Kairos and Azami patted the wolf for quite a while, enjoying themselves in their own way. While things began nearing the end, it became blurry and Kairos' dream ended. He felt a bit groggy waking up, observing his surroundings, and quickly remembering where he was. It was a break room in between the levels of a dungeon.
Sara was already awake, letting out a soft hum as she sat at the table. She had already been up for a while now. Once she noticed that Kairos was awake, she let out a small gasp.
"Ah, you're finally up. You've been sleeping for quite a while now, I must say."
Kairos blinked a few times as he sat up.
"How long was I sleeping for?"
Sara shrugged her shoulders and stood up.
"I can't really tell time down here, but it was about double the time I usually sleep."
Kairos stretched out his body and furrowed his brows.
"How long do you usually sleep?"
Sara put a finger on her chin and let out a soft hum.
"It's just a little bit less than the normal eight hours, I imagine."
Kairos' eyes widened significantly as he held onto the side of his head.
"I've been asleep for that long? Really?"
From what he understood, his need for sleep has lessened significantly due to his constitution. Although it wasn't like it was yesterday he took a nap, but at the very least he didn't actually feel that tired.
Sara let out a small sigh, with a hand on her chin.
"I guess if you haven't slept for a while, the fatigue gradually builds up. Even when everything was normal, it wasn't like you could just sleep 8 hours after several all-nighters and be good to go, right?"
Kairos blinked a few times. He got up with a groan while scratching the back of his head.
"...I suppose. Maybe I really was pushing myself too much despite thinking I was fine. Anyway, what's the next test supposed to be?"
Sara giggled and looked off to the exit of the room.
"Well... it's a little bit complicated. We will need to dodge a variety of different weapons shot towards us, while standing on platforms hung in the air."
Kairos raised an eyebrow.
"I thought you said these were supposed to be tests of the mind or something."
Sara waved her hand with a laugh.
"It does have a bit of a physical component, but the most important thing is that the actual platforms will be partially supported by your partner. Um... explaining this is a bit hard, but just imagine a platform supported by rope horizontally."
She began gesturing by holding out her hands to the side.
"Naturally, there is a bit of give, with the platform sinking a little."
"Like... a suspension bridge?"
Sara narrowed her eyes slightly.
"Er, the right overall concept, but it's still different. Take a look at this."
She held her hands horizontally and put her fingertips together.
"Imagine that the platform is my fingernails."
Then, she bent her fingers downwards.
"The ropes support it like this. Makes sense, right?"
Kairos nodded a few times with a hand holding his chin.
"Got it. Why does that matter though?"
Sara took a deep breath as a pained smile formed on her face.
"One rope will be attached to one side of the wall. And as I said before, your partner partially supports the platform, meaning one of the ropes will be tied around your waist."
Kairos' eyelid twitched. He took a second to process what that all really meant. After sucking in a cold breath, he weakly raised a finger.
"So basically, when we move to dodge, we also affect the stability of the platform for the other person. So not only is it unstable in the first place, it will be even more so with the movement that's required from our movement. Not to mention, it would become incredibly unpredictable."
Sara gave a few claps.
"Pretty much. This is something that goes further than just trusting the other in order to beat. You have to be completely in sync with them, predicting your partner's actions from the weapons shot at them and extrapolating how the platform would move along with it. Not to mention, you have to watch how much you move, or else the other person won't be able to dodge on stable footing."
She took a deep breath.
"It isn't so bad at the start, but the difficulty ramps up several times over."
Kairos clasped his hands together and brought them in front of his mouth.
"How many times have you cleared that level?"
A bitter smile formed on Sara's face as she held up her hand before putting her thumb and index finger together.
"Zero."
Kairos blinked a few times. He massaged his temple.
"Is there any punishment for failing this test?"
Sara shrugged her shoulders.
"If you get hit in your black heart, you're probably dead. Well, at least I would be. I'm not sure how your anatomy works. On the other hand, if we end up falling down, there will be an attack on our psyche while being ejected out. It's a tad bit dangerous as you may end up attempting to hurt each other in the panic, and if an enemy attacks you'd be quite vulnerable."
Kairos looked at her blankly, holding out a hand.
"...Is there any real point in us trying this then?"
Sara brought a hand up to her face and laughed.
"It's not like we can actually leave anyway. We might as well just try to beat this game."
Kairos clicked his tongue and got up.
"That sucks... I guess we might as well go now."
He walked towards the door but froze up right before going to it.
"Wait. How about you just focus entirely on yourself, and make whatever wild movements you must to dodge any attacks."
Sara stopped in place and looked at him like he was a fool. She figured that the reason he was saying that was because Kairos underestimated how difficult it would be.
"Um... but it would be unbelievably difficult for you to dodge if I did something like that."
Kairos waved his hand dismissively.
"Just trust me on this. The worst thing that can happen is we fail a bit earlier, no?"
Sara paused for a while, confirming that it really wasn't some kind of joke. In the end, she nodded.
"Very well then, I will do as you say."
Kairos was well aware that what he was planning was rather ambitious and would ask a lot on his part. He was planning on using his future vision in order to deal with the unpredictable movement of the platform and dodge the weapons. He had used it in this way multiple times before, it would just be more difficult this time.
On top of that, he also planned on tying the rope around the spear to support the platform instead of around him.
With that in mind, he pushed open the door and went into the test room.
It was just a room, and there were two 4 by 4 meter-long black platforms in the middle, just lying on the ground. There were indeed ropes attached to the platform that were slack.
Sara turned and called out to him.
"The moment we start pulling on the ropes, the floor will give way, don't be surprised, alright?"
Kairos gave a curt nod.
"Alright."
The two of them stepped on the platform. Sara picked up the rope through the mess of them and tied it around her waist. On the other hand, Kairos tied the rope to his spear. Sara noticed that and raised an eyebrow, but didn't say anything in the end, deciding to let him do what he wished.
Suddenly, the floor underneath them disappeared, the only thing far down below being some dark haze.
The platforms moved rather violently, falling downwards and away from each other. Kairos grit his teeth, just barely maintaining his footing. When the strings were pulled taut, he also felt a strong force pulling on the spear, that he was just barely able to hold onto because of his future vision.
In fact, if it wasn't for his future vision, he had to admit he wouldn't have remained standing at all.
However, it didn't end there. Two walls across from each other suddenly begin to undulate. Then out of nowhere, pure black arrows shot out from those walls. Kairos clicked his tongue, realizing it was even harder than he thought since it wasn't exactly easy to see something black with a black background.
That much was made very true when Kairos saw an arrow pierce through his shoulder. With grit teeth, he leaned back, getting his shoulder out of the way. At the same time, he extended his future vision to three seconds, knowing that it wasn't going to be easy.
However, whether he could even maintain that this the whole time was an entirely different thing.
The source of this c𝓸ntent is fr𝒆e(w)𝒆bnovel