Otherworld Adventure

After Cecil hung up the call, many people began noticing him walking farther and farther away from their initial position.

Only the people near the periphery of the starting location took note of him while everyone else couldn't see him.

*****

Back to where Celestina was at, the others in her group naturally noticed that she was talking with someone so after Cecil had ended the call between them, Cecilia naturally asked her who it was she was talking to.

"Cecil?"

"Yes, it was Matheus's little brother. It seems that he was dragged into the trial like me..."

"Hmm... I had already returned home so I'm not sure how things are at your boyfriend's kingdom, but shouldn't you know, big sis?"

"W-well, I did hear that he had gone out to search for his missing brother and sister, but I didn't think he was also participating in the trials..."

"Well, since he's here, why not invite him to our group?"

"I already did, but it seems that he has some business to take care of. I already told him that there are some people from his kingdom in our group and that his first disciple is with us as well."

"Oh—"

"My Master is here?" Ren had overheard their conversation and quickly walked over and interrupted them.

One of the guards standing close by Cecilia's side quickly blocked him and warned, "Hey boy, mind your manners, you're speaking to the High Priestess of—"

"Step aside!" Ren snapped back after being interrupted.

"Why you little!"

Seeing as the guard was about to pull out his sword, Cecilia immediately cut in and commanded, "Stand down!"

She was a bit too late though. Ren already took notice of the guard's action and he reacted immediately. He pulled out a unique looking rifle, that was nearly as large as himself, from underneath his cloak and he aimed the barrel straight at the guard's face.

"!"

Everyone around was immediately surprised to see Ren's aggressiveness and even the boy himself was rather surprised by his own actions, but it was inevitable that he'd react to the guard's obvious hostility in this way.

Even though he was but an Artificer, Ren was still Cecil's disciple and there was no way Cecil would leave Ren out of his daily training routine.

Ren wasn't athletically gifted, but after living dangerously on the road for so long, it had naturally made him rather alert to even the smallest bit of hostility or bloodl.u.s.t directed at him.

Since things had already gone down this path, Ren wasn't going to hesitate to pull the trigger if the guard in front of him tried to do anything stupid like pull out his sword at him. Ren was also cautiously taking note of everyone's actions around him.

Cecilia was very shocked, but she didn't retract her earlier orders, "I said stand down! We don't want any trouble with the person standing behind him, alright?"

"...Yes, Your Holiness..."

"...move aside," Ren flatly said with his magi-tech rifle still aimed at the knight's face.

The guard felt disgruntled but in the end, he stepped aside due to the pressuring gaze he was feeling on the back of his head. Ren retracted his gun and passed the guard. He walked towards Celestina and asked once again, "Where's my Master?"

"He just left earlier. He told me to tell you that he'd come back to pick you up after he's finished with his business," Celestina quickly answered.

"Did Master say anything about what he was doing?"

"He only told me that he was looking for something. I'm not sure what it is, but he sounded pretty urgent."

"Hmmm... maybe Lia and big brother Gabriel are here as well..."

"Lia? Oh, do you mean Angelia?"

"Y-yeah, Angelia and Gabriel disappeared during their ruins exploration a while back and Master went to go find them."

"Ah, no wonder the main estate seemed to be in a gloomy atmosphere the last time I visited..."

Ren was rather perplexed at something so he tried asking Celestina, "Uhm, Miss Celestina..."

"You can drop the 'Miss'," Celestina said.

"O-okay, but I wanted to ask, were you struck by a ray of light before waking up here?"

"Yes, why?"

"It was the same for me, but I heard that there are others in our group that came to this place after clearing some sort of test."

"My sister and Miss Karen came here by finishing the Mefastello Trials. I'm not sure why we're here, but it was probably because we were forced here..."

Ren frowned and nodded, "I thought so... Also, the time discrepancy seems rather fishy. From what I gathered after eavesdropping from the others around us, most of them came here a few weeks or months after we were first struck by the ray of light and yet, we arrived here together..."

"..."

"Anyway, if Lia—I mean, Angelia and big brother Gabriel are here, shouldn't they be somewhere here with us?"

"I-I don't know... I mean, there are a lot of people here, I'm sure that Cecil wouldn't be able to find them in this vast crowd of people," Celestina said

"But that's the thing. My Master can!" Ren replied.

"H-he can? Well...I guess that means they aren't here with us?"

"..."

Cecilia came back to them after she straightened out the young guards and other people that came here with her.

"Ah, little Ren, I apologize for my guard's actions earlier."

"N-no...It was my fault. I was a little too anxious when I heard that my Master is here..."

"It's fine. Anyway, it seems like everyone from the Silvaria Kingdom was forcefully dragged here."

"Yeah, but the thing is that the time when we were dragged here and when you guys arrived here after passing the test, doesn't add up."

"...I'm not sure how the trials work, but maybe we were all supposed to start this part of the trial together with everyone?" Cecilia said.

"Well, if that was the case, then my Master wouldn't need to search through this place if Angelia and Gabriel were here..."

"Angelia and Gabriel...are they Matheus's other siblings?" Cecilia asked.

Celestina and Ren nodded at her question and she started thinking.

"Hmmm... maybe they aren't even here in the first place?"

"My Master seems quite convinced that they are here, otherwise, he wouldn't go looking for them," Ren quickly replied.

"I don't have a complete grasp of your Master's circ.u.mstances, but he could be wrong about that. Anyway, we should start moving. We've gathered enough people in our group and the other groups have already started making their moves."

"How about we leave your Master's affairs out of our agenda? I mean, it's not our place to interfere, right?" Celestina gently said.

Ren furrowed his brows even deeper before eventually releasing a sigh and nodding at her words.

"A few of the people who were dragged into this place from Silvaria are non-combatants. Even civilians like me were dragged here, but some of us can contribute to the battles later..." Ren informed.

"It's alright. We'll protect them as much as we can. Just have your people focus on protecting your own."

"Thank you..."

Ren bowed to Cecilia in gratitude before walking back to the group of people that were forcibly teleported here from Silvaria. Naturally, it wasn't only the Silvaria Kingdom's citizens who were dragged here, but even some people from the New World Republic, United Federations, and other countries in the No-Man's Lands.

Ren only became aware of it after he encountered some people who spoke his Master's foreign language. When he tried to recruit them, some of them didn't even bother answering him. Only the young men and women from Silvaria followed him.

He was a bit well-known in the city's academy for being a genius inventor who was always seen standing together with the kingdom's young princess and her posse. He was recognizable so people naturally gathered to him and he was thankfully able to find Xin, Marylyn, and Robin.

When Ren got back to his friends, he informed them of the group's next plan of action. He also told them about the possibility that Angelia was here in the trials and that his Master was currently searching for her.

"Th-that's good...Honestly, I was having such a nice nap, but when I woke up, I found myself here..." Xin grumbled.

"I-It's going to be alright...isn't this what we've been preparing for while attending the academy? W-we're going to be okay as long as we work together!" Marylyn said. From the way she stuttered in between her sentences, it was clear that she was the most shaken up among them.

Robin did his best to calm her down. The others in the group were uneasy as well, especially those who didn't even know how to fight. However, Ren's reassurance put them to ease by a bit.

"Anyway, let's just take this as a training simulation like the ones we get from the academy! Just remember what Instructor Fatima and all the others have taught us and we'll be fine!" Robin said with his voice raised.

Everyone heard him and quickly began getting into 5-man teams and positioning themselves around the non-combatants who were situated in the middle of the group.

It was unfortunate that no one had any weapons on them, but thankfully, Ren was there.

"Robin, get some people and go distribute these to everyone. I don't have any shields or armor and these things are failures, but they're still weapons," Ren said before pulling out some crates filled with magi-tech guns from his spatial ring.

It was a good thing that he kept the failures from his experiments with him. Although they were considered failures, the guns still functioned normally. The only reason why they were termed as failures was that they were scrapped after Ren picked out the best one of them all for the kingdom to mass-produce and manufacture.

The 'failures' had many lacking features compared to the perfected one which was currently being mass-produced in the Silvaria Kingdom's factories, but at least they were still usable.

Unlike a normal gun, the magi-tech guns that Ren and Cecil had developed only used a person's Mana to fire their bullets.

The 'failures' had bad mana-conversion efficiency and speed, but regardless of that slight flaw, it was still able to fire mana bullets.

After the guns were distributed among the group, everyone became a bit more at ease. Not everyone was able to get a gun, but the ones that were trained as sharpshooters were given priority over them while the ones that were trained to be vanguards were given some cold weapons that Ren had stashed in his spatial ring.

"Alright, since we're ready. Let's get going..."