POV: ???

I was laying on a couch, staring at the roof with my bluish green eyes through my blond hair.

"So you're saying that you don't like anything in your life?" The woman sitting next to me asked me.

She had glasses and her hair was tied neatly into a ponytail.

"What? Are you fucking stupid? When I said this is a fucking pain in the ass, I meant this therapy session, not my life."

"Well, then what do you enjoy about your life?" She asked.

"I like messing around, not being in a confined in some uncomfortable room with some fucking psychology nerd." I explained so loudly that I was on the verge of yelling.

"Is the couch not comfortable?" The therapist asked, feigning concern.

"No, the couch is fine. You're the one who's making me uncomfortable." I said aggressively.

"The point of therapy is to talk, and some people feel uncomfortable talking about their thoughts, so it's only natural that you feel a little uncomfortable." The therapist explained.

"You're telling me I should do what's uncomfortable?" I questioned the woman, as I elevated my body into a sitting position and looked into her eyes.

"Yes, it will help yo-" The therapist tried to answer but got interrupted by me.

"Nope, fuck you, I'm leaving." I said, as I stood up and started walking towards the door.

"Your parents will be paying for nothing, if you leave now."

"Do you think I give a shit?" I said as I flipped her off.

"Atlas!" She yelled my name, but I continued walking.

I walked through a door frame and then found myself sitting in front of a dinner table.

"I heard you left your therapy session in the middle of everything." My father said as we ate breakfast the next morning.

"You heard correctly, that bitc-." I was saying, but got interrupted.

"Watch your language." My father warned.

"That woman was making me uncomfortable, so I had to leave." I explained.

"Fine, we'll get you a new therapist." My father said.

"Dear, we can't just always hire a new therapist. Atlas has to face his problems." My mother said to father.

"What problems?" I asked with a sneer.

"You know what. We got you to train martial arts, so that you could protect yourself, not so that you could harm others." My mother said loudly.

"I haven't fought anyone in weeks, and you just fucking complain!" I stood up and yelled at her.

"Hey!" My father yelled and stood up.

"What the fuck do yo-" I was in the middle of yelling, when a large sized hand struck my face and I fell backwards, hit my head on the floor and my vision went dark.

***

"Hey... Atlas!" A man with short blond hair and dark blue eyes woke me up.

The man's clothes were filthy with bright purple monster blood.

'Ah, just a dream.' I thought in a relieved manner.

"Was I cursing in my sleep again?" I asked the man who woke me up, as I touched the dent in the back of my head.

"Yeah." He said as he helped me get up.

After standing up and patting the small rocks of my clothes, I looked around and saw the narrow mountain path we had been travelling along for almost two days now.

"Hey everybody." I said, and all 5 of the remaining group members turned their attention at me. "Let's get going." I said, and we started walking the narrow mountain path.

***

We had some encounters with the bird monsters along the way, but the journey went smoothly and after a couple of hours of walking we got to the end of the path where a large door that had a large dagger that facing down in the middle.

The only difference was that this time the dagger was dirtied with blood. Not the bright purple monster blood, but dark red human blood.

"Hahah, I guess we were intended to kill each other." I said with a laugh and soon after the door opened, and we walked inside. We entered a room no different from the room we had been in before entering the first ruin, but this time the amount of recourses had decreased by over nine tenths. Even the long table we had dined at in the last preparation room was now only a normal table with 7 seats.

"What's the plan?" Asked a man with dark brown hair and hazel eyes.

"Let's shower, get some new clothes, eat, chill for a bit and then enter the next ruin." I answered casually.

"You make it sound like these ruins are a good place to be in." The man said with a laugh.

"At least it's exiting here." I said, as I started taking off my armor.

***

POV: Akir

'Dodge, thrust, grab, stab, redirect, stab, punch...' I thought in the middle of tens of monsters.

At this point, fighting them was starting to get boring. They just rushed at you mindlessly, and all it took to take them out was one move. Even one punch was enough to kill them.

I dodged a sword aimed at my head, grabbed the arm and broke it at the elbow. The monster shrieked in a voice that sounded like it had something stuck to its throat. In response, I put my hand on the back of its head and pushed it towards my knee that was coming upwards to meet the monster's face. My knee connected with the monster's face and crushed its skull.

'That's the last one.' I thought, as I looked around for survivors. There were none.

***

I continued walking in the direction where the golden line led me, and before long I found myself in front of a large door that had a large dagger in the middle that facing down. It was just like the door I had entered the first ruin through, but this time the dagger was filthy with dark red blood.

I thought nothing of it and just waited for the door to open and after a while, the door opened and to my surprise, the preparation room wasn't empty. Instead, I was greeted by 6 unarmed men who were eating at a table far from me.

"Wait, Atlas, isn't that the guy you fought in the cave?" One of the men asked, as they all turned to look at me and summoned their weapons.

'One labrys, one cutlass, one crossbow, one morning star, one short sword, and one broadsword.' I thought as I checked out the weapons the men wielded.

"I think it is." The man called Atlas who had a broadsword answered after looking at me for a while. "Well, hello there!" Atlas greeted me with a few words and a wave of his hand.

'Seems like we get new groups for every ruin.' I thought as I slowly walked further towards the group of six.

"Hey, you look kinda roughed up. You should take a nice warm shower and relax a little." Atlas said with a friendly and calm expression.

"Wait, why don't we just kill him? He survived the first ruin, so he's obviously strong." One of the men asked Atlas quietly, but not quietly enough for me to not hear it.

It seemed like they were fully confident that they could kill me. They also seemed to have no qualms with killing humans, so I assumed that they had exterminated their own group in order to evolve.

"If he's strong, why don't we get him to join us, instead?" Atlas asked back quietly. "Hey, by the way, are you the only one that survived?" Atlas asked me.

"Yes." I answered shortly, as Atlas stood up and walked towards me.

I stopped immediately, when Atlas started heading towards me.

"I forgot to introduce myself. I'm Atlas." He said as he held out his right hand.
I just looked at Atlas' hand, but didn't shake it.

"It's just a handshake. I'm not going to do anything." Atlas said, acted like I was thinking, and then put my dagger in my left hand and shook his hand.

"I'm Akir." I introduced myself.

"I'm sorry, we got off on the wrong foot with the fighting and everything. I was just a little on edge because of the summoning and all." Atlas said with a laugh.

"I get it." I said in an understanding manner.

"You look different with your hair not in a middle part." Atlas commented.

'Oh, that's right, my hair is kind of a mess right now. I bet I look just like him.' I thought.

"Yeah, I haven't paid much attention to my hair lately." I said.

"Understandable." Atlas said in an amused manner. "Also don't mind the weapons. It's just hard to trust a stranger in this place."

"I get it." I said as I tried to not draw attention towards my dagger. These people had seen the earlier version of my dagger, so of course they would feel suspicious, if they noticed my dagger suddenly looked different.

"How about we sit down and eat. There's enough food here for 7 people." Atlas suggested and gestured for me to sit.

I sat down next to the short sword wielder and opposite of the large labrys wielding man.

"Since all the seats are taken, I don't think there will be any more people coming." Atlas said as sat down at the end of the table and glanced at the door. Shortly after, he turned his gaze to me.
"If we plan to get through the next ruin by working together, we should collect all the information we have on The Ruins. Akir, I think you should start, since it's easy to forget details, and there's no one to remind you, if you forget something." Atlas said.

'So they're going to get some information out of me and then kill me.' I thought.

Atlas told him group members that he was going to make me a part of their group, so that they would act normal. But this also told me that Atlas didn't trust the intelligence of these men. Now I also had the answer for why they were completely fine with killing. Atlas had most likely fed them some bullshit about morals being for the weak or something like that.

"Sure, what exactly do you want to know?" I asked.

"What kind of ruin were you in?"

"The ruin I was in was a gray desert, and there was a golden line in the sky that we were supposed to follow. You said something about a mountain path, right? I assume that we were in completely different ruins." I said.

"Interesting. Our ruin was a mountain path that was slowly breaking apart, so I assume that your ruin had some sort of timer in it too." Atlas shared his thoughts.

"Yes, there actually was one. There was sand that fell from the sky and the amount of sand falling increased with time, so I think that if I had been too slow, then I would have been buried alive." I told Atlas.

"Hmm, so the ruins we're sent to are different but have a very similar concept." Atlas concluded.

"I guess now that you figured that out, you don't have a use for me anymore." I said.

"What are you saying?" Atlas asked, acting confused.

"Wasn't that your plan? To get information from me and then dispose of me." I asked.

"Why would we dispose of you? The ruins brought us together, so obviously we are supposed to work together." Atlas said.

'It seems he hasn't gotten all of the information he wants.' I thought seeing as how he was still acting.

I, however, had gotten all the information I wanted.

"Unfortunately for you, I have no need for weak underlings." I answered nonchalantly and stabbed the short sword wielding man sitting next to me in the throat before anyone could react.