Countdown

Failure grins and leans forwards towards the fire. He joins his hands and interlockes his fingers, as his eyes gaze into the flames his pupils dutifully reflect the enchanting light.

"How exactly does your ability grow?"

Kai frowns as the question comes out of Failures mouth.

"Grow? What are you on about?"

Failure waves his hand dismissively and shakes his head.

"Ah, it was a rhetorical question. What I mean is that is is possible for innate abilities to upgrade themselves or even unlock new aspects. Achieving a great feat, putting your life on the line, accidently drinking the blood of a mythical dragon, last one actually happened by the way.

Look at your first aspect for example, it's limit is up to five levels above you, outside the tutorial that is extremely lacking when compared to other innate abilities as what are the chances you'll meet someone your own level. The way it works is sometimes, not all the time, reaching certain levels increases the stats of your aspects.

Aspects that grant five per cent extra Strength at level twenty-nine could give ten per cent at level fifty. Of course this is just an example, someone with that aspect could end up still having only five per cent extra at level fifty, nobody knows how it really works. Well, maybe some gods do, who am I to know?"

Kai stares blankly at Failure a few times, then blinks and asks:

"What do you mean what are the chances I'll meet someone my own level? What level are most people."

Failure shrugs.

"How am I meant to know? I may know a lot here, but this is only a subdimension."

What.... subdimendion? if this forest is a subdimension, how big is the real world?

"What do you mean this is only a subdimension?"

Failure sighs and leans back in the comfortable armchair. He takes a deep breath and begins.

"The world has five main kingdoms, at least it did last time I heard, and countless subdimensions for smaller Gods or kingdoms to rule over. They do have a ranking competition every one hundred years to decide the top five, but I don't know, it's been millenia after all.

There's a group of Gods who organise the summoning of new worlds, then they split the summoned across various kingdoms, empires, cults, pantheons etcetera. Those same Gods then split the work among their attendants, each attendant is assigned a tutorial, and each tutorial has a varied amount of newcomers.

Once the tutorials end, anyone who survives moves on to the main world where they usually get recruited, you probably have a good chance of getting recruited by someone semi decent, so don't worry."

So much information...

Rubbing his temples, Kai reminisces about how remembering things in school wasn't really his strong suit, he was more of a repetitive learner, doing something over and over again until it became muscle memory.

"So I'm in a subdimension which shouldn't really be called a subdimension, Gods created the Flashing and I'm going to get scouted after all this is over."

"Sounds about right, great summary."

Sighing, Kai relaxes back into the softness of the armchair and asks:

"I... don't know what to do with all that so I'll just leave it for now... How did you handle the white room though?"

Failures brow crinkles.

"White room? What do you mean?"

"You know, stage one of the tutorial. You were locked in a white room with absolutely nothing, the first stage."

A frown forms on Failures face as he taps the side of his seat.

"Kai, I never had a tutorial, I was born in this subdimension. I have absolutely no idea what you're talking about, but there's one thing off though."

Failure softly bites his bottom lip, deep in thought.

"Most tutorials only have one stage, or so that's what is said, so you having three is most fascinating. What are they planning..."

Deciding this is too much for his small brain to handle, Kai just waves his hand and sighs. He then brings his hand up to his cheek and leans on it, resting his chin.

"Can we talk about something else? This is all just to complicated and too much to take in in one day, how about a second lesson?"

"If we end up having enough time, sure."

If we end up?

"What do you mean by that?"

Failure raises and eyebrow and smirks.

"My dear Kai, what did you think the countdown was for?"

Now it's Kai's turn to frown.

"The end of the tutorial? Or maybe when the four armed thing is going to attack?"

"Oh, not at all, you think we have another two weeks to prepare? We would be lucky to have another few days. The timer is the countdown for when this world corrodes."

Kai's heart drops.

What? Only a few more days to prepare? Corrodes?

Feeling a headache from too much information coming on, Kai sighs, and for the second time today, he says:

"Elaborate."

Failure smiles sadly.

"The reason every dimension competes for one of the top five places is that subdimensions don't last forever, they are slowly but constantly corroding. The rate at which this world corrodes at is miniscule though, it takes an extremely long time to fully destroy a subdimension.

Being one of the top five kingdoms grants immunity to the corrosion. Well, maybe not immunity, but the corroding pauses. If you get knocked out of the top five though, the corroding continues where it left off and starts to destroy that world again.

This world only has just over two weeks left, that is why it's being used as a tutorial.

Worlds near full corrosion are favoured as tutorials, they are seen as disposable testing grounds for the new recruits. Of course, the leaders of the corroding subdimensions won't give up their world for free, so they give the wolds a chance."

Failure smiles solemberly and looks towards Kai.

"If this world creates a group of worthwhile people for recruitment, the Gods who run the summoning protect the world from the Corroding. The time they protect it for varies depending on the amount of valuable recruits produced, but on average one excellent recruit is worth ten thousand years.

Kai, you have no idea of the true scope of everything going on, and I don't think you ever will. It's the same for me, I pride myself on knowing vast amounts of information, yet in the grand scheme of things I only know a drop in the ocean. You would need an immeasurable Will stat to be able to remain sane after knowing all, even the majority of God's don't even try to comprehend everything lest they lose themselves."

That's... a lot

Failure sighs and composes himself, then continues speaking.

"But leaving that heavy topic behind for another one, the only way this tutorial will save this world is if the Moon Demon dies... or if Aldred dies.

Sure, there might be humans on both sides who end up getting recruited, but it's only the ones on the winning side which would count as excellent recruits.

If you and Noelle survive, and Aldred manages to kill the Demon, that's minimum another twenty thousand years for this world, I'm sure you would both be seen as people with amazing potential. So, Kai, please make sure you don't die."

The flames of the fire don't seem as bright anymore. All of... everything, just seems so overwhelming.

Damn... that's... a lot.

"But what about you?"

Kai asks in a soft tone, but even though he asked the question, he has an inkling that he already knows the answer.

Failure smiles softly, his eyes shimmering with some emotion Kai can't even begin to comprehend. The amount of depth in his eyes feel like a bottomless hole of emotion.

"Just like how the Gods see this world, I myself am disposable, they see me as a pawn in the grand scheme of things."

Failure sighs and his eyes sadden, his green pupils seem to dim as his expression grows somber.

"I'm old... Kai. I've seen a lot, and quite frankly... I'm tired. It's entirely possible I could be wrong... But I think my end is near."

"But I don't want you to die."

A self deprecating chuckle escapes Failure's lips.

"In most cases, selfishness is a virtue, but also a sin. In my opinion, selfishness means you care about something so much you never want to see it leave.

I used to be the same, but everything lost meaning. Aldred is all I have left, and even he is on his last legs. Even though he won the fight against the Demon long ago, he did not escape unscathed.

The wounds bear heavy on his body, weighing him down constantly. Honestly, even I am unable to predict who is going to win the upcoming fight. It all depends on luck, but will it be us or the demon with that luck... only time will tell."

The air has a somber feel to it, the kind of atmosphere that would be there when a mother watches her child go off to war.

"So what now?" Kai asks in a soft tone, looking over at the weary man.

Failure sighs.

"We have to wait, the Demon will have to make the first move. We have many traps set up at the tunnel entrance, so hopefully we can weaken their forces before they reach us."

The situation is looking bleak. While the abominations have countless gibbous moon abominations, the moon beasts have none, but the moon beasts have more quater moon beasts than there is quater moon abominations.

That's... a lot of moons in one sentence.

"How many quater moons would it take to kill a gibbous moon?"

Failure exhales, and shifts slightly, as if calculating.

"It would depend on the beasts. The stags would never be able to kill one unless the fight was ten to one. On the other hand, the wolves could probably win three to one.

The most efficient and cost efficient way would be to mix and match, create various teams for them to fight. What I assume will happen is the war will be split into three sections."

Failure lifts his right hand and holds up a finger.

"One, the crescent moon beasts and the crescent moon abominations, those will be fighting each other on the outskirts as they won't be able to handle the main fight. Some of the weaker humans will probably be in this section too."

Failure lifts up another finger.

"Two, the quater and gibbous moon beasts versus the quater and gibbous moon abominations. This will be the core of the battlefield. Majority of humans will also be here, innate abilities to some extent are able to make up the stat difference. Of course, we won't force any humans to fight in this section... The same can't be said about the humans in the Demons army though."

The third and final finger on Failure's hand is lifted.

"Finally, the outliers. Aldred, the Demon, you, me, and some other humans and stronger beasts and abominations. Anyone who has the ability to turn the tides of the battle. These will be the people to watch out for the most.

An example would be if Aldred were to fall, the course of the battle would change extremely, meaning someone else would have to step up to fight the godforsaken beast. Now Kai, out of everyone you know, who do you think would be able to do that?"

Realisation hits as Kai answers in a sad tone.

"You..."

Failure nods.

"Now, Kai, after getting to know me the last few days, do I look like I would be able to do that?"

Silence.

"I see, so it seems we must do whatever we can to keep our furry weapon of war alive."

Failure gets up off his armchair and walks over to one of the windows facing the cabin, this window facing the cave that brings you to the main forest.

"Kai, do you know why that it is that this world only has two weeks left to live?"

Kai frowns.

"Didn't you just say its because of the corroding?"

Failure nods slightly, but then speaks again.

"In theory, yes, but isn't it a bit odd? You've traveled through much of the forest and have you seen any corroding?"

Huh...

"No..."

"That's because the forest is much to big to simply be corroded, no, it would take much more than two weeks to corrode what remains."

What is he..?

"Ethania's tree is corroding."

A dark tone for a dark sentence.

"And Kai, tell me, what would happen when her tree is fully corroded?"

What would happen? I dont- Oh...

"The moon..."

A weak smile appears on Failure's tired face.

"Exactly, all the trees in the forest would die without the mother tree, meaning everyone will be exposed to the moon."

"But the Dome, the moon wouldn't be able to reach-"

"The moon also damages the ground, the wildlife, it damages anything and everything under its gaze. Inevitably, the roof of the Dome would cave in, meaning this would all be for nothing."

Confusion and worry are the only emotions running through Kai's mind right now, he's too inexperienced to get the depths of danger he's truly in.

"Please, Failure, just what are you getting at?"

Failure turns away from the window, a serious expression on his face.

"We have to win in less than two weeks, otherwise we all die anyway."