Samuel remained silent, which was undoubtedly an admission of his guilt not that Luke expected anything less. They both knew the truth, and it would have been pointless to try to pretend otherwise. The others were waiting anxiously to see what would happen next. With 'Kayla' being the only one with a weapon and was stuck carrying Laurel, she and Grace would be unable to defend themselves properly if something did happen.
The first one to make a move was Samuel, who raised both of his hands and clapped, "Not bad."
Not expecting that response, 'Kayla' and Grace stared at each other, wondering what was going on. Luke, on the other hand, wanted to sigh in exasperation. He had suspected that Samuel did this as part of his test since he still didn't trust Luke and the others, but it didn't make it any less annoying. Because of his stunt, they missed out on valuable items that they couldn't normally get at their level or ever.
"Will you now stop testing us?" Luke asked
The moment they reappeared in the Saintess's meadow, Laurel moved. She shoved herself off of 'Kayla' who cursed at the sudden movement and stumbled forward as she regained her balance. Laurel, on the other hand, took the opportunity to lunge for the weakest person in their group, Grace. Unfortunately for her, Luke had expected this and grabbed her by the wrist and flipped her onto her back. She gasped as the wind was knocked out of her.Luke kept a tight grip on her hand. "I suggest you don't try that again, or else I will take matters into my own hands."She glared up at him, which he ignored, as 'Kayla' stomped her way towards them, obviously intent on getting payback for what happened. He rolled his eyes at her behavior. The both of them had known she was awake, so she had no excuse to be surprised by Laurel's stunt. If 'Kayla' had not known about it, then she was a complete disgrace for being both an angel and human. She had been the one literally carrying Laurel o
Princess Lera inwardly frowned as the hero was unable to present anything of value to her. While it was true that he said he wasn't sure if what he learned was real, hearing that he had nothing to show for his efforts was disappointing. He had been doing so well, proving his worth to her, only to fail her now. Well, she hadn't been exactly fair to him. She hadn't actually expected him to present anything of value to her when she assigned him this task.This whole thing had just been a test. The black market wasn't exactly something that could be discovered that easily. If it was, then it would have already been dealt with by previous heroes or those obsessed with justice like Sir Gilbert. It would also mean that the hero in front of her was a lot more dangerous than she expected, and she would have to determine whether or not it was worth keeping him at her side.She outwardly smiled at him and said, "You have nothing to apologize for. I should have known better that i
'Kayla' stared at him with an indescribable look on her face. She had been like this ever since he started making plans for the possible tournament. At first he had been willing to let it go, but it had honestly gone on long enough.Before he could demand why she was like this, she said, "You're a demon.""Yes?" It was honestly the only proper response to what she just said. "And?""You were born into the wrong species. You should have been born a demon," she said.Well, he was a demon now. technically a demon king, but it was basically the same thing. "What brought this up?"She looked me in the eye and said one word, "Tournament."That certainly explained her behavior. She must have heard his thoughts about his future plans for the tournament if it did happen, which saved him a lot of time. He had been planning to inform them later, but this was fine."So you know what you're supposed to do, right?" he asked for confirmation.
Of course, no one dared say they would quit after hearing what Sir Gilbert had to say. Instead, everyone focused heavily on training for the tournament. The full details of the event were not finalized yet, but the basics were told to them. Essentially, they would be competing with each other to see who could kill the most demons in the fastest time. Friendly fighting between heroes was allowed, but if someone allowed themselves to be caught up in the moment, they would be disqualified.While the purpose of this was to see who was the strongest, that didn't mean the natives wanted the heroes to kill each other for the title, even by accident. They would have judges watching. Also, since the tournament was actually considered a quest by the system, it would be able to monitor their actions to prevent this from going too far. Obviously, it wasn't one hundred percent foolproof, but it was enough to comfort people.The format for the tournament was so simple that a child c
Grace and 'Kayla' paused their training to catch their breath. The current training they had been doing was practicing on the training dummies. Despite how simple it sounded, it was just one of many exercises they were expected to do. Their training had gotten more intense with each passin day from both Sir Gilbert and Luke. They had expected as much since everyone was competing against each other to see who was the strongest. It was going to be a tough competition, but Grace was determined to do well.She had promised that she wouldn't convet first place since Luke had explained how badly it would end for them if she did, but that didn't mean she would do poorly on purpose. Her goal was to be in the top ten or whatever they had going on to show off some of her strength and show everyone she wasn't a weakling. She had already been dealing with several unsavory statements regarding her current class."Where did Luke go?" asked Grace once she realized she didn't see him
Today was the tournament, and Luke was on edge. They still hadn't heard back from Laurel, so they couldn't be sure whether or not she had been able to convince the demons not to sabotage the tournament. Luke had obviously rejected the quest as soon as it appeared. However, the demon king made it clear that he would still receive the penalties if the sabotage failed despite not accepting the quest. It was quite unfair, but there wasn't much he could do.So far, there had been no signs of the demons attempting anything. From their perspective, everything looked relatively normal during the days leading up to the event. While nothing happened, they weren't quite out of the woods just yet. The demons still had time to stage an invasion or sabotage the tournament while it was taking place. The uncertainty clawed at the back of his mind."What's the point of worrying over something we can't change? There's nothing we can do, so stop worrying about it because you're affecting
Luke smiled as he couldn't wait for the announcer to give the go ahead for them to enter the rift and begin the tournament. Even with his concerns, he couldn't wait to see how he compared to his previous self. While he had killed five demons last time, it was a combination of luck and fewer people. Last time, they only had fifteen people competing, which meant each person had to kill about six demons each with some killing seven.He had failed to kill the minimum, but he had done better than a good chunk of the people. The results had been heavily skewed, with about half of them killing no demons or only one or two. He had been among the few to at least kill quite a few. Then there were the heavy hitters, who killed a good chunk of the demons. The winner had managed to kill twenty demons, which was one fifth of the demons.Recalling the winner, he stared at the woman, who seemed to notic
Grace flinched when she felt her hand on her shoulder. "You did good."She smiled shakily, as she didn't think she did a good job. It had been messy and had taken forever. They were lucky that none of its goblin friends showed up. That wasn't to say they wouldn't be able to defend themselves, as she was sure that Luke would be able to handle it, but it was obvious to her that being a Healer was the worst class to have, despite what Luke had told her before when he tried to comfort her about it.Luke, on the other hand, wasn't lying when he said she did would be the first time she had killed something in this life. Taking the life of something when she had never even killed livestock before wasn't something that could be taken lightly. It didn't matter that it wasn't human. Goblins still bled the same as humans, and it would only get worse from here when they fought against demons that looked like humans. She deserved to be praised for her efforts.Suddenly, the