Leonel felt his vision blur. When it cleared again, he was shocked to find that he was a bird in the skies. The suddenness caught him off guard, causing him to almost plummet from the clouds entirely.
After he regained his bearings and figured out how his wings seemed to work, Leonel soon realized that he eyes seemed capable of peering through everything. Whether it was seeing to the ground as though it was right before him or even seeing through the walls of tall buildings, he could do it all. In fact, he realized that if he focused, he could even filter out noise and focus on individual conversations.
'This must be the fourth trial? But what am I supposed to do?'
All of the trials up to this point had been related to battle. Leonel had been entirely prepared for another long drawn out battle, he never expected to be thrusted into a place like this.
Still, Leonel realized that he had to remain calm.
To this point, the only trial the voice of the Merlin Trials actually explained was the Random Event. Outside of this, everything else was figured out by the contestants themselves. As much as this was a trial of brawn, it was also one that tested one's observational abilities.
Thinking to this point, Leonel began to focus on the task at hand.
The first thing he realized after a long while was that the city he was restricted to flying above was definitely Camelot. Normally, it wouldn't take him so long to realize something like this. The reason it did this time around was because of two factors: for one, he wasn't used to seeing Camelot from such a vantage point. And secondly… this Camelot wasn't exactly like the one he had come to know.
From Leonel's observations, he believed that this Camelot was displaced through time. It was either a version of the Kingdom from the past or from the future. Judging by the overall smaller scope, Leonel concluded that this was more likely a Camelot of the past, probably a few decades younger than the Camelot he had come to know.
'Why would this trial send me to Camelot's past?'
Leonel's heart was a bit perturbed.
He still remembered the trial he had to complete. His main trial was to save King Arthur. His two side quests were to kill Modred and resolve the love triangle. And, finally, the hidden quest was to make Camelot a part of true history.
At this point, with how difficult everything had become, Leonel had resigned himself to not perfectly clearing this Zone. As long as he saved King Arthur, he would be able to leave here alive.
However, recently, Leonel realized a problem with that line of thinking.
This was an SS-grade Zone. This meant that the reward for clearing the main quest was a Tier 8 Black treasure. However, he needed a Tier 9 Black treasure in order to exchange for a ticket to another world.
This realization frustrated Leonel. In order to get a reward a tier above the difficulty of the Zone, he needed to complete the harder of the two side quests. But, with his current relationship with King Arthur, how the hell was he supposed to help fix his marriage? Was that a joke?
This ultimately left Leonel with only one choice: even if he failed both side quests, he needed to find a way to complete the hidden quest. Only then would he be able to exchange for what he needed.
Of course, since this Zone had a 12 person entry limit, it was still possible for Leonel to exchange five Tier 8 rewards for one Tier 9 reward. However, Leonel didn't want to put his hope into this. There were still Monet, Violet Rain and Little Nana who remained alive. This meant that the rewards would be split between the four of them.
In that case, even if they managed to clear the main quest, Leonel would only have three Tier 8 rewards which wouldn't be enough.
Of course, he thought of killing Monet and Violet Rain, but he chose against doing so. Though he had no love lost between himself and Monet, Violet Rain had never acted against him. Even if he considered the matters of the tournament, those were just minor inconveniences. She never harmed his life.
He would never cross his own bottom line just for the sake of a reward. And, even if he killed Monet alone, that would only give him four rewards to exchange. He would still fall short so there was no need to risk himself to kill such a powerful woman.
There was another matter that Leonel had been reluctant to think about. If he didn't get the ticket to Terrain, he would be in mortal danger after he left this Zone. How could the Slayer Legion possibly let him off so easily?
So why was Leonel thinking about all of this now? Other than the fact it was related to his life and death? It was precisely because the oddity of this trial was the first chance he saw that just might be related to his hidden quest. If he was lucky, it might even let him understand how to fix King Arthur's marriage without the need to befriend the man.
Leonel realized that this trial was his chance.
His gaze sharpened as he focused his everything on finding the clues he needed.
'Hm?'
Leonel's hawk eyes lit up.
When observing such a large area, it was difficult to tell what was important to pay attention to. Leonel had listened in on way too many useless conversations about the weather or stumbled into some not so wholesome displays of affection.
However, he realized that there would always be clues that pointed him toward particular main events.
For example, he stumbled onto many conversations about the exploits of Lancelot. It turned out that he recently killed the Demon Emperor. Leonel wasn't sure who this Demon Emperor was, but in all likelihood, he was the leader of the Demons before Modred.
Another hot topic he stumbled into was information about the recent closure of the Merlin Trials. It appeared that Lancelot, Queen Guinevere and King Arthur were the ones who gained the most.
From this, Leonel understood that this was at least four to five decades ago. The last opening of the Merlin Trials was 50 or so years ago, so for it to still be such a hot topic, Leonel was sure that it ended quite recently.
Still, there was one event that was spoken the most about. It overshadowed all others.
The Queen was giving birth.
However, there was a problem with this information that made Leonel raise an eyebrow. Lionus was in his 20's, not much older than Leonel himself. If not for this, he'd be much more powerful and would have been allowed by his father to participate.
So who was the Queen giving birth to over four decades ago?