Loophole

That answer garnered Kai a wide variety of reactions.

Remy stared up at the feline spirit blankly, wondering if the miniature blue cat was actually Cecilia's mother.

Petunia was also staring blankly, but the target of her stare was Kai rather than Frosty. She seemed to be wondering when the hell had he whacked his head off a rock to have lost his mind.

And Cecilia, her head was moving a million miles an hour, alternating between Kai and the spirit above them. They wore a horrified expression on their face, but there was also a hint of disappointment. Even if Kai didn't know the name of her mother, she would have at least been appreciative if they had not just forfitted one of them to getting massacred by three extremely strong monsters.

But perhaps the most entertaining reaction came from none of those three, but from Frosty instead.

The feline spirit levitated above them, no expression on their face. But after a few moments of silence, it finally began to change.

The spirit's eyes narrowed, a creepy smile growing as it showed off its small yet strong fangs. It crossed its paws over itself as it uttered one singular word.

"Correct."

While Kai was grinning to himself, his other three companions were completely silent. Now, it wasn't only Remy wondering whether Frosty was actually Cecilia's mother, Petunia, and even Cecilia herself, were wondering the same thing.

After another few seconds of silence, Kai started laughing.

"Oh, you're evil! What a stupid gameshow this is, why did I even fight in the first place?"

Frosty also began to laugh, their whole body rhythmically moving as well.

"You shouldn't have even figured it out, you just got lucky! Damn it, no one ever figures it out, be happy that you did."

While Kai and Frosty were laughing, the rest of the group had no idea what was going on. Cecilia knew that her mother's name was definitely not Frosty, so how could that have been the right answer?

And the answer to that question was... it wasn't.

It took Kai a while to realise it, but they had been given all the hints needed at the very beginning of the trial.

The objective to the trial was to be correct, that was their only goal. As long as they were right, they would be fine.

And at the very start, Frosty had asked them were they ready to play Frostbitten, and that there would be no wrong answers.

Kai had assumed that the spirit meant that there was no wrong answers for that one question, but no, they actually meant that there was no wrong answers at all. No answer would be considered wrong, as long as you gave an answer, you were right.

But that didn't make sense either, what was the point of Frosty saying they would have to face some beasts in his collection for every answer they got wrong if there was no wrong answers? Wouldn't the gameshow be too easy?

The answer to that part was simple, the offers.

Turns out, being good at the gameshow nearly done more harm than good. Kai could have potentially figured it out earlier if he had gotten more answers wrong, but it ended up fine in the end.

Frosty only gave offers on questions that the group did not know the answer to, no questions other than that resulted in an offer.

And all of the offers included facing one of the cages.

So the only way to face a beast was to not give an answer, any answer was 'correct'.

It was stupid, but this was the Trial of Mind, and Frosty kept going on about loopholes and they themselves seemed to love them, meaning there had to be more than just scamming the spirit out of a few questions.

And there was, resulting in the current situation.

Kai sighed to himself.

This entire trial was a trick, it was all an effort for the average contestant to accept Frosty's offers and end up dying one by one, messing up the remaining contestants heads and having them all succumb without even attempting to answer the question. And by the end, the last possible contestant would be too terrified to just accept the offer so they would have a guess, realise the whole trick of the trial, but by then all of their companions would be dead.

It was an insidious trial, one befitting someone like Frosty, a wolf in a cat spirit's clothing, but it could have been worse.

"Alright, cat, ask the rest of the questions."

And without any more interruptions, the group managed to get through the rest of the remaining questions without any hiccups.

There was one that asked what Remy's favourite flavour of cheese was, so Kai answered moldy.

It was, obviously, correct.

And another that asked what Kai wanted to be when he grew up, and Cecilia answered by saying a chef that only cooked seafood.

Another correct answer.

And that was how the questions progressed, until finally, the group had answered all one hundred questions with a little over ten minutes to spare.

Feeling his shoulders slouch, Kai sighed in relief and rested his arms against his stand.

"Congrats, contestants, for you are the first group to win this gameshow with all of their members remaining. Up until this moment, the most we've ever had survive was two, and even then, they came in as a group of seven, so be proud!"

Kai waved his hand dismissively at the feline spirit. He was too mentally drained for all of the theatrics. Even if some of the questions had not necessarily been hard, they had still taken quite a bit out of him.

"Yeah yeah, thanks and all that, but I'd rather just get the reward, we completed a trial and all. And please, let it be a good one, the last reward we received was basically rubbish."

Scowling, Frosty created a throne of ice in the air and sat down on it, resting their feline head on their paw. They almost looked intimidating when sat there.

"Rewards this, rewards that, can't we just enjoy the time we have left together? As soon as the three hours run out, you'll never see me again."

Frosty playfully wiped a shard of ice away from their eye, the shard acting like a makeshift tear drop.

"I've been so lonely, it's been millions of years since I've spoken to anyone, can you imagine what that does to a person?"

Suddenly being reminded of The Ever-changing, Kai wondered what it must have been like for them, spending all of those millions, possibly even billions of years alone. He had previously asked his master before he freed them whether they would go murder a bunch of people when they were freed, and their answer, while somewhat convincing, left a fair bit to be desired.

And now that they were currently ghosting Kai... It didn't seem like a good thing.

"Fine, we can chat, but I'm still expecting a good reward. I mean, you're a tricky bastard, you and your bloody trick questions."

Frosty scoffed, offended. They slouched back on their throne as a small crown of ice manifested onto their head.

"How rude! And I didn't even go that hard on you! I'll have you know, for my million year anniversary I made it a thousand questions in thirty hours, would you have rather I done that?"

Kai shuddered. A thousand questions? He didn't even want to imagine what going through that would be like.

In his head, he said a prayer for the poor souls who had to suffer through that.

"No, no, I would rather not go through that, thank you for not making us go through that."

Frosty laughed happily.

"That's what I thought. Now, since you're so desperate for your reward, I suppose I can give it to you. But just a warning now, even though there is four of you, it will only be one singular reward, I hope that's okay with all of you?"

Kai simply shrugged.

"As long as it's Legendary rarity we don't mind."

Frosty grinned.

"That works with me. Now, Cecilia, pick a number one through three."

Cecilia blinked, not expecting to be called on.

"Uh... three?"

The next moment, a small leather pouch appeared in the air beside Frosty. It levitated downwards, towards Cecilia until it finally landed in her hands.

"That, my dear friends, is your reward. I hope you make good use of it."

For a moment, Kai could have sworn he saw a smirk on Frosty's face, but as soon as he blinked it had vanished.

But why would the spirit be smirking after giving them their reward?

Casting a glance over at Cecilia, Kai-

Frowned.

Was it just him, or did it look like she was blushing?

But why would she be blushing over their reward?

"Cecilia, let me see that."

Nodding her head, Cecilia quickly handed over the bag. It was almost as if she was relieved to do so.

And when Kai looked at the name of the item, he could understand why.

Satchel of Salaciousness (Legendary)