A few days had passed since my little stunt with Q, and the Abyss guild had done an admirable job getting Pandora’s situation back in order. Jae-Hyun and Marcus did the heavy lifting, of course, what with having many a late-night meeting discussing the merits of each of the five city-states that we could incorporate into our own, but ultimately they made their decision and chose the one with the most survivors. Apparently, the quality of the bottom five was so low that it didn't really matter which one they chose, so quantity was the only thing that was important here. It was also, coincidently, the one that the people I had faced off earlier belonged to.

  I was also pleasantly surprised to see that I even recognized a few of the faces in that city when they all transferred over, those having been the ones who went off into the forest to look for their friends. Most notably, there was that Alexis woman within the survivors, the one who was able to track my progress, and even more surprising was that Benjamin had somehow managed to make it out. Those two would be people to look out for, and it was all too fortunate that they didn’t recognize me in my human form. Huh, Noe really did manage to save a few of them with her little hacking stunt.

  “As if that was ever in doubt, my Host.” Noe quipped.

  I smiled. Never.

  Originally, we had wanted to head to the beach after a few weeks to settle down, or at least get the new members of Pandora organized, but we had expedited that process on account of my so-called “contract”. My friends reasoned that they didn’t know when I’d be called for a favor, so they wanted our vacation pushed forward to ensure that I didn’t miss the one chance to relax. I mean, I wasn’t going to disagree with that. I really needed a break after everything that happened.

  All in all, what this rushed schedule meant was that our beach trip would be a bit shorter than planned, but here I was, relaxing on a beach chair with a glass of chilled champagne in hand, enjoying the sun. I’ll hand it to Noel, she really did find the best spot for us to stay in. Well, it would be great if you ignored the monster corpses that sat a few hundred feet away in any case. Noel was still in the middle of cleaning that mess up with her weird shadow fire.

  I should have expected that this place would be infested with various creatures this far out from the outskirts of Pandora. We encountered an entire village/settlement of vaguely humanoid cannibal things here, but I didn’t need to even act. Noel and Vadeem made short work of them all in under 5 minutes.

  “Oh, I can get used to this life…” Vadeem muttered in utter contentment.

  The big man was by my side tanning on a beach towel - the chairs being way too small for his bulk now that he's somehow gotten even larger - and didn’t seem to notice the twins plotting to bury him under a pile of sand. Given his gargantuan size, it'll be quiet the excavation effort on their part. Yoona was nearby, forcing her brother to actually relax for once, much to the Regressor's confusion, while the creepy father was content to just stare at us in his seat. He was practically a statue, but no one seemed to mind. I chose to ignore him as well for the sake of my own mental health.

  “Yeah,” I mumbled and I closed my eyes. “Been way too long since I could just relax.”

  Yoona jogged over to join the two of us after she had successfully convinced Jae-Hyun to rest... which really just meant having the poor guy sitting down doing nothing. He was fidgeting like a drug addict in the throughs of a severe withdrawal session. Poor guy didn't even know how to rest properly.

  “Speaking of," she said, "I don’t think I’ve ever asked you two what you did before all this. I mean, not the details at least.”

  “Ah,” Vadeem said, “That is true, young Yoona. I suppose we’ve all been too busy to talk about our lives before all this.”

  “But it will be important,” Yoona added, “Has my brother told you about what the next Trial is like?”

  “Huh?” I muttered, “I haven’t heard anything. What about you, Vadeem?”

  “I think he might have said something in passing, but I don’t know the details.”

  Yoona sighed. “There Jae-Hyun goes ignoring the important things again. I’ll have a talk with him later.”

  “So what is it about?” I asked.

  “We’re going back to Earth.”

  Vadeem’s entire body language shifted then. He bolted upright, almost destroying the pile of sand the twins had accrued. “What do you mean?”

  The twins glared at him for a second before proceeding to speed up their digging efforts.

  “Oh, um, we’re being sent back to Earth for the next Trial, to protect it from those invader things we saw at the beginning, remember?”

  “Damn,” Vadeem grumbled before settling back down. “I’d almost forgotten. I half thought that video was just a propaganda piece.”

  "It's real, unfortunately..."

  “So what do we do?” I added, “Just go out and destroy those alien things?”

  “Hold on,” Yoona interrupted, “I think it’s best for my brother to explain.” She turned to the Regressor and the others. “Jae-Hyun, I think you should come explain the next Trial. Noel, Marcus, I think you should come and hear it too.”

  The Regressor nodded briskly and jogged over, some light returning to his eyes now that he saw an opportunity to do some work again. The others followed over shortly.

  “Sorry, I should have told you sooner,” he said.

  “Eh, it’s okay,” Noel shrugged. “Totally understandable with the stuff going on. Heck, Vadeem probably forgets his own name if he works out too hard.”

  “Big muscle isn’t that stupid!” Ana growled.

  “Probably…” her sister added. "Maybe..." She shook her head and gave Noel a defiant look. "Big Muscle is only slightly stupid!"

  “Anyway,” Jae-Hyun continued, “What Yoona said is correct; we’re heading back to Earth to defend one of the cities. In fact, all of the Aspirants will be heading back this time.”

  “So like, we’re there to repel those space invaders?” Noel chimed in. “Do they come down in neat rows that we can shoot down?”

  Vadeem rolled his eyes. “And she says I’m the stupid one!”

  If you discover this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation.

  “No, Noel,” the Regressor sighed. “But we do have to repel them. Once again, the city that does the best will be rewarded, and any team that fails to defend their territory will be, well, I’m sure you can work that out.”

  Yoona winced but didn’t say anything else. The girl had grown.

  “And do we get to choose where we go?” Vadeem added, his voice cold.

  “We do," He gave me a quick glance before continuing. "A part of Walter's... contract, means that we can choose first."

  The others frowned but didn't say anything else. We've all agreed that we should avoid talking about that as much as possible.

  The Regressor continued. "But before you ask, your family will be transported to any location we choose, so you can rest assured that your wife and daughter will be safe regardless.”

  The big man nodded and calmed down. I think he was the only one here with any strong ties to the outside world, now that I thought about it. Noel and Marcus, as far as I can tell, didn’t have living relatives around, and the Regressor and his sister were the only family they had left. It goes without saying that I had no one especially important waiting back on Earth, and the twins weren’t even from this Earth. That just left Vadeem.

  “And I’m guessing you have an idea of the location we want?” I asked, even though I was quite sure of the answer already.

  The Regressor grinned. “I have some ideas, but I can’t be certain until I get a sense of our resources first. Some of the best spots would be a deathtrap if we don’t have the resources to hold it. Part of the tests is to see what the Aspirants choose. Too large an area and we're doomed to fail, but too small risks placing last and dooming the whole city. It's a tricky proposition.”

  "It's always tricky," I sighed. “but I guess that means you’ll be doing the hard work again this time.”

  “He will not be alone in this endeavor,” the Father said for the first time. “The young Yoona and I will ensure that our leader does not overwork himself.”

  “Thank you, Marcus.”

  Noel sat down next to the twins and started the tedious process of burying Vadeem under the mountain of sand. “Anyway, enough talk about work! We’re here to relax, not plan for the next stupid Trial!”

  “Right, sorry,” Yoona whispered, “I’m still a little tense from… never mind.”

  “You were asking them about their lives from back home, right?” her brother added, helping the girl out. “To be honest, I don’t know much about everyone here either.”

  Noel frowned. “But you’re from the future, don’t you know everything?”

  “A lot of you guys weren’t around for long..."

  Yoona’s frown deepened. “But that’s not going to happen again, so stop that, brother!”

  “Right,” he shook his head and smiled. “It’s not.”

  “But surely some of us stuck around long enough, eh?” Vadeem added, pointing to the redhead. “I mean, I can’t imagine Noel kicking the bucket anytime soon.”

  “And Vadeem’s too stupid to die unless maybe they ban lifting weights in the future, in which case he’d be totally dead.”

  That got a rare chuckle out of the Regressor. “No, you two made it quite far down the road. But the world I came from… it was different. We never had the chance to just chat like this. We talked strategy, about war and conflict, but this?" He shook his head. "We weren't a team, and we paid the price for that oversight. There is no victory in this damned Ascension process without teammates, that I know for sure.”

  “Sounds like a crappy future then,” Noel mumbled, “Good thing you got us this time! We can hide behind Vadeem if things get too rough! I bet even a dragon's gotta take a minute to carve through his stupid muscles.”

  "Ignoring what the dumbass is saying... I think Jae-Hyun is right; we must do more get-togethers in the future!" Vadeem said with a bright smile. “Well, it’s a bit late for self-introductions, but better late than never I always say.”

  “Oh oh, let me start!” Noel offered with a raised hand. “I’m Noel, and I’m an alco-”

  “Let’s try to be serious for once, Noel,” I chimed in before she could go off on another one of her inane tangents. "This is a rare moment we're having."

  “Boo, it’s like I’m the only one who’s fun around here!”

  “Let me start,” Vadeem offered with a chuckle. “As you know, I worked as security back home, immigrated to the States, oh, twenty-odd years back, and you guys all know about my wife and daughter.”

  Well, I guess he wasn’t technically lying about the security detail, but I was sure that he was leaving out an awful lot. Then again, judging from Yoona’s slight nod, she was content with the explanation. Judging from the way that Vadeem was explaining things, I guess he wasn't going to tell us the full story to the high schooler, even if she's matured quite a bit. Some things about close friends are better left unknown.

  “And I know this idiot,” He pointed to the still pouting Noel. “because we’ve contracted her work before.”

  “Speaking of,” Yoona added, “What did Noel do? I was never able to get a clear answer out of her.”

  "More like no one can imagine her doing anything productive," I added with a shake of my head. Noel pouted and poked me in the side, but didn't choose to speak out of turn this time.

  “Oh,” Vadeem laughed, “I guess her job’s hard to explain. My boss worked in the tech and security biz,” He paused for a second, thinking of the right words. “Uh, think the Secret Service but for rich folk and big companies. She’s a subcontractor we hire to test out our stuff.”

  “I get to wreck stuff!” the redhead explained, “I usually win.”

  “So she finds faults in your company’s designs?” Yoona asked.

  “Yeah,” Vadeem nodded. “Like gaps or flaws in our security detail, tech vulnerabilities, oversights, stuff like that. We worked with some pretty high profile clients, so it was critical we made sure that nothing slipped through. Or at least nothing we haven't paid to slip through slips through.”

  I nodded along with the explanation, almost convinced by the way that Vadeem worded it. I mean, I was almost certain I knew what Noel’s true profession was and it seemed like this was the cover they had for her. From the practiced ease that Vadeem told it, it was one that they’d used before.

  “I see,” Yoona whispered, “I was always wondering what she did with her, um, unique set of skills.”

  “Hold on,” Noel muttered, “Bestie, what do you mean by ‘unique’? Don't tell me you agree with my little bro's slander! Not you too, bestie!”

  “Oh, um…”

  Vadeem rolled his eyes. “She means how you’re totally deranged!” He ignored the redhead’s protests and explained, “This idiot's good at breaking things, if nothing else, which is why she was our go-to person to test our security. If there’s a flaw, she’d be the first one to find it.”

  "More like destroy it! Totally awesome, by the way!"

  “Is that how you two became friends?” She asked.

  “Kind of,” Vadeem grumbled. “She was tasked with dismantling one of our new tech, one I developed mind you, by one of our competitors.”

  Yoona frowned and eyed the girl.

  “What? Money’s money! I’m freelance!”

  “And,” Vadeem continued with a shit-eating grin, “she failed.”

  “The only one at that,” Noel added with an exaggerated grimace, “I had a flawless record before that! Stupid muscled idiot broke my perfect record.”

  “Weren’t you mad that he did that?” Yoona continued. “How’d you become friends after?”

  What an… interesting retelling of events. I can safely translate things to mean that Noel was hired to assassinate Vadeem but failed somehow. It was an interesting way to word it, but they weren’t technically lying here either. I bet Yoona wouldn’t be so happy if she heard the uncensored version of events. Father Marcus, true to his usually creep self, nodded along as if he knew the full picture.

  Noel shrugged. “Eh, I was getting bored with easy assignments, so I got curious about who beat me finally.”

  “Yup,” Vadeem mumbled, “She was good; even tried to get me again a few days later.”

  “And I still failed…”

  Vadeem grinned. “So I guess we hit it off that second attempt... or was it the third?" He shrugged. "Either way, we argued a bit, but a little bit of booze and food ironed out any problems we had."

  "It turned out my old boss was setting me up for failure, bestie!" Noel added dramatically. "Oh, the humanity!"

  "Anyway," Vadeem continued, "I was the one to introduce her to my boss after that, and we’ve been in close contact since.”

  “Yup,” Noel added, turning to me. “But enough about us, what about you, little bro? I don’t think I’ve heard anything about your past, now that I think about it.”

  Hm, that was a good question. How what the hell should I answer this one?

  Want to read ahead? Check out my Patreon!

  26 chapters ahead!