Chapter 19: Unqualified
While Hajime and Rihito dealing with demihumans, a few miles away Yue and Shea are having their final fight. It was the last chance for Shea to join Rihito on his journey.
In these 10 days, Shea has fought Yue many times, but every time she loses. At first, she was very confident about defeating Yue, but it didn't take too long for her confidence to shatter into pieces. In every fight, Yue had dominated her. Shea was unable to get close to her. But Shea still didn't give up. She fought Yue with all her might. She remembers what Rihito said, [The ordeal we are doing is life-threatening, one wrong move and any one of us could die, knowing you still wanted to join us.] Taking those words to her heart, she faced Yue, "This time I will win, no way I will give up".
Shea then used her <Body Enhancing> to increase her strength. She then ripped a tree from its roots with her bare hands, which if seen by any demihumans, they would be astonished. Even for strong demihumans like the Bearman tribe, it takes considerable effort to do what Shea did with the tree. Still, it didn't face Yue, she had already seen even more monstrous feats like her lover Hajime who had faced the guardian who was guarding her prison floor, and then Rihito who sliced the final floor boss in an instant, compared to those 2 this is nothing.
Shea picked up the broken tree, hoisted it onto her shoulder, jumped with it, and then threw it towards Yue.
In response, Yue cast her magic <Scarlet Spear>, A Few crimson-coloured fire spears appeared beside her, and she then pointed at the log throne by Shea.
Shea seeing Yue using one of her spells took this chance to attack her from her back. But to her dismay, Yue has seen this coming. She cast <Wind Wall>, beneath her using it to propel herself up before the attack could hit her. Yue used her final spell in midfall to end the fight <Ice Coffin>, Shea was instantly trapped in a block of ice except for her head which Yue purposefully spared, with this Shea was completely trapped.
Shea was in tears and shivering inside the cold block of ice. She was so close to beating Yue but at the last moment, she lost again. Shea then looked at Yue who was standing in front of her watching. She then noticed a slight cut on Yue's right cheek seeing that Shea exclaimed, "Yue, you have a wound on your cheek. I did it!!, it's my win". Shea rejoiced in happiness.
Yue then just to annoy Shea regenerated from the cut and said, "Cut, what cut, I don't feel anything".
"Eh... that's your regeneration at work, isn't it!?, rather get me out of this ice, it so cold, please undo the magic" Shea said while trapped in ice.
Yue grunted, "Fine". Yue then dispelled her magic.
"Ah, ah, Achoo!... Yue, I won the challenge, so please report it to Rihito", Shea said while still shivering.
Yue, "You do not need to worry about that, you have already proven it in front of me, so no need to worry".
"Really! I am counting on you then, Ah, ah, Achoo!..."
...
Yue and Shea just reached the camp where Rihito and Hajime discussing things.
"Rihito~", Shea called out cheerily.
I heard a familiar voice calling me and looked up. "Oh, I presume you have completed the challenge".
Shea dashed towards me trying to hug me, but to her confusion, I just vanished, "waa, where did Rihito go", Shea exclaimed in confusion.
While Shea was in confusion I appeared beside Yue and asked, "How did she do".
While I was asking Yue, Shea continued to search for Rihito. Suddenly, she heard a familiar voice. "Shea you are back".
Upon hearing her father's voice, Shea looked up with joy and exclaimed, "Father, I have qualified and can now join them." Shea froze as she looked at Kam.
"..."
Kam was happy for Shea, seeing his daughter so happy made him happy too, but why did she freeze all of a sudden?
"Fa...father what happened to you? Why do you, look like that", Shea asked in a stupor.
Kam answered, "Ah, this is because of the boss's training. It's because of him we have become so strong". "We", hearing that Shea had a bad feeling.
"Ah, if it isn't Shea", a voice called out to her, Shea looked around robotically, just as she feared, something had gone wrong with her tribe.
"..."
"So, what's the verdict", I asked.
Currently Hajime, and I inquiring about Shea's prowess.
Yue responded, "She is strong, she specialises in body strengthening comparable to half of Hajime's strength in a normal state". "That's quite the strength", Hajime said.
"So, do both of you agree? Will Shea join us, according to what Yue told us Shea has the strength", I asked for the final assessment.
Hajime and Yue nodded.
Yue "I agree to let her join us".
Hajime "It's fine as long as she can pull her own weight, I don't see any problem".
Just then we heard a screech coming from Shea, "Noooo!!!... what happened to you guys".
When we looked back, Kam and the other Haulia were in some Jojo poses, and Shea was on her knees.
"Jojo pose", muttering I looked at Hajime, who was looking away.
Shea came at me crying, she grabbed my coat and tried to shake me, "Rihito what happened to them why are they acting like that, "I looked back in the Haulia direction, they were acting like they had the 3rd-grade syndrome.
Not knowing what to do, I told the truth, "Umm… I think it's the effect of Hajime's training". Shea then glared at Hajime like he had killed her entire family. In response, Hajime just ignored the stairs.
"Anyway, Congratulations on passing my challenge, from now on you will be joining us", I tried to divert Shea's attention, and it worked, just as I thought she became instantly happy and started to giggle about something about "my first step is complete soon he will be mine," which I ignored.
I then called out to Kam, "All right, it's enough fooling around we should start heading towards the great tree. The fog is weakening, take us there.
Shea snapped out of it, enough daydreaming", she responded, "Yes~".
We then headed towards the great tree.
"..."
"..."
About an hour and a half later.
Kam, "Boss, and Rihito dono we can see the great tree up ahead".
"So, this is the great tree but why is it dried up", Hajime frowned seeing this.
"It lives up to what we thought, except the part where it dried up", I spoke.
Kam then said, "From what we were told from our ancestors the great tree was always like this. It may look dried up but it still lives".
I tried to analyse the great tree with <Archmage >.
"..."
"..."
After scanning this tree, I found that the real tree is in a parallel dimension and this tree is the gateway to get there.
[Oh… A parallel dimension. I will be able to get another new skill, hehehe…] I then completely analysed the parallel dimension and as a result, I got <Parallel Dimension> as a skill, with it I now can create dimensions, and also connect with any existing dimensions. Of course <Parallel Dimension> consumes a huge amount of mana, depending on the amount of mana the dimension will be as large as I want. Thank god... I mean goddess, I have <Archmage >.
If you are thinking about how <Parallel Dimension> works. It's like the infinite prison from tensura. I need to test it out to find out more about it.
"Hmm... did you find something", Hajime asked.
"This tree is only an imitation of the real one, the real tree is in an isolated dimension. To get to the real tree we have to open the entrance", I looked at the square stone that was attached to the tree. On the stone, the shape of a heptagon can be seen. On each point of a heptagon, there was a symbol, and one at the top caught our attention.
I spoke up, "That is the Orcus's symbol", right below the symbol there is a carving for something, most likely a key.
"Hajime take out the ring", understanding what I wanted to do Hajime took out the Orcus's ring.
I took the ring from Hajime and placed it on the carving. Right after the heptagon started to glow, then texts appeared inside the heptagon.
'For those who have reached this place. They need to provide four proofs, The power of regeneration, and the guidance of those bonds by destiny. To those who have everything. A new trial will be opened.'
"..."
"..."
"What does it mean? By four proofs", Hajime said in annoyance.
"Maybe we need the proof of other labyrinths, like the Orcus ring", I chided.
"Then the guide of those bonds by destiny. Might be about demihuman helping us guide here", Yue conjectured.
Yue suddenly made a cut on her hand and rubbed it on the heptagon, but nothing happened, "looks like this regeneration is different from one I have." Yue said in disappointment.
"It might be another age of god magic, we need to get that to enter this trial", I gave my thoughts.
"So, in the end, we can't do it right now. There is no other way", Hajime sighed.
"Don't worry too much about it we will come back soon enough, and now we know there is a regeneration magic out there we need to get. So, it is not all bad", I said to Hajime.
Shea asked me nervously, "Umm… what will we do now".
"We will now be heading towards the nearest town. Hajime and I have decided it earlier", to which Hajime nodded.
Kam then asked, "Then take us with you too", which Hajime instantly shut down.
"No, we can't take you all, our journey is extremely dangerous unless you are as strong as Shea, you have no chance of surviving inside a labyrinth",
"Then you guys can do this, how about you guys make your new home near here, we will come back here anyway, we will need help then", I proposed.
Kam nodded, "All right we will be waiting till then".
I looked at Shea, "You should say your goodbyes. It will take a long time before we come back".
"Ah… I have already done it", saying as she looked at Kam, Kam gave back a thumbs up with a grin in return.
Hajime and I took our bikes out from our rings and said our goodbyes to Haulia before heading to the nearest village.
"Chapter end"