CHAPTER 1403: CHAPTER 1402: PLETHORA OF REWARDS (3)

Kat PoV

The Trials that we were completing were becoming easier and easier the longer we were here, with the amount of actual challenging Trials becoming sparser as we weeded them out as quickly as we possibly could.

And by challenging I don’t even just mean the intensity or the difficulty of the enemies that we faced - though that was by far the most common metric used to make the Trial harder to complete - but instead those that focused on doing something besides just killing as many enemies as we were able to.

Some were completed for the sole reason of wanting that one particular resource or item that they rewarded, and others were done entirely because someone wanted to blow off some steam by decimating a population of monsters created and or trapped for that specific purpose.

The amount of Trials that I myself was delving into was lessening as I instead had the Demon Wolf and young Demoness plunge into them in my stead, leaving me to lounge around the campsite as I planned our next move carefully.

What we would need, how to efficiently store all of our new amazing gains, the sort of preparations we should go through for the random events that seem to occur during the expedition through the Labyrinthian...

All of that needed mental energy which I had in abundance, while the amount of physical energy that I normally had was locked away simply because I didn’t really want to use it that much; as such, everyone else was bringing back large amounts of items for me to organize and plan around, regaling me with the tales of their Trial and how I missed out on something or the other.

Obviously I still needed my fix of bloodshed as well, so I cherrypicked the Trials I visited as much as I possibly could, making sure to tag along on the more interesting or beneficial Trials that I wanted to be on instead, which was entirely selfish.

If we were a more loosely bound group of people I would definitely be facing some pushback and ill emotions from everyone, but because we were rather tight knit I could do this and not worry about anything at all.

Lady Fenyras was still her grating self that continued to insinuate that I would somehow gain dozens of pounds and turn into a blob of useless meat thanks to this laziness, or that I was weighing everyone down and being a drag to the parties mood, but that was just her being her.

Everyone else didn’t show any signs of caring at all, and if anything as the Trials they cleared passed more and more of them seemed to be staring at me with longing; not lustful longing but instead a more... emotional longing at how I was able to just pass the time tidying up the camp and organizing our carriage.

How I was relaxing and partaking in more laid back activities like meditating or slow paced training instead of rushing head first into another enemy filled pit fighting for some paltry scraps; not to say that those scraps didn’t add up into a gigantic mountain of goodies, but still... it wasn’t entertaining me that much anymore.

And then there was the constant teasing and conversation that came from Cali as she accompanied me during my abundance of free time, keeping me informed about the various ’dreams’ she had or the things that she had done in times past.

What she would be doing in my position currently and all of the scandals that she would have accrued like medals or honor - how she would have laid with everyone in this party or how she would have tried to seduce her way into the Empress’ bedroom by using Lady Fenyras as a springboard.

It was... actually rather amusing and refreshing to listen to, and since the Arch Fiend loved to hear herself speak she never once seemed to mind that I just kept quiet and did my own thing as she floated around, acting like a portable, breathing air freshener for me and keeping the atmosphere bright, lively and pink.

The days just dragged on one by one until we were getting close to the agreed upon week of conquering Trials, during which we had cleared up so much of the city I had to wonder if there was really anything left...

Of course I was joking since it seemed that some of them were being refreshed or being pulled in from who knows which portion of the city now, but still, we definitely depleted a nice amount of Trials from this place, so that was a win in my books.

And of course, like how most things tend to go for me it was during that last stretch that another thing happened that immediately sent us from the dwindling embers that were ready to fade away from this place to a renewed inferno that was threatening to consume us.

It wasn’t a Trial per se that had drawn us back in, nor was it a reward that we had received that reignited the desire to remain back here; no, it was the time that Cali disappeared from the camp for a short few hours before coming back with a rather calm and steady presence to her that got us all immediately curious.

If Cali wasn’t bouncing around and constantly trying to flirt with someone then something was wrong, and if she wasn’t racing to tell us it meant that it was something she wanted to keep to herself for as long as possible, but it was just her nature to spill that sort of ’secret’ anyways since it would get her something she wanted.

That ’secret’ was something that made us want to stay here; not because we wanted to continue completing Trials, but because there was business that needed to be finished, and that business...

Well, it was none other than our favorite Elves making a surprise appearance here, deep in the heart of the Labyrinthian, with an Arch Fiend of Sla hovering around them the same way that Cali was hovering around us.

Jillian was here, and if she was here... this was our chance to kill her and free ourselves of that part of our past for good... and so that I could settle the score for what she had done and what she had wanted to do...