"I hope that the children are doing okay," said Avela, worry clearly visible on her face. It had already been six hours since her children had been teleported away from their home and sent across the world to fight corrupted creatures. She knew they were strong, and she knew that the people accompanying them were strong as well, but none of that completely removed the worry of a mother who knew her children were somewhere she could not reach. The fact that they had been sent so far away only made the situation worse.
What bothered her even more was the country they had been sent to. The United States was supposed to be a world power, and it was difficult for Avela to understand why her children needed to travel across the world to rescue people who should have been capable of handling their own problems. Even with the entire fiasco surrounding Trump and everything that had happened because of it, the United States remained a country that most people would think twice about crossing. Yet somehow, her children had been sent there because the situation had become serious enough that outside help was required.
"You know that they are going to be okay. We watched them grow up, and there is no one who can easily stop them," said Teun as he hugged his wife. He could feel how tense she was, and he understood why she was worried about their children being in danger without their parents nearby. Still, he did not believe that there was much they could do about it now. Their children had grown strong enough that eventually they would have to face dangerous situations without their parents standing beside them.
Teun had always known that something like this would happen. In fact, he believed it was better for them to experience danger under controlled circumstances than to encounter it later when the Trials became significantly more dangerous. He was under no illusion that the current Trials would remain this safe forever. There had to be a reason the organizers had created a system where permanent death was not currently part of the equation, and Teun had spent enough time thinking about it to understand the basic logic.
The first Trial and perhaps the next few Trials could not simply wipe out their participants permanently. If that happened, Earth would eventually be left without enough humans to fight, develop, and repopulate the world. From the perspective of whoever had organized the Trials, that would make absolutely no sense. A tournament where both sides were practically wiped out after their first participation would be a terrible tournament, because there would eventually be nobody left to participate.
Teun could therefore understand why the current rules were so forgiving. The Trials needed humanity to survive long enough to become stronger and continue participating. Permanent death would eventually become a possibility, but it made little sense to introduce it immediately when the entire purpose was to push civilizations forward rather than erase them from existence. The fact that the current system protected people did not mean it would always do so.
Even the previous Trial had shown how close things could become. Teun remembered that their side had only won because the generals had made the decision that they needed to push the goblins back toward their portal. If they had failed to do that, they would have lost. The investigation afterward overwhelmingly supported the generals' conclusion and even praised them for making the decision when they did, proving that the situation had been considerably closer than some people had wanted to admit.
The generals who had followed the marshals into the field and actually helped lead the army had also been rewarded for their actions. They had taken the risk of entering the battlefield when the governments were weakened and military structures were under enormous pressure. Meanwhile, many of the actual generals from various countries had stayed behind, attempting to pull more power toward themselves while the governments around them were struggling. They had apparently believed that the weakening of their countries gave them an opportunity to strengthen their own positions.
That idea did not last long.
The creation of the various countries as offical factions and with it the return of functioning governments had negated many of their attempts to seize additional power. Once the political structures began stabilizing again, the leaders quickly moved to rein in the military and restore civilian authority. The generals who had actually done their jobs and followed orders were rewarded, while those who had stayed behind and allowed themselves to become fat on their own greed found themselves facing consequences.
Teun did not need to explain what happened to most of them. Their positions disappeared, their influence collapsed, and the people who had tried to exploit the crisis found themselves with nowhere near the power they had expected to gain. The best option one of them had eventually been given was, as Teun remembered it, to rot away in some remote prison somewhere. It was hardly the glorious future they had imagined for themselves when they had decided to put personal ambition above the survival of their countries.
But all of that was beside the point.
Teun understood that someday the Trials would stop being so forgiving. The current rules were designed around humanity's need to survive, but there was no reason to assume that every future Trial would offer them the same leniency. Eventually, humanity might not be fighting various candidate races under relatively controlled conditions. They might instead be forced to fight corrupted creatures, or something else far worse.
Teun did not believe that the Trials would necessarily care that humanity had become accustomed to surviving without permanent consequences. If the rules changed, then humanity would have to adapt. That was why he believed their children needed experience now, while the consequences were still limited. It was better to learn how dangerous the world could be when there was still some room for mistakes.
"I know, but I still don't like the idea that we aren't able to help our children," Avela said, her voice still filled with worry. "And besides, do you see any chance that Arin gets social with people his own age? He barely knows anyone else there."
Her concern shifted slightly as she brought up Arin. The danger itself was one problem, but there was another issue that Avela knew far too well. Arin had never exactly been the most social person, and being thrown into a group of strangers was hardly going to make that problem disappear. If anything, being separated from his family and placed among people he barely knew was likely to make him retreat even further into himself.
"Don't worry. He will be fine," Teun said. "He may not enjoy the company, but he will get over it. Fighting with people will make you close."
Teun did not see the problem. If anything, he considered it a potentially positive development. There were few things that brought people together faster than fighting alongside one another, and Arin was now being given an opportunity to form relationships with people who had similar abilities and goals. Teun could not see why that would necessarily be a bad thing.
While his parents were busy worrying about him, Arin was sitting on top of a house and staring out over the valley. The sounds of fighting could still be heard in the distance, while flashes of light occasionally illuminated the battlefield below. There were not many mages among the people gathered there, but some families did possess them, and the occasional spell could be seen lighting up the valley before disappearing again.
Despite the activity around him, Arin looked rather lonely.
He was sitting on the edge of a fairly typical barn, his legs hanging over the side as he stared toward the fighting below. The position gave him a good view of the valley, but he was not particularly interested in what he was seeing. His mind was elsewhere, and the longer he sat there, the more obvious it became that he was not exactly enjoying being away from home.
"Hey, why are you here moping?" asked a young woman in an upbeat voice.
The voice seemed to appear from nowhere, at least as far as Arin was concerned.
"Oh. Hey, Valentina. How are you doing?" Arin replied without really looking up.
He recognized her voice immediately, which was apparently not the response she had been hoping for.
"Hey, that is not fair! Why are you not surprised?" Valentina asked angrily.
Arin did not even need to turn around to know what her expression probably looked like. More importantly, he already knew that he would not actually be able to see much of her expression even if he did turn around. His familiarity with the Sonnenberg-style clothing made it easy for him to understand how thoroughly she had concealed herself.
Valentina was fully geared in black and gray cargo pants that fit tightly against her body, along with a shirt of the same colors that hugged her figure. She wore a harness filled with various knives and daggers, giving her plenty of weapons to draw from whenever she needed them. Her equipment was clearly designed for someone who preferred stealth and close combat rather than openly confronting an enemy.
Then there was her cloak.
It was made in the same general style as the Sonnenberg cloak, although the colors and pattern were different. Her hood was pulled fully over her head, and a mask covered her mouth and nose. Only her dark brown eyes were visible through the narrow opening, leaving almost everything else about her appearance concealed.
The purpose was obvious.
She wanted to remain anonymous.
Arin knew that Valentina was attractive, or at least he could infer as much from what little he could see and from what he remembered. However, he had not seen her properly in quite some time, and he did not think of her in that way anyway. The concealment made it even more difficult for him to form any real impression of her appearance, since there was simply not enough visible information to work with.
"Hey, what do you expect? Your family isn't the only one who likes to sneak up on other people," Arin said matter-of-factly.
He had absolutely no reason to be surprised by her appearance. Families like theirs had spent generations learning how to approach people without being noticed, and Valentina had clearly inherited that same habit. If anything, Arin would have been more surprised if she had simply walked up to him in the open and announced herself.
The real reason Arin was not particularly enthusiastic about being there had nothing to do with Valentina, however. He had been ordered to become part of the delegation that had been sent away from home to fight somewhere else. He had wanted to protest the decision, but the look on his grandmother's face had been enough to make him shut his mouth before he could even begin arguing.
That did not mean he liked the order.
Quite the opposite.
Arin had been sitting in his own forest, in the place where he belonged, watching over a forest that actually needed his help. The Crimson Forest was his home, and his new Ranger class had only made that connection even stronger. He had an entire forest around him that needed protection, care, and attention, yet instead of being allowed to remain there, he had been sent across the world to fight someone else's problem.
And there was not even a forest in sight.
Arin considered that deeply offensive.
For someone who had spent so much of his life connected to the forest, being pulled away from it and placed in a completely different environment was not simply an inconvenience. It felt fundamentally wrong. He had a responsibility to his home, and now he was sitting on top of a barn somewhere far away while creatures fought below and the forest he actually cared about was nowhere nearby.
That was the part Arin found hardest to accept.
He could understand fighting. He could understand danger. He could even understand being asked to help other people when the situation demanded it. What he could not understand was why he had been taken away from the place where he was actually useful and sent somewhere else when there were already plenty of people capable of handling the situation.
For now, however, there was nothing he could do about it.
So Arin remained sitting on the edge of the barn, staring toward the distant fighting while Valentina stood nearby. His family was probably worrying about him back home, just as he knew they were worrying about the others who had been sent away. The difference was that Avela and Teun could only wait for their children to return, while Arin had to sit through the situation himself.
And he still wanted to be back in his forest.