Chapter 3

I was beyond exhausted. This whole hiking trip had been a disaster from the beginning. It wasn’t my kind of trip anyways. The fact that I had been coerced to come on this excursion still made me froth in rage.

“It will be fun!”, they said. It totally wasn’t. I had never been involved in such a tedious undertaking in my life.

“The place we are going to is beautiful!”, they exclaimed. I still failed to grasp the idyllic charm of this sandy hill that just blew up dust when a breeze passed through.

“It will help you become more social. You always say how you feel you don’t belong in a group with your classmates. This will help you make friends.” I totally felt unwanted in this setting, as the various cliques had totally excluded me from their groups. It wouldn’t have surprised me if the only reason I was there in the first was to make up some sort of cost difference that might have been holding up this trip. After all, these so-called ‘friends’ had gone and convinced my father to part with some extravagant amount of money for me to go along with them on this stupid trip. Curse of having rich parents, it seemed to me right now.

I trailed behind the group of twenty-seven other people while they were busy making plans about what they were going to do when they reached the summit. One of the boy’s uncles had a cabin that had been granted to him for use and he was busy describing the cabin’s beauties to some girls who were hanging on to his every word. I could barely contain my self from rolling my eyes when I heard about the ‘jacuzzi that had been installed just this summer so we didn’t have to bathe like savages’.

We had been walking for more than two hours and the cabin was nowhere in sight. It wouldn’t have surprised me if the cabin was just a figment of imagination that was being used to get into the girls’ pants. We stopped for a break near a large oak tree and the group set up blankets and chairs to have some sort of a makeshift picnic.

I noticed a weird pattern while the food was being distributed. I was the last one to be given any food item. It wasn’t because I sat at the end of an imaginary line or arrangement or anything but I was given whatever was leftover, the bad apples of the lot if you will. And some items, I wasn’t getting at all. It seemed as if they had prepared food only for twenty-seven people. I just hoped that the items I didn’t get to sample gave them food poisoning.

After what seemed to be like an eternity, the picnic was done and everyone gathered all their belongings quickly, excited at the prospect of finally reaching the cabin. Although I didn’t share their enthusiasm, I also couldn’t wait to finally have a roof over my head and probably lie down somewhere. Needless to say, ‘connecting with nature’ wasn’t something I was going to be able to do that day.

It was just after dusk that we finally got a glimpse of the mythic cabin. I had to grudgingly admit that the place was beautiful. One by one, people began to filter into the cabin. Only when about a few boys were left did the host for the evening announce that the cabin would be out of space and some of us might have to spend their nights outside in tents and sleeping bags.

And wouldn’t you know it? Only I was the one deemed ‘unlucky’ enough to have to sleep outside due to lack of space. I could tell that he was lying through his teeth because it was apparent that the cabin could house many more people. He just threw the supplies for the tent at me and with a cocky smirk on his face proceeded to close the door in my face.

I felt myself burning with indignant rage and humiliation as I stared at the door that had just been slammed. The cacophony of noises that I could hear from within the cabin made it even worse as I could only imagine them ridiculing me. Any laughter I heard seemed to be aimed directly at me, at least in my head. I wanted to smash open the door and kick the guy’s ass. But I knew any such effort would be futile.

I proceeded to set up the tent based on what I had seen in the movies and other media. As expected, I ended up doing a terrible job of it. It was only when I entered the tent did I realise that they hadn’t left me any supplies for the night, no food or amenities at all. The rage I felt bubbling at my chest seemed to be clawing out, desperate for release.

Like always, I tried to bottle it down. Any outward display of emotion would only provide more ammunition to the group to continue my humiliation. I was beginning to regret every moment of this trip.

The worst of the night wasn’t yet over though. Oh no, there was much more to come because of course, there was. I hadn’t been in my tent for more than fifteen minutes before lightning started to crackle in the sky. The first sound of thunder startled me to my soul. Before I could begin to comprehend what was happening, rain began to pour heavily and strong winds began to blow, taking whatever was left of my poor excuse of a tent with it.

There I was, wet and shivering all over from the heavy downpour all around, cursing whatever deity was responsible for my fate. That was when a red lightning bolt streaked through the sky, colouring the mountain red. I almost pissed my pants due to the proximity of the thunder, remembering something about lightning striking high places. ‘Nothing higher than a hill’, I thought.

Another streak of red lightning adorned the sky as I ran to the cabin, too distraught to ponder the absurd phenomena. I struck the door with all my might, begging them to let me in. All I got in response was some snickering from the other end of the door. I would have continued knocking nonetheless if a series of characters hadn’t appeared before my eyes.

“Tutorial Complete! Humanity has gained the right to enter the GRAND ORDER!”

That was when the door to the cabin finally opened. It was the host himself, looking at me with the same cocky smirk on his face before his face gained a puzzled look. Before I could enter the cabin though, a bestial roar tore through the air and the cocky smirk I had just been witnessing morphed into a terrified gasp.

I turned around to look at the cause of such a reaction and I felt my heart give way when I saw a creature that could only be likened to a hairy minotaur, a creature from Greek mythology. I rushed to enter the cabin but found myself reeling when I hit solid wood. The bastard had closed the door on me. Before I could recover from my dazed state, the minotaur was rushing towards me.

I tried to get up but it only served to serve up my entrails as targets for its horn. Before I could so much as react, I was impaled by the horn of the minotaur. That wasn’t the end of my predicament, however.

I hadn’t come unstuck from the horn and the minotaur just turned around and ran at a breakneck pace, not paying me any mind. I was only mildly aware of the pain I was feeling in my abdomen as my brain was completely overtaken by shock and pain. The minotaur just ran through a boulder but I was too overwhelmed to notice the pain when my vertebrae pretty much turned to dust.