The Gods are Always Wtaching

A Challenge to Grow

[Congratulations! ]

[You have survived for 5 days inside the Forest of Goblins. You have cleared the dungeon.]

Adam looked at the messages. His heart stopped.

'Wait.. Does that mean it's over?' He started trembling.

'Do you mean... I have to go back now?' He made an expression of horror. He was obviously terrified of going back to the real world, outside of the dungeon.

He started speaking outloud "No I...No I... I don't want to go back! There's nothing there for me! I want to stay here, just, just for a bit longer. Why would I go back there? Not now! It's too soon!"

He started remembering scenes from his life outside of the dungeon. A life he would never get to live again. Faces and smiles he would never see again. Hugs he would never get again.

Adam started crying.

For a moment, he felt powerfull. After beating the boss monster. He felt like he could do anything and everything in the world. He could lose himself in the fighting and the struggle to survive.

But outside of here, he would have to face the losses he suffered.

An image of his lost family came to mind. All of them, lying on a rocky floor, blood flowing everywhere.

He couldn't help it. As soon as that image came to mind he started vomiting and crying.

'What was I doing here? What's the point of all this? Was I...having fun?' He felt guilty, guilty about running away, about thinking of treasures, stats and Gold. Most of all, he felt guilty about being alive. He felt guilty about being the only who got to survive.

Being the only one who got to live, made him feel like he didn't deserve this life.

[ You can exit the dungeon by expressing your desire to do so.]

'Oh... So I can stay for a bit?'

"What...Mmm... What if I don't want to?" Adam asked, with a weak and frail voice, while looking at the ground.

[ You have 24 hours to leave the dungeon after clearing it. If you pass that delay, you will be forcibly expelled from the dungeon. Being expelled from the dungeon will decrease the rewards from clearing it.]

'This, this is great!' Just as he thought that, he felt guilty about it.

He felt guilty about feeling any kind of positive emotion.

'Maybe..Maybe I should've died with them. Mika and Mina were only eight years old. Mother was the kindest person I ever knew. Why? Why am I here when they're not? Am I worthy of being here in there place?'

His previous actions made him more and more certain that they deserved to live more than him.'They...They wouldn't be having fun... They wouldn't have ran away. Something is wrong with me. '

He looked at the dead carcass of the Goblin Chief ' I killed it, and laughed about it. What kind of person does that?' His eyes were tearing up. He fell on his knees.

' How could I forget about everything? I should, I probably should...' He grabbed his dagger with both hands.

'I didn't even look back. I ran away. As if I was the one that really suffered. They died there and then. And all I could think about was myself.I felt terrible looking that way, as if they were monsters. All I could think about was running away. All I wanted to do was forget about them.' Adam raised his dagger towards his neck.

'Maybe it is better this way. I will see you soon Mina, Mika, Mom. Am sorry for leaving you all. That's right, I don't have the right to be here.' His dagger got closer and closer to his neck.

A window suddenly appeared.

[ A Certain Evil has used a substantial amount of Gold coins to issue you a challenge. Will you accept?]

Adam was shaken by the message. He looked at the screen with an emotionless expression before lowering his gaze towards the dagger in his hands. The dagger's tip was aimed at his face. He threw the dagger away and started throwing up.

He kept looking at the message. Unsure about how he felt about everything.

"Sure. If it kills me at least l would  die while doing something..."

[You have accepted the challenge.]

[ A Certain Evil's Challenge [F]

  You have received a Greatsword. Use it and strengthen your will or die.

  Challenge clearance condition: Swing your Greatsword 100times.

  Current number of times you have swung the Greatsword: 0/100.

  Reward: Depends greatly on your actions.

  Penalty upon Failure: (None)  ]

"What is this? Is this some kind of joke?" He said weakly. Even though he said that, he still got up.

"What's the point of this?"

Adam started crying. He cried a lot.

He cried more than he ever did before. Because, deep inside him, there was this feeling.

This feeling stronger than the sadness he was feeling.

This feeling stronger than the anger he felt towards the world.

This feeling stronger than the guilt he felt.

More than anything, he wanted to live.

He wanted to live, even though he felt guilty about being alive.

He wanted to live, grow, learn, explore and experience life.

As he realized this, all he could do was cry.

"Storage" he said while crying.

He pointed to the greatsword inside the cube that appeared on the storage window.

A curved greatsword appeared in Adam's hand. As soon as he grabbed it's hilt, his arm failed to lift it, and the greatsword's tip fell to the ground.

The curved greatsword was about 1.5meters long. It was basically just a bit less long than Adam was tall. It must have weighted 15 to 20 kilograms(30 to 45lbs). It was rusty on some spots but Adam could tell that the material it was made of was pretty good. The sword's hilt and part of the blade were covered by a bloody piece of fabric loosely wrapped around it. It made the sword's hilt more comfortable to handle.

But the greatsword was way too heavy for him to use with one arm.

Adam grabbed the weapon's hilt with both of his hands. He managed to lift it up the ground. It was now perpendicular to the ground.

He tried lowering the blade's tip, in order to take a fighting stance, but that alone was hard enough for him. Just holding the greatsword with both arms, with the blade parallel to the ground, made Adam feel like his arm and shoulder muscles were going to explode. He maintained that position for about 30 seconds, before letting the sword hit the ground.

His face was red, his noise was still runny. But he wasn't crying anymore.

He was weak, and that annoyed him.

There were lots of things he had to think about. Lots of things to process. And he decided to do so while swinging this sword.

For some reason, the instant the greatsword entered his hand, his mind was clear.

After resting for about 15seconds, he took the greatsword back into his hands.

He put his left foot forward and his right foot back, lifted the greatsword using both arms, and held it in a fighting stance.

He started counting"1,2,3..." He wasn't counting the number of swings he was making. He was far from able to swing the greatsword. He was counting how long he could stay in that fighting stance.

"44...fourty fiiiive."He couldn't hold it anymore and let the sword hit the ground.

[ You have gained 1 Strength point.]

He decided to lie down on the ground, next to the greatsword.

After lying down for a bit, he thought 'They did die. I lost my whole family. They were the most precious people in my life. I can't even image a life outside of here without them. But, that doesn't mean I should die right?' A sudden feeling of guilt struck him after thinking that.

He got up and muttered "Nobody loved them as much as I did." , before taking the greatsword between his hands once more.

...

About one hour passed since the moment he received the dungeon clearance notification.

He was now able to hold the sword for about 10minutes in a fighting stance and he had gained 7 Strength Points. At first, he gained Strength Points easily. It wasn't the case anymore as it had been about 15 minutes since he gained the last one.

But, he had achieved the goal he had set to himself. Which was to be able to hold the greatsword in a fighting stance for 10minutes straight.

During that hour, he thought a lot when he was resting and cried a lot too. He still felt very guilty. But he didn't think about dying stupidly anymore.

At the one hour mark, Adam was lying on the ground, looking at the ceiling.

'I wonder if they're looking at me from somewhere. If the dead become angels or demons. Am sure they are part of the angels watching me.' A tear fell down his cheeck. But he was smiling. It was a very sad smile. It was the smile of a heartbroken person. But it was a smile nonetheless.

[A Certain Evil is looking at you.]

"All right, all right. I'll get to it."

After achieving his goal, Adam rested for 5minutes, which was the longest pause he had taken during that hour.

The Gods and Deities would have been very entertained by Adam's training. He was not only growing physically, but also mentally at the same time.

'I guess it's time to attempt swinging this thing.

He got up. Took his stance just like he was now used to. Left foot forward, right foot back. He lifted the greatsword with both arms. It felt a lot lighter and natural than it did an hour ago.

Adam raised his arms and the sword above his head, before swinging it in front of him, as if to cut the scenery in front of him in two.

But the momentum of the sword was too much for Adam to handle because of it's weight. The sword fell out of his hands and hit the ground.

Adam grimaced. He was still far from being strong enough to use the greatsword.

He decided to lie down once more.

'Just how strong was this Goblin Chief? It died pretty easily. I guess it was extremely strong but it's Agility stat and Sense stat were low, probably. It was a bad match for him. It was obviously meant to be a bad match for the monster. Since what made me the victor was all found in the treasure room. Anyone could have done it. But not everyone would've found the secret passages. Well, I only found them because of the First Pioneer title. A title that I got after finding the Hidden Location. Which I only found thanks to the sleeping skill. But all this happenned because I ran away. All of this happenned because they died. Because of their death, I grew much stronger.' Tears were flowing out of his eyes.

'Even in death, I owe them my life. I'm sorry, I'm sorry Mina, Mika,Mom. Am sorry for thinking that I deserved to die. Am sorry for thinking  that that is what you would have wanted.' It struck him like lightning. He got up quickly before realizing, there was something he had to do. Something he wanted to do but hadn't done. He looked around, not too sure how to do it.

He decided to take his greatsword with him into the center of the room, where it was the darkest.

He piercied the ground with the sword. The greatsword stood there. He took a step back, and got down to his knees and held his hands together.

He started praying for his family.

He prayed for their forgiveness, for them to be at peace and for them to guide him.

He prayed for about 30minutes. During most of it, he was crying.

"I hope you will all cheer me on from heaven. I will do my best to survive and live a good life. It feels selfish to say, as if I am lying to myself to justify my actions, but I deeply believe that that is what you would have wanted me to do." He said out loud while wiping his tears.

"I am sorry that I couldn't protect you. I am sorry that I can't be with you. I will do my best to live a life that you both , Mika and Mina, would admire. I will do my best to be the type of person about who you would brag about in school, saying {This is my brother!} with a smug face. Mom, I will do my best to make you proud." As he finished his prayer, Adam was crying and laughing at the same time.

He openned his eyes and took the blade out of the ground.

His eyes portrayed confidence and determination. Like he had been reborn.

[A Certain Evil is very slightly pleased by the look in your eyes.]

"Very slightly? Aren't you a difficult one to please?" Adam smiled while saying that.

Although he wasn't in denial anymore, he was still very much in pain. But at least, he was now healing.

[A Certain Evil chuckles at your response.]

"Oh? I didn't know we could converse like this."

[ A Certain Evil says that , for the duration of the challenge, only him can watch your actions and send messages.]

"Alright. So you're A Certain Evil? Don't you have a name?"

[A Certain Evil says that he doesn't need to show others his name.]

" A Certain Evil makes you sound like a random evil you know?Like a weak one with no name."

[A Certain Evil agrees with your thought.]

"Are you a random evil? A weak one with no name?"

[A Certain Evil chuckles at your ignorance.]

"What? What's funny about that?"

Adam got no response.

" Am I wrong?"

No reponse.

Adam scratched his head. 'Weird.Anyway let's get back to it.' He thought.

He looked in front of him. A single window had been floating there the whole time

[Current number of times you have swung your greatsword: 0/100]

Adam took his stance. He raised his greatsword above his head. And slowly lowered it . He followed the motion of a sword swing. Except that he swung the greatsword extremely slowly. His face was red and veins were popping on his arms, forearms, shoulders and neck.

He managed 4 slow sword swings before letting go of his greatsword. Each sword swing took about 5 seconds to perform. His abdominal muscles were killing him, as they were used to stabilize his stance.

He looked at the window in front of him.

[Current number of times you have swung your greatsword: 0/100]

'Guessed as much. These don't count as real sword swings.' He sat on the ground.

'Mmm... Each slow swing takes me about 5seconds. So if I shoot for 100 straight slow sword swings, that would be a set of 500 seconds so between eight to nine minutes of sword swinging. Alright let's go for 6 of them this time.'

Adam kept going that way. Always trying to do a bit more slow sword swings than he did the time before. Alternating between swinging his greatsword and resting.

Two hours later, he finally achieved his goal.

"98....99....100." His sword fell to the ground and he too collapsed.

He was too tired to continue. He immediatly fell asleep.

Adam woke up 30 minutes later. He felt refreshed and he felt his endurance was completely recovered and he felt no soreness from his muscles. Obviously, his Sleeping Beauty skill was to be thanked for that.

[A Certain Evil says that sloth is a deadly sin.]

Adam answered in his mind 'Shut up! You think I'll answer whenever you send a message? I can ignore you too! And I was recovering. Sleeping for recovery doesn't make me lazy!'.

He got up and stretched his arms and neck for a bit.

"Performing 100 slow sword swings was pretty brutal. Should I really go to the next phase when I passed out right after completing the prior one? Stats."

The window appeared in front of him.

[      Stats: Strength: 32(+17)

                  Agility: 20(+2)

                  Sense: 23

                  Vigor & Endurance: 20(+2)

                  Unused stat points: 12

]

'Yep, so I didn't lose count. 7 Strength Points gained during the whole holding the fighting stance phase. And then 10 Strength Points gained by doing slow sword swings. And then some endurance since I was driving myself to exhaustion before resting and doing it again. And finally some Agility Points, probably since I need to stabilize my whole body in order to swing the greatsword so that I do not fall forward of backward .'

Adam's Stength Stat had basically doubled from the rigorious training he had been following. Although he won no Experience Points from training, it was still very much worthwhile.

"All right. Let's give swinging the greatsword a go once again."

He took his stance, lifted the weapon, and carefully swung it in front of him. To his suprise, it didn't fall out of his hands.

It finally happened.

[Current number of times you have swung your greatsword: 1/100.]

Adam let go of the greatsword. He felt very happy. His efforts were not in vain. He was much stronger now than he was before.

'If Mika and Mina were here, they would probably be jumping around everywhere cheering me on.' Thinking that, Adam smiled.

For a moment, he felt lonely.

[A Certain Evil congratulates you on your miniscule victory.]

"Haha, sure. Thank you." Adam smiled genuinely.

Adam proceeded to take the greatsword once again in his hands.

He swung it with all his strength. It still didn't fall off. He felt ecstatic.

Adam swung the sword three times before putting it down.

'Alright only 96more times...wait...what?'

He looked at the window in front of him.

[Current number of times you have swung your greatsword: 0/100.]

"You don't mean... Are those 100 consecutive sword swings?"

[A Certain Evil denounces your lazyness while chuckling at your weakness.]

Adam was annoyed by that. He was still far from the goal. But he also was pretty happy about it.

He kind of liked this training he was going through. It was a bit fun, he thought.

Adam thought about pouring his unused stat points into strength. But he was only getting stronger for the challenge and for fun really. The stat points would be used for the other stats that he felt were more important such as Sense or Agility. He welcomed the inscrease in his Strength stat. But that didn't mean he would become some kind of tank.Plus, training to increase his strength and pouring his stat points into it was overkill. He wanted a balance between the four stats he had.

Adam resumed his training. He kept swinging his greatsword again and again.

Everytime he surpassed his previous record and stopped swinging the greatsword, he had to see the number on the window drop from whatever it was to zero.

It took him another four hours to swing the greatsword 100 consecutive times.

He swung the sword for 2hours, slept for one hour and resumed his training for one more hour before hitting his goal.

[You have cleared the challenge issued by A Certain Evil. Your reward is being chosen.]

[A Certain Evil is slightly pleased by your progress.]

'Wonder what the reward will be...'

[A Certain Evil had decided to use it's authority to award you with a skill.]

'Yes!! I am in desperate need of some good skills.'

[A Certain Evil has used it's authority to give you the skill "Crumbling Touch".]

[Congratulations! You have received a skill. Would you like to view it's information?]

Adam was very excited and answered energetically "Of course!"

[ Magic Skill: Crumbling Touch(active)[B]

When activated, whatever your hand touches shall start to crumble into dust, whether what is touched is organic matter or inorganic matter. The skill's power depends greatly on how high your MagicAffinity stat is. The skill will slowly drain the user's endurance as long as it is active. ]

Adam talked after reading the information about the skill "Mmm...It's pretty ominous. I thought we had a happy time together though. A skill of rank B? Isn't that super strong.... Wait MagicAffinity? System can I use this skill without the Magic Affinity stat?"

[As you do not possess the Magic Affinity, you cannot use Magic, even if you possess a Magic Skill.]

"What kind of bullshit is this?"

[A Certain Evil chuckles at you.]

"Yeah yeah keep laughing. System allocate all stat points to Sense! You'll see I'll get that damn stat in no time."

[ 12 unused stat points have been allocated to the Sense stat.]

[ Your Sense stat has gone above 30.]

[Your Sense stat gives birth to a new stat.]

[You have unlocked the stat Magic Affinity.]

[ Your Sense stat has reached 35.]

[Your Sense stat gives birth to a new stat.]

[You have unlocked the stat Stealth.]

"Two new stats at once? Wait Magic Affinity? System can I use the skill Crumbling Touch now?"

[The skill "Crumbling Touch" can be used as long as the user has enough endurance. Once your endurance points hit 0, the "Crumbling Touch" skill will start tapping into your Health Points to stay activated.]

Adam couldn't help but scratch his head. "Did you know I was going to unlock the stat by using my stat points?" He asked, waiting for a response. But none came. Instead,

[The challenge has ended. Other deities and gods can now watch your actions.]

[Many Deities and Gods are curious as to who issued a challenge so soon in the First Phase.]

'All right let's try this.'

Adam got down on his knees and touched the ground with his right arm.

He thought about activating the skill in his head, and the ground under his hand started to break.

After about five seconds, a hole could be seen. The rocky floor under his hand was turned into dirt.

Adam thought for a bit, before advancing towards the Goblin Chief's corpse.

He touched the Chief's chest and as soon as he thought about using the skill, half of the corpse was turned into dust. A second later, the whole body was no longer there. Only dirt and dust remained.

'This is...amazing, and scary, very scary.' Adam felt sleepy right after that. He didn't know that, but his control of the skill was as low as it could be. His endurance was currently at 5/160.

When activating the skill, it would directly activate to it's maximum capacity. Only by increasing his control over it , will Adam be able to use it freely.

Therefore, too tired to do anything, Adam moved away from the dirt and dust before lying down to sleep. He slept much more peacefully than he did before. Although he always slept peacefully thanks to the Sleeping Beauty skill.

He woke up 2hours later, his endurance was at the maximum, 160/160.

"Stats" Adam said, while rubbing his eyes.

[      Stats: Strength: 40(+8)

                  Agility: 24(+4)

                  Sense: 35(+12)

                  Vigor & Endurance: 25(+5)

                  Magic Affinity: 5

                  Stealth: 5

                  Unused stat points: 0(-12)

]

'Mmm so new stats start at 5.'

"How long before am expelled from the dungeon?"

[ Exactly 13hours and 25minutes.]

"Did the monsters disappear?"

[No. The inhabitants of the dungeon are still in it.]

Adam took his greatsword and planted it into the floor once again. He kneeled and prayed for his family for 10minutes before getting up. He put the greatsword back into his storage and picked up the Old Assassin's Dagger that he had thrown. It was still at the center of the room.

"All right. Let's clean up this dungeon before closing time then."