First Trial [2]

"The Lord of the Domain is interested in an individual? How intriguing…"

Sitting on an ordinary looking throne in the middle of the void was a humanoid figure that emanated a source of radiant aura. Its facial features were indeed hard to make out, but one could definitely tell that it currently had a perplexed expression displayed on its face.

In front of Kaia, the angel of light, was a large mirror-like structure that displayed views of about 1,000 contestants. Many sections of the mirror were currently blacked out, signaling the elimination of these participants.

"This batch is indeed promising…"

"Yes! Finally, my first coin!" I exclaimed in an exhausted voice.

I was currently in the middle of a dark cave. My joyous laughter echoed across the cave walls, disturbing the previously silent cave.

Next to me was the corpse of an oversized rodent, lying lifelessly on the dirty cave floor. A large, diagonal gash can be seen on the corpse of the rodent and its green blood was spilt all over the place.

The first time I encountered one of these mutated beasts, excluding the mystical wolf, I was completely baffled by their existence. In my previous world, not even the strongest animals such as the grizzly bear could compare to these beasts. For example, the rodent I just killed had power double that of a gorilla and it was almost triple times nimbler than a gazelle. If not for Hailstorm, my newly acquired soul weapon, I could've easily died to one of these monstrosities.

Sitting upright on the cave floor, I sighed as I tucked the coin I had obtained from killing the rodent away into my waistband. Afterwards, I checked the leaderboards as well as the time I had left.

=== Leaderboards: ===

Wang Yikang - 61 coins

Nishiki Ryuji - 59 coins

Jean Lavigne - 42 coins

=== Time Remaining: ===

17 hours. 10 minutes. 37 seconds.

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I chuckled as I no longer saw Trenton and Monica's names up on the leaderboards. They most likely realized that having their names on the leaderboard was a bad idea and that many would hunt them down using their locations. I shook my head in disappointment when I noticed that Wang Yikang had yet to turn his coins into items in the shop; he'll sooner or later be eliminated.

I had personally acquired quite a few items such as stamina recovery potions and weapons. The first time I saw a potion, I was confused and decided to try it out for myself. I was astounded at the magical effects it had on my body as it miraculously gave me a lot of energy. I checked out their values in the shop and it turns out they were quite valuable.

I was no longer worried about my coins as I could just trade my items in at the end of the trial.

After resting for a few minutes, I sluggishly stood up from where I was sitting and proceeded to walk out of the dark cave. The effects of wielding Hailstorm were catching up to me and I was feeling extremely weak and exhausted. Fortunately, I had a couple of stamina recovery potions with me, but I decided not to use them considering their high value.

Walking out of the cave, the intense sunlight blinded my eyes as I quickly covered them up. After adjusting to the sunlight, I squinted my eyes and made my way towards a large infrastructure in the distance. I had previously seen that ancient structure, but I decided to explore it after gathering more items.

Fortunately for me, I had yet to see a single soul in sight. This made it easier for me as I had avoided a lot of unnecessary conflicts. But just as I was appreciating my good luck, I heard many loud footsteps start to approach my direction. A wry smile appeared on my face as I turned around to face the incoming annoyances.

"Hello. My name is Sebastian Laroix. Serve under me." A blonde-haired individual who was surrounded by 3 burly men smiled in disgust.

A small frown appeared on my face as I looked at Sebastian in confusion. He acted like one of those rich ass family inheritors or something like that. In his eyes I most likely looked like a peasant, which probably explained his condescending attitude towards me.

"Thanks for the offer, but no thank you." I replied bluntly.

"How dare you refuse my young master's proposal?!" One of the burly bodyguards yelled in rage as he rushed towards me.

I raised my eyebrows and wondered why anybody would get so riled up by such a trivial matter. My frown deepened even more when I saw Sebastian order his other bodyguards to beat me up; just how unreasonable could a person get?

A shook my head in disappointment as the edge of my lips curled upwards in a patronizing manner. I wasn't named "the ultimate soldier" in my previous life for nothing.

I immediately whipped out a shortsword from my inventory right as the burly man was inches away from my face. He was in fact so close to me that I could smell his disgusting breath from my position. The man, however, was oblivious to this fact and continued to close down on me. But unfortunately for him, he dashed straight into the blade of my shortsword, which separated his ugly head right off of his body. It was a clean slice as blood only gushed out of his neck seconds after the beheading. As if collapsing in slow motion, the man slowly fell lifelessly onto the earthy grass.

The other two bodyguards along with Sebastian were immediately frightened by the sight. They most likely have never seen anyone die before as their faces started to pale significantly. After a moment of realization, Sebastian and his two bodyguards started to throw up.

I, however, have killed many people in my previous life. I don't particularly like the feeling of killing but I don't hate it either. It was just something natural to me since my job as the ultimate soldier was to basically kill everything that was in my way.

Gazing at the cowering figures before me with a phlegmatic expression on my face, I, without hesitation, instantly sliced all of their heads off using the shortsword in my hands. A few moments later, my entire body was showered in blood, making me look like some sort of maniac.

Seemingly unfazed by the excessive amount of bloodshed, I casually looked at my shortsword and grinned with satisfaction. The shortsword that was currently in my hands had a much higher quality blade than any shortsword I've ever wielded in my previous life. I was almost shocked when I first acquired the shortsword after defeating a mutant lizard, but after recalling the events that had happened after coming here, I decided that it wasn't out of the ordinary for something of this caliber to exist in this world.

Snapping out of my daze, I then decided that my best choice of action would be to wash the blood off of my body. After looting the four corpses lying in front of me, with only Sebastian having things worth taking, I set off towards a nearby pond.