Is this really a Game?!

"Damn dude, that was something." Said Reign as he landed back on the ground. The huge stone they previously stood on was shattered into pieces by Greenie's attack, the pieces littering the surroundings. The bodies of the sandworms could be seen around as well, most of them were torn in pieces after being caught in the attack while some were still moving, albeit barely.

The worms were a full 4 meters tall, their bodies were half a meter thick and they looked disgusting. Other than their large size, the worms looked just like a normal worms did back before the game, which made them even creepier.

"They've fled, I don't know if more will come later though, let's get away from this place quickly, there are some tall rocks nearby, we can make out shelter inside of them." Reign said as everybody nodded.

Nobody wanted to stay here any longer and risk more worms appearing. They could of course have Greenie take care of them, but what if there were other, more powerful ones amongst them?

They all knew about a particular movie that came out a long time ago and took place in a desert planet that had gigantic sandworms on it. They didn't want to even imagine what would happen if one of those appeared.

Reign and the others quickly made their way toward the larger rocks and started climbing them. With their enhanced strength it wasn't a particularly difficult thing to do, most used their weapons to cut inside the rock and move up.

It was when they reached the top of the rock that they started creating the shelter.

Since there were many worms below the sand, it wouldn't be safe to simply create a cave down at the base of the rock. So Reign and the others started making on from the top of the rock.

They first made a 3-meter deep hole in the rock, the hole was wide enough for 2 people to get in or out at the same time and would serve as the entrance for the shelter.


They started creating the rest of the shelter after that. They widened the hole on the right side and created a large area inside of the rock. The area was about 12 meters long and 6 meters wide, enough to let them all stay there comfortably.

Since there was a hole at the entrance, they needed to make something that would seal it in order for the wind not to blow inside and make it colder. Mia said she could simply freeze the entrance and block any wind, but Reign also thought that they could simply cut off a piece of rock and use it as a door of sorts.

They could simply lift the rock each time they went in or out which would be much easier than having Mia freeze the entrance, then unfreeze it, then freeze it again and again…

As the party made the shelter, evening came. The visibility was not that bad since the moonlight gave them enough light on the top of the rock, but inside the cave they made, it was pitch black, well, it would have been if not for Wolf who was using his ability inside.

After a whole day of moving through the desert and trying to find a good spot to make a base at, they had finally achieved it. They had a temporary base now and surviving would be much easier.

The shelter was built by most of them, they used mana to coat their weapons and had started working on it. Greenie and some of the angels were not able to help since their weapons were simply not made for such things.

If Greenie used his hammer to hit the rock, there was a chance that he might destroy too big of a portion, and perhaps a part of the ceiling would collapse as well. They focused on simply cutting off pieces, well, they would cut deep inside the rock and make cubes that they would then destroy.

Since that part of the rock had been cut, it didn't touch the ceiling, walls, or the ground and so it could be smashed without much trouble.

Of course, it wasn't easy and the two groups worked together in order to make the shelter. It took them about 4 hours to finish the shelter which, although it sounded quick, was quite a long time to work in the desert, even if evening came.

Now came the easy part of the challenge. Since they had a supply of water and a shelter that was quite safe for now, they only needed to get food, which would be meat as there were no vegetables or fruits they could find here in the desert.

Of course, everybody would die out of boredom if they simply stayed inside the shelter all day and just waited for time to pass. They planned on exploring the desert in order to fight and find what the hidden task for the challenge was.

The first time they did the challenge, the hidden task was to climb the mountain before the end of the trial. The second challenge they weren't there, but Mia told them about it.

The challenge took place in the ruins of a city and the teams were supposed to find certain items. There were in total about 500 items they could find and all of them had a slight red hue around them, making it easy to spot them and know what they are.

The hidden task was something that she and the others failed to do during the previous challenge, well, instead of saying they failed it, it was better to say that they didn't find out what the hidden task was at all.

"All hidden tasks should be something that is near impossible to do, the first time it was climbing the mountain and getting back to Drayce before the challenge finished, where was the zone during the second challenge," Reign asked Mia who responded with confusion.

"It was in some sort of warehouse, it was completely closed so I don't know what was even outside."

"Hmmm, that could've been the task," Wolf added from the side as he held his chin with his left hand.

"What?" Mia asked him, once again with a confused expression on her face.

"The warehouse, the hidden task might have been to find it, there's always something to do in order to recognize it, maybe there were some things on the floor or even the walls of the warehouse that would have been useful in order to find it, well, it doesn't matter now." Reign said as Mia started thinking before shaking her head.

"You might be right, but as you said, it doesn't matter, not to mention, that doesn't help us when it comes to finding the hidden task here," Mia said as the others nodded in agreement.

If they needed to find the zone where they had initially spawned, they would be forced to simply travel through the whole desert and there was no saying just how large it might be, not to mention the fact that there was nothing that could help them out when it came to finding the zone either.

"I mean, traveling for days in order to get back to the zone does seem like a suitable task during a survival challenge, but I just don't think that's it, after all, even though it would take a lot of time, doing something like that is not really hard for us." Reign said before standing up and stretching a bit.

"The only threats we have in this desert are the Tier II monsters and the powerful Tier I bosses that we might run into, judging by how sparsely populated the desert is, I highly doubt that there are a lot of them, and running into them should be something that doesn't happen very often."

"That's why I think that finding the zone is not the hidden task, it's simply too easy for us, and Drayce knows that, there's no way he would let us off the hook like that."

"I agree, that bastard will definitely put something that is incredibly difficult, yet achievable for us, he's not the kind to simply give us something that's relatively easy to be done, but takes a lot of time," Shadow said from the side as everybody nodded in agreement, even Mia and the angels agreed with them as they felt that they were true.

"So, what could the hidden task be?" Laura asked as she sat down and rested her back on the wall of the shelter.

They had created a couple of holes in the wall and Wolf put his flames in them. His flames didn't need any fuel to burn and he could simply use his mana in order for them to exist, making it incredibly useful in this situation. His flames also didn't produce any smoke and didn't even need oxygen to burn while he used mana as fuel.

"Let's sleep, we have more than enough time to think about the hidden task after all." Reign said before making himself comfortable and closing his eyes.