“What the hell just happened?” Lucille questioned puzzlingly.
“Exactly what it seems like. We betrayed them and the alliance.” I responded dryly.
Ambition’s gaze flicked to the fallen Andrea and then back to me, clearly not happy with my decision. Her grip tightened on her hammer, but after a brief, tense silence, she reluctantly nodded. I understand where she was coming from, after all, if I betrayed these people so easily, what keeps me from doing the same to her?
I might’ve been forced to accept them in our ranks, but still. It probably didn’t paint me in an extremely favorable light.
“Do you want to separate?” I asked. “No one is going to hurt your team now, you can just hide somewhere until things are over.”
Ambition shook her head after a few seconds of thinking. “No, we need to stick together in case the two giant groups don’t kill enough. It’ll fall to us to cull the numbers down to 100 then.”
I accepted her words with a nod. I estimated that such a clash would last for at least ten minutes, so we had some free time on our hands. I walked up to one of the insect-helmeted guards who were the closest. He turned his head in my direction but made no moves.
“I wanted to inquire about the contestants’ right to the dropped loot by the failures.”
No reply came for a second, then, “I’m not qualified to give permission.”
“Who is?”
“I don’t know.”
“Then who should I ask?”
“Wait a second.” The awkward conversation suddenly became muted as the guy was doing something. “Miss Black Fang informed me that she will permit you to loot as much as you can carry in your hands.”
Did this dude just say Black Fang? The Black Fang?
The guard then spoke up again, “her ladyship has instructed me to tell you that she approves of your decision to get rid of the pests and that she has high hopes for your future, so take this as a token of gratitude for showing her a great time. Also, miss Black Fang says that you can’t put loot in your ring. Only what you can carry physically shall be yours.”
Damn… So she’s been watching? I suddenly got the urge to look around in order to spot her. Is she stuck to the ceiling like a spider? Or maybe she’s watching through an artifact. Or a high-level scrying spell perhaps. It’s also possible with her presumed extremely high level that if she’s a rogue type, she could be standing a simple inch away from me and I wouldn’t know about it.
That’s not creepy at all.
Getting on such a high-ranked person’s radar is both a blessing and a curse. Now I just have to hope that she doesn’t suddenly want to know everything there is to know about me, and especially not try to recruit me into her personal subordinates. It was easy to say no to Aurelion, but Black Fang is a different matter entirely.
Well, as long as she respects the rules of the Consortium all should be fine.
“What about us?” Ambition asked the guard next.
“You aren’t allowed.”
“Huh? Why?”
“Candidates have no right over the spoils of the Trials. The Consortium usually sends the artifacts and equipment of the fallen back to their parents if they’re part of the syndicate, or use it to reimburse some of the costs of holding the event if not. Black Fang will personally reimburse the Consortium from her own coffers with the value of what Devil and his team take away.”
So we got special privileges already. She must’ve really liked our fights or something. I’m not going to try to understand a multiple-century-old granny’s thoughts, so I instead asked Ambition and her team to keep a lookout on the battle while my girls and I went on to collect the best of the best loot.
…
While Quinlan and co were looting the riches from the bloody corpses, Selene and Cedric were having the worst day of their lives. At first things were equal between the two armies, perhaps even in their favor, but that quickly became nothing but a dream.
Cold reality was setting in with their frontline getting overrun and with their backline catching arrows and spells with their bodies as if it were a pokem*n collecting competition, and the assassin squad was nowhere to be seen.
“Fucking Devil! I knew we couldn’t trust him, Selene! We gave him six of our assassins like dumbasses too! A critical mistake…” Cedric cursed. He, Selene, and the survivors of their personal Heralds stood at the back. Cedric as a swordsman should’ve been on the front, but he was the protector of Selene and the commander of their group, so he was exempt from that.
“Yeah. We got stood up.” The busty mage nodded. She wasn’t overly surprised. It was wishful thinking on their part to expect the strangers to act in accordance with her wishes. The reason why she went along with Devil’s offer was that she simply didn’t have any better cards to play. She could’ve refused and killed him, but that would’ve just further weakened her army since the duo’s team was competent and surely would’ve taken a few of them down before they fell. As for the assassins they lost, it wouldn’t have turned the tide of the battle anyhow, so it was a gamble worth taking in her mind. If they did as promised, the clash was perhaps winnable, and if not, then it didn’t change anything.
“We have to go along with our initial plan.” Selene decreed wryly.
Cedric gasped and winced at the same time. “Is this really necessary?”
“Do your role, my knight. Protect me with your body.” The mage didn’t reply to his question but instead ordered her fiance to sacrifice himself for her safety if needed.
With that, she leaped into the midst of her own army and cast her mightiest spell.
Her throat was dry and her face sunken as she uttered the next two words coldly.
“[Blazing Cataclysm]”