Otherworld Adventure

It wasn't only Lewis and Barthelo's group who were keeping an eye on Cecil and his group.

The Corpse Collector Guild and the Devil Slaying Sect's two individuals were stealthily following after them.

Cecil's Mana Sense was able to spread quite far away, but unfortunately for him, the blizzard was greatly hindering his sensing ability.

There was a turbulent mana present inside the blizzard so it was hard for Cecil to constantly monitor a large area around him. He maintained his Mana Sense and only monitored the area half a kilometer around his group.

He didn't care if people were observing him or anything. As long as they don't show any malicious intent or blatantly try to attack him and his group, he would leave them be.

Cecil had already felt the prying eyes of a few people directed at his group, but he didn't pay them any mind.

"I won't attack you, if you don't attack me..."

"What's that, Master?" Ren suddenly asked.

He couldn't hear quite well since the blizzard was not only impairing his vision, but also his hearing due to the constant noise from the winds raging all around them.

"It's nothing! Just keep pace and make sure to keep track of everyone's conditions! If any of them feel too tired, we'll stop and take a break!"

"Yes, Master!"

"Tell sister Celestina to take a break from maintaining the ice barrier around us! We'll manage somehow for a few minutes! We can't have her collapsing due to mana exhaustion and fatigue!"

The group continued to trudge through the icy landscape but eventually, they had to take a break and stop. Cecil released his aura in an attempt to keep the monsters hidden under the ice away from their group while they were resting.

Celestina quickly set up their temporary resting place.

Cecil was a bit remorseful because he had taken away Cecilia's sister which would have aided her very well in the current stage. However, he wouldn't show it because to help his kingdom's citizens survive through this, he would do anything.

From what he heard, no one in the group has died yet even while he was gone, so it was good news for him. Now that he was present, he wouldn't let any of them die.

"I bet your sister is suffering a bit right now..." Cecil said to Celestina.

There were a few campfires in the icy refuge that Celestina created. She, Cecil, Ren, and Xin were huddled around one together.

Celestina looked up at the emotionless Cecil and she replied, "It's alright... since she's my sister, she's not just a priestess but also an ice element magus. She's not that gifted in the mage arts like me, but she'll manage somehow."

"Mhm."

"Also, don't look down on the Revertia Kingdom's priests and holy knights. If it's them, I'm sure they can quickly adapt to this place. They probably aren't having as much of a hard time as you're imagining."

Cecil nodded at her words and said, "Good. Then I won't feel so sorry about taking away one of their talented ice mages with me."

"..."

"You're going to be a part of my family anyway. You naturally should stay with our group. I won't come home to my brother and inform him of his beloved's death."

"...Thank you... if you can—"

"Sorry, but I won't take responsibility for anyone else. Also, I'm not trying to complete the trials. I'm trying to escape from it."

"Uh...?"

Celestina was quite confused. She had been wondering what Cecil meant when he had first said those words during the first stage.

"Why are you trying to escape?"

"Once I've found my family who are lost in here, I'll naturally do everything in my power to return early. You should know right, sister-in-law? My wife is pregnant and she's expecting soon..."

"Th-that's true...but how are you going to do that? By purposefully failing? From what I know—"

"Failure means death?" Cecil cut her off and finished.

"Y-Yes..."

"I never said I'll fail in the trials, I only said I'll find a way to escape from it. That bastard deity forcefully pulled me in here against my will. I made a promise to my wives that I'll return quickly as soon as I've found Gabriel, Angelia, and Kira... I won't break it."

"...Of course...but how do you know that those 3 are even in here?"

"They are. In fact, they've most likely cleared this stage already."

Cecil's words naturally caused everyone to jump in surprise. Everyone except for Ren, of course, since he already knew.

"Did you think we were trudging through this godforsaken hell?" Cecil asked.

"..."

"Right now, I'm just following after the trail that Angelia and Kira left behind. I'm sure they used Nessie to easily clear this stage. Once we find the transfer gate, I'll do something about the keys."

"Mhm... if possible, I really wouldn't want to kill another human being for the crystal..."

"Yeah...we're gonna need everyone last one of us here..."

Celestina silently listened to Cecil's ambiguous words and she couldn't help but ask, "What do you mean?"

"Never mind, you'll find out in due time... if it's real..."

Cecil slurred on the latter half of his sentence so Celestina didn't hear what he said. She wondered what it was that Cecil meant, but from the way he said it, it was obviously nothing good.

The group continued to rest for a few more hours before they resumed their travels. They encountered some monsters on their way and acquired more crystal fragments. Eventually they were able to fuse them together and create 1 black crystal, but it was still just 1 crystal.

The entire group had a little over 20 people so they needed quite a bit more.

"Let's keep going. We've managed to get one crystal, getting another 20 or so isn't going to be impossible," Cecil said after handing over the first crystal his party managed to get to Ren.

Ren didn't object to it and just straightforwardly accepted the crystal. The group spent who knows how many days on this stage culling monsters and slowly piecing together crystal after crystal.

While they were doing all this, the other groups present within the stage also took notice of their actions.

Since Cecil's group didn't antagonize anyone, no one bothered to attack them. However, the situation immediately changed one day when another new update came from the crystal.

"Master...there's now a time-limit to how long we can stay on this stage..." Ren solemnly reported.

Cecil had been counting the days since they've been in here and he was sure that they've been wandering around the second stage of the trials for almost 3 weeks. They were so close to getting enough crystals for everyone.

They just need 5 more before everyone in their group had enough crystals. Cecil and his group had long since found the transfer gate to the next stage and were camping out in the area near the gate and killing the monsters that came their way.

Only Cecil and a small squad that he had personally picked out would go and actively search and hunt the monsters underneath the ice.

If they were given another week at most, Cecil was certain that they'd be able to pass through this stage without any casualties...but now with this new development...

"It's like there's something out there trying to screw us over..."

"Why's that, Master?"

"I've been through a trial before and there was never an instance when the conditions of clearing the trial's stage changed while the participants were in the middle of completing it," Cecil replied to Ren's question after taking a look back at his previous experience in the World Tree's Trials.

"..."

"If this really is Midgard's Continental Trial, then there should be an administrator."

"Master, you said something about that before—"

"The only being who could possibly do this would be the trial's administrator. I guess the administrator is either just really playful, or he's sick in the head."

******

"Kukukuku~ sick in the head? I think I should be saying that to you! To think that you'd deliver yourself to me...don't think I'll make this easy on you..." The Administrator, who was in the form of a ball of light, menacingly chuckled.

The Administrator continued to look at the screen and listen to Cecil's ramblings before it said, "Let's change things up a bit. Since you've been so ardently trying to cull all of the monsters on the floor, let's make the monsters a bit more active, shall we?"

******

Cecil felt that menacing glare once again and he immediately looked around. He would always feel alert whenever something in the trials changed or that intangible glare honed in on him.

He had a bad feeling about this and soon enough, that feeling quickly came true.

The ice all around their group began cracking and bursting apart. Numerous monsters began popping up from under the ice and they immediately began attacking Cecil and his party.

The worst part about it was that at the same time the monsters began attacking, the numerous parties that had been eyeing them and their crystals after the new change was made for the stage immediately took action.

"ATTACK!"

"They've got the most crystals! Hurry up and kill them!"

Cecil was immediately alarmed. He had been somewhat lax on his Mana Sense monitoring so he didn't expect the sudden attack by the groups of people who were only observing them.

He had been lax, but it wasn't like he had been negligent. Cecil had made preparation just in case another group of people tried to attack them. Unfortunately for him, those preparations were ruined by the monsters which had suddenly popped up from under the ice.

Instead of the groups of humans being affected by Cecil's traps and magic devices which were expertly laid down and scattered across the area, it was the monsters that were the ones that took the full brunt of it.

The few parties that had decided to attack Cecil's party were of course surprised by the monsters who had suddenly emerged, but they were even more surprised when they saw the monsters taking on the full brunt of the numerous traps laid out around the group they were targeting.

"D-damn, their party had already made preparations just in case we attacked!"

"Hahahaha, it doesn't matter now!"

"With the monsters triggering the traps for us, we can just go in and reap our rewards!"

"Remember the agreement! Finders keepers!"

Cecil didn't pay any mind to the humans that were waiting behind the monsters and were eyeing them covetously. He was more worried about the monsters that popped up from under the ice.

"This aura...is it another ancient-class monster?" Cecil said with a grimace after looking up at the humongous shark-like monster that just popped its head out from under the ice.