When you enter a gate, there are three things you wanna do to increase your chances of survival.
The first thing I did after entering the trial was check my surroundings. I found myself in what appeared to be a large circular room, only it wasn't a room. It was a cave. A cave that had multiple sets of different tunnels in the walls leading to who knows where.
There was also a large quantity of torches and each one of them was hung up next to the entrance of each tunnel. There were exactly 22 tunnels in total and exactly the same amount of torches that lit up the dark cavern.
From what I could see, I had yet to see any monsters which was a pretty good sign if you think about it.
The second thing you need to do is extremely vital if you want to learn how to clear the trial. In every gate that has ever existed, there is one thing that they all share in common, other than red gates of course. It's that they all have an explanation as to how you can clear the trial written or drawn somewhere within it. As I looked around the large cavernous room, I checked every nook and cranny to see if there was an explanation until I finally found it.
Etched into a small part of the wall, I found what appeared to be the drawing of a rat with a yellow tail in the shape of a key along with an arrow that pointed towards the keyhole of the drawing of a double sided door.
"It seems that's all the explanation I'm gonna get." I said with my left hand on my chin. "It looks like I'm gonna need to find a certain rat and steal it's key shaped tail. Then I need to somehow find a door and use the tail to enter."
I stared at the drawing with a dumbfounded look on my face. "Huh? That's it? But from what I've heard, the only way to clear a trial is to exit through the same gate you used to enter. It doesn't explain how to do that one bit in this picture."
"What the hell. Could I have missed something?" I said in a frustrated tone but quickly calmed myself down. No... perhaps the exit gate is through those doors.
Anyways, the third thing a person needs to do when they enter a trial is find a safe place to camp. When entering a gate, you have absolutely no idea how long you may have to spend inside of it before you can either clear it or die. Luckily for me, it seems that the area I arrived in happened to already be a safe zone.
Not a single monster in sight. It looks like all my good deeds are finally being repaid. Not that I've actually ever done anything to warrant such luck but hey, people believe that I tried saving lives by trying to stop a volcano so I guess I can count that, right?
After contemplating for a little while, I decided to enter through the tunnel that was directly to the left of the drawings that I had just checked out moments ago, but before that I took one of the torches that were hanging on the wall with my left hand.
Then I reached into my robe and took out a dagger from a strap that was holding the cross-guard of my blade. The dagger had a straight silver blade that shone like it had never been used a day in it's life. The blade was about 20 centimeters in length and the handle was plain white striped with gold lining kinda like a zebra.
I remember the day I got this blade. It was about 10… or was it 11 years ago? Okay so maybe I don't completely remember but who can blame me, this dagger looks so bad that if I were to kill someone with it, I bet they would rise up from their grave just to kill themselves with a different blade so that they don't have to tell all their buddies in heaven that they died to my shitty looking dagger.
***
Anyways the person who gave me this blade was… You guessed it, Pope Zackariah. There I was just lounging around on a couch on the top floor of one of our churches when he suddenly knocked on the door.
"Come in." I said in a lazy tone.
"My lord." Zackariah said while swiftly opening the door and immediately closing it so as to not let anyone else see my lackadaisical state.
"You can cut the "my lord" crap, it's just me here." I said in a mocking tone.
"Lady Josephine isn't with you?" the Pope asked.
"Nope, she said something about entering a trial with some other cursed one's that she hangs around with. Didn't she tell you?"
"That's right, I remember now."
"So what brings you here old man?"
"Oh yes, I came bearing gifts for our extremely kindhearted angel" he said in an extremely sarcastic tone.
"Oh?" I was genuinely expecting to receive something nice like a bottle of expensive wine or some gold or something other than what I ended up receiving. "So, what'd you get me?"
In the next moment, he took out the ugliest dagger that I had ever seen in my life. And I've lived almost as long as this 'too nice to be true' looking old man. He then handed me the blade.
"What the fuck is this?" I said in utter disgust.
"HaHHaHaHa." The Pope started laughing in an annoying tone. "You like it?" He asked.
When I looked up into his bright blue eyes, I could swear there were tears forming on the edge of his eyes.
"You're joking right?"
"Think of the dagger as a symbol of your position in the church of sorts. Who know's, you might need it one day."
Again I said. "You're joking right"
Zackariah kept looking at me with his eyes slightly closed and a grin so wide it could practically reach his ears. He then quickly scurried off to exit the room and then he shut the door before I had the chance to throw the dagger at him.
***
It kinda upset me when I found out old man Zackariah had passed away. He was one of the only people alive who knew what a shitty personality I had and I was the only person who knew how corrupt of a Pope he was, so when he passed away I made sure to pour out an expensive bottle of wine over his grave after buying it using the money from the church's funds.
What? Don't blame me for this. Me and the old man almost always used the church's funds to indulge in secret pleasures. He started it, I just followed the trend.
[Back to the present]
"To think I'd be using this shitty dagger in a trial of all places. Guess that's on me for not coming prepared."
As I took my first step into one of the tunnels of the cave, as soon as my front foot landed into the tunnel I heard what sounded like a loud screeching sound "Eeeeeek"