As the team was teleported into the next stage, Shiro saw a ticket of sorts appear before her.
[Congratulations, as you have completed a slayer’s task, you are now given a free pass to the next level. Please, insert the ticket to the main console in the room and you’ll be transported to an observation deck for now.]
Reading the hologram, Shiro nodded and walked over to the main console.
Looking around, Shiro saw that most of the teams had finished with Lisandra’s team being one of them. As they have 9 people in their group, she can guess that they managed to eliminate the slayer before anyone was eliminated.
However, looking at one of the other teams, Shiro noticed that Madison had been eliminated and couldn’t help but frown.
‘She’s got one of the best defences and skills to counter an assassin, how did she get eliminated.’ Shiro thought to herself.
Counting the amount of people on the team, Shiro noticed that they were missing exactly three people meaning the slayer only eliminated those that were necessary.
As she was walking towards the main console, she saw the other slayer.
Wrapped in a hooded cloak, the person seemed to be quite light on their feet since their speed was quite fast despite their walking posture. But since their features and body shape was wrapped under the hooded cloak, Shiro couldn’t tell if they were male or female. They also had a disguise on their name tag so she couldn’t see their class either.
‘Hmm… I’ll probably have to keep an eye on them in the next round.’ Shiro thought to herself before inserting her ticket to the console. A teleporting circle appeared beneath her as she was teleported to a rather luxurious room.
There were comfortable seats and snacks laid out by the side while a huge window was there to allow her to observe the next round.
However, as Shiro didn’t notice this mirror before, she realised that it must be a one-sided mirror.
Hearing a sound behind her, Shiro saw the other slayer appear in the room.
“Seems like we both get a free pass.” Shiro said with a smile but was ignored.
Pulling up one of the chairs to the window, the slayer started to observe while Shiro could only shake her head before doing the same.
###
“That was quite an unfair round for the slayers no? Since the moment they make a move, they’ll be detected. Except for those two exceptions, everyone else was eliminated. If they failed, they were going to be eliminated anyways.” Keiko raised an eyebrow.
“Well slayers are supposed to be exceptions to begin with. You might think that the slayer role is given at random but it’s there to challenge the ones we deem to be most powerful in the groups. Should they be able to prove that they were indeed powerful, they’ll get a free pass. But if they fall under our expectations, they’ll be eliminated. It’s simple like that, we wouldn’t choose a weak person to have the slayer role after all.” Alvan laughed.
“However, there seems to be a few that bypassed this as they’ve hidden their strength well. The warrior from team 5 was such. Destroying a part of the arena with a single hit and taking the slayer out the moment they showed any suspicious movement.” He narrowed his eyes.
“Indeed.” Keiko nodded.
However, in the end, she didn’t have much to complain about since Shiro had passed but the other slayer was also going to be troublesome.
She had watched them eliminate those on his team with ease. The main thing about him was that his sword was a lot faster than what was displayed. There was a ‘lag’ of sorts with the visuals of his sword.
Similar to the rare swordsman skill, refraction, this skill was one that strikes faster than what is demonstrated rather than reposition.
A troublesome opponent if you cannot react at the last moment.
‘With how Shiro is, I doubt she’ll lose. But her teammates cannot let their guard down.’ Keiko thought to herself.
###
Seeing as how Madison was eliminated, Lyrica frowned before calling over all of their party members.
“It seems like we’ll need to be careful of the two slayers next round. For one of them to be able to eliminate Madison despite her defences, they’re definitely going to be troublesome. Silvia are you able to tell us anything about the female slayer that was on your team?” Lyrica asked.
“Hmm… She’s definitely troublesome. From what I can see, she excels in speed and reactions. One of the assassins had tried to get her but the moment he reappeared, the archer had already slammed his head into the ground and eliminated him. As for skill with her class, we were unfortunately not able to find out due to the fact that we weren’t able to force her to use any of her skill.” Silvia shook her head.
“Hmm… that’s quite annoying. But at least you weren’t eliminated.” Lyrica sighed.
“Mn.”
“Ah speaking of troublesome people, there was this one guy in my team that you should definitely be wary of.” Aarim spoke up.
“Oh? What do you mean by that?” Lyrica raised an eyebrow.
“You see, when the slayer tried to attack him, the man had eliminated a large portion of the arena and had almost swept me along with it. If it wasn’t for me having a barrier ready just in case and it barely missing me, I would have been eliminated as well. For a person to display that much power, in the second round, I can say for certain that this is far from 100% strength. There are two possibilities, either he’s an idiot that had to go all out or he’s confident enough to show this much power in the second round.” Aarim replied seriously.
“That is indeed a problem…. Just stay cautious for now then. Since there are 75 participants left, ignoring the two slayers, this round may be a brutal one that will eliminate quite a large number of people.
“From the information provided in past events, this round would usually put the number of people below 50 or in some cases, 30. We’ll keep our guard up and show some of our trump cards if needed but remember to keep your best skills hidden for now. We don’t want to expose ourselves too fast.” Lyrica instructed as they all nodded.
The next round was that of a boss fight of sorts. People will be randomly assigned into teams and depending on their class, they’ll each be given grading objectives. The lowest 10 grades on each team will get eliminated.
If the team has healers, there will be waves of enemies on top of this so that she’ll have to make sure her healing is on point.
One can still get eliminated in the fight should they take too much damage from the boss and if they do, a penalty will be inflicted onto the healer’s score for letting a teammate die. But on the flip side, if a teammate tried to sabotage the healer on the team through intentionally taking too much damage, the healer will not get a penalty for their actions.
Assigning the teams, Lyrica and Silvia were paired up while Chen Yu and Aarim were a part of a pair as well while Yin was on the same team as the guy Aarim warned them about.
Each of the teams were composed of 25 people as three doors appeared around the room.
[Please enter a door and face the boss.]
Reading the hologram, they each nodded to each other before entering.
Meanwhile, the successful slayers were given a choice to enter two pods that will allow them to navigate the three rooms and observe everyone.
Getting into one of these without hesitation, her first destination was going to be the team with Lyrica and Silvia.
With a buffer like Silvia on her side, Shiro wanted to see how well Lyrica could perform. With 10 people being eliminated, Lyrica needed to find the right balance of holding back and displaying her prowess.
‘I wonder if I’ll be able to see any new skills that she has obtained in the two month’s I’ve been gone.’
{There’s a good chance since 10 is quite a large number for a team of 25. For those that are insecure, they’ll be going all out to try obtain a good spot.} Nimue said while she was also observing the situation.
As they’re Shiro’s close friends and party members, there will be a time where they might need to help with the spirit’s in the coming age of gods and demons so she wanted to see how powerful they were after two months.
And with that, the fight against the boss began.
