Зүүдний Орчны шалгуур

Judging that he had seen everything he needed to, Sunny rose and left the cafe, then headed home. The happy shadow left the premises of the school, unnoticed, and soon wrapped itself around his body... but not before showing how proud and satisfied it was with its flawless performance.

'Yeah, yeah. You did well.'

On his way back, Sunny was thinking over what he had learned about Rain. His sister seemed to be smart and well-adjusted, and receiving the kind of training most kids in this world could only dream about.

But was it enough?

He did not know. No one could know, really.

After he had returned from the Forgotten Shore, several people told him that they would have never survived in that hell. But their words rang hollow to Sunny, because how would they know? Until a person was thrown into a situation like that, there was no way to tell what would remain of their resolve once everything else had been stripped away.

Brave people broke, while cowardly ones found strength that they had not even known was inside them. Kind people became cruel, while cruel people became lost. Only by looking at a mirror of a nightmare could one truly see their real face.

Before Sunny entered the Forgotten Shore, he had thought himself to be strong. But once there, he had to learn the hard way that his strength was brittle and illusory, that it could shatter under the smallest amount of pressure. To survive, he had to build within himself a new kind of strength, one that could not be broken by anything, or anyone.

That was how he had survived.

How was he supposed to know how Rain would measure against the horrors of the Spell? And how was he supposed to make her chances of surviving its trials better?

Consumed by these thoughts, Sunny returned home and tried to put his mind at ease.

This was not something that he could decide in a hurry, anyway. For now, he had many other things to do.

Activating the Dreamscape pod, Sunny climbed inside and closed his eyes.

'Time to relax a little…'

At least out there in the Dreamscape, things were simple. He just had to fight, learn, and win.

…Granted, his previous visit to the Colosseum had turned out to be a fiasco. But Sunny had high hopes for more elite arenas. He just had to gain enough victories to enter them, about seventy more to gain access to the lower-ranked professional dreams.

Not that hard...

He had lost all interest in dueling with amateurs, and couldn't wait to meet better opponents who could teach him a variety of polished styles.

'Ah, better do it quickly.'

Appearing on the sand of the Colosseum, Sunny sighed behind the mask and willed the Soul Serpent to assume the form of the somber odachi.

'Huh… that's weird.'

For some reason, today, many more people wanted to challenge him. A literal crowd of Awakened assembled around Sunny in a span of a minute, staring at him with disturbing intensity. Also, the challengers seemed to be way more talkative…

'What's up with these fools?'

"Hey, Mongrel! What is your real name?"

Sunny stared at the young woman challenging him, then answered with slight irritation:

"Mongrel."

She smiled knowingly, as if struck by a mysterious epiphany, then asked:

"What style do you practice?"

Sunny frowned behind the mask.

"I practice no style."

The girl opened her mouth to say something else, but he interrupted her by stepping forward and activating the challenge.

Two seconds later, the girl's dead body was already turning into a rain of sparks.

'Why are they so chatty today? I don't have a lot of time. If I want to enter a professional arena next time, I have to be fast…'

Looking at the crowd of Awakened, Sunny sighed dejectedly and growled:

"Words are worthless, silence is gold. Don't waste my breath!"

The challengers looked at each other with weirdly enlightened expressions, then grew quiet.

'That's better! At least they're an understanding bunch.'

Now that people seemed to have lost their desire to chat uselessly before every damn duel, things went much faster. Sunny had no plans of copying the styles of these talented amateurs today, so he could be as efficient as possible.

It required him to really exert himself, though. They were all Awakened, after all… each and every one of them. Behind the black mask, Sunny was sweating an ocean and silently whispering curses.

But what could he do? He just had to get it done.

Because he took no breaks between the duels, his reserves of shadow essence grew dangerously low at some point. Sunny was forced to command the Soul Serpent to return to his body to accelerate the accumulation of essence and slow down its expenditure.

Noticing that he had dismissed his sword, the challengers assumed that he wasn't going to fight anymore and sighed with disappointment.

Glancing at them, Sunny gritted his teeth and hissed:

"Next!"

He was not that far from accomplishing his goal for today, and the Mantle of the Underworld was like a weapon itself. Especially if he manipulated its weight to make his blows carry the weight of a mountain… metaphorically speaking…

His aching muscles protested, but he endured the torment and continued.

'Just a few more…'

As the next challenger stepped forward, Sunny dashed toward him, deflected the glancing blow of a spiked mace with a vambrace, and struck the young man in the face with all the strength he could muster. The black onyx gauntlet grew terribly heavy as it flew through the air, connected solidly… and caused the young man's skull to explode, more or less.

Sunny secretly panted and cursed.

'That… uh… I can't keep this up much longer…'

Luckily, he only had a few more duels to win.

About an hour after he had entered the Colosseum, Sunny finally reached enough victories to qualify for a better arena. By then, he was so tired that he felt like throwing up.

'Goddammit… that was incredibly tough. All in day's work, I guess…'

Throwing one last glance at the crowd of silent Awakened, Sunny shook his head.

'What a bunch of weirdos…'

With that, he gave the Dreamscape the command and left the illusion, both exhausted and satisfied with his progress.

…Left alone on the sand of the Colosseum, the challengers remained quiet for a few minutes.

After a while, one of them said:

"He shook his head."

Another Awakened sighed heavily, then said in a solemn tone:

"Yes. We are not worthy enough…"