Chapter 199: Digging

*1 month later*

Perseus POV

I think last month was pretty fun, though most of the fights were warmups compared to what I endured under the chief and my grandparents. But I qualified for the main tournament, the other guy in my block who also qualified was some random veteran adventurer who was trying to make a name for themselves, which he accomplished more than successfully, apparently, he started as a 6-star and through tough fights, developed into an 8-star one.

It'll be a while till the main tournament, it's where people no longer pull punches, though I doubt everyone will use all their trump cards and show it to the public, nonetheless, it'll be entertaining.

We'll have a decent break till then and everyone is going to make use of it, Sarah and Rolan made it and my first opponent is Rolan, which should be fun for me. Zach did warn me that Rolan has gotten his acquaintances to scour the black market for relics to make up for his weaknesses.

Even though I'm a 6-star, that should qualify me as a 7-star everywhere else, which is where Rolan is at as of now, but even though Rolan is a hero whose strength is equivalent to an 8-star one, I have beaten a 9-star and an 8-star at the beginning, so he's taking this more seriously than ever to not embarrass himself. Currently, he's trying to get 10-star equipment to match mine as he got by with only 9-star ones so far.

I should have an edge with the power of 2 roses and all my other hidden powers, but we'll see what Relics he'll be getting, Zach is trying to find that out, but apparently, this time, he gives me no guarantees, some other contestants are hiring spies like him, where a couple ended up dead, so this is probably too risky to get too close and his group will retreat if they sense even an ounce of hostility in their directions.

When I got back to the village, the people there threw a celebration for the sole person from this village to make it to the main tournament since the chief, I even said beforehand that I have no desire for such events, but it's not like they care, everyone seems to be in a good mood, so I'll just suffer alone.

It's a bit embarrassing though when they gave me flower necklaces, and I don't know how, but the chief managed to get me to teach some younger kids basic magic in like 3 days, these kids in particular are a combination of children from my village and children of Zoris. Edward will be attending along with Grandpa Laker to keep me in check from running my mouth off.

The celebration was nice, the village basically celebrated till almost morning when people then clean up and rested after the tiring event, Maple tagged along and stayed up all night though since she saw that a lot of the watchers were tired, so she volunteered to stay up to help in case trouble came up.

I got only like 5 hours before I got up to do a walk around my village, it was mostly quiet, everyone was sleeping and resting after the previous night's celebration, I then went down the tree to explore the nearby forest.

In Trevor's second diary that was given to me by the current demon lord, he apparently hid another chest around here, and he trusted that it will be protected by the people of my village till someone who knows the exact spot to find it shows up.

The chest apparently contains something that can weaken the heroes if used properly, in the second diary, he implied several times that the next person to have picked Buddy up after him was another demon, and this item would be useful to use against the heroes. Even if the person can't use it, they can present it to the demon lord where it'll be put to good use.

Compared to the first book, the second book's writings are no longer as, I don't know, comforting. It has gotten more aggressive, especially his hatred of his brother, who people now called the world's savior. You can barely tell that he's the same person, his writing has also gotten more formal to fit the image of a king.

Heck, I had Buddy read it, and even he looked baffled, his speech, his personality, it switched up and revenge dominated his mind. I know I said I pitied the guy, but the demon lord Trevor is someone who I wouldn't pity, the things he's done with no remorse are scary, he even wrote about wanting to create fake roses, even though they will never be equal to the actual roses in theory, they will at least help mages who've hit their limits to have something else to turn too once magic is no longer viable.

But fake roses? I'll admit, it sounds cool, but it's just impossible, there's a reason why there are no rose duplicates so far. And if a guy as smart as him said that it's impossible, it is. He's still a fricking genius.

He also discovered that the other hero ascended from a 10-star to the 11th, something that he himself wasn't able to accomplish and only was able to theorize. So there should be a document somewhere in Zoris' secret stash where the first ever 11-star mage describes the process of how he achieved it.

"What are you doing?" A familiar female voice asked

I turned to see Maple.

"Just digging for treasure, and Buddy is here to help."

"Why can't you just use magic instead of a shovel?" She asked

"Trevor placed traps here that will activate if you use magic, so shovel, hand, and a fox will do."

The treasure is placed between the roots of the tree at a certain coordinate, where we have to dig straight down to hit it and so my fox and I started digging with the goddess of autumn watching.