A week.

It’s been a whole week since Alice arrived in her 18th struggle, and…

Struggle#18

Objective: Exit the fortress

Sub-Objective: none

…she hasn't made any progress.

This wasn’t fortress, but a maze. A gigantic maze with many rooms and people leaving inside them, like it was a hotel, despite the stone cold floor and walls.

In fact, they were e few reception desks on each floor, but none of them could give any sort of clear indication of a way out.

It has been a week, and she has yet to see the outside. They were no windows, and no sign of illusion magic being used. Alice was getting crazy.

At some point, she even tried to storm her way out by destroying the walls, but even that didn't work out. They were too tough, even for her.

Hence, for the past days, she was aimlessly walking around, making a mental mind in her map and asking every person crossing her way if they knew a way out.

Of course, nobody managed to give her useful info, or any kind of help.

She was running out of patience.

A drop of sweat was rolling down Sam’s forehead. Scrutinizing his opponent, his focus was maximal.

In an instant, his hand flew toward Matthiew's shoulder, poking the muscle before retracting immediately after.

There was no bruise, mainly because the strike was really weak, even for Sam's standard.

Both of them smiled, seemingly satisfied by the outcome of this first attack, then Sam stroke again.

And again.

And again.

In an endless barrage of attack.

With a handful of punches mixed in the torrent of pokes.

On the receiving end, Matthiew wasn’t moving an inch, despite the clear lack of strength and pressure he was against.

It lasted a whole minute before Matthiew finally moved a step forward.

Just one step, but it was enough to disturb Sam assault, and end the exchange.

"Phew, that's my win."

“Damn! I still can’t last long enough!”

"Stop focusing on details, dude. You have to let your body... go with the flow."

"You have no idea how ironic what you just said is."

Sam was having a hard time mastering his new ability.

X-Ray vision

He thought about it while ‘fighting' the Guardian. Without his Foresight, he has no practical Seer ability to use in combat.

After meeting with Matthiew, they discussed a long time about their mutual circumstances.

Apparently, after being killed/cursed by the nameless immortal centuries ago, he went around the world, trying to help people.

At first, but soon after that, ended up giving up on humanity. After seeing too many wars and injustice.

Thus, he started his life as an adventurer. With his cheated curse, it was easy, despite his lack of raw strength. He travelled around the world, witnessing the rise and downfall of numerous countries.

For some reason, he decided, a few decades ago, to come back where it all began, in search for answers, and a meaning to his life.

He wants to die, but don't how to do it. Surely there was a way, as he saw the corpse of the previous owner of his curse with his own eyes.

However, he had no idea what he did back then. And that's about when Sam arrived.

A young man, arguably more mysterious than himself, possessing strange powers he never encountered in a thousand year, as well as a magical book ordering him to kill an immortal.

To kill him.

They quickly became friends. As they quickly realize they had the exact same goal: Matthiew's death. Not only that, but they also had a lot of common, as they were both nice guys with an endless amount of complaint about the world the ended up in.

Sam was a friendly guy to begin with, back on Earth he was probably the most known and reliable person inside the camp community, despite not being the official leader and hanging out with the unpopular group.

This ability to easily link with other people was also one of his many weaknesses, especially in this specific situation. There was no way in hell he could kill Matthiew.

He was just a genuinely nice guy with a tragic story. In fact, he wanted to help him. To try and lift the curse.

But he had no clue at to what to do.

It was Matthiew that found the solution, the day after they met.

“If I understand your ‘Quest’ and what you’ve been through, then you must have awesome ability to discover, right? You started as a normal person, like me, and then you became able to see the future, and the past! And the present, sort of…”

“Wait, what did you say?”

"You know. You're Inspection thing. I think it's cool to say it like that. Past, present and future!"

“Yeah, that is cool…”

After a little more deliberation, Matthiew came up with a plan to train Sam. It was quite straightforward: to force Sam to use his abilities as much as he can in hope to unlock more of them and to recover his foresight back. Thus, they’ll be able to move to phase 2, which was yet to be defined.

Sam was thinking of contacting Adam or Eve for this part, in order to find a way to lift the immortality curse.

In the meantime, the two of them started the training. Even though he didn't consider himself as a hand fighter, Matthiew was well disciplined, and could easily handle any normal human. Plus, thanks to his immense experience and an endless number of situations he went through, he was perfectly fitt to teach Sam what to do.

Of course, our Seer already knew how to fight, but he had yet to train how to handle his vision while doing so. Being able to put yourself in a super instinct state where you can dodge anything was great, but in the end, it was pointless if he couldn't retaliate at all. Especially when facing stronger foes.

Hence, the X-Ray training began. It was an obvious ability to develop, and the whole reason why Matthiew thought of the plan in the first place.

Putting aside Foresight, it was the only thing Sam could actively use during a fight. It was allowing him to see through someone's skin, revealing bones and muscles. Thus, it was easy to spot hidden weakness and the start of any move before they were even put in motion.

So, for the past two weeks, Sam training consisted of trying to prevent Matthiew from moving, striking at the right spot with a perfect timing to negate the start of any kind of momentum.

His progress was tremendous, even though he still couldn't hold very long, and that he didn't unlock any other technique since.

That being said, Sam wasn’t worried.

Since his attempts to increase his Humility failed repetitively, he decided to build up his Pride as much as possible. As Adam hinted, it was the quickest and probably the best way to regain his lost Foresight. Plus, worst case scenario, in the instance he started to become too cocky he would just be smacked down by any of his friends.

Clearly, he wasn't there yet. His fast progress was helping, but he was missing something else.

“So… if I understand correctly, you started to feel this way, about this whole Humility Pride stuff, when you had a vision, of your past, as your sister was about to be killed…”

"I think it was just a stroke of luck. A random vision to remind me that… well, I was lucky enough to be saved by a thunderbolt."

“What if it wasn’t? What if… what if there is something you have to remember? Something buried deep in your past…”

“You mean… my power want me to remember something? Come one, it doesn’t work that way.”

"Are you sure of that? I can't die, but, according to all the story you told me for the past weeks, it seems like you've seen more crazy things than I. And yet you still have no clue of what half of them were, or are. Plus, you're still young, it shouldn't be too hard to dive into your past and find… whatever you had to find."

“Well… I… Truth to be told, I tried pretty hard to forget about it.”

“About what?”

“The Purge.”

“…what is that?”

“It’s… I don’t really want to talk about it.”

It was already late, the moon had appeared in the sky, as its darkness was slowly being filled with stars. Both of them were sitting down, near a brazing campfire, which dancing flames were mesmerizing Sam.

With a slight eyebrow frown, Matthiew let out a sigh, and put his hand on Sam's shoulder.

“I understand, buddy. If you hadn’t found out about how I became… what I am now, I would probably have never tell you myself.”

“I… I’m sorry about that…”

“Don’t be, it was for the best.”

“You’re right.”

“Yeah, it’s usually so hard for me to know if I can reveal if I’m…”

"No. I mean, about what you said before. About me having to remember something."

“What?”

“I think you’re right. Something happened during the Purge. Something that I tried to forget and that I now have to remember. That’s what the vision tried to tell me. No, what I tried to tell to myself.”

“What do you have in mind? It’s not like memory can be recovered just like that…”

"Matthiew… the whole thing was a never-ending storm of trauma. I…me and my friends tried hard to forget, but it's not that easy. Plus, I can see my own past now."

“Well, good luck then. I don’t think I can help on…”

“Wait, I think I should tell you. It’s better if I tell the story to someone else. I don’t want to miss anything, plus, I did sneak peek into your past… so it’s fairer this way.”

“Your way to nice Sam… are you sure about that? It seems like something heavy…”

"Yeah, I'm sure. Plus, it doesn't really start at the Purge. No, everything began a bit after I moved in with my new family, as my dad got remarried to Alice's mother. Sigh… she was a real crybaby at the time…"

A week.

It’s been a whole week since Eve started this whole Q&A with Naomie and…

“Hum… if I comprehend this correctly, and I surely am, that would mean that the Guides aren’t that strong, comparatively to us.”

…she was still asking questions.

She can conjure her own supply of food, and for some reason didn’t mind the sleep deprivation.

‘Fuck you, Adam! I knew I shouldn't have accepted to help you!'

“Sigh… That’s it. Many Questers were far stronger than the current Guides. Well, maybe not for that black hair girl, Valentine. Wait, are they purple now?”

“Valentine? Is she special?”

“Not really. She’s just strong. You’ll know soon enough.”

“…fair enough, I guess. Then, next question… hum…”

“Come on. It’s been days. I already told you, I’m basically a goddess, I know that you’re hiding something.”

“I…”

“There is only one thing left that you really want to know. Right?”

“…”

She looks down in shame. Eve was right, there was only one thing left to ask, but she was too afraid. On one hand, she wanted to move on to her next struggle, but on the other, a part of her was craving to know the truth.

“Yes. You are right.”

“Of course I am.”

“Sigh… is there a chance… will we fail?”

"Even I can't know that. Even my… informant, don't know that, and he knows everything. Literally… Plus, that's not what you want to know. Okay, I'll make it easier for you. Let's go back to the Virtue/Sin duality I talked about. You remember, right?"

"Of course. Sin allows a growth rate beyond anything your Virtue can give you, at the expense of making you very unstable."

"That's the gist of it, however, there are differences between each Sins. For instance, yours, Gluttony, can ultimately be stopped by feeding you, the same way you just have to calm down a Wrath. Hard to do but possible. Sloth and Greed are complicated in their own way, but there is one that is awfully problematic. Well, I find it fun, but it did cause the session to fail each time it was 'activated'."

"As I feared... It is Pride."

"Bingo."

"The more power he gains, the more prideful he gets, thus gaining even more power. A vicious circle indeed… I should have understood it sooner…"

"And that's why there has never been any Guide with the Humility label since I created the worlds."

“Then… that means…”

“Exactly, Sam is a ticking bomb.”