Sweat beaded down Zarek's face. His steps sloshed the moist ground beneath his feet, a heavy weight pulling down his shoulders.
He hadn't felt like this from cardio alone in a very long time. But in the last six hours or so, they had easily traveled across hundreds of miles.
Zarek hadn't exactly counted, but he knew his speed and understood his limits. His top speed was probably just high enough to get pulled over on a highway, but he could only maintain that for a minute or two at most without feeling like his heart was about to pump right out of his chest.
He had been forced to maintain around 80% of his speed all this time, and that was already the result of the boy-man being "nice" enough to slow his pace down.
The fact that he could keep flying in the sky for so long without the slightest hint of fatigue made Zarek incredibly wary. There was no way even a B Class could have such endless Godsfall reserves. Something he didn't understand was happening here—potentially a treasure.
But even so, he didn't complain. He reserved his Godsfall, relying solely on his physical stats and continuing to trudge forward. Normally, he would circulate [Limit Break] at the same time, but he didn't understand this world nearly enough to take such a risk.
Plus, [Limit Break] wouldn't be as effective if [Godsfall Eclipse Resonance] wasn't also activated—and given that this was apparently an A Class world, Zarek had no intention of using such a technique.
On Earth, he understood the worst kinds of threats that technique could summon. But in this world, where there was apparently an S Class lurking somewhere, pulling out something like that would be suicide. What if he accidentally called it over?
"We will stop here for the night," the boy-man suddenly said.
The sun had long set, and the air was cooling.
The weather on this planet didn't seem too different from anything Zarek had experienced before. The only real differences were that he could see the blood moons—and, rather, blood moons—even during the day, and the gravity was about 20% stronger than on Earth.
This last detail was definitely the worst, since Zarek had been running all day.
He nodded, huffing for breath. The boy-man glanced at him but didn't say much else.
"Where are you going?"
Zarek had only stopped for half a minute or so, huffing air as if it was impregnated with the best drugs around. But after he was done, he turned to leave.
"Food. Water. I've had neither all day," Zarek said.
"With your strength? You must be trying to die."
After being followed all day, the boy-man was finally certain that Zarek wasn't faking his weakness. He truly was so weak.
Usually, even if you got lucky, one wouldn't be this weak when joining the Hero Trial. It could only be said that Zarek was incredibly reckless—though he had proven that more than once.
Zarek only shrugged.
He had noticed something very interesting over the course of the day. They spoke of this planet like it was some sort of hellscape, but they hadn't fought a single battle in the entire six hours he had been here.
That told an interesting tale—likely that the boy-man had paths planned out with less danger. Or, there was a grace period.
For now, Zarek leaned toward the latter because the boy-man had said that the challenge changed every year, so he assumed that included the location and landscape.
But if it was the former, then it should mean that the boy-man was lying. In which case, that was its own piece of information.
The boy-man shook his head as Zarek walked away. Finding something to eat and drink wouldn't be so easy either. He already had all the food and water he needed for the next three days, prepped and ready, so the route he took was for efficiency and had nothing to do with sustenance or anything of the sort.
"I will set out in six hours at the most. If you are not here, I will not wait for you."
"Gotcha," Zarek said, giving the boy-man a grin and a wink before shuffling away and out of the tree line.
After a day of running, his legs were shot, but the most important point was that the landscape had changed again. From a plain field of tall grass, they had entered a tropical forest that was almost too moist.
The bad news was that this made running even more of a nightmare, as his legs felt as heavy as lead. But the good news was that, at the very least, finding water shouldn't be too difficult.
Zarek moved to the side and pulled down a large leaf.
There was a ton of condensation now, thanks to the shift from the heat of day to the cool night air. With the humidity, many of these large, heavy leaves were covered in water.
He just had to be cautious and not accidentally kill himself with some random disease strain or a thorn of poison.
He had seen a few go out like that before. Life wasn't fair.
But right now, he had no choice but to take such risks.
The drizzle of water felt intoxicating after a day of dry mouth. But it wasn't nearly enough. A single mouthful wouldn't satisfy him, but it could keep him going for now.
'He isn't ordering me around like a servant. I doubt that's out of the goodness of his heart. He's a bit naive, and kind in a relative sort of way, but the only reason he wouldn't bother to force me to make food or prepare things for him is if he already has all of those things prepped.'
'It's also possible that he's overly paranoid that I'll poison him, but if that was the case, he wouldn't have let me follow in the first place.'
'In which case… I'll have to see if I can manage to prep food for a while…'