Chapter 847: The first day of the evaluation trial (part 25)

Listening to Aster’s suggestion, Sarina’s eyes sparkled as she held onto Aster’s right arm to then say.

"That sounds good, especially because a certain someone said that "especial rewards" will be given later, right Aria?", said the blond roc mother as she gave a knowing smile to the ice princess.

"Mm, not to mention that he was having fun petting everyone while were "risking" our lives to fight enemies", answered Aria as she held onto Aster’s free left arm.

Normally those two wouldn’t be so "aggressive" but today the "nuisance" in other words Alice was gone and of course they had to make the most out of it, so they were going to have Aster spoil them to the content of their hearts, not in a naughty way, they basically wanted him to wash and caress them, the important part is that without Alice trying to hog Aster for herself, they could have a lot of fun, and they weren’t the only ones who realized that.

"That sounds fun, let’s join too Espi~", said Kana as she jumped and held onto Aster’s neck from behind.

"Hisssss~", the little wyrm who was already resting her upper body on Aster’s shoulder, happily hissed as she coiled her tail around Aster’s upper body.

This scene caused a series of different reactions from the bystanders, Agnes and a certain red-haired girl looked rather jealous, while the vast majority of the girls from the sect were blushing, there were also those that were laughing while showing a certain degree of interest like Lina and Dahlia, the ligress was in her own category as she softly growled but didn’t look really angry.

As for others who had grown used to see such situations like Alexandra, Mylene, Eris and lately Mikaela and Lieze, they simply went on to do their own things.

"Mmm, how weird is swordsman big brother a bad person after all, but after meeting him, he doesn’t really feel like one?", couldn’t help but say Lauren as she saw Aster being dragged away by Sarina and the others towards their room for a nice bath, to which Cassandra said.

"Not being "bad", doesn’t mean one can’t be "dangerous", especially because this seems to be a common sight in this camp...", mumbled the green-haired female leader to which Mikaela who stayed behind casually added.

"You actually got a pretty mild "welcoming experience", since a few of the most unrestrained ones are out of the camp right now", she said, referring to Alice who would outright openly say that she wanted to be scrubbed squeaky clean by Aster, Mina who would be teasing her sisters and of course Vivian who would legitimately be in the dark about why others prevent her from joining Aster in the bath too.

Which made Cassandra give a questioning gaze at Mira, it was as if she was a mother saying "What kind of place did you make me bring my child to?", don’t get it wrong, from the short interactions she had with Aster and well the conditions of the oath which Aster himself took the initiative to offer to Cassandra earlier, the green-haired mercenary was sure that the black-haired youth in front of her was a decent person.

Not only did her danger detecting senses which she had polished through her life as a mercenary, told her so, but she herself could see it, otherwise Aster wouldn’t have been welcomed by a whole bunch of girls that looked genuinely happy to see him returning safe, but also because honestly with the strength Aster had demonstrated, if he has wanted to, no one in her group would have had the power to resist him doing as he pleased, but not only that wasn’t the case but he also seemed to really be angered at Lauren’s past experience, and didn’t only show goodwill because Mira had had extended an invitation for them to join their group.

Speaking of the ligress who was now being given a weird gaze by Cassandra, she had also stayed behind, because she wanted to see that Lauren was accommodated in a nice house.

Of course, that was a given, Mikaela had seen everything which developed in the match, so she wouldn’t mistreat Cassandra and the others who were personally brought in by the ligress, not to mention that thanks to the oath witnessed by the blue flaming board, they were practically members of the camp now and personally the girls of the sect welcomed them, because none among Cassandra’s group tried to kill their opponent.

It’s just that the cold on the outside but warm on the inside ligress, wanted to personally see Lauren settling in and having a good time in the camp.

"Ahem, don’t pay attention to that, like I said that guy only looks like dual cultivator scum, but... I would trust my life in his hands", said Mira to then add in a hurry.

"Never tell him I said that though!", to which Lauren nodded in response.

"If big tiger sister says so, then he can’t be dangerous, besides, swordman big brother is really strong, I already want for tomorrow to come so I can spar with him!", said the short orange-hired girl, to which Cassandra sighed.

’I seem to always end up mixed with a strange crowd... also this little badger girl’s reasoning is going to cause me a stroke someday’, she thought, first she ended up paired with Lauren, the brothers and Andre and now she joined Aster’s camp, perhaps it was her fate.

...

Leaving aside the newcomers being settled into their new homes or new working areas in Ryan and those other two’s cases, not to mention a certain purple lightning princess who sat down with a defeated expression on her pretty face inside the bathtub and the happy laughs coming from Aster’s bath as he tended to Sarina and the others by gently applying shampoo and washing their pretty smooth hair, or scales in the little wyrm’s case, the couple of hours that remained for dinner went on pretty much uneventful and just as all the girls that had watched the match finished their daily tasks a delicious smell spread throughout the camp.

"Dinner is ready, everyone!", exclaimed the girls in kitchen duty of today, though it took them a longer time and many of them cooperating, working together they could reach the level of Sarina’s casual cooking, they were taught by the blond mother roc girl personally after all.

"Leader, I don’t want to sound ungrateful but that food smells so good, this place is amazing compared to our camp", said the younger of the two brothers, also known as Terrence, his fear for Sarina diminished a bit when he learned that it was the blond green-eyed lady the one with the highest authority when it came to anything related to food.

"Hey Terrence don’t be rude to miss Cassandra, this place is indeed quite something else, but they also have a lot more of hands than us back then, in fact I didn’t even know it was possible to bring in such a large group and keep it together", said the older of the two brothers, also known as Trey, they both had black hair and brown eyes by the way.

"That’s true, as far as I knew even groups from divine families didn’t surpass the hundred people mark, and yet, other races aside, they pretty much outnumber that and judging by how close they seem with each other, we might not be the first outsiders to join, but there should be few whom they had integrated while in this place", said the middle aged man, also known as Andre, who had recovered his usual calm demeanor, he had dark brown hair and blue eyes that totally didn’t match with his hair color.

"I like this camp better, big tiger sister said that they train every day, so I can have different sparring partners daily and the food smells amazing, they even have desserts", casually added Lauren.

Their group of five was led by Cassandra who took them towards the leader’s table where Mira had told them to go after receiving their respective share of today’s dinner, which was boar soup and a side of strawberries with maple and a bit of mint to refresh the palate afterwards.

’It’s only been a couple of hours and they all look ready to jump ships, on the other hand I can’t blame them, I would have willingly joined this camp rather than making one myself if I had the chance before, their defense looks solid, there are safe refuges for everyone and the food lacks nothing aside from the special effects that dishes prepared by a spirit chef would have in the outside world, the only thing that outstands a bit too much is that... there are only women here’, thought the green-haired mercenary, at least until when she arrived at the leader’s table where she saw a second male member of the group besides James, a tall bulky youth stuffing his mouth with the boar’s soup, to be more accurate.

"Hahaha, the match was quite something, it’s a shame that sis missed it, brother looked amazing guarding the backs of sisters in law and the others!", as always Erick’s voice was incredibly loud, though Tiana left with Alice’s group, her brother stayed back alongside Sophia and Felicia who was also amused by what she saw happening during the match, more accurately by the sight of Valentina being carried by Aster.

"I don’t expect you to be classy or anything, but don’t shout while we eat, once Tiana is back, we’ll beat some table manners into that thick head of yours", said Sophia as she sighed.

As you can see, meal time was as cheerful as always in the camp, though a large group of people were currently missing, especially because that worked in the favor of some, like Kana and Espi who were happily humming while sitting on Aster’s lap without having to fight with Alice, or Sarina and Aria who were all smiles as they held onto Aster’s arms and fed him soup with their spoons.

"Ahem, judging by a certain someone growling at me since earlier, I might have given you a not so trustable impression, but please feel at home, you are also not the first "outsiders" or even "enemies" to join our camp, so don’t worry, no one will treat you poorly now that you are members of our group, you can just call me Aster", said Aster as he greeted Cassandra’s group as he also introduced Fawn to them.

He didn’t feel offended by Cassandra’s wariness, in fact he respected her for not dropping her guard despite the oath and Mira’s assurance, a leader must always see and judge for himself before making a decision, because they are responsible for the lives of their teammates.

"It’s a pleasure, and sorry for the extra cautions, it’s a habit given my way of living and also as you can see I have some... "different" teammates to look out for, thanks for having us, I’m Cassandra, the orange haired girl is Lauren, the brothers are Terrence and Trey, and last but not least that mister over there is Andre, I’ll answer to your questions so if it’s not much to ask, they’ll be having dinner in the meantime", said the green haired mercenary girl, to which Aster nodded.

"Sure, let’s start with things before you entered this place, like your divine firmament of origin and information about those whom you know came alongside your group, we’ll see how things go from that", said Aster as he invited them to sit and eat their dinner.

The brothers and Andre found a place next to Erick not only because he is also a man, but also because no one besides Sophia took the initiative to sit close to him when eating, his voice is indeed too loud after all, Lauren on the other hand went straight towards the ligress who welcomed her with a soft expression on her usually expressionless but still kind pretty face.

"Mm, like Vera said earlier, I’m a mercenary, all the five of us come from territories under the rule of the Rainbow Divine Empire, though from different firmaments, Lauren and myself are from the Rainbow Toxic divine firmament, the brothers come from the Rainbow Elemental firmament and Andre is from the Rainbow Arsenal firmament", said Cassandra which immediately drew the attention of Eris and Mylene.

As in they had never heard about divine firmaments with those names, ah right, the "divine empire" term is used when many divine firmaments join to form a single entity, depending on the conditions under which said union was formed, the empire might be ruled by a single force or co-ruled by representatives from the firmaments that conform it.

The Karel and Lyselle families from which those two come from are in a position like the latterly described, in other words they are co-rulers from the divine empire to which they form a part of, and their status as direct descendants from their respective families, makes them "divine royalty", well, Eris and Mylene were the young misses of their families, so technically they were crown princesses which means that they had an even higher status than that of divine royalty but we’ll leave that aside for now.

"There is also the Rainbow Titan firmament but not even myself have travelled so far, so none of us has intel regarding them, aside from that, I pretty much can give you an accurate picture of the rest, since I have a connection with the divine families of the other three firmaments", said Cassandra as she placed the three pendants in total which she had shown to Vera earlier, they all had rainbow colors and the words "honored guest" engraved in them, but the shape of the emblem on them was different.

One had a surprisingly similar design to the biohazard symbol from earth which Aster knew about, that pendant was the one Cassandra received from a duke of the rainbow toxic divine family, the second one had a sword and a spear crossed in front of a triangular shield, that came from a margrave of the rainbow arsenal firmament and the last one had a square shape with a wave symbol on it, that came from a duchess of the rainbow elemental firmament.

"Okay, do you have a rough idea of how many forces sent people into this place?", asked Aster to which Cassandra surprisingly nodded.

"I informed myself before taking the commission that led me into this place, the entrances were limited, so around ten groups from each firmament, if the rainbow titan firmament also joined that would make a total of forty, on the other hand, the number of people that each group was composed of varied, the larger ones numbered around a hundred while the smaller ones were of half of that, we came in groups of the latter type which were supposed to offer support to groups led by royal guard captains of the toxic, elemental and arsenal divine families, but we all got spread all over the place, that’s how I came to meet those three and since I have worked once or twice with them in previous jobs, we teamed up".

"Unfortunately, there was Vera and the other fools as well, but they behaved and our group was really small so we worked together for some time with a common goal, until recently of course", said the green haired mercenary girl.

’Loks like the number of gates in their place of origin was way smaller compared to the ones that opened in the four heavenly quadrants, perhaps because they come from a higher ranked place, since James’s divine firmament is in the middle in the number of gates’, thought Aster.

Aster and the others came from a "mortal realm" and they had the highest number of gates supposedly appearing, based on the intel Valentina had received courtesy of Aster’s fey godmother, then James who came from an "average" or even bottom tier divine firmament, given that it is a single firmament that relatively recently became one, knew that a though smaller still noticeably large number of gates had appeared.

As for Cassandra who came from a divine empire conformed by many firmaments, presented the smaller calculation of gates appearing in her place of origin, to Aster, that being said, it seems that they won in terms of quality when compared to James’s case, given the number of members per group Cassandra mentioned.

’So, we from "mortal realms" could achieve, low, middle or high grade gates depending on performance, the sole firmaments have all low grade gates but in a large quantity and lastly those from divine empires or large entities in general, have a reduced number but all are middle grade gates, sounds like a "fair" distribution, as I thought this place was meant to benefit the participants before those guys started messing around’, concluded Aster after he ordered the information he has gotten so far.

"Okay, we can leave the intel about before you entered this place at that for now, I would like you two make a list with descriptions about the standing and attitude of the forces which you know came into this place from those three firmaments later, but now, let’s switch to the area where your group had appeared, your camp was in a sandy environment, a coastal zone to be more accurate right", said Aster to Cassandra who was slightly surprised over the previous.

Not about the list mentioned by Aster, she guessed that he wanted to use her intel to speed things up at the moment of dealing with other groups from the firmaments, she knew about, what surprised her is that Aster deduced the environment of her camp like that.

It wasn’t a guess, Aster sounded confident about it, and he was, because of different combined elements that presented themselves during the match, the manchineel tree’s sap, the black henbane and the arsenic to be accurate, they all had a thing in common and that is the fact that they can be found in sandy environments, there was also the dried fish that some of the enemy’s had in their possession, you see unlike freshwater fish, ocean fish have this "briny" profile to them, which was easily noticed by Sarina’s talented nose instantly, so Aster was pretty sure about his deduction.

"Yes, we appeared at a sandy beach area close to a jungle, we didn’t directly run into Ryan’s group, but they were probably our distant neighbors, we did have the displease of meeting another group of "people" before though".

"After settling at the entrance of the jungle, we tried to cross it and after a week or so of safely exploring, finding some animals to eat and the like, we reached the exit of the jungle and then we met them...", said Cassandra making a short pause there to then continue.

"They looked like no other race I had seen before, in height and body shape they were around the same as humans on the tall side, but their skin was of a muted brown tone, originally I thought they were beast race descendants, given that they had hyena-like heads and were also quite physically strong, but they didn’t look like any hyena spirit or divine beast race I have seen, read or heard about before".

"And unlike beast descendants who might have beast traits, but are even if rough on the edges still civilized or at least appear to be so on the outside, those guys immediately rushed to kill and eat us, despite their high physical strength we were around the same in number... and we could coordinate unlike them, so we easily got rid of all of them, given that they seemed used to eat humans and even their own kind, not to mention that after dying their bodies radiated a foul odor, we decided to burn their corpses".

"They luckily had some rough iron weapons which we used to make our steel weapons to replace the bone ones we had been using so far, but the fact that we found around twenty sets of bones from their own kind around their camp, made me decide to remain in the beach and jungle areas for the past week as well".

Cassandra’s group was a small one, if those hyena head guys they fought, would have been thirty instead of ten, then they wouldn’t have defeated them with such ease even if they had the advantage of coordination on their side, what’s more if such a group didn’t care to eat twenty of their own kind, there were probably larger camps of them out there, so instead of expanding Cassandra thought on securing their living area.

’They also have been here for longer than us, I guess in exchange for getting the chance to enter through a high-grade gate, others are given more time to develop in order to balance things out’, thought Aster.

Cassandra’s group didn’t seem to have had more than a month of time in this place, unlike James’s one, but they had two weeks of developing time instead of one apparently.

"Unfortunately that crystal bush suddenly started instilling us to expand our "territory" and when I refused we lost access to the manuals we had bought, though what we had learned wasn’t taken from us, we couldn’t continue to advance and he told us to either explore and face enemies or win the incoming match if we wanted to continue to grow stronger to not become prey of other participants, that’s why I ultimately ended up agreeing to work with Ryan’s group, because the match was supposed to be between two equal sized parts at least", she said.

’He probably was afraid of what was coming to him, so he threatened the groups under his watch to win in the match thinking that the blue flaming board would spare him if they did’, amusingly thought Aster and he was right, the other supervisors couldn’t refuse to participate in the events because Blue Sky had taken over and reinstalled the original rules, with some modifications that were needed for the blue flaming board to clean out the trash.