"You're finally awake."
I watched as my Onee-sama slowly opened her eyes.
I had spent the last 10 minutes performing CPR on her and, well, it was kinda weird.
'Did I just kiss my sister?'
'Nah, nah, nah, it was only a necessary process so that her life could be saved.'
To be honest, I did hate my older sister a lot for abandoning me even two years before I left home, but it wasn't like I could kill her either or watch her die, as family is still family no matter what happens.
But it wasn't like I was gonna help her after this either unless it benefited myself.
"Ugh, what happened?"
"Wait, who are you!"
She quickly scrambled away from me, checking if her clothes were still on her the same way and checking if there was anything missing.
"Relax, jeez, I don't think I'm that scary, and I'm not a loser or a pervert either so you don't have to worry." (A/N: He's referencing the conversation that the sisters had in Chapter 18)
"And why the heck am I supposed to just believe that after you choked me almost to death. Wait, how am I still alive?"
"I had to perform CPR." I replied in the most emotionless way as possible.
I decided that an emotionless approach would be the best way to deal with my old family, so I was going to stick to it.
I watched as her cheeks turned a slight shade of red while she lightly touched her lip with her index finger.
"Yes I had to do what you're thinking, but I would never take advantage of someone, I mean a person thinking with their dick here is bound to die early on, no matter how strong they are."
"Also, I'm way stronger than you, so why would I ever need to take advantage of you when you're asleep? It just makes no sense."
"As if you're stronger than me."
"Well, I'm the player "Anonymous" at the top of the leaderboard with a level of 83 while you're just a lame ass level 39 player. I could literally send you flying with just a mediocre flick from my finger."
Presented with all my reasons, I knew that my Onee-sama would make the logical decision, as she had been taking care of us all that time, and she would always do what was the best for us.
"Alright, I'll admit that you're in the right here, as I was the one that had ill intentions against you in the first place anyways, but after you choked me, why did you revive me again?"
"Obviously because you could be the one holding the flag, so if you died, then we would all lose."
She nodded, seemingly accepting my bullshit reason, as even though it wasn't specified anywhere in the instructions, the flag would just drop after death and the next person that got it would take ownership, so me saying this made it seem like the team would lose if the person holding the flag was killed, but this just wasn't true.
"So, do you want to team up? I mean, we are already on the same team for the trial."
After thinking for a little bit, she said fine and so I asked her if she had found any chests yet, but she unfortunately hadn't.
'Shit, at this rate, she won't survive another day, as that "event" was coming.'
"Come on, let's go find a chest."
And with that, we started walking in the same direction that I had been going since yesterday.
After night fell, I started to get anxious, as we still hadn't found a chest after all this time and if Onee-sama didn't have a weapon by tomorrow, she was as good as dead.
"Here, take some water."
I handed her my waterskin, as her lips had started to look like dried fruit.
She tried to greedily gulp down the water, but I stopped her after the first sip, not caring to explain as that would just waste some of my water. Not even looking at her reaction, I forged forward through the ever so dense sand.
It wasn't until the middle of the night that we finally found another chest.
"You can unlock it."
She glanced warily at the me and then at the chest.
"Don't be that scared, there aren't any traps on any of the chests, it's just that I already have all the weapons I need so you should be the one to get it."
Of course, the weapons I were talking about were my hands and feet, but she didn't have to know this, as the more she didn't know about me, the more of an advantage I would have.
Staring at it for a second longer, she then unlocked the chest and pulled out a battle axe from the inside.
'I guess that would fit her berserker position.'
"We should get some rest now, we can hunker down there." I said, pointing to the side of a sand dune.
Leaning against the dune and watching Onee-sama follow suit, I then glanced down at my clothes.
'Fuck, it seems like the wind combined with the sand as seriously deteriorated the state of my clothes.' I thought, fingering one of many holes in my shirt.
'Well, it looks like she isn't doing any better either.' Although, she wasn't in as bad of a state as me, as she had multiple layers of clothes on, instead of just one thin layer like what I was wearing.
I listened as her quick, fast breaths slowly turned into deep, slow breaths while looking at the night sky. I also then quickly fell asleep.
...
A system notification woke us up the next morning.
[Congratulations for surviving two days in your harsh environment, we will now be implementing the second phase of the trial.]
[Good luck!]
I quickly stood up from my spot and noticed a change in the shapes and structures of the sand dunes.
I motioned to Onee-sama to stay still while I went and checked the disturbances in the sand.
The moment I stepped a foot off my original spot, I noticed the sand shifting, something eagerly coming closer and closer to my position.
Not keeping up pretenses anymore, I yelled, "Get ready for battle."
I watched as the sand started swirling in the middle of our position as the creature kept "swimming" around us in the sand, making us fall towards the middle of the whirlpool.
'Shit, this reminds me of the time when I would throw ants into antlion traps, although now I'm falling into the exact same trap.'
Finally, after a while, the sand stopped moving, but because the sides of the trap were to steep, every time we tried to get out, we would just fall further into the trap.
"Hey, whateveryournameis, hit your axe into the ground."
And right as her axe penetrated the sand, an inhuman scream shook across the trap, while in the middle, a humungous snake-like creature started rising out of the ground.
With a speed that wasn't expected from its size, it quickly pounced at me, the closest one to it.
'Well that was a dumb move trying to come at me first.'
Just as it bit down on my position, I sidestepped it, then stuck my arm deep into its side, running along its length until I reached the tail, effectively splitting the creature in half.
Listening to its dying screeches, I quickly wiped my arm while smirking at my Onee-sama's dumb-founded expression, but then my face hardened again as I heard the cries of many more sandworms nearby.
Using the body of the giant sandworm to get out of the trap, I watched as hundreds or other sandworms revealed their heads from out of the sand, slowly converging on our position.
'Finally, it's time for some blood to be shed." I said while grinning an almost exact same smile as that on the left side of my mask.
'This will be fun.'