"Are you sure you are not deaf? Haven't I already explained that you haven't died yet? Or maybe you are an idiot?" Vyras interrupted in an unhappy tone.
Tirnath is very upset and wants to revile Vyras. But in this domain of Vyras' trials of custodian, Vyras has almost absolute power. 'At least he shouldn't have deliberately harmed me.'
Tirmath sighed and answered while holding back his groan as the next step was no less painful than before. "No ... I just motivate myself ... let me at least encourage myself."
Vyras fell silent for a moment before answering, "After thinking about it, if we ignore the cringiness, your sentence is indeed quite cool."
"Thank you for the compliment."
After some time that felt like forever, Tirnath finally reached the water stream. The flow of the water is quite strong, and the water stream itself is deep, these two things have become an extraordinary danger for Tirnath, who still withstands immense pain. But another danger is that the flow comes from a small hole. This means that if he enters, then he will not be able to take a breath.
"Lord Vyras, is there a time limit for these trials?" Tirnath immediately asked. If he can recover his body, he should be able to complete this challenge. He managed to survive on the boat upside down all night, if he only needed to swim, it would be easy.
"Nothing, but I advise you not to rest for too long. Because the longer you are here, the more difficult it is to adapt to the outside world."
Tirnath immediately felt panicked. What does it mean to have difficulty adapting to the outside world? Tirnath starts thinking of just jumping into the water and swim.
"Chill, I'm just kidding. The impact is only that I will be extraordinarily bored," Vyras continue after a short pause, "and the next trial may be a little more difficult."
Tirnath decided to rest until he could move his hands and feet with all his might. 'I hope this will not take too long.'
Some time passed, and Tirnath spent his rest time pondering his plan if he made it out. Now, his body was a little more comfortable, he estimated that soon he would be able to swim.
"Hurry up, mortal, I'm bored. Or at least monologue out loud so I can hear you. I can't know the thoughts in your mind."
'Didn't you survive for years without other people? Why are you bored so quickly? '
"Because of the courage of your soul that entertains me, it makes me want more entertainment. And as I told you, speak out loud!"
"Didn't you say you can't know what's inside my mind?"
"I can read your face, mortal, as easily as reading a book. But when you daydream and put on an expressionless face, of course I don't know what you think."
'Ahh, so that's how.'
"You talk to your heart again. Ah, never mind, hurry up and swim, your body has recovered, right?"
Tirnath nodded and approached the flow of water. After taking a long breath, he jumped into the water and swam immediately.
He is swimming quite easily. His ability to swim, which is good from the beginning, and adding the boost for the strength from the agreement with Vyras makes it able to break through the flow of water easily.
'But inside here is very dark ... how do I know the right direction?'
He swam and kept swimming. But his breathing was increasingly running out, and his weakened stamina made him even more pushed by the current. He then lost his energy and carried out very fast backwards.
He hit a large rock and lost consciousness. His body was washed away and kept being carried away by water until he returned to its original place. When he had passed where he jumped, finally he opened his eyes.
The bubble came out of Tirnath's mouth when he woke up and gasped panically. He immediately turned his body around to take oxygen before finally being powerful enough to climb back to the ground.
"I guess you aren't cautious, but rather, timid. Next time bring a source of light, oh fearless mortal."
Tirnath then saw some glowing stone roll into the water stream and made the stream at least visible. Tirnath took a big enough stone from around the cave before preparing to swim.
'I guess I have to build something so that my body isn't drifting too far. I was lucky to just hit. What if next I was torn and needed time to return any longer?'
"What are you thinking about?"
"I think to build a safety barrier so that I am not drifting very far in this stream."
"You start using your brain! Good, use it more often, okay?"
Tirnath can only pretend to laugh and start throwing some large stones into the water flow. He was careful about choosing a stone because he was afraid that his stone would be washed away or the stone would actually block the flow of water so that the surface of the water would rise when he swam inside.
With a big chunk of glowing stones in his hand, he once again waded through the flow of water. Fortunately, he brought the glowing stone, because it turned out that this water stream had many debris and obstacles, which, without light, would make him swim aimlessly and, in the end, out of breath.
He now confidently continues to swim. He could hold his breath longer, and his body strength also increased because he was returned from death again for the second time. Now he is very sure he can succeed.
But when swimming, he suddenly found that there was a difference in the current's direction. He also found that water is increasingly and more receding. 'Am I almost finished?'
Tirnath swims with a strong spirit. He continued to swim and swim until he could breathe. "I succeeded!"
"Eh, I think you should pay better attention around."
Tirnath then felt he fell down. At that time he was just aware that he was inside a whirlpool. "No!"
Tirnath tried hard not to be sucked into there. Who knows what fate he will meet if he is trapped in those depths? Will he die and return continuously until he is strong enough to hold his breath for hours? And that is if he is being optimistic, what if he is trapped in a cycle of death and returns forever?
Unluckily, he could not escape. He was caught in the vortex and slammed into the wall several times. Then, not long after, he died.
His body continued to spin inside the vortex until he almost reached the hole that brought him to who-knows-what place. Luckily, before it was too late, his eyes suddenly opened, and he held his body by holding the side of the hole.
Not long after, he felt a hard wave that pushed him out of the whirlpool. After that, he followed the flow of water to return to the surface.
Tirnath panted and vomited a lot of water from his mouth.
"Congrats! You have survived the whirlpool of doom! Good work, mortal. I couldn't wait for what's going to happen next. I'm feeling whimsical right now."
Tirnath ignored Vyras' sarcasm and took time to rest a bit. After some time, he finally asked, "Lord Vyras, could you please give me a clue?"
"Hmm, maybe you should try to use your brain to think why suddenly there is a strong current that hit you? That's all."
Tirnath immediately thought of something. He immediately jumped into the water and swam not too far.
"Let's look at the results of your brain's thinking this time."
Tirnath stopped at a location where he brought the glowing stone near the wall. There he found a random carving. But by using all the strength of his brain, he concluded that this is a map, or at least the pattern of strong currents that suddenly came.
Tirnath returns to the surface, trying to prepare a plan before deciding its movement.
"So what are your plans, mortal? I promise not to change the existing trap."
"It's simple, I will swim at a certain time so as not to be exposed to the current."
"How do you avoid the whirlpool?"
"More or less the same. I'm betting my life that when the current appears, the whirlpool will be a little weakened for a while. So after the current passes, I will swim as fast as possible, as well as when I'm close to a whirlpool."
"Alright, let's look at your experiment this time."
Tirnath then jumped into the water again, but before he could swim, he crashed into the stone barrier he made before.
"You nearly die a ridiculous death, mortal."
Holding pain and embarrassment, this time Tirnath is swimming at certain intervals. Every time there are four small currents hitting him, Tirnath will immediately hide behind the debris and rocks and hold it strongly. And he managed to survive.
He made it through a total of 3 whirlpools of water and 9 strong current waves. It was extraordinary when he could survive in the water for a long time. He lasted around the time needed until a storyteller stopped for a moment, or around '30 minutes,' based on the Vyras' language.
Tirnath finally made it to the end of this water flow. He arrived at a pool of water that was flowed by water from several small gaps that were impossible for Tirmath.
"Is this the place, Lord Vyras?" Tirnath asked after taking his time to manage his breathing.
"Yes, you almost succeeded. But you need to get a relic."
"Relic? What, since the wh- "
"I forgot to tell you. But no worries, you only need to return the water and look for objects like a sword in the water flow. I think you should have even seen it."
Tirnath nodded, agreeing that he had seen the sword. If he was not mistaken, the sword was stuck near a whirlpool.
"No need to be angry, mortal. You can use the sword later, it is a relic that can help your revenge. No need to be annoyed."
Tirnath, who heard the additional benefits of the relic, finally released his frustration. He immediately jumped into the water, and moved quite deeply but was still far from the nearest whirlpool.
Tirnath is waiting for the current of water so as not to experience an error in calculating when the current comes. If he takes the sword when the current comes, then he will be crashed into the whirlpool, and he will die. So he decided to wait.
And sure enough, in the time that is needed to be quite close to the nearest whirlpool, the water current pushes him hard.
'Okay, I have a time needed to sow a handful of seeds. Quite ineffective, Vyras language is more useful. What is it again? 5 minutes?'
Tirnath finally reached the sword and pulled it out. But suddenly the current blows hard. He hit a stone, but fortunately not too fatally. He stuck his sword in and withstood the strong current for some time without stopping.
'Why are the currents getting stronger?'
"Ah, for your information, that relic affects the current."
'Thank you for your information, very timely.' Tirnath cursed in his thoughts.
He was forced to use the sword as an anchor. His left hand grabbed the rocks that could be held, and the sword in his right hand was used to thrust the sword into the ground.
After about 5 minutes from when the current gets stronger, the current returns to being slow again. Tirnath uses that time to swim as fast as possible before returning to thrust his sword again.
Luckily, he was right to assume that the current pattern was swapped. Slow currents will appear every 5 minutes for a short time, replacing the pattern of the strong current.
Tirnath can only be patient and hold himself. After spending some time, Tirnath finally managed to get out of the water stream with the relic sword.
"You will not regret taking the sword, mortal. Because your next trial will make you grateful, I remember to tell you to take the relics."
"Alright," Tirnath answered while nodded. He was very tired and needed to take a break