Chapter 23: The carnival trial of mimicry

One day while the snow was pouring down, Lucas went to see Lucy to tell her something. Lucy looked at Lucas and noticed something wasn't right and said "What's wrong?" Lucas answered "I think it is about time I let loose." Lucy asks "Can you not hold it in any longer?" Lucas says "I think I can keep it in for a week at best." Lucy says "Then give me some time. I will prepare something for you. We can use this opportunity for something else as well." Lucas says "Just… do hurry okay." Lucy says "On it."

Then around five days later the day had come. Lucas and Lucy were in a disclosed location, not too far from the city. The trees were removed prior to them coming to that location, so there was plenty of room to do it.

Lucy says "Feel free to do it." Lucy then flew away and let Lucas do the thing.

The next morning Lucy had brought a group of people near a town that had just appeared the night before. Mostly students from the academy, people from the mages tower and adventurers that became interested.

Lucy said to herself "I really ought to say no to that man's suggestions." Lucy then made the announcement. "Welcome, welcome dear participants of this carnival! This… is the carnival trial… of mimicry! In this carnival you'll be able to win prizes according to what points you get. Each point is earned either through defeating enemies of varying difficulty or by looting this town's treasure chests. The points will be recorded for each person individually or by a group of people. The system will be in charge of recording these points and the system also makes sure you won't get fatally injured during this event as long as you have the device given to you. The system was made with collaboration between the Second mages tower and Saint Diane's academy. It was made with a bit of a haste, so please be understanding if any bugs come up during the event. I leave the rest of the announcements to the man who made this all possible, Lucas Knave."

Then Lucas came to the stage and picked up the mic. "Greeting dearing participants. My name is Lucas Knave and I'm a demon mimic from the past. We demon mimics do suffer an illness ever so often where we can't control the size we show, so we end up presenting our full mass when we are in this state. Hence, I have put out my whole body to make this makeshift town that is about half of the size of the city of Windstone. That means that you will literally be walking on me and if you go inside of a building in this town, you are quite literally inside of me. But no need to worry, I will not eat you during this event, nor do I actually care for humanoid flesh, so rest assured. You won't be crushed.

To put further details, the enemies you face here are all my offshoots who bear the intelligence of most mimics at the lowest setting. The nearer you get to the castle in the back, the harder and more intelligent the mimics will become. The mimics can either mimic you, anyone inside the town that participates, or a person that I have personally met.

The town is separated into five sections, six if you include the castle at the end of the fifth section. Each section is separated by a wall that has a gate on it. In each gate, there will be one or two guardian mimics that are little above average of the mimics past that gate. That should help you be able to deduct if you are capable of handling the mimics past the gate.

And in each section there are two towers that have a special princess inside of them that I personally will give to the first person who gets the said prize. The castle doesn't have towers, as it is technically not a section. The bosses of each tower are usually much stronger than the gatekeepers, so be wary of climbing up those towers.

As for the castle at the end, there will be a much higher spike on difficulty than the previous sections. But if you manage to pull out the enemies of that castle, then you will be able to face me in fair combat where I will fight in a way that you choose from the options given at the time. The easier or the harder difficulty. The easier difficulty will give you a prize that should be worth your time, and should you win the harder difficulty, I let you choose a favor that I will try to accomplish, should it be reasonable enough.

If your device says that you received too much damage, breaks or is removed while inside the area, you will be teleported back to the entrance.

The carnival trial of mimicry will last for a week. The shop will stay open for a week after the carnival has ended, but if you haven't spent your points in a shop before then, then you will automatically lose said points forever.

That's about it. Please enjoy the event with all your heart. We hope that it will be up to your standards and you will enjoy it. If you have any questions left, please ask one of the staff members to assist you.

Goodbye! Have a great time!"

Then Iris spoke to her classmates "Didn't he say that he was about the size of a school building?" Hannibal said "That's what he said to us." Walter then says "So he lied to us." Tora says "I wonder what else he might be hiding."

Then the people at the venue start to take their devices for this event and go inside the trial area. Even Amari and Milla came to participate, both of which have a specific wish they wish that Lucas would give them. Amari was not cooperative and went in by herself, expecting to come out victorious but not without going all out. Milla on the other hand was skeptical of her own ability, so she partnered with Lois and Miranda.

Amari went straight to the first gate and defeated the guards easily. The second gate didn't prove much difficulty either and neither did the third, but the fourth gate. And when she reached the castle, she was worried how she would fare against the enemies inside.

Nonetheless, she pushed forward and didn't look back. She had some trouble against the enemies inside the castle, but she still prevailed. She was getting exhausted, but she was saving her most deadly attacks when she fought the final boss of this event.

Amari finally reached the bossroom and saw that Lucas was sitting on the throne at the other end of the room. Lucas said "Didn't expect someone to come here this quickly, but I suppose I should have seen it coming from the assistant of someone I trust. After all, we are talking about the famous rank SS adventurer "Scarlet barrage maid".

Amari pointed her gun at Lucas and said "As expected, you are the final boss of the event." Lucas smirks and says sarcastically "Who else could it possibly be?" Amari says "Perhaps you would use an offshoot of yourself that mimicked the power of the demon king of abomination. Or should I say, your true identity?" Lucas smiles and says "So you are of the opinion that I'm the legendary Legul Ranan himself. A common mistake, after all, we mimics can be hard to tell apart."

Amari says "So you deny this." Lucas says "I mean, I can mimic the guy's persona to the t, but believe me, we are two separate people." Amari responds "I won't try to get the truth out of you, since in the end, it doesn't matter. Because by the end of this, you will die by my hand."

Lucas claps his hands and gives a chuckle before he says "So you entered this event for the sole purpose of getting rid of me. You know you can only do that if you fight the harder version of me right?" Amari says "I know. But now you aren't in your best health since you are sick. What better time to fight the person who can "mimic" the legendary demon king of abomination."

Lucas says while smiling "Sure sure. If you win in fair combat against me, I will let you destroy my magic core. But know that I…" Lucas rises from the throne and continues "Won't go down as easily as you think." He then shows with his hands to come at him while also saying "Come, descendant of Crimson Locust. Come and face your sacred protector."

Then Amari summons many guns to her side and starts blasting a hail of bullets enchanted with magic. She continues to shoot thousands of times, but none seem to affect the man she is shooting. Lucas starts to chant "Minun turvasatama tulkoon ja kuolemani karsiudu pois tulevista kuolleiden kirjoista…"

Amari summons ten big cannons that she enchants with magic and shoots them at Lucas. The smoke makes it hard to see, but she can still hear Lucas chanting "...Kaatumaan en koskaan tule, kaikki kipu pois pala tuleen auringon…"

Amari does everything she can to prevent Lucas from finishing that chant, but he continues to chant. Amari even went right next to his head and shot a bullet that meant instant death to any living being if hit. She couldn't do this many times, so she needed to make it hit. However, since Lucas can change his form as much as he likes, the bullet went straight through him without actually hitting him even a sliver. Then Lucas finished chanting "...Nouskoon seuraava päivä tänäänkin, sillä saavu en kuoleman kaupunkiin. Zero-sum." And so a light starts to shine around Lucas and Amari is confused.

Amari then asks "What did you do?" Lucas said "I casted a spell that makes all incoming attacks meaningless as long as I have sufficient mana. And boy do I have some." Amari says "You already withstood all of my attacks as is. Why use the spell if you don't need it?" Lucas says "To further make it clear that your attempts of winning against me won't ever actually reach me."

Then Amari says "Then don't dodge this." Amari points her gun at Lucas' forehead and shoots the same, instant death, bullet against Lucas and it seems to have no effect on him. Lucas says "So will you forfeit?" Amari says "Why not battle against me like you mean it?" Lucas says "I can't afford to spill your blood even a little. If I had to defeat you, I would make sure that there is no chance of blood spilling."

Amari asks "Why wouldn't you want to spill my blood?" Lucas says "The less you know the better." Amari says "So it has to do something with the promise you made to my great grandfather. Why not spill it out?" Lucas says "You already know my answer to that." Then

Amari clicks her tongue and says "I guess it can't be helped. Then I have to use this final technique against you." Lucas raises his eyebrow as he doesn't know what to expect. Then Amari says "If you don't tell me what kind of promise you made with my great grandfather, then I'm going to tell Sylviana that you tried to pull moves on me." Lucas pauses for a moment. Then he says in disbelief "That's… that's your card? Seriously, that's the card you play? Out of all the things you could have done, you picked that one?"

Amari says "I am dead serious." Lucas says "You… of all people… would resort to something petty as this?" Amari keeps staring at Lucas with a dead serious face on her face.

Then Amari says "Do you think I'm joking?" Lucas says "No, I'm just fucking disappointed."

Amari asks "So are you going to tell me or what?" Lucas says "No. Both because of my disappointment and because it wouldn't affect me as much as you think it would." Amari says "You know, me saying it can bring doubt to Sylviana." Lucas says "That's true, but since she knows how I am, she knows deep down that I wouldn't intentionally sleep with any other woman, nor man, if I can help it."

Amari says "Then I tell her that I forced myself… to you… wait, that doesn't sound like I will benefit from it in any shape or form." Lucas says "I'm glad that you at least can tell that."

Amari then asks "But can you tell me anyways?" Lucas answers with "Are you some kind of kid or something? There is no need for you to know." Amari "But I want to know." Lucas says "That doesn't concern me. Again, are you some kid or what?" Amari says "I'm not a kid. I'm 62 years old." Lucas says "So basically a child in dark elf terms. If there is nothing else for you to do here, go and enjoy the carnival outside the castle. You won't win anything here."

Amari clicks her tongue and says "Fine, but you know it isn't good business to gatekeep your customer's prizes." Lucas says "I'm not running a business, I'm just the event host."

Amari then leaves as she says "You could have at least pulled one attack." And then she was gone. Lucas mutters to himself "I hope that there isn't a reason for me to act on my promise."

Then Lucas continued to watch how the participants were doing. He saw that Roland was having fun in the first section and most of the students that participated in the event were stuck in either the second or third section. Adventurers vary, but some eventually made it to the fourth section. So far, the only person who has reached the fifth section is Amari, who now started to gather some points she could use in the event store.

The event was considered fun, but most people thought that it would have been better if it hadn't been one of the winter months. Amari was the only one who reached the final boss room, but some adventurers made parties where they managed to reach the castle.

Milla failed to reach the fourth section, even with Sylvi's guidance, but she did her best overall in the event. As did most of the students who participated.

Some royal knights from the capital even came to participate in the event with the sole goal of training. They didn't seem bothered that it was winter and dominated the amount of points they gathered. The captain of the royal guard wasn't participating in the event themselves since they had some other duties to perform in the capital The MVP of this event was Amari and the follow ups were the knights from the capital.

They say that the strongest human in this world is the captain of the royal guard themself who had actually fought against Amari in equal footing, if not higher. Lucas is interested in this captain, but holds himself back so that he won't cause any problems to others, especially Sylvi. But in his head he keeps thinking "Damn I'd like to fight that captain."