Princess Lera smiled as she said, "Congratulations to our heroes for their victory over the demons."The crowd cheered as the princess inwardly fumed over what happened. Nothing had gone as she had expected. Of course, it was expected that some people would be eliminated from the running. It was impossible for it not to happen, but she hadn't expected someone to be taken out within minutes of being sent to fight the demons. She was embarrassed to see him return.It didn't matter that the hero was only 12 years old. They had already gone through extensive training, and it irked her to see how she made her lose face in front of her people. The only good thing was that this information was contained within the kingdom. She wouldn't be able to bear it if other countries caught wind of how horrible the heroes in country did in comparision to their heroes.Sh

The princess calmly stared at Luke over the rim of her teacup. She had wanted to speak with him earlier, but there had been many other things she needed to deal with, and their talk wasn't essential. However, even though this talk wasn't as important as the other matters she was dealing with, she had wanted to demand answers from him right away about certain matters, like how he failed to get into the top five. She had been ready to praise him and make a show of how she was supporting him in front of the masses.Those plans were ruined when she couldn't find his name in the top five. What was worse was that the man who had undermined her authority before had managed to get a tie for first place. She had never been so insulted before. If she didn't have an image to maintain, she would have thrown a fit and ordered something to be done about the results. Unfortunately, it was already too late since everyone had seen it.Keeping her mask on, she chose to redirect her focu

As Luke had predicted, the giant goblin's corpse was presented to them not long after his discussion with Theodore. Theodore wasn't there himself, as he had left the transportation to the natives to handle and wasn't interested in seeing them again or, more specifically, Luke. The said natives were eyeing them strangely, probably wondering why they needed to transport the corpse to them instead of processing it right away.He ignored them in favor of inspecting the corpse. It was pretty damaged from the fight, but that wasn't his concern. Instead, his eyes were studying the giant goblin's intact stomach. Whisphersong should be inside the stomach unless the item had merged into a different spot, which he doubted heavily."Can you cut right here?" he asked the natives as he pointed to the stomach.There was no point in doing it himself if he could ask the

Luke failed. He wasn't sure how she did it, but she managed to include Theodore in their party. Everyone else had formed their own parties, so he couldn't just foster him out to another. Bobby and Chris looked just as confused as if they weren't sure what just happened. Actually, Theodore also looked just as befuddled. The only one seemingly okay with the situation was Grace, who looked like a cat that caught the canary.Even 'Kayla' was giving them a strange look from where she was. If it were any other time, she would have come over already to see what was going on. Well, whatever. He wasn't sure how, but he would somehow find a way to make use of this. He would do it. For now, he was going to wait and hear what Sir Gilbert had to say about the newly formed parties.Sir Gilbert studied the six newly formed parties. Two of them had six members, but he let it slide. He did say that the p

Luke and Theodore walked silently through the farmland, passing by the natives, who ignored their presence outside of an occasional glance. If things kept going this way, the quest would end uneventfully, which would be a good thing, but Luke hadn't gone this far without being cautious. He would rather avoid a repeat of what happened during the tournament.Speaking of the tournament, there hadn't been any sabotage like he had been worried about. That either meant Laurel was successful in her attempts to persuade the demons not to attempt anything or there were other factors at play. He would need to investigate, which was currently difficult for him at this time. Later, when he had more freedom, he could go through with his investigation.However, by then, things could have changed drastically. He couldn't do anything about it unless they miraculously received a quest that would allow th