D.E.M.O.N.S: Getting Summoned Weekly isn't so Bad

Chapter 1339 Chapter 1339 The Race Begins

--- Kress ---

Kress was standing out on the gangplank with his competitors they'd already been offered the chance to change, and Kress, like the others had taken it. He'd taken a leaf from Green's book and picked a wetsuit that prompted a lot of pouting from Stan. Kress shot a glare at the demon that hopefully conveyed 'I can't have you getting distracted' but… truthfully Kress himself was a bit distracted. Stan was wearing some board shorts and nothing else. Leaving his bare chest exposed to show off his toned body.

Kress wanted to call bullshit on that at least a bit. Even with magic humans didn't look quite that good. Then Kress remembered his, potential, boyfriend was an incubus and all was right in the world. Granted, it took him a bit to move past the stage of 'ooh abs' but he got there in the end and really, that's all you could ask from the poor man.

As for the rest of his competition? Well, Blue wasn't there. Thankfully. She'd been the main worry but it was clear she was being saved for the final round. Apparently boats, while expensive, weren't that popular when it came to fighting over them. No instead it was Nell who was trying to lead her team to victory with a one-piece swimsuit that didn't hide much. Showing off her muscular arms and legs.

Next up was Midnight, who had on a wetsuit like Kress… but then he ALSO had a massive wide brim hat, and copious amounts of sunscreen on. *Um… what? Midnight didn't bother with any of that the previous few days. Why is he going all out now? In fact, wasn't he in that flying event? You know the one that took you ABOVE THE CLOUDS and closer to the sun? Whatever if he's losing his mind that means he's going to be easy to distract.*

The final contestant was Cyan, and that's also when Kress noticed that despite the fact that the teams were made up of mostly girls, this round was almost entirely men. Nell was the lone woman out. *Shit am I going to have to make sure Stan isn't distracted? Wait, is that a horrible thing to think? Am I supposed to trust him? No wait, I trust him not to cheat on me, but looking at hot dudes is another matter. He's an incubus. Wait is that racist? I mean, Kat doesn't do any of that sort of stuff… but she is asexual. Hmm… let's just hope for the best I suppose? I don't really know what I'm meant to think here? Hopefully is Stan can get a lead he can just keep his eyes forward.*

With that bit of annoying introspection done, Kress looked out at the ocean in front of him. It was… very… watery? He wasn't sure what else to say. For all Thyme's talk of obstacles there just wasn't anything there except for a bunch of colourful buoys that clearly marked the path the raise was going to take. If Kress had thought about it for a few seconds, he might have noticed that not only were the obstacles missing, but so too were the jet-skis everyone was meant to be using.

Thyme soon provided the answer when they zipped over to the edge of the floating platform the competitors were on and clicked their fingers, "You will be starting on the count of three," Kress barely registered the words. As soon as Thyme's fingers had met the ocean had been transformed.

All the buoys had transformed into giant floating balls of spikes with purple gunk dripping off of them. Kress might have worried about it being poison until he saw it drip into the water and start SMOKING. So while it might not have been poisonous, it was horrifically acidic. On top of that, a bunch of clear barrels appeared floating around the ocean, bobbing up and down with the tides.

They all had clear 'tendrils' snaking out from them. Inside the barrels were various liquids and Kress only knew he didn't want to deal with ANY of them. Some had that same purple acid from the spikes at the edge of the field. There was three other colours. One was bright red, another green, and the final one was black. Kress couldn't help but shiver a bit as he looked them all over. Staying away from it all was going to be a challenge, especially if there was more under the water, but that wasn't something he could confirm yet.

Kress could also see the jet-skis the problem was, they were up on a slightly raised wooden platform that blocked any view of the path after it, making it hard to guess what else he'd be encountering.

Kress wanted to spend more time in panic mode, but Thyme had been counting down this entire time, ignoring the panic on the contestants faces. "-One, ZERO. GO!"

Kress jumped for the water, risking the salt to open his eyes a bit and get more info… only to realise that it didn't hurt at all. *Thyme must have a goggle enchantment on the swimsuits. Would've been nice to know.* What wasn't so nice to know was that as Kress had guessed the barrels of pain, as he'd lovingly dubbed them, did extend under the water. There was also an annoying trade off he could see.

The deeper down you went, the less barrels of pain there were to avoid. A VERY quick test revealed that no, Thyme hadn't given them the ability to breathe underwater alongside the goggles. The existence of air bubbles in a later section had implied this, but it was nice to know for sure.

With this all mapped out Kress started to make proper pace forward, ignoring the fact the acidic barriers continued down to the seafloor and were giving off quite a bit of bubbles. It would be best just to avoid them all.

Kress found himself in the middle of the pack. Not bad, but he could be doing better. His early start had helped, but wasting time to check on the BoP meant that he'd slowed down a bit. The information would be worth it of course, but it still meant he'd fallen behind. In the lead was Stan, showing off a bit for once and slowly pulling away from the second place swimmer Nell.

The other two weren't really in the race yet. They'd jumped into the water, and a quick glance back revealed they were taking their time to study the surroundings. Kress wasn't sure what exactly there was to plan. Despite all the obstacles, there were numerous valid routes through all the barrels. You just had to be careful. Still, Kress wasn't going to complain if Cyan and Midnight were going to sit around with their thumbs up their ass.

Kress wanted to cry out when he saw Stan touch one of the tendrils near the first barrel. It was filled with the black liquid, but it was already too late. Checking on the two idiots behind him meant he'd missed the moment.

As soon as Stan's hands brushed the tendrils the barrel exploded coating the nearby area in the black gunk, about half of Stan included. Stan tried to ignore it, but his fingers were all stuck together and the little bit that had managed to get to his armpit was keeping him from properly moving that arm at all.

Gritting his teeth Stan brought up his leg and kicked out at his hand. If Kress was nearby, he'd have heard a ripping sound as all Stan's under arm hair, and a bit of skin, was ripped away. Stan didn't cry out though. No need to look like a wimp with Kress watching after all. Plus, he'd known it was coming. So he just got back to swimming. Carefully now, and with Nell ahead of him. That was the price he'd have to pay for his idiocy.

Nell, learning from the frontrunner was currently doing her best to float between two other nearby barrels. Her larger frame really not helping her hear as she carefully kicked under the water, while trying not to stir things up overly much and set off one of the barrels without touching them.

Nobody was sure if that was possible, but Nell at least wasn't willing to take any chances with them. After seeing how the black gunk effected Stan she had no plans to gamble with any of those damned barrels. If that meant she had to take things slowly? Well so be it.

Kress of course was coming up to barrels himself and was debating internally how to deal with them. Sure, dodging them was the smart, sane thing to do… but what if he was to ensure they got set off on his opponents? He didn't care if it got him a penalty, so that was a non-factor…

But honestly? Nell was the only real competition Stan had at the moment, so it was probably better not to waste time slowing down people in last place. Perhaps if Kress was just interested in guaranteeing second place for Stan he'd go for it, but he wanted Stan to WIN.

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