Otherworld Adventure

After finally getting rid of the Demon Hawk King, the rest of the flock scattered away into the forest sensing that their leader had been killed.

Lucia, Eli and Ainz began burning the unusable corpses of the demon hawks while Fina and Velicia began collecting proofs of subjugations and materials from the usable corpses. Cecil was currently taking care of the Demon Hawk King's corpse.

It took another half hour for the entire party to take care of the cleanup. Cecil was able to harvest the claws, feathers and crown plumes of the Demon Hawk King. He also collected a couple vials of its blood and most importantly, the Demon Hawk King's monster core. All that was left of the corpse was a n.a.k.e.d body that Cecil cut up into tiny pieces and stored into his spatial ring.

Like he said, they'd be having the oversized bird for dinner later. After finally taking care of everything, the group turned their attention to the large tree that the Hawk King had nested upon.

Up in the branches of the tree they could make out the 2 reddish brown fruits that were emanating a large amount of mana.

'Hmmm, these things are pretty huge.' Cecil thought to himself.

Now that he was able to take a much closer look at the fruits, they were indeed, very big. Each fruit was at least half a meter in size and according to Fina, these fruits were right for the pickings.

It was unfortunate for the demon hawk king since if it had just a little bit more time, it could have used the fruits to perhaps evolve and grow a stage stronger. Too bad that Cecil and co. just had to barge in and kill it before the hawk king could do so.

"So... do we just pick it from the tree?" Cecil asked.

"NO! Don't do that! Just wait for it to fall! From what I see, it could fall any second now!" Fina suggested.

"Why do we have to wait?"

"Because if we don't and we pick it prematurely, the entire tree will wilt and die! Not just every tree can grow a demon fruit y'know!" Fina replied strongly.

With how assertive she was, Cecil shrugged and complied with her suggest.

"So, it's good that we preserve the tree then? Talk about environment friendly."

"Huh? Oh, of course not."

"What?"

"Once the fruit has fallen, we'll be cutting down the tree. They'd make good materials to create wands, staffs, and even bows."

"...so that's your objective huh" Cecil said with a look not knowing whether to cry or laugh.

The girl didn't want to preserve the tree. She just didn't want it to wilt so that they could harvest the wood.

"We won't be using the entire tree, so the excess we could sell and get funds from... since we're a proper adventurer party now, we need to have a collective fund to function our party! You don't expect us to take money from our personal funds to buy potions, repair equipment and buy rations now do you?"

"Urk... sorry I hadn't thought about that." Cecil replied guiltily.

On the side, Lucia was looking at their exchange and she whispered towards Eli.

"When did Fina become so outgoing?"

"...beats me." Eli shrugged.

"Maybe she was just like that! Except she was shy since we didn't know each other so well!" Velicia added.

Ainz who was on the side laughed and said,

"A proper party huh... this is way better than joining a faction!"

The party waited until it was almost deep into the evening before the fruits naturally fell from the tree. They carefully collected the fruits and stored them into Fina's spatial ring. Cecil's was full with the demon hawk king's materials while Ainz, Lucia and Eli didn't have any room to spare since they had to store the demon hawks materials and subjugation proofs.

They quickly felled the tree and cut it up into smaller pieces and they stored it into Velicia's ring. The group quickly made their way back towards the village and rested for the night. They planned to set off back towards Angla city first thing tomorrow morning.

The girls were able to sleep at the village's inn, but Cecil and Ainz had to camp outside. There just weren't enough rooms for their party of six.

"Oi~i, Cecil, you awake?" Ainz called out from his sleeping bag.

"...what is it." Cecil yawned in reply.

"This party... Little Kings. Do you think we'll be able to go far with just us in the tournament?"

"...I dunno."

"Hey! Be serious about this! If we're just going to be half-assed about this then we'll be throwing away a huge opportunity!"

"...do you see any of us here being half-assed?"

"..."

"Lucia and I... we're seriously gunning for 1st place y'know? I can see the same goes for everyone else in the party... including you."

"...you don't honestly believe we can actually pull it off do you?"

"Of course I do... just wait until we get back... then we'll show you just how serious we are."

"We, as in?"

"Lucia and me... we'll show you our resolve." Then Cecil fell asleep. Even after Ainz called out to him, Cecil no longer woke up.

Ainz sighed a little in frustration. Although it was much better than his time in the faction, he couldn't help, but doubt that their small party of 6 could make it anywhere in the tournament.

He did doubt, but Ainz still resolved himself to fight for the champion's spot with all his might, just like everyone else.

****

It took about two days for the group to get back to Angla City. Cecil thought that it took way too long since they were traveling by foot.

He wanted to bring Silver out with him, but Silver couldn't possibly carry all 6 of them on his back.

Once they arrived back in the academy district's adventurer guild. Cecil used his privilege as a Gold Ranked Adventurer to use a private booth.

This feature was reserved for only adventurers at gold rank so everyone besides Lucia was very much surprised to see this.

Cecil turned to look at his dumbfounded friends and smirked, "What? Surprised? Haha, you ain't seen anything yet. I told you Ainz, I'll show you our resolve. Like they say, actions speak louder than words."

Not long after, a familiar female guild staff came into the room. Cecil and Lucia immediately recognized the woman.

"Big Sis Mimi!" Lucia exclaimed in pleasant surprise.

"..." Cecil as usual stayed silent.

"Arara~ why isn't it our two upstanding prodigies! I didn't think that Silent Inferno would be back at adventuring only after a month of absence~" The harpy, Mimi, laughed in response.

Mimi was Cecil and Lucia's personal receptionist, to some degree, back when they were still actively adventuring at Angla City's adventurer guild.

"How come Big Sis is here now?"

"Well~ a certain troublesome duo happened to come back into service again~ so the higher ups reassigned me as your personal handler now... especially since you two did something unreasonable again~"

"Ahaha, sorry~" Lucia laughed apologetically.

"..." Cecil kept silent.

Their exchange was surprising for the rest of their party members. It could be seen that this wasn't the first time Cecil or Lucia worked on a quest. Since the two had kept their ranks a secret, no one in their party were privy to this information.

"Well, two gold ranked quests in just 1 week, and now you guys go ahead and do your promotion quest without even informing big sis~ I'm a little hurt y'know~"

"Ayaya, we had to do it in secret! I mean... Cecil wanted to keep things under wraps so..." Lucia immediately tossed the ball Cecil's way.

Mimi only took a look at Cecil and saw the usual expressionless face. Cecil only nodded and Mimi immediately got the message.

"I see~ well, it's no biggie." She then began hugging the two youngsters and said, "At least I get to see my cute little juniors now~"

"..."

"Ahahaha~"

While Lucia was laughing with Cecil remaining silent, the rest of their party members took in the information that the guild staff, who was now apparently their personal handler, had inadvertently said.

"Wait, what promotion quest are you talking about, miss?" Ainz asked on behalf of everyone else.

"Oh? Did you guys form a party?" Mimi turned towards the rest of their party members and asked with mild surprise.

"Yeah! We registered only a week ago! We're the Little Kings!" Lucia happily informed.

"Wah, my two little juniors finally made their own party! Oh! I see that even the renowned Sword Maiden is in your party as well!" Mimi said after carefully observing every member in the room.

"Are all of you classmates?"

"Yup! We're all part of S class!"

"Ahaha, as expected of you two!"

"Uhm... like I said... what promotion quest?" Ainz asked once again. He really couldn't keep up with the frequent change of pace in their conversation.

"Well, I guess we should all sit down first yes?" Mimi invited everyone to sit down before she began her explanation.

"Well, first of all. On behalf of the entire guild, we congratulate both Lucia Yukihime and Cecil Silvaria in their successful promotion to Platinum Rank!"

Mimi clapped her hands and cheered. Not long after, another guild staff walked into the rooms and presented Cecil and Lucia their new guild badges.

Although it had the same color as the silver adventurer badge, the silver adventurer badge was a dull silver color, while the platinum badge was a shiny metallic silver. On the badge was a single gold star etched on it.

Cecil and Lucia took their badges and kept them in their spatial rings. On the side, Ainz, Elizabeth, Fina, and Velicia were staring dumbfounded at their two friends.

"Y-y-y... you two are PLATINUM RANKED?!" Ainz screamed in surprise.

Cecil kept his usual taciturn silence when he was in the guild, while Lucia started to laugh smugly at her dumbfounded friends.

"Didn't we tell you guys? We'd show you our resolve! And like Cecil said, actions speak louder than words!" Lucia replied smugly.

This saying would later on be the motto of their party, the Little Kings.