"Beautiful..."

Sister Lotus looked around the Cave of Beginnings, her eyes and mouth made wide with amazement. Isaak himself was rather impressed.

"A little too bright," he said as he gawked at the crystalline walls of the cave. Wherever the eye fell, enormous and multifaceted crystals yawned colorful and bright.

"Too bright?!" Sister Lotus exclaimed with a horrified look. Her copper skin seemed to redden in frustration. "This is the Mother's Radiance, human!"

Isaak rolled his eyes. It was remarkable, though. Every surface shone like a rainbow, and then there was the size of the cave. He had a feeling that he could spend the entire day walking around its fantasy majesty.

"But we are on a schedule!" Isaak said to himself, which was not altogether true.

Between being abducted and then beaten by that thuggish warrior elf, being told that he would father some mysterious woman's children, and then the rest of the isekai drek that seemed to continuously assault his senses, Isaak had fallen into a rather frightful acceptance.

He had to remember that he did not want to remain in the Goddess' realm. He did not want to take this trial. He wanted to go home, and if home was out of the question, he wanted to ascend to a nice Christian heaven. He was not like those isekai losers who forgot all about their normal lives as soon as a few elven breasts popped out of their blouses... though he could understand the appeal.

He had spent less than a day in this world, and he had almost stopped thinking about home.

"H-human?"

Isaak jumped as Sister Lotus pulled on the back of his shirt. She let go at once, and a fearful doubt filled her beautiful face.

"Y-yes?" Isaak asked, his heart in his throat. The dark elf had scarcely spoken three words to him since they had found her in the woods, and so he found her attention a little nerve-wracking.

"Do you really think... the Goddess will...?" Sister Lotus looked down at her feet, unable to finish the thought. "But you're the Chosen One. You must be right..."

Isaak opened his mouth, but the easy answer died on his lips. Because he had no idea.

"I don't know," Isaak said, and he could see the hurt that bled across Sister Lotus' face. "But... but let's stay positive!"

"That's fucking stupid," Isaak said, his arms akimbo. "Stuuupid."

"T-this is the only way to the Chasm of Trials," Sister Lotus said, clearly taken aback by his possession of common sense.

They had delved deeper and deeper into the Cave of Beginnings. Isaak had realized rather quickly that the place was a nigh impenetrable maze. The crystals that filled its walls glowed a dozen different colors and reflected still a dozen more. It was almost impossible to tell where one path began and another continued.

But Sister Lotus seemed to know. Who knew what would have happened if Isaak had entered the Cave of Beginnings alone. He would have most likely starved to death. He probably would not have fallen to his death, however.

"We'll die if we do something that stupid," Isaak said said with a sneer. He stabbed a trembling finger at the black pi and shook his head. "I'm not doing that."

Sister Lotus had brought him to the cusp of an enormous hole and had insisted that they jump in.

"T-this is the only way..." Sister Lotus repeated, her face the very picture of confusion. "It is... We have to go down."

"Then let's find some stairs!" Isaak exclaimed. He looked down the hole and was beset with a wave of dizziness. In sharp contrast to the luminous crystals that surrounded them, the hole was colored the deepest black.

"There... there are no stairs," Sister Lotus said, her voice full of exasperation. "Chosen One, you must... The Goddess will allow no harm to befall us."

"You have those airbags to help cushion your fall," Isaak said, gesturing to the massive swell of the dark elf's chest. "I'm not so similarly equipped. Look, I'll take these trials. But I want some stairs."

"B-but there are none!" Sister Lotus said. She seemed to be the verge of ripping out her hair. Isaak felt bad for her, but he did not feel bad enough to jump into a seemingly bottomless black hole.

"She's the Goddess!" Isaak shouted. "She can make some! She can make an elevator if she really wanted to!"

Sister Lotus' face twitched as his shout reverberated off the cavern walls. For a moment, Isaak worried he had said too much. Then the dark elf grabbed him by the head, and he knew that he had said too much.

"You! You! Youuu!" Sister Lotus said, her thin lips sputtering with frustration. "Just... close your eyes!"

Isaak felt a flush creep up his face as the dark elf's model-like face pressed closer to his own.

And then she pushed him into the hole.

The black of the abyss swallowed Isaak. His arms and legs flailed wildly for purchase. His lungs filled with fire as he loosed a scream, not unlike that of a teenage girl. It was not that he had a fear of heights. He simply had the typical human fear of falling to his death from a height.

A familiar curse touched his lips as Sister Lotus disappeared from view.

"I haaate isekaaiii!"

Isaak reached the bottom of the hole with a wet splash. A dozen fireworks radiated across his back as the world came to an abrupt stop. The fire tickled his skin and made him want to shout, but almost just as suddenly the cool kiss of mint soothed his aches.

Sister Lotus splashed down beside him a moment later. The wet flash of her smile filled Isaak with a white frustration, and he sputtered breathlessly for the right curse to throw at the irresponsible dark elf.

They had fallen into a pool of moss-green water. The walls around them did not shine in crystalline colours like before. Rather, the path around them was cast in impenetrable shadows and darkest menace.

"See?" Sister Lotus said with the same maddening smile. "Safe."

Isaak answered her with a petty sneer. He could not think of a curse foul enough to convey his frustration. If he had eaten his KFC before he had been sent to this trash isekai world, he probably would have shit himself before he hit the water.

The dark elf swam over to the edge of the moss-covered pool, and a blue flame breathed to life amidst the black around them.

"The First Trial," Sister Lotus said, reverently. She clambered out of the pool, and Isaak doggy paddled over to her. There had to be something mystical about the waters because all of his lingering aches had started to disappear with a minty coo.

"And what is the trial?" Isaak asked as he clambered out of the waters. His clothes were entirely soaked.

Sister Lotus turned to look at him with a frown.

"I would not know, human," she said hotly, as if the question had upset her. "You would do well to remember that this is your trial."

Isaak rolled his eyes. Trial this. Trial that. He was not even sure what he was being tested on. If Crim had mentioned it to him earlier, he must have forgotten, and it seemed like a rather glaring omission.

Despite what she said, however, Sister Lotus led the way deeper into the darkened cavern.

"Oy!" Isaak exclaimed as dozens of blue flames suddenly flared to life. They seemed to form a path, one that led higher and higher and still hiigher until only the briefest spark of blue could be seen up above.

[ ...I welcome thee... ]

Isaak and Sister Lotus both jumped at the sudden voice. It called out from the shadows of the cavern, its voice low and deep.

[ ...if thou would reach mine bosom... ]

[ ...thou must first collect mine flower... ]

The deep and gravely voice seemed to shift and flow throughout the shadows of the room.

[ ...scale the mountain of thine doubts... ]

[ ...and retrieve thy key... ]

Isaak waited for more, but the mysterious voice held its silence. He turned his attention to the blue flames that rose and disappeared into the distant sky, as if there was a sky at the bottom of a cave.

"You have got to be kidding me," Isaak muttered to himself. He could not even see what the blue flames were attached to, and the Goddess wanted him to climb to the top of them?

"Do not succumb to your doubts, Chosen One," Sister Lotus said. She had certainly switched gears. One minute she was throwing him into a bottomless pit. Now she wants him to climb out of one!

"All I wanted was some stairs," Isaak muttered. He drew closer to the nearest flame all the same, however.

He groped the dark around the fire and felt the cold touch of stone. He looked up, hundreds and hundreds of feet up, and could see one of the distant flames twinkle like a star. It was a shame that the Goddess had not provided him with a jetpack.

"Or anything," Isaak muttered. Because in trash isekai stories, the Goddess normally provided the protagonist with a special power. Even in the trash isekai stories that were parodies of trash isekai stories, the Goddess provided the protagonist with special powers. "But I have nothing."

The warrior elf had beaten him to an inch of his life, so Isaak knew he did not have superhuman endurance or reflexes or... or anything.

"I believe in you, Chosen One!" Sister Lotus said from behind him, her voice radiant with hope. There did not seem to be even a scrap of doubt in her words. He still could not believe the transformation that had come over her.

Isaak made a face, thankful for the black of the cavern. He did not think there would be stairs, but he started to walk around the dark obelisk of stone. The blue flames did little to illuminate the cavern around them, and so Isaak groped blindly with his hands.

"Oy!" he exclaimed as his foot sank into another pool of water. It did not have the same luminous moss as the one they had fallen into.

"Chosen One?" Sister Lotus called. Her voice was curious, not worried. He had no idea where all of her expectations had come from.

"Nothing!" Isaak shouted back. He probed the water with his left foot and found the waters weren't too deep. It certainly was not deep enough for some kind of Lovecraftian sea monster to be lurking underneath.

"And why did you have to say that?" he muttered to himself as a perfectly reasonable fear ran up his spine. Because who knew what sort of fantasy creatures could be down here? He had already run across those hell hounds. This isekai world was clearly full of twisted horrors.

Isaak listened very carefully for the faintest ripple, but the cavern around them was entirely silent. He would have to chance it.

The cavern filled with a wet squelch as he continued to circle the obelisk. With each step, Isaak became more and more convinced that the two of them would starve in this hole. There was no way he would be able to climb to the top, and there did not seem to be any sea monsters lurking in the pool that could put them out of their misery.

Isaak's thoughts had started to turn to who would eat who first when he took another step and a set of blue flames appeared in the distance. They illuminated an enormous door carved full of runes and other strange symbols.

Warily, Isaak stepped out of the small pool around the obelisk and walked towards the door. His feel squelched with each step as he drew closer and closer.

"Oy!" Isaak shouted as the blue flames on the door disappeared and then, a moment later, burst back to life with a brilliant green hue. They blinded the eyes and seared the face in their sudden intensity.

[ ...CONGRATULATIONS... ]

The same voice as before booomed throughout the cavern as the ticklish green hue continued to blind.

[ ...THOU HATH OVERCOME THINE DOUBTS AND SCALED THE PRECIPITOUS ROCKS OF FEARS... ]

Isaak blinked away his blindness and found that the entire cavern was now illuminated by the same green flames. Where the blue torches had burned, the green fires now roared like a furnace turned to full blast.

[ ...THOSE UNWILLING AND UNABLE TO CONQUER THEIR DOUBTS WILL BE SWALLOWED IN THEIR MURKY WATERS... ]

[ ...FOR THERE CAN BE NO SHORTCUTS TO GREATNESS... ]

With the room illuminated, Isaak saw that the enormous obelisek was actually rather small. Shards of crystal seemed to reflect the torches at its base, making the obelisk appear to climb endlessly into the sky when, in fact, the spire of black stone was probably the size of a small hill.

And as his eyes started to adjust to the bright colors of the room, Isaak looked around at the small puddle he had walked through, and his heart stopped.

Isaak had wondered if something lived in the waters. The thought had crossed his mind, but he had pushed it away like any sensible person would have. They were at the bottom of a cave after all. What kind of creature could live down here?

A terrifying creature, it would seem, if its skeleton was anything to go by. Isaak had tiptoed through the puddle of water around the obelisk, but no less than two feet away the puddle dropped off into a deep pond. The white shine of bone revealed the remains of a monstrously foul creature.

"You did it!" Sister Lotus exclaimed with wet tears from the other side of the obelisk. She either did not see the creature's skeleton or did not care about its menace. "I knew you could! I knew it!"

"Yay..." Isaak said as his spine turned to jelly as he slowly realized the horrible fate that could have befallen him if whatever this creature was had not starved to death.