Otherworld Adventure

"Urgh..." He painfully struggled to raise his body upright.
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"Cel...you okay?"

He heard a despondent voice next to him. Lucia had an exhausted look on her injured face. Small cuts and injuries were decorating her pretty face.

Cecil then turned towards the girl currently resting on her lap.

"Fina?!"

Fina was resting on Lucia"s lap. He noticed the insane amount of blood staining her clothes. He quickly activated his Mana Eyes and saw a huge gouge on the side of her stomach.

Lucia"s eyes were red and it seemed like she had just stopped crying. Cecil was relieved to find Fina still alive. She was breathing, albeit faintly.

The bleeding had stopped and only the open wound was left behind, but he could see through his eyes that nature magic was slowly regenerating all the tissue and muscles of the wound. Cecil then turned his attention to the surroundings.

The 70 students were cut down by almost half... he saw close to 20 corpses laid down on the western area of the clearing. The dead bodies were not in great shape. Many had their heads smashed or had missing appendages and holes on their body.

It was gruesome to behold. He quickly looked around and thankfully found the rest of his friends still alive. They had many injuries of all sizes on their bodies. Velicia had it the worst. There were at least 3 holes on her body and another on her thigh and forearm.

"Hah! Look, sleeping beauty"s awake! Why h.e.l.lo "strongest", did you have a nice nap? Like what you see?" A cynical voice sounded.

It was an obvious taunt. Cecil turned his eyes over to the person who taunted him and just like he expected it was the Beastman Academy"s President.

The injured beastman stalked over in a fury and grabbed onto Cecil"s collar.

"a.s.shole, while we were fighting with our lives on the line, you had the cheek to actually go and fall asleep!"

Cecil frowned. He didn"t like being cursed at.

"Oh? What? You angry?"

Cecil lightly grabbed the were-lions hand and twisted.

CRACK

"GAAAAAHHHH!!!" Reinhart screamed in pain.

"Don"t touch me...I"ll kill you next time. Also, don"t blame me for you yourself being weak."

Cecil directly snapped the were-lion"s wrist and shoved him back.

Although he did feel bad, it wasn"t like it was his choice that he fell unconscious. His trial was naturally different than the rest of theirs. Sure, casualties did pile up and even some of the people from his academy died.

The Dark Moon Faction"s leader was killed and Velicia who was the most injured amongst their party was still sobbing over the loss of her older brother. When she noticed that Cecil had finally woken up she didn"t come over and find fault with him.

The other students saw their exchange and heard Cecil"s words and couldn"t help, but grow disgruntled.

But they didn"t dare say anything. Just remembering how easily Cecil picked apart the monsters that they had to struggle facing in just the brief moment he was awake proved that he was much stronger than anyone present.

It was unfortunate that he had fallen unconscious again, but it was just like he said, they shouldn"t blame him for it. If they could, then they should have handled the monsters themselves and not pin the blame on someone else for their inability.

Cleo walked over to Cecil. She looked relatively fine compared to the others despite the faint scars and gashes still present on her body.

"Did you receive the World Tree"s Blessing?"

"...yeah, I think..." Cecil responded.

"No wonder you fainted..."

"Yeah...the feeling of my mana being eaten is not pleasant," he frowned.

"The same thing happens even with a replica...but it"s not to the point where one would faint." Cleo said.

"Haaah...I"m not going to say sorry...originally my trial was different from you guys," Cecil replied while scratching his head.

"Mhm, we Elves could see that...we saw a large amount of nature energy being injected into your body right after the announcement just before you fainted...did the World Tree show you something?"

"...nothing. It only pulled me into an Illusion and I tried my best to break free from it," Cecil lied. He didn"t want to say anything yet. The "future" that he saw wasn"t a guaranteed occurrence.

Actually, he wasn"t even sure if that was the future or the past even with the administrator"s notification, it might even be some sort of alternate reality or just some illusion that was part of his trial. In any case, he wasn"t sure. This wasn"t the first time something otherworldly happened to him, it was better not to mention this and spread fear to the people.

If it turned out to be nothing but an illusion, then he might be branded as a criminal for causing ma.s.s unrest and hysteria. A "vision" from the World Tree would hold that much sway on the Urrugdrasil Continent.

Of course, he could just tell them just in case it really was going to happen. This way everyone could prepare themselves for what might come, but he wasn"t a prophet. Cecil also felt that he had no obligation to tell anyone of what he saw.

There was also something he was worried about. What happened if he did tell them about the illusion? Wouldn"t the Elven Kingdom try and detain him? Cecil wasn"t sure, but he wasn"t going to test his luck and find out.

Ever since he was a kid, Cecil was always following the arrangements of his elders and he had very limited freedom. Ever since coming to Alterna and experiencing it for the first time, Cecil grew to love this sort of free and unfettered feeling. Ever since then, he"s never liked having his freedom restricted. So if there was a possibility of the elves capturing him, then he wouldn"t have it. Then again, this was all just "what ifs".

Cleo didn"t press him for answers despite his vague answer. She went around the place and began casting healing magic to help the injured.

"I"ll deal with it when it comes..."

Cecil kept the news to himself, but he decided to tell his party once they made it back to the Anglaria Kingdom.

It was a good thing that the Fallen Corpses had dissipated into green light once they were killed. If not, then judging by the disgusting smell that Cecil experienced in his illusion, the entire clearing would have been permeated with that foul, rotting stench.

It took another hour or so before the shamans were able to heal everyone back to an optimum state. The administrator had already announced the end of the trial and a new path had formed on the north side of the clearing.

It obviously led to the 5th and final Plaza, the Plaza of Rest.

The corpses of their schoolmates were stored into each academy leaders" spatial rings. It was better to bring them out and give them a proper burial.

Arks Academy had lost a couple of people. Velicia"s brother, the Dark Moon Faction leader, even the Ironforge"s Leader had also perished. The other members who weren"t a part of the factions of Kings were also amongst the casualties. Even Lance Arks, Zephyr and Eli"s brother, was among the fallen students...

The other academy"s had it worst. Unlike Arks Academy that had the overpowered Little Kings and Silver, they didn"t have such good protection and their numbers dwindled to only a handful of people.

Silver was also greatly injured. He had multiple opened wounds and gashes on his body. Most of it was caused by him going to the aid of the Little Kings and the other Arks Academy students. Silver tried his best to keep everyone alive, but there was only one of him while the Fallen were numerous in numbers.

He did what he can, but there were still many casualties. These were the academy"s elite of the elites, but even then, some of them still perished.

Cecil had long since stored away the Providence into his white ring. He then led his academy onto the path. The ones who were too injured to move rode atop Silver"s back. Seeing them move onto the path, the other academies followed suit.

They wanted to place their injured atop Silver as well, but the large wolf didn"t allow it. Cecil wanted him to make a concession, but even then Silver didn"t relent. The boy was a little dumbfounded when he saw this.

Lucia then explained why. Silver was apparently holding a grudge. During the battle, seeing as how Silver was protecting all the Arks Academy students, some of the other academy students moved over and used them as shields.

Silver was forced to involuntarily help them as well. At first, Silver didn"t particularly mind, but since he wasn"t obligated to help them Silver only prioritized the safety of his master"s academy"s students. His master also only ordered him to fight and protect the Arks students and not anyone else.

Although Silver was burdened, he still did his best. However, his goodwill was abruptly stepped on when some of the more cowardly students that were hiding behind the Arks Academy students. They took things a little too far and it infuriated Silver.

They began to literally treat the Arks Academy students as meat shields and some of them had even pushed the Arks Students forwards in hopes of having Silver save them from any attacks that the Fallen directed at them.

Of course, not all of the other academy students were like this, only a select few and most of them were still alive even. However, the most shameless of them were the beastmen and some of the casualties from Arks Academy had been caused by the beastmen cowering behind the Arks students and using them as meat shields.

If everyone in the group was as cowardly and stupid as them then it was no doubt that everyone might as well have died during the final trial. Many of the Academy Leaders were infuriated with this, but only the Beastman Academy Leader said it was no helping it. The majority of the offenders were beastmen after all so he did step up to defend them.

"Ohh...no wonder..."

"Yeah...and that leader of theirs even had the cheek to get mad at you...good job snapping his wrist Cel~"

"...you can still joke around despite being seriously injured?"

"Hihi~"

Lucia was currently being carried by Cecil. The second most injured person in the party was Lucia. When Fina was grievously injured, she used her body to block some of the Fallen"s attacks and drag Fina behind the encirclement.

It was a relief that she had Elemental Burst so despite the multiple Fallen attacking her unprotected back; only a small few had been able to actually deal any substantial injuries to her.

Cecil only felt regretful that he couldn"t have been there to fight alongside his friends, but who could he blame?

The administrator had specifically given him a different trial to complete. Right from the start, if he hadn"t persevered and let his mind fall to the unbearable pain and despair he felt from the body he was possessing...Cecil didn"t know the consequences, but he felt that he might have lost something important in that illusion.

The group continued walking on the path and thankfully no monsters had jumped them during their long trek.

They had to stop and rest during their trek through the forest. The injured weren"t in any condition to move around and despite some of the beastmen"s protests and demands to have Silver help them carry the wounded, Silver only roared furiously in response and directly beheaded one of the complaining injured beastmen.

Cecil didn"t even have any time to stop him before Silver killed the person. It was actually the stupid empire prince that had been bothering them since day 1. He had been fortunate to survive until now, but he had the misfortune to aggravate the currently furious Silver.

The abrupt execution immediately shut everyone up and they could only slowly make their way towards the Plaza.

They should actually be thankful. If Cecil hadn"t purposefully matched their pace then he would have long since left them behind.

After the death of the prince, Cecil began to regret not leaving them behind. It would"ve been better if they just left those fools behind. This way Silver wouldn"t have had to stain his paws with the dirty blood of a fool, but other than the Beastmen, there were also the Neftersea and Elven Academies who have constantly been keeping up a friendly relation with the Beastkin.

Cecil sighed tiredly, "If only I was able to clear out just a little bit more Fallen..."

With those lingering regrets, the group finally arrived at the Plaza of Rest.