As soon as the trialmaster announced the start of the 5-minute pre-trial preparation phase, many of the contestants started huddling into small groups, likely discussing and strategizing about their game plan for the trial. As Miri and Anne looked around, they spotted Idris standing nearby amongst the crowd while drinking from his gourd. And given from the smell wafting off of it, there’s a good chance that it contained some sort of alcohol.

  “Umm, Idris, not to be a spoilsport and all, but should you really be drinking at a time like this?” Anne asked with a hint of concern.

  Idris merely shrugged. “Ehh, I get better aim when I’m drunk.”

  “Somehow, I doubt that,” Miri said with a deadpan stare.

  “Well, you’ll change your tune when you see me scoring my rune,” Idris said with a smug smirk. “Probably don’t need the full 12 hours. Hell, probably don’t even need 6 hours either. I reckon I can get my rune and reach the barrier in just 1 hour.”

  “Ooh, that confident in yourself, are you?” Miri said. “How about this? Let’s make it a challenge between the two of us, see which one can get our rune faster than the other? You’re up for it?”

  “Hmm, I kind of like the sound of that, honestly,” Idris said. “Very well, then. If you manage to win, I might just be slightly more willing to consider joining you in a team when the time comes.”

  “Sounds good to me,” Miri agreed with an eager grin, sharing a brief handshake with the laidback archer before watching him depart into the crowd of contestants, still drinking from his wine gourd.

  Afterwards, Miri and Anne began studying the scrolls provided to them in this trial. There were two kinds of scrolls available: one listing all the monsters containing 80 of the star runes and one listing all the riddles hinting to the secret locations of the other 20.

  On the first scroll, which Miri dubbed the “Monster Scroll”, it provided a general list of all the monsters with star runes and the number of runes each of them possessed. In addition, there was also a rudimentary map detailing the general area of where each particular monster might be. Based on the list, Miri knew that there would be two 5-star monsters, three 4-star monsters, four 3-star monsters, five 2-star monsters, and thirty-six 1-star monsters—with each star rating representing how many star runes each monster had.

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  On the second scroll, which Miri dubbed the “Riddle Scroll”, it provided a list of 20 riddles—each riddle supposedly providing a hint to the secret location of one of the riddle star runes. Compared to the Monster Scroll, the Riddle Scroll was notably more complex, even though it contained less information overall. Despite reading through the list of riddles several times, Miri still couldn’t make heads or tails of them. Even studying the riddles from the previous trials did little to prepare her for this as each riddle was secretly packed with so much knowledge relating to the lore of this world that it would take a scholar to figure them out. In her eyes, these riddles might as well be hieroglyphs.

  “I couldn’t make sense of any of these riddles,” Miri said aggravatingly. “Hey, Anne. What about you? Do you have any luck?”

  “Hmm…I think I might,” Anne replied, her eyes lit up with recognition. “I may have an idea as to where one of the riddle runes are.”

  “Wait, really?” Miri asked excitedly.

  “Yes. This one here…number 14. ‘Beware of caps with spots of brown, for it is used to kill the crown’,” Anne pointed out on the scroll. “If I’m not mistaken, this is a reference to the spotted browncap, a type of poisonous mushroom that is widely used as a poison to kill royalty in the pre-Cataclysm era, hence its moniker the ‘crownkiller’. Although its poison is not very potent, it is famously used because it is very difficult to detect with the medical methods of the time, with the symptoms of poisoning being very similar to that of a common illness like a cold or flu. Nowadays, it fell out of favor as a poison due to more advanced poison detection methods. I postulate that I’ll be able to find where these mushrooms are grown, thus leading us to the rune.”

  “Wow, that’s amazing, Anne!” Miri praised. “You nailed one of the riddles already. I know I can count on you.”

  “I wouldn't celebrate just yet,” Anne said. “What I’m suggesting is only a theory. Besides, there’s a chance that others might have figured out the answer to this riddle as well and head to that same location.”

  “Well, in that case, we’ll just fight them over it, no problem,” Miri said confidently. “Alright, so here’s the plan. I reckon that since most of the adventurers are gonna go after the monster runes since, you know, many of them don’t seem like the smart and scholarly type, we should take this opportunity to seize one of the riddle runes while we have the chance. You know, take the road less traveled and all that. And if we happen to run into one of the 1-star monsters, we can take it out and gain ourselves another rune. Once we both get a rune each, we’ll just simply walk up to the barrier and pass our first trial. Easy peasy, lemon squeezy.”

  “Alright, sounds like a good plan,” Anne agreed with a nod. “Let’s stick to that for now.”