered.

  “Well, yeah. They’re kind of both pretty short.”

  I pushed through the crowd. It was smaller than before, but still sizable. “Penelope! Rounin!”

  A hand caught mine, and Penelope pulled me closer. “Hey. What’s up?”

  “Oh, God, your face!” Rounin gasped, pushing Penelope aside to cup said face. “I left you alone for ten minutes—“

  “Sorry,” I mumbled. “Penelope, look, I ran into someone. They said they knew you.”

  Penelope stiffened. “Did they give you a name?”

  “Uh— Eden?”

  Her eyebrows raised. “And you got away with a bruised face? You weren’t bitten by anything, were you?”

  “Uh, not that I know of.” I double checked. The only things that seemed to be in pain were my back and my face.

  “Good.”

  Penelope studied me carefully, her eyes narrowing. She wore the same look Eden had then— like she was deciding how much fun I’d be— or in Penelope’s case, how much of a threat I was.

  Rounin tapped her arm with a smile. “Hey, we should just be happy he’s alive if she’s really that dangerous, right?”

  They stared at each other for a moment in tense silence before Rounin looked away.

  Okay. That was weird.

  “Come on, Yule, why don’t we just go find Icarus?” Rounin suggested, pulling my sleeve.

  Penelope nodded. “Great idea.”

  Rounin’s smile strained. “On second thought, Penelope, why don’t you go find Icarus, and Yule and I are going to, uh…yeah.”

  He pulled me in the opposite direction. Penelope was staring after us in mild confusion, but she turned to go find Icarus anyway.

  “What was that about?” I asked, grabbing his wrist to stop him from yanking me along.

  “Yeah, what was that?” Rounin muttered, eyes unfocused.

  A chill ricocheted down my spine.

  He looked…scared.

  After a moment, he shook himself out of it, tugging on my sleeve rhythmically, as if trying to ground himself. “It’s just…she unnerves me, Yule. She’s a lot stronger than the rest of us, and we don’t know anything about her. She could kill you in a heartbeat, and we wouldn’t be able to do a thing about it. But somehow she…seems so…human.”

  “You think it’s strange that a human is human?” I asked, doing my best to follow along. He was losing me.

  “No, no. The fact that there are two of them means— I, Yule, you have no idea what— never mind. You wouldn’t understand.” Rounin sighed, letting go of my sleeve.

  He looked at me like he missed me.

  “Rounin, you’re scaring me here,” I warned.

  Rounin shook his head, pulling his wrist out of my grip. “Forget it. It’s fine. We can worry about it later, when we have time.”

  As I nodded and let it drop, I thought I heard him whisper.

  “It’s never enough time.”