As we both sat in the floor face to face against one another, I couldn't hold my curiosity any longer and went on ahead to ask my question.
"Who are you?"
"I am…Semon, one of the subjects of the king of this land." said the Gorilla with such a stoic voice.
"...Semon, you can talk, how?"
"Is this really something you should be asking me?" he said this while he was attending to his injuries.
"I'm just curious that you're the first animal that could talk to me, aside from Gord."
"...I came here from the orders of my king. The king's orders were to watch over you…nothing more and nothing less."
"Okay...Then I'll ask a different question. What was that fight about? Why were you fighting a tiger?"
…A tiger? What is a tiger? If your referring to the recent battle, then that beast that fought against me was a contender for my place as a subject to my king.
'huh…They don't know the concept of an animals grouped name here…strange'
"...You say subject, does that mean that you're a servant to the king."
"I am. With my title as a subject, I was blessed with the ability to converse to many languages. That is the reason why I could speak to you now…as well as speak to all the living beings in this world."
'That is quite compelling. If he was blessed with this knowledge towards language, then it might have been that he was speaking to that tiger earlier and I couldn't have known. He could be able to communicate to every animal…amazing.' I was amaze by this gift. It completely broke all language barriers there were in this world.
"I guess I can understand a bit about it now. So Gord ordered you to watch over me…but that still doesn't explain the fact that you have the rock. You were ordered to just watch me but you have this rock, Why?" I said this while showing him the rock.
"…as I watched over you from a clear distance, the moment you were at the lowest point of your life, my very instinct told me to do something. My purest greed consumed me…I stole this "rock" that you have been having a hard time carrying."
"You violated your King's orders."
"I know…the rock compelled me. You do not know how powerful or how fearful this rock is…" said Semon as he looked at me with such cold eyes, as if he was telling me that I was underestimating the power of the rock.
"Why were you compelled? This rock is the source of my fears , my suffering and my sin." I was confused when he said he was attracted to the rock, all to a point that he took it away from me.
"This rock is a source of power, something that every being is after. It is a key that gifts you with a powerful ability."
"...you mean Summit's will?" I tried calling out the skill.
"...No, it is something more."
"if…if you were compelled by it, why did you gave it back to me?"
"...It rejected me." said the Semon with a regretful tone.
"...Rejected you?"
"I do not know what is inside this rock, but be sure to carry this with you at all times…it is a drug that you must never be compelled to take."he said this with a neglected reaction.
"..."
"It is only a key to you and nothing more." said Semon.
"...A key…why is it not affecting me then?" I asked this as to point out that the rock wasn't compelling me to touch it, in fact it was oozing a sense of fear from my perspective.
"Probably because you are under the watch of my king."
"...So he knows whats inside this other than me fear and suffering?"
"Maybe so."
As I stood bewildered by what he said, Semon suddenly stands from his place and started walking into the forest.
"W-where are you going?" I asked.
"I need to be healed…Do not follow me. Instead you must continue on you journey. Beware of the other subjects that are coming for the rock. There are two more that are already making there way here."
"What!?"
"Be safe." as he said this, he slowly walked his way off the mountain and started descending down. He left me with nothing but the rock.
"..." seeing him leave, I could do nothing more than decide to leave myself.
But before that, I needed to salvage a few things from the corpse of the dead tiger.
One of those things was the tiger skin that could be made into a bag to fit in the rock.
It took me an hour but I finally created a bag as well as took out a few meats to feed the birds while we were making our way to the peak.
"Are you guys fine?" I asked this to the birds to see if they were fine. And looking at them enjoying tiger's meat, I could say that they were fine.
I started back on my journey and started dashing forth through the forest at a constant speed of 40km/h.
After a few minutes or so, I finally walked pass the forest.
As I did so, I was meet with a river that was pouring down from the spiral mountain. Along with that river, a staircase path was also beside it that lead to the peak.
I took this time to let out the birds to make them drink. While I took them out, I started observing the path. Looking at it, I couldn't see the highest point from where I was standing…so the thought of the peak going pass the sky and all up to space made me worry of what I should do if it came to that.
Semon said that other subjects were after this rock, so I needed to keep moving.
As I washed my face in the river, I spilled out my thoughts over how the events were so far.
"...Gord should really keep his subjects in check, I mean why couldn't he tell me this in advance?"
"...It seems like I've been lucky so far since I haven't meet any other subject other than Semon."
"...I wonder what the other subjects look like? I wonder what kind of animal they are?"
As I thought of this, all of a sudden the river I was washing my face on started to ripple.
As if a small earthquake was happening…
Seeing this, I couldn't help but look around to see if something major was happening, but all I see was nothing but clouds and trees for miles.
"...I should get going."
As I picked up each of the baby owls, I suddenly felt like something or someone was watching me from afar…
"..." I quickly bagged the owls, and started making my way to the top. Luckily I didn't have to climb now since there were now stairs I could use.
"...Two days left. I should fasten my pace." as I said this, I ran my way up to the peak.
As I ran and ran across the stairs, the vibrations of the ground was starting to get stronger. Even though I was running, I could feel the vibrations…to feel an earthquake while I was running would pretty much mean that the earthquake was strong.
So strong to a point that suddenly the stairs I was running on was starting to crack…and the odd thing about it was that the crack itself was following my direction.
Wherever I step, the cracks would follow.
So something was definitely off…
But still, even though the stairs were being broken, I couldn't stop.
I only had two days after all.
So I ran faster than I normally would all up to about 55km/h.
If I continued at this rate of speed, I could assume that by thee next day, I could reach the top.
When I continued to run, all of a sudden an explosion was heard up a few levels ahead of me. The explosion itself wasn't like that of a bomb but more of a collapsing small building kind of noise.
What I mean to say was that it feels like something up ahead, there was something waiting for me.
And to my guess, I was right.
After running across the spiral stairs for two levels, I was suddenly approached by a rolling boulder.
I questioned myself how it was possible for a boulder to roll my way when the staircase I was running on didn't have any railings attached at the edges. If a boulder did roll in this mountain for around two spiral levels, it could only lead up to it falling down at least on the edge without coming my way…
But the boulder continued to roll my way. Having no other choice of action, I simply dodged it by jumping over it.
"huup!"
As I jumped over it, the boulder who I thought was a seemingly an odd boulder suddenly jumps to my direction.
'..Its following me!?'
While I was in midair, the boulder that was coming my way suddenly broke off from its round shape and revealed a very rodent like figure. As he revealed himself, he slashed down his claws a my direction in an attempt to attack me, luckily with the shield on my back, I had enough time to black him.
As I brought out the shield, the claws immediately made contact. The pressure of his strike was no joke, it was powerful enough to nearly push me off the edge of the cliff. But luckily, I was able to use my spear as an anchor.
'...is that an Armadillo?' The thought of its very form really reminded me of an armadillo.
In my past life, I didn't know much about them other than the fact that they dig holes, roll up into a ball and be omnivorous.
It made me wonder how and why this giant ball of a dirt rock was going against me.
Then all of a sudden, I was reminded of the rock I was carrying.
'The rock…that must mean he must be a subject to Gord.'
As I thought of this, the Armadillo didn't waste any time and instead rolled itself back into a ball and rushed his way to my direction.
He was probably going at a speed of about 50km/h so his attack was pretty formidable if I took it head on.
As he hastily made his way to me, I could only stand in place as the big ball of shell was getting closer and closer.
Too bad for him, I knew a thing or two about video games that both involved a very fast car and an opportunity to see a ramp to jump off of.
Ramps were the only weaknesses to things like these challenges. And judging by how I was standing at the edge of the mountain, I could say I was at a pretty good spot.
As he was about to make contact with me, I instantly pushed down the turtle shield at a 45 degree angle and used the spear I had to be the anchor to secure the shield in place.
*Swoooosh~ * *Thud!*
Before he knew it, the Armadillo could not comprehend how he was now falling off the mountain.
"...!!?"
I could see the armadillo break off from his ball form while he was falling down the mountain.
"Geez…he should have played Grand t***t auto if they had the chance."
Seeing as how easily I took care of the challenge, I continued on my path to the top.
I ran and ran.
For hours I would run and rest from time to time. A lot of enemies would come my way but I would always make sure to either ran pass them or kill them If I was confident.
I did this all until I finally made it to the top.
"Haa.…They should really put an elevator on this mountain."
Finally I was now at the highest peak, and fair enough to say, I was able to breath in this place without any issue. Even though I could almost see the almost every inch of this land.
I was amazed to see that at the top, a certain structure was being displayed. A rock structure that formed itself to be something that could fit a spherical orb.
"...This must be where I should place the rock."
As I placed the rock down at the spherical slot and waited for something to happen.
But nothing happened. The rock only stayed at the slot and did nothing.
"Why isn't it working?"
As I asked this, suddenly the ground beneath started to shake and an weird animal popped out of the ground.
*Pop*
'...a meerkat?' I looked at the average sized meerkat with a confused expression but all the meerkat did was go close to the rock and swayed it's head back and forth from looking at the rock to back at me.
"...What?"
"...Hmm, it looks like the conditions hasn't been met yet."
The meerkat spoke.
"...What?" I was pretty surprised to see something average sized talk and not something that was ten meters tall.
"Do you wanna play a game?" asked the meerkat with his head leaning down to his shoulders.
"Are…are you a subject to the King?" I asked this because I was too tired to think and too bewildered to even try to think things clearly.
"Hmm, that's not a yes answer or a no answer…I guess I should comply by the code and ask again." said the meerkat with a presumptuous tone.
"Do you wanna play a game?" he said this but this time he showed me his smile.
…it was unnerving to see a meerkat smile.
Since he wasn't attacking me like the rest of the animals I faced climbing this peak, I could only sit down on the floor and try to understand what was happening right now.
I still had time since It only took me around 28 hours to climb here.
"Ehh…I got time."
As I said that, the meerkat suddenly climbs up on top of my chest and grabs both of my cheeks.
"...Hmm."
"..."
"Do. You. Want. To. Play. A. Game~~~~"
"S-Shure." I spoke funny because the meerkat was grabbing my cheeks like I was chubby chipmunk.
"Great!" the meerkat jumps off of my chest and then moves on to the rock structure. As he did, he seemed like he was rotating the rock all over its place and then not a minute later, he pushes the rock out from the slot and rolls it to my direction.
"...Touch it." he said.