Chapter 256: A Bad Feeling in the Morning
As Kim opened her eyes, she felt like something was wrong. Not in the way that usually was the case, but that something was different from when she'd gone to sleep. She just couldn't say what it was right away.
She looked around her and couldn't see anything different. She wasn't sure what the feeling was about, but she couldn't dismiss it very easily. Not when she still felt on edge about Jonas and Elmo still being missing and her preferred sword being potentially dangerous to wield at the moment.
She could feel Elin in her arms at them moment, though they still had their clothing on. Their packs were still present, including Elmo's and Jonas'. There wasn't any sign that anything had approached them through the night, and there weren't any strange shadows luring around that were being cast by something unseen.
The morning was like any other morning since Elmo and Jonas had been sent into the river. Which was also the only real difference from even before that. Which merely served to make everything seem more 'normal' than anything else they'd encountered in this world.
Kim didn't like feeling that something was off, but it wasn't like she could just turn the sensation off. What she needed to do about it was to deal with it directly. Despite the fact that she couldn't do that when she didn't know what was causing that feeling to begin with.
Yet at the same time, she knew that she might not know, until it was too late, what the feeling was about. Which also meant that she needed to do her best to put it out of her mind so she could focus on other tasks. Such as getting breakfast ready. Something that felt so ordinary for being on such a fantastical adventure that seemed more like a continual nightmare than anything else. Something that felt like it shouldn't be that way, with how mundane it was.
"Good morning contestants!" the announcer's voice boomed, making Kim wonder if Elin was awake and merely pretending to still be asleep. "It would seem that our viewers are dissatisfied with how the fire dragon keeps disappearing when the battles don't go its way. We want to emphasize that the fire dragon can only do this for so long before it can't do it anymore for a certain period of time. During which, it'll either be killed or manage to kill all the contestants that try to slay it. It'll be the metaphorical cornered bear or whatever.
"On other news, we have become aware of a stellar bear on this world. Now, normally we try to avoid those things because of the overall problems, but we want to assure our contestants we honestly didn't know that it was present. That we're looking at ways to correct this oversight as soon as we can. We just hope that it won't wake up before then.
"Next, again due to complaints by our viewers, we want to assure everyone that while defeating a regular dragon is difficult, it doesn't rise to the level of a challenge. Even if that dragon was on the edge of becoming a weaker fire dragon than we have as our challenge right now. The committee is emphatic about that.
"Lastly, we want to remind our viewers that our contestants are not under our control. We don't direct them to go anywhere specific and can't force them to engage in these challenges. If they want to sit around and take it easy all day, that's their prerogative. We can't do anything about that as stipulated by the contract that the contestants agreed to when they were brought into the contest.
"So, with all that said, we hope that all of the remaining contestants will strive to give our viewers a good show, even if you're not seeking out challenges to complete!"