Shye quickly closed the system upon realizing that someone inside their carriage was waking up after a relaxing nap.
The one who woke up, Wendy, looked around and realized that only she and Shye were awake, prompting her to turn her eyes away and look out the window, not daring to meet Shye eye-to-eye.
Naturally, Shye noticed her awkwardness ever since they boarded the carriage. Not only did she sit as far away from him as possible, but she also didn't talk much.
It seems that even after a year and a half, Wendy still felt guilty about what happened.
Shye inwardly sighed, Wendy was a good friend of his, and her antics before the unfortunate incident truly made him chuckle most of the time so he couldn't bear seeing her look dejected and guilty.
"Hey, Wendy...Are you still guilty about what happened back then?" Shye bluntly asked in an attempt to help her move on.
Hearing Shye's question, Wendy quickly turned her head and looked at Shye. She opened her mouth, seemingly wanting to say something important but in the end, decided not to.
She then looked outside again, pretending to enjoy the scenery as tears welled up in the corners of her eyes.
In the end, she couldn't bring herself to speak to him. Her naive and innocent heart truly didn't allow her to move on as fast as others did.
Shye wanted to speak to her again but unfortunately, the other representatives started waking up one by one so he had no choice but to look for another chance in the future.
He knew that it was just a regrettable incident and that being trapped inside the labyrinth for a long time wasn't anyone's fault.
The deans told them that the students from the top 16 academies all had low-grade relics (weapons enchanted with lesser gems) while the higher-ranked academies even had some mid-grade relics.
Although rarely did a student have a full set of enchanted equipment, it wasn't impossible.
Thus, they believed that they would be at a disadvantage against these academies when it came to equipment since they only had one low-grade relic as a weapon with only Siegfried managing to procure two low-grade relics.
They weren't that bothered though since the equipment was only an amplifier and each student still had to rely on their actual capabilities to win their matches.
The Colzen Representatives were confident that they could fight on equal footing against the top-tier academies so having a low-grade relic was enough for them.
Unfortunately, their ace representative, Shye, currently did not have a single low-grade relic on him ever since his gold-tier greatsword, Daybreak, which cost him 2100 silver coins total, got wrecked in the battle against the kobold general.
Slightly desperate to procure a low-grade relic for himself, Shye quickly left the inn they were staying at and looked for the Hephaestus' Armaments Windleton City branch in hopes of upgrading his greatswords into relics.
'Hmmm...Seems like Windleton City is a bit more developed compared to Colzen City' Shye pondered as he looked at the busy streets of the city.
Each street having full rows and columns of various commercial shops as children happily played on the developed and clean alleyways of the city, adding a jolly vibe to the busy streets littered with hard working citizens, moving to and fro from one location to another with serious looks on their faces.
While walking, he passed by a few notable establishments including Windleton Academy, making Shye wonder why such an academy only had a mediocre reputation in the adventurer academy competition, filling his mind with a bunch of random thoughts.
Shye continued traversing the streets of Windleton City before his attention was once again captured by the branch of the renowned adventurer's guild, the Raven's Blade Adventurers Guild.
The architectural resemblance to the society he was part of, the Order of the Black Sword, prompted him to ponder once more about any potential connections between the two.