Zohan: [Okay, how about this- Everyone's going to name 3 places that they want to go, then rank all choices to me in DM, and then I'll share the results. This way we can pick the place that everyone wants to go, and also avoid being influenced by each other]
The results were as following:
1. Mountain Trek(3)
2. The Old Temple(3)
3. Game Parlour (1)
4. Forest Park(1)
5. Water Park(1)
6. Zohan and AJ's house(1)
Seeing these results, while not recommending any place himself, Zohan told everyone to vote.
Results:
1. Mountain Trek: 2+7+10
2. The Old Temple:4+0+10
3. Game Parlour: 9+9+3
4. Forest Park: 8+6+0
5. Water Park: 1+5.5+4
6. Zohan and AJ's house(1): 6+0+9
Seeing the votes, the Zohan slapped his head.
[Why the heck are these people recommending a place and then voting zero for it!]
It was a group made by him for watching movies together, of people that were his friends. They started off with movies, then eating out together, and then finally had been celebrating each other's birthdays together ever since they all celebrated Zohan's birthday.
It was a full four man squad, perfect for online games.
???: [Well, I checked, the game parlour is closed, so I guess we'll climb the mountain]
He wanted to go for the forest Park, and there would've been a room for manipulating results and lying, or maybe he could just vote himself. But there was a zero.
They'd been playing Ninja Warrior at the forest park at their last visit. And AJ fell off in a hilarious way while recording Zohan do a challenge. The video had the great potential to go viral.
However, Zohan took possession of the video because one of the funniest parts of the video were his facial expression while doing the challenge.
Roland:[ AJ's Recording is not his alone, it's Our Recording!]
Someone took a fighting stance.
Roland:[Our Recording is Zohan's Recording!]
The might fists of the L̶e̶a̶d̶e̶r̶ Marxisto Capitalism model of the Leader had defeated the survivor of the fall and his teammates, leaving him too traumatized with the place.
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Originally, they were worried about the weakest of the group- AJ, who'd been traumatized by the fall on the forest Park. While he was light weight and miraculously survived the fall at the park with no injuries, they were worried about having to carry him up the forest if he grew tired.
But he turned out to be the most nimble of all, walking up non-stop like a goat.
They had ditched the road which went up in circles since it was quite long, and were walking up the mountain through a thousand year old footpath.
The first to get tired was the former defense force trainee, Vincent "Oni" Noir who had given up on cardio and picked up power lifting when he decided to drop out from defense force and study to become a teacher. He was a teacher now, but still a long way from being anything like his inspiration- Great Teacher Onizuka.
And also a really long and heavy way from the peak of the mountain.
He was totally exhausted and was relying on the gang leader to support him from behind.
The Goat AJ and the "Dark Horse" of this trek, Roland would walk ahead, take some good rest while the Oni and Zohan reached them, and then they'd start climbing again.
Zohan was carrying the luggage of the group(a bag filled with food items and fruit juice that they brought for the trip), while consoling Oni who slowly started getting mad at the two guys looking down on him.
Zohan:[This...is why.... you should do cardio... instead of getting unnecessary.... muscle and fat weight]
Oni: [You don't look any good either]
Zohan:[That's because I've been pushing you and carrying this weight]
Oni:[Well I don't need your help, I could've done this if you guys brought water like I said, instead of this spicy fruit juice that burns the throat! Or burning water in a friggin thermal insulator!]
Zohan:[Hey, I told them to get fresh juice instead of buying any packet cheap juice that they could find. And I brought a water bottle, but I left it down below in my vehicle! Why didn't you bring one?!]
The conversations were getting a little heated. The Wind Turbines at the top of the mountain were not moving, and while they planned on going up in the morning, it was about 9 now and bright sunlight had been making them sweat much more.
The group got together again after a while, and Oni said he was too tired to continue.
Everyone decided to have a breakfast, and then AJ revealed what he had brought for everyone- "imported and really expensive"- Tea Bags!
Zohan:[Of all the things you could've spend....]
Zohan wanted to, couldn't complain because the tea bags didn't contain caffeine and didn't require any milk, both the things that he had an aversion.
Roland was lucky and got peppermint tea bag, AJ took lemon for himself and Oni ended up with some British tea.
Zohan was very unlucky and ended up with bitter Grey Earl Tea. He somehow took a couple of sips- before the tired teacher crashed into him.
Both the Grey Earl Tea and the British tea were spiled all over Zohan.
Roland: [ I understand that your legs have given up on you, but you almost gave up on your life!]
He jested, teasing both the leader and the teacher.
The leader could only feel miserable, and he could sense more of more rupture in the group.
After the break, they kept going, but the thousand year old footpath was too steep and exhausting for Oni, and Zohan was also quite exhausted.
But the other two seemed quite alright.
There was voting again, Oni wanted to go back down, while the other two wanted to go up.
So, Zohan handed the luggage to the other two, and said that he'd go back down with the teacher, then quickly come back up after a little rest.
The Mountain they were climbing had the ruins of a temple near the peak, which was destroyed during invasions a thousand years ago. It had heavy rainfall every year around July, which resulted in the road that went circles around it breaking down every year. Reconstruction was difficult and expensive, hence it would take place around once in three years. People who would hike the mountain would take a thousand year old steep footpath that went up directly, instead of walking the road in circles. The road would be closed down for vehicles until reconstruction.
At the foot of the mountain, lied some food shops and a library.
Going down with the teacher was harder than pushing him up. There was always this fear of losing one's footing and falling. Oni's legs had starting shaking, he was wearing jeans which had made the climb harder going up, and even much more harder going down.
Soon, Zohan found his own legs shaking too out of exhaustion.
Zohan:[The footwear I'm wearing isn't tight near the toes, which is why my feet feel really exhausted. I should've worn shoes]
Oni: [No, wearing shoes like me would've made it much more harder. The other two aren't wearing shoes either.]
They somehow made it all the way down to the main road, then Zohan had to walk all the way to his vehicle, come to the footpath and carry Oni with him. They rested at a food shop for around ten minutes, and Vincent decided to leave, after ranting about the two who went up.
Oni: [They made me walk at their pace, while I was all dehydrated. They were walking ahead, and then resting, waiting for us to catch up. And then they'd start walking again!]
Zohan:[Oh well, I guess from their point of view, we were slowly climbing up so they thought we were not exhausting much energy in the first place]
After the teacher left, Zohan looked at the pictures he'd taken. There were no pictures of the group, but only of monkeys and goats that lived on the mountain.
He felt too tired to climb the mountain back up again, and it was embarrassing to tell his friends that he wouldn't do it. He browsed his phone and saw that his best friend still hadn't responded, there were no updates for anything fun that he liked reading. There were no distractions to lose himself into on his phone, so he looked around and saw a library.
Zohan: [Maybe I can find something good to read for a while, then tell them that I forgot about them]
And so, he stepped into the library.
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The library was filled with local books and magazines. There were no chance of running into a manga or any of the regional comics that were popular around a decade ago, before the industry started dying.
There were some good books lying around however, like a book written by Yuval Noah Harari. There were some parts of Harry Potter, but anyone who bought them or read them here would need to have read the earlier parts, or have seen the movies.
Zohan found a small book that talked about the history of the mountain, about the people living nearby in villages and mythological stories. They would be fascinating for his best friend, maybe he could go up and get pictures of the 24 inscriptions on the ruins of the temple- but it wasn't something that he was interested in.
While looking around, he ended up finding a book kept perpendicularly, hidden behind many books. The book was pretty much an old notebook that had really old newspaper covered on it. And everything inside was hand written using a pen.
Curious, he took the book to a table and started skimming.