Up or Down?

 User-Controlled 001c [pen-to-paper] <idea> the Planting [imgur]

Oh, we are going there already, aren't we? Uh... fine. Your wish is my command.

Instead of the more obvious hence boring choices, why not go through the road less traveled? In this case, it's the one no one travel through and it's not even a road at all! Is is their first foray on their own after all so why not bulk the trend so to speak and venture through the unknown? This unexpected impulsive  decision from the protagonist surprise and even delight the usually impartial narrator! After a while, you can hear some huffs and puffs coming from them, taking their steps carefully up the terrain that is slowly but surely going steeper. You can hear some deep breaths from the narrator itself, trying to get down from the earlier high. There are rocks and bushes in equal measure that they come across but as they go higher and higher, the earlier two roads at both their sides look smaller and smaller until they are no more in sight. From walking just fine upright to now straining while hunching a little, they decide to secure the shield on their back to focus properly on the walking-turned-hiking. Since this all look so foreign to them, all they could do is to trudge straight ahead without any delineation, from pushing down on the knees to straight up rock climbing. They keep going despite the fear of increasing vertigo and whether this is all for naught. Thank goodness for that daily exercise regiment that they kept to for weeks before, readying their body just for an experience just like this. Having said that, they know their limit and  through all that muscle strains and buckets of sweat, they might need to stop soon to rest. As soon as that thought come across their mind, they can see a slight ray of light coming from the right side of the cliff, accompanied by the sound of slow breeze coming through. A slight change of direction and a couple of upward lounges later, their eyes are met by the sight of a castle not too far in the distance. That is a destination that they could go to but would they want to actually reach the top of this mountain? It's a gamble that they might be nothing up there at all but you will never know until you find out yourself, right?

Feeling their energy being depleted by the second, they finally decide to...?

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