Badges

Bloed and Liu Ying's success to reach the tower surprised not only the two A-Rank beastmen but also all their companions.

To be honest, when the other members of their group realized the A-Ranks had gone after Bloed and Liu Ying, the first thing they felt was relief and the second was pity.

None of them expected Bloed and Liu Ying to succeed after being intercepted by two A-Ranks.

But in the end, and to the surprise of many, Bloed and Liu Ying managed to successfully bypass the two A-Ranks.

"You two are awesome~!" Rana said without hiding her admiration. In fact, she seemed like she wanted to jump and hug Bloed and Liu Ying due to her excitement.

Unfortunately for her, Bloed and Liu Ying were not interested in receiving her hug at this moment.

After facing these two A-Ranks, even if only for a few seconds, they felt so exhausted that they wanted to fall asleep.

Before that, though, they needed to find the results of the other three groups.

Soon, the other three groups arrived at the tower too.

And miraculously, of the twenty-seven people that participated in this operation, twenty-two managed to arrive at the tower.

Only five candidates were caught by the A-Ranks.

And three of them were caught by the foxkin mage. According to what Bloed heard, she used several restraining spell, catching off-guard the group that chose her and knocking out three candidates.

In fact, the other three only managed to reach the tower due to luck. They were lucky that the foxkin woman did not target them.

But even so, Bloed was content with that result.

Twenty-two of twenty-seven was a pretty good result.

Even the other beastmen were in a good mood. So much that none of them showed any dissatisfaction or hostility when they realized Bloed was human.

Some of them even walked towards him to thank him for his help.

When he confirmed the success of the other groups, Bloed's tiredness finally caught up to him. He sat on the ground exhausted and leaned his back against a wall.

Soon, soft snoring sounds came out of his mouth.

He was not the only one, though. Several other candidates also decided to rest after their exhausting confrontations against the A-Rank.

They only woke up around three hours later, when the hunt finally came to its end.

And to nobody's surprise, no other candidate arrived at the tower after Bloed and the others.

Once the hunt came to an end, the A-Rank hunters and several other people, including some demigods and the King of the Great Savannah, walked inside the tower.

Regina and Eve were among them. The Valkyrie and the fox nodded to Bloed and Liu Ying with smiles on their faces.

Meanwhile, the King of the Great Savannah stared at the twenty-two candidates that passed the hunt.

For an instant, he did not know if to feel proud or to feel exasperated.

"… To be honest, I never thought so many of you would pass this trial. Only ten or so of you should have remained by this point. I guess this trial was too easy after all."

The candidates looked at the king with speechless looks.

Easy? Several of them almost died before reaching the tower, and this was easy?

Ignoring the candidates' thoughts, the king smiled.

"Well, it means that the future of the beastmen countries is promising, and I'm proud of that. However, it's a fact that only six of you can be selected. Thus, you will have to go through another trial." The king then narrowed his eyes and looked at each candidate with an imposing presence.

Bloed and the others could feel the air around them turning heavy. The imposing pressure coming from the king felt like a majestic mountain.

It was full of pride and authority.

Seeing the expressions on the candidates' faces, the king nodded. He then said two words.

"Follow me."

The candidates were confused, but they followed the king.

Less than five minutes later, they arrived in front of a big and severely ruined coliseum.

When the candidates saw the coliseum, they understood the theme of the next trial.

It was definitively to fight.

And most probably, they would have to fight against each other.

"It looks like each one of you understands what you need to do next." The king smiled. "You are right. You need to fight for a place between the six chosen. Next, I'm going to explain the rules."

Bloed and the other candidates tensed up.

"But before that," The king continued. "I will ask each one of you to give me the badges you collected."

The candidates nodded. Then, they took their badges to the king one by one.

First was a deerkin girl. She managed to gather a total of seven badges.

Surprisingly, she had one of the best results among the twenty-two candidates.

Most of the others had only three or four badges. One of them even had only one badge, the one he received at the start.

In fact, when Aya showed her eight badges, the other candidates looked at her with admiration and wariness.

Then it was Rana and Liu Ying's turn. Rana gathered ten badges, one more than Liu Ying who gathered nine.

Soon, Bloed's name was called.

Bloed nodded and walked towards the king. Expressionlessly, he handed his badges to the king.

The king looked at the badges then at Bloed and grinned.

"Fourteen, huh. That is a lot."

A commotion arose in the surroundings, but Bloed just nodded without showing any expression and returned to his place.

He could feel the gazes of the other candidates on him. Their gazes were filled with wariness, admiration, and envy.

Fourteen badges were four badges more than the second-best after him, Rana with ten badges.

"Well done!" Liu Ying grinned and grabbed Bloed's hand intimately. Almost instantly, though, she felt Regina's ice-cold gaze on her, making her move her hand away hurriedly.

"… Scary…" Rana, standing beside Liu Ying, trembled slightly. Apparently, she had also felt Regina's ice-cold aura.

Bloed smiled wryly.

Fortunately, he did not know that Regina had seen when he called Liu Ying his girlfriend, otherwise, he would have been sweating bullets right now.

While Bloed and the others were lost in their own world, the king continued calling to the other candidates.

Finally, he arrived at Atai, the cougarkin.

With an indifferent expression, the cougarkin handed his badges to the king.

A total of sixteen badges.