{Author's Note}
Hey everyone!
Sorry for not posting a new chapter for a while! There was Christmas, New Years, and my new obsession with the Chainsaw Man manga that distracted me from typing, along with my work schedule being fucked up because of the holidays.
But! I'm back now an have a new chapter for all of y'all. Enjoy it!
Or don't! It's your perogative.
Also, I finally learned how to make a Discord Link that wouldn't expire after seven days! So, Here is the link: https:/ /disc ord.gg/3 CBazz8 C4H
YROTS EHT HTIW NO!
***
{A few minutes later}
"You're a lot stronger than you look," Sara commented as they continued to navigate their way through the Pyramid.
After a moment of silence, Kevin decided to respond. "The sky is blue."
"…What?"
"Grass is green, sand is irritating, and just in case you weren't aware, we're in a Pyramid," the Eevee continued, his voice making it obvious that he was treating her like an idiot. "Are we done stating the painfully obvious, or did you have some kind of point to make?"
The princess frowned. "I was going to hold back, but with how rude you are being, I won't bother. You're absolutely nothing compared to the one I love."
"…oh really?" Kevin raised an eyebrow.
"Of course!" Sara replied, her gaze becoming distant and dreamy. "No matter how strong you get you'll never match up."
Sylph tilted her head to the side, gazing at the armored woman as if she was crazy. The tiny Spirit then leaned over to whisper in her Host's ear. "Do you think we should tell her that you're the strongest being on all three continents?"
"Nah," he quietly replied. "It'll be much more entertaining to throw her words back in her face when I inevitably beat whoever it is into the dirt."
As for Sara, she had started wistfully mumbling to herself. "I wonder where you are now… my lovely Granberia."
Upon hearing that, Kevin had to stifle his own laughter. It wasn't the fact that she was in love with the Heavenly Knight of Fire that made him chuckle, as he came from a more progressive time where such relationships were normal, but the fact that this woman actually thought he couldn't match that overgrown lizard. After all, the only reason Granberia wasn't dead was because Alice stopped him from murdering her in cold blood. Literally.
Instead of bursting her bubble and confirming that her unrequited love interest was so far below him in terms of power that he could kill her without breaking a sweat, he settled for slipping into an uncaring silence. A part of him even hoped that some monster would come out of nowhere and rudely pull her out of her daydream.
Suddenly, as if summoned by his desire, a monster appeared from around the next corner. Her body was similar in structure to that of a lamia, with a human torso and a snake tail for legs. What set her apart from other snake girls, though, were the scales that covered her neck and spread out from the back of her neck, and the fact that her arms were replaced with large, two pronged scaled stingers.
[Cobra Girl]
[Type: Poison/Ground]
"Under instructions from Sphinx, I cannot let anyone weak to pass," she stated, licking her lips as she stared at Sara. "I shall eat you here and now."
It goes without saying that she intentionally ignored Kevin's presence, having already been informed by the Mummy Girl through the hidden communication system of the Pyramid that he was way beyond her power level. A quick examination of his magical aura only served to cement in her mind that the human girl was the safer one to attack.
Once again, the Eevee boy stood back as the princess tried, and ultimately failed, to overcome the obstacle standing in her way. This time, instead of ending up writhing on the floor covered in bandages, the woman ended up immobilized on the ground by venom that appeared to contain both a paralytic chemical as well as an aphrodisiac, judging from the ahegao face she was making and the orgasmic shivers shaking her body.
The Cobra Girl then turned to look at Kevin with a gaze that was a mixture of hopeful and hungry. It took a few seconds, during which the monster not-so-subtly looked back and forth between him and her downed victim, for him to understand what she wanted.
"As much as I want to let you have her, she owes me food," he sighed.
Disappointed, the monster girl's shoulders drooped as she wordlessly slithered away.
"She's really weak, isn't she?" Sylph asked, flying down to sit on the immobile princess.
Kevin nodded and leaned back against one of the stone walls. "Yep. This is exactly why I always hated escort missions in video games. Getting yourself through a dangerous area full of enemies is a hell of a lot harder when you have a useless NPC who lags behind, won't shut up, and has the same defensive capabilities as a sheet of wet tissue paper."
They had to wait a full hour for the venom to wear off. While the teenager passed the time by looking through the Moves section of the Eeveelution System, trying to come up with perfect combinations that he could use in his base form, the small Spirit decided that walking around Sara and poking her over and over again was suitably entertaining. With how sensitive the venom made her, the reactions she had to outside stimuli received more than a few chuckles from the whimsical girl.
Sara blushed heavily as she finally got back to her feet, straightening out her armor and clothes. In the state the Cobra Girl had put her in, the princess had been too lost in pleasure to see how her rude travel companion drove the monster off. She came to the same conclusion as before, that he had defeated the monster after it had incapacitated her, which really didn't make her feel any better.
"Why didn't you help me?" she asked him with a glare.
Pushing himself off the wall, the boy beckoned Sylph back up to his shoulder. "This is your trial, not mine. I'm willing to save you for the reward, but far be it from me to stop you from throwing yourself into situations you can't possibly handle in the name of 'love.'"
As much as the princess wanted to snap back at him, she knew that he had a point. She was the one who wanted to take the Dragon Seal Trial in the first place, and he was the one she convinced to come along so she wouldn't be dragged back to the castle. If anything, the fact that he'd saved her twice already was a sign that he was looking out for her; but knowing that didn't diminish the anger she felt at him not stepping in until she was already taken out.
Seeing that she had no room to argue, she let out a long sigh and turned to lead them further into the Pyramid again.
{Even More Time Later}
Kevin was starting to get sick of the endless hallways. Every single one of them looked the same, and if it weren't for the fact that he couldn't smell their own traces overlapping, he'd have sworn they were going in circles; or squares, since there wasn't a single rounded wall in sight. He wouldn't have minded it if the journey were silent, or even filled with Sylph's constant energetic questions, but neither of those were what fate had in store for him.
Instead, he had to listen to Sara's story of how she met Granberia.
Only half listening, he was able to get the gist of their cliché meeting. The princess was out in the desert, wandering without anyone protecting her (you know, like an idiot.), when she was cornered by a scorpion girl looking for some fun, when the Heavenly Knight of Fire swooped in and beat the tar out of the other monster. She then told Sara to stop walking around alone and train to no longer be weak, then left. The rest of the details were lost in the over-romanticized commentary Sara was making throughout the whole story.
From her spot on his shoulder, Sylph had actually paid full attention to the tale. She particularly found the exaggerated description of the fight between the scorpion girl and Granberia to be interesting. It sounded a lot like how Kevin easily crushed his enemies, after all, and knowing that he could crush the Heavenly Knight just as easily made her giggle a bit, which her Host shrugged off as her being her usual airheaded self.
"I haven't seen her since then," Sara concluded, coming to the end of the story. "But I want to meet her again. That's why I've spent all of my time since then training. I was a complete amateur three years ago, but now I'm pretty amazing, don't you think?"
Instead of giving her an answer, the Eevee simply gave her a deadpan look that said everything it needed to about his opinions on her fighting abilities. She wasn't even able to defeat the weakest monster in this building. Maybe she could beat some baseline human soldiers, but that seemed to be the extent of her abilities.
"Hey Sara!" the small Spirit on his shoulder piped up, drawing the woman's attention. "Why did you come to this Pyramid, anyway? Are you taking the Dragon Seal Trial to test your ability or something?"
The princess shook her head. "No, not really. You see, Granberia is from the Dragon race, so I studied them in great detail. Apparently there's a law that dictates who they can get married to."
'…Marriage again?' Kevin thought, his eye twitching. 'Does this entire world run on thoughts of sex and marriage?'
"It seems like they can only get married to someone who has passed the Dragon Seal Trial here," she continued. "I swore to myself I wouldn't meet her again until I was a suitable woman for her, so I have to complete the Trial."
"Yeah! You go get her!" Sylph cheered.
Kevin groaned. "Please don't encourage her."
The next monster, or rather monsters, that they came upon was a group of what the system referred to as Nefertiti Lamias. There were four of them, all with dark skin and red-scaled tails from the hips down. Reflective bikinis and various pieces of golden jewelry were the only things that barely covered their private parts, but none of them cared in the slightest.
There wasn't enough time for the traveling trio to address them before one of them coiled around Sara and knocked her out. It was a sad sight, considering the one that did so was the smallest of the bunch. All it took was a few wraps around the princess's body with her coils and a small squeeze to cut off her circulation, leading to the woman completely losing consciousness.
An awkward silence hung in the air as everyone just stared at her. Even the lamia who took her down was visibly surprised at how easy it was. After a few minutes, the apparent leader of the lamias glanced over at Kevin.
"Soooo…." She awkwardly drawled.
"No, you can't keep her," he sighed, shaking his head as he approached.
Without another word, he grabbed the unconscious princess by her leg and proceeded to drag her away. After how long they'd already taken to get this far, he refused to wait for her to wake up AGAIN.
{EVEN LATER-ER – Center of the Pyramid}
Fortunately for Kevin, Sara didn't regain consciousness until they'd reached their final destination. It was fortunate for the sole reason that he wouldn't have been able to stop himself from knocking her back out if she started talking about her love for Granberia again. There was only so much emotional nonsense he could take before deciding to silence the source, after all.
It would be an understatement to say that the central chamber of the pyramid was well decorated. Everything from the walls, to the floor, to the pillars holding up the ceiling were adorned with countless works of art. Hieroglyphics, depictions of plants and animals, and mosaics of monsters could be seen on every visible surface, all with the same ancient Egyptian aesthetics that were present throughout the rest of the pyramid.
The Eevee didn't bother to stop and admire the architecture, though. Instead, he continued to drag his companion through the room.
"You finally reached here, oh weak humans," a voice echoed from nowhere.
Suddenly, a giant monster appeared at the other end of the vast room. As the boy had come to expect from most monsters, everything above her waist was human. She had pale skin, large breasts, red eyes, and dark hair upon which sat a cobra-shaped crown. Golden jewelry adorned her neck, arms, and wrists, even more so than the lamias they'd previously encountered, marking her as someone with a high status.
Below her waist was a whole lion. As in, not just the body of a lion with the head missing, but the whole lion with her human half sticking out of the back of its neck. Not only that, it was massive, easily towering over Kevin by more than a few feet. And, to top off the intimidation/weirdness factor, the bodies of six cobras protruded from the back behind the woman from between the massive set of wings.
[Sphinx]
[Type: Rock/Ground]
"Ooooooo!" Sylph exclaimed, flying up to the monster in excitement. "Are you Sphinx?"
"Indeed," the queen-class monster replied. "I am the master of the Pyramid. I am the judge that watches over the deaths of those who would attempt the Dragon Seal Trial."
Hearing this, Kevin sized her up. "So, you're the final judge of this stupid trial?" he asked.
"Correct," she nodded, pointedly ignoring his insult. "If I deem you unworthy, I shall swallow you whole."
The boy's eyebrow twitched. "Okay, first of all: threaten me again and I will drown you and every other monster in this building. I don't care what your position is or how powerful you are. I will kill you," he warned her, intentionally releasing more magic than usual to prove his point.
Feeling the amount of power suddenly pouring out of the small boy, sweat suddenly soaked the back of Sphinx's neck. "Duly noted," she nodded, not allowing her nervousness to shake her visible composure. "I'm used to intimidating the humans who make it this far, you see, and didn't mean to offend you."
"As long as you understand, I'm willing to let it slide," the teenager replied, slightly calming back down. "Secondly: I'm not the one taking this trial. After hearing the explanation from this idiot –" he gestured to the still-sleeping Sara. "– I've come to the conclusion that it's just as useless as the last marriage trial I was convinced to help someone with.
"And finally," he continued, throwing Sara's body between them. "She's the one who's taking the trial. I'm just here to make sure she doesn't die. If you eat her, I will not hesitate to cut off your arms, legs, wings, and those snake heads, and shove them all down that lion head's throat."
To say that the monster was put off by this statement would woefully undersell how worried she actually was. "Who is this woman to you, that you would go to such lengths to protect her?" she questioned.
Glancing down at the now-stirring princess, Kevin shrugged. "She's the person whose father owes me a mountain of chocolate."
"You…" Sphynx paused, trying to understand what she just heard. "You would go so far as to mutilate a Queen Class monster for something as simple as chocolate?"
"Bitch, I almost killed one of the Four Heavenly Knights for knocking a chocolate bar out of my hands," he deadpanned. "The only reason she's still alive is because the Monster Lord stepped in and bribed me to let her go. Otherwise, I would've mounted her head on a wall and used the rest of her body to make a pair of nice dragon scale boots."
After over a thousand years of life, and almost that long of overseeing the Dragon Seal Trial, Sphynx liked to think that she was good at reading people. That's why she started to feel a whole new level of dread upon the short boy's statement, as she saw that he was telling the truth. If the Monster Lord herself needed to step in just to stop him, what chance did Sphynx have of surviving his wrath?
Not to mention that he had one of the Four Spirits traveling with him. She'd seen how the being she could easily identify as the Wind Spirit rode around on his shoulder as he had traveled through the Pyramid, and even overheard the boy talking about how they were married. Pushing her luck with these two unassuming, yet overpowered, individuals was something she absolutely COULD NOT afford to do.
"You have my word that she will not be killed," she acquiesced, bowing her head.
It was at that time that Sara had finally regained full consciousness. Standing up, she looked around at their surroundings, surprised that they were already at the deepest part of the Pyramid. She also felt a lot of pain in her spine and the back of her head, but set that aside as soon as she spotted Sphynx.
"Sphynx!" she exclaimed, taking up a defensive stance. "Are you my final opponent for the trial?"
The monster shook her head. "It is not possible for a mere human to beat me. It would be a pointless trial if the final task was impossible. "
"What am I supposed to do then?" the princess asked, her posture relaxing slightly.
"The final trial is a test of your mental power," Sphynx declared. "You must answer my riddles. I prefer the wise. Fools deserve to be nothing but food."
Off to the side, leaning up against one of the pillars with his Spirit companion once again resting on his shoulder, Kevin let out a sigh. "She's fucked, then."
"Completely screwed," Sylph nodded in agreement. "You might as well step in right now."
"YOU DO KNOW I CAN HEAR YOU, RIGHT!?" Sara shouted over at them, her irritation at their insults finally reaching a breaking point.
Kevin tilted his head to the side. "Obviously. We said it out loud for a reason, after all."
Seeing that she wouldn't be getting any positive reinforcement or any kind of assistance from them, the princess turned back to the Sphinx. "Just ignore them. I've studied a lot growing up, so this should be easy."
"Very well then," the monster nodded. "Now, I ask of thee: What walks on four legs at dawn, two at noon, and three at dusk?"
Even in this world, that riddle was so well known that even most children would know the answer. As such, Sara confidently answered. "A human."
"Four as a baby crawling, two as an adult walking, and three as an elder supported by a cane," the Sphinx nodded. "You are correct."
A brief moment of suspenseful silence passed before she continued on. "Then we shall proceed with the next question: Why am I asking you riddles?"
Sara didn't answer for a few minutes, sinking deep into her thoughts. How was she supposed to know why the riddles were being asked? Was it to gauge her intelligence? Or maybe determine her point of view? There were so many answers she could give that she was completely stumped.
The contemplative silence would've gone on for longer if Kevin didn't mumble to himself under his breath. "It's probably because she's been doing this for so long that it's become a bad habit."
Overhearing this, the Sphinx actually started to laugh. "Hahahahaha! That isn't quite the answer, but I shall accept it. Perhaps it is a habit after hundreds of years."
The princess was broken out of her thoughts by the monster's laughter, and was a bit confused by her statement. It took a few seconds for her to conclude that Kevin must've said something that entertained the Sphynx enough to accept it in place of the actual answer.
"Now, the final question. In other words, this shall decide everything," the Sphinx continued. "Why are you taking this trial?"
It took a few seconds for the question to register in the human girl's mind. Why was she here, taking the trial? It was for love, right? Or maybe it was for her own selfish desire to be with Granberia? Either way, she didn't think the Sphinx would accept either reason.
Putting aside her fears, she spoke up. "I'm sorry, but I can't give a good reason. I'm just doing this to get closer to the one I love." The Sphinx continued to stare at her, leading her to slightly lose her cool. "What? Is that not good enough? Would 'for honor' or 'for justice' have been better?"
Instead of reprimanding or discouraging her, the Sphinx smiled. "Why would you hesitate to answer with that? This Dragon Seal Trial is intended to be for the marriage between man and monster. However, none have attempted it thus far with that as their reason. So far, the desire for the riches contained in this Pyramid have been their goal."
Kevin's ears perked up upon hearing this, and his eyes darted over to the Sphinx. "Wait…there's actually money in here? I thought this place only existed for the trial."
"Are you truly taking this trial in the name of love?" the Sphinx continued, once again ignoring the boy. "'Four legs at dawn, two at noon, and three at dusk.' That is a human. Nobody actually thinks about the meaning of this riddle. Attempting to marry a monster…do you not realize the fatal flaw? The short lived nature of man?"
Sara's eyes widened. "In other words, even if a human marries a monster, they will never live as long as their partner?"
"Correct. It is inevitable that the monster will be forced to watch their partner die. The human may have had a satisfactory life, but the monster will be forced to live on, separated from their love for far too long."
"Well…that…" the armored woman stuttered, before coming to a sudden realization. "Wait…are you talking about yourself?"
The Sphinx didn't answer for a few moments, but eventually did reply. "A thousand years ago, I loved a human. He was the Hero Sabasa, the Emperor of the Burning Sands, and the first King of the Sabasa Kingdom. Our child became the next lord of Sabasa Castle, and for generations the descendants of our child have ruled over this land."
She paused. "My love slowly aged, and I could do nothing but watch him die. I wanted to use my magic to turn him into a monster to prolong his life, but he refused. He wished to face his death as a human. We were together until his death. Then I was alone.
"It was possible for me to die as a human, as there is a power in this world that can seal a monster as a human. If I used that, I could have met death together with him. But I didn't. I was scared of death. If my love and both died, none would remember him in this world. Having every memory of his vanish from the world terrified me. Thus, I was separated from my love by death. For a thousand years, I have been alone."
The atmosphere of the chamber had become somber. "For one who loves a monster, the true trial is ahead," she concluded. "That is all I wished to say."
"I understand," Sara nodded. "I will never forget your pain. When I'm bound together with Granberia, what will I do? When the time comes, I won't forget this."
At this confirmation, the Sphynx's melancholic smile turned more light-hearted. "You two have passed the trial. Now, I shall present you with proof of your accomplishment!"
"Wait…two?" Kevin asked.
His answer came in the form of a small emblem of a dragon suddenly appearing and floating over the back of his right hand. After a few seconds, it disappeared, leaving a mark in its shape on his skin. While Sara was equally surprised, and shouted upon receiving a similar brand on her hand, her expression wasn't nearly as stormy as Kevin's was becoming.
"That is the Dragon Seal for which the trial is named after," the Sphinx explained. "It will prove to any member of the dragon races that…you…um…" she trailed off upon seeing the way Kevin was staring at her.
What kind of stare was he giving her, you may ask?
Why, of course it was one full of murderous intent!
"Remove it or I will gut you like a fish and display your bones and organs on the outside of this Pyramid like ornaments on a Christmas Tree," he growled, approaching her with malicious intent.
***
{Author's Note}
And that's a wrap! I'm hoping that once again leaving a cliff hanger will help me out!
DISCORD LINK: https:/ /disc ord.gg/3 CBazz8 C4H
As always, comment on the paragraphs and the chapter itself. Try not to be a dick, memes are appreciated, and correct my grammar so I can fix it for future readers!
See you later!