B3 Chapter 383: Tales, pt. 2

Kaius sat at the edge of the blanket they’d laid over the grass, enjoying the warmth of the midsummer sun that was high in the sky. His cloak was wrapped tightly around him. A thick, warm thing, more for comfort than for any need to keep the weather off.

When a divinity said to rest, you listened. And so they did. Sitting and doing as they always did when they traveled: enjoying each other’s company and swapping stories.

As he was wont to do, Kaius took on the role of cook. Largely, it was to keep his hands busy — he wasn’t particularly hungry after what he had recently experienced, but a cup of mint and ginger tea did much to settle the lingering nausea that pulled at his belly. Judging by the tight grips his companions held on their own cups, they felt similarly.

For a while they just sat there — relished in a moment of peace and quiet that Xenanra had confirmed would last until they were ready. While Kaius was fairly certain that, subjectively, he had spent the most time apart from his friends, that didn’t mean it had been easy for any of them. Considering what he’d heard of Porkchop’s trials, he doubted Ianmus and Kenva had been graced with something relaxing.

There was a tension there, lying beneath the surface in all of them. A new thread of steel that had been woven through their cores. None of them had been broken from their experiences — far from it.

It had been a renewal, and a refinement, of their dedication.

In the end, due to the interwoven nature of their stories, he and Porkchop had decided to go first. Kaius spoke of his Corporus trial where he had fought challengers unending, and of Mentis, where he had thrown himself into endless death. Porkchop spoke of his own, where he was defender of the weak and the innocent, and a leader of men.

They finished with their shared trial of Animus, where they stubbornly supported each other until they realized the secret lay in finding their own paths.

Kaius sat back and looked at the rest of their teammates’ expressions. They were gripped by the tale, leaning forward with focused eyes. He grinned at their shock-widened eyes — staring at him incredulously. Though Ianmus kept flicking back to Porkchop, cleary interested in his experience.

“You were really the commander of a siege?” he asked. “Frankly, that’s a fair bit to take in. I mean, the part about you running around and refusing to sit back and bark orders when you could fight the battle on your own makes sense. But to organise an entire siege defence? It’s not what I expected of you — or I suppose what I expected would drive you.”

Porkchop shrugged in a decidedly unbeastly way, chuffing as he settled down to steal a nib of ginger from Kaius’s cup. Kaius swatted his brother away, but only got a chuckle in return — Porkchop retreating with his prize before he turned his attention back to their mage.

“It was different, that’s for sure — and a challenge, but I suppose that was the point. From what Xenanra told me, these trials truly were personalized, even when it wasn’t obvious at first glance. Leading those men, keeping that battle in mind even as I fought individual skirmishes of my own? It forced me to consider the bigger picture, even as I handled the immediacy of the events that unfolded before me. It would not surprise me — whether it was the System itself or Xenanra that designed the trial — that they knew I couldn’t only focus on one or the other. It was exactly what I needed.”

“I think you may be right — that the challenges were only what we could bear, right at our very limits. Just think about that one.” Kenva nodded her head towards Kaius, an incredulous look on her face. “Bloody fool dived headfirst into a meat grinder, and here he is, swapping campfire tales about an experience that would leave most quivering under their blankets. How can you be so calm? About touching death so often and so casually?”

Kaius shrugged fruitlessly. He didn’t know what to say.

It wasn’t that it hadn’t been terrifying. It was more… that it quickly became mundane. Once he realized the whole thing was effectively illusory, it was hard to see it as anything other than a wound — one that healed quickly and vanished without a trace, as they all did.

“In the end, it was only pain,” he replied with a shrug.

He wasn’t quite prepared for the confusing blend of resignation and disbelief that was painted across Ianmus and Kenva’s faces.

“Only pain,” Kenva snorted before she shook her head. “Listen to yourself. You’re ridiculous. You’d think you were straight out of a bloody ballad.”

Kaius furrowed his brow. He didn’t quite get what she meant. He was one of their frontline fighters. It wasn’t as if injury was foreign to him. Hells, it wasn’t foreign to any of them.

“Kaius, you realize that the pain in and of itself is enough for most people, right?” Ianmus signed. “It certainly doesn’t sound like you died easy — not even one of those times. How many attempts did it take you? Hundreds? Thousands?”

You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.

“I stopped counting by the end. Got a bit maddening trying to keep track.”

Porkchop snorted to his left, shoving him over into the blanket. “Now you’re just teasing them.”

Kaius grinned. That wasn’t entirely incorrect — but there was a thread of truth in what he had said. Even if he could recognize that his ability to push himself was a bit beyond the norm, surely what he had experienced wasn’t so surprising. He did, after all, have Pain Resistance and Fear Resistance, among a number of others.

Besides, like they’d said, the trial had been designed for him and him alone. He suspected that it would never have been this challenge if it was too much for him to rise to.

Kenva shook her head and took a long sip of her drink. “See? That’s what I mean. Bloody ridiculous. You barely even get it. Blockheads, the two of you. Always have been, always will.”