Chapter 173 - Before the Trials

The next day quickly came and passed, Cecil and friends spent the day relaxing or exploring the city.

It was finally the day when the Urrugdrasil's Trial Grounds were opened. All 5 Academy groups had gathered together at the large Tree Palace at the northern end of Elfheim City.

Just beyond this palace was the trial grounds that would be the place where the National Tournament—no, the Urrugdrasil Trials would take place.

The Headmaster said that the trials taken place inside the World Tree was always at random. There were 5 stages in total and each subsequent stage would only be harder than the last. Danger was present everywhere during the trials.

It wasn't just any normal kind of danger; it was the danger that could take away one's life at a moment's notice if they were careless. The participants also had to be wary of one another. It was normal to find participants trying to kill each other when vying for a treasure while inside the World Tree.

Anything goes while inside the trial grounds, it wasn't unusual to find someone, if powerful enough, that tried to kill everyone inside just to minimize or completely erase their competition. Of course, the repercussions for doing so would be to incur the wrath of every Kingdom on the Urrugdrasil Continent.

There were only 3 precedents of such events occurring. The first time was during the ancient era where no kingdoms had been erected and every place was still lawless. The second time was when a Sage-level character's disciple tried to steal the World Tree's blessing while the 3rd time was not written in any of the history books of the Elfenheim Kingdom.

However, what was in common was that every perpetrator turned out to be one of the Elfenheim Kingdom's own people, the banished Blood Elves. The Blood Elves were banished to the Demon Continent, Helaife, after they committed these 3 infractions.

Now they were better known as Vampires and they ruled a part of Helaife as one of the 12 Great Demon Clans. The Blood Elves were a stain to the Elven race's history and they were sworn enemies now.

The Blood Elves were known as a weakened part of the Elven race since they had to live forever underground, hidden away from the sunlight that were potentially fatal to them. The Blessing that was stolen from the World Tree gave the Blood Elves the ability to walk unharmed in broad daylight.

At first, this was only limited to the bloodline of the Blood Elf that had stolen the Blessing, but as the years passed by, this stolen blessing was proliferated to the entirety of their race and they changed their names from Blood Elves to Vampires.

It was written history that Cecil had discovered during his adventures inside Elfheim. The first day he arrived, Cecil had mostly explored the entirety of Elfheim thanks to him using his Blink all the time.

The second day was spent visiting historical sites and the library. The library was where Cecil learned about the history and dark history of the Elfenheim Kingdom.

It was intriguing and all, but the most intriguing part was the place currently in front of him, the entrance into the World Tree's Trial Grounds. After going through a couple of teleportation gates, the entourage had finally arrived.

They were basically standing on the humongous roots of the World Tree and they were now standing just before the trunk of Urrugdrasil.

Cecil brought his eyes up. The trunk seemed to stretch endlessly into the sky! He couldn't even see the tree tops! There were only faint silhouettes of the branches far up into the sky.

'If the branches are up there...that means the leaves are too. So how in the heck does the sunlight shine down here?!'

Those were Cecil's thoughts upon witnessing this...colossal tree. The tree trunk also spread out to the left and right of Cecil's that it looked more like a wall than a tree trunk.

Standing on top of a protruding root, the Elven King, Androsa addressed everyone present.

"Academy students!"

With his voice enchanted by magic, he quickly caught the attention of everyone. The Academy Headmasters were standing a step behind the sides of King Androsa respectfully.

"Today you will all participate in Urrugdrasil's Trials! Once you get inside, please listen to the administrator's instructions!

Although...killing will be permitted inside, but please refrain from doing so if possible. Every one of you youngsters is an asset to each of our Kingdoms and Empires...especially now that those humans have begun an invasion on our continent."

His last words induced uproar to the students.

"So it's true! They are invading!"

"Pfft, you peaceful elves know nothing! They've been causing destruction and mayhem to our lands, and here you all are playing house!"

"What'd you say you beast?"

"Haaah??!! Say that again pointy, I dare you!"

While the beastmen and elves began to throw insults at each other, the Gigantes and Merfolk were discussing among themselves.

"So this year's trial was sped up to help the Beastman Empire?"

"Seems so, I heard from my father that the Emperor actually advocated for the early opening of the trial grounds. I hear that the Beastkin were also pressured into backing up the Empire."

Cecil's group couldn't help but over hear things. Eli was frowning when she heard it.

"What pressure? If it wasn't because my father owed a favor to the Emperor we wouldn't even bother helping those animals!" She hissed.

"Woah, woah, woah! Eli, is that really what a prin—I mean the Sword Maiden should be saying?!" Ainz exclaimed in surprise.

"Drop the act Ainz. We already know that she's the princess." Lucia said.

"O-oh...okay then, well anyway, that's really unbecoming of you Princess!"

"So what? Just the sight of those animals sickens me," Eli growled back.

"..."

"What's up with Eli?" Cecil whispered to Lucia.

"Apparently at one time, one of the Empire's princes had wanted to ask her Eldest Sister in hand for marriage, but after she passed away, that prince turned his sights onto Eli herself."

"O-oh... I see, but...why is she so mad?"

"Because apparently, after Eli's father, the King, turned them down, people from the Empire tried to kidnap Eli away. It wasn't only on one occasion that happened. Eli told me that there were at least 10 times such an incident had happened after the Empire's prince turned his sights onto her."

"Oh...that sounds awful!"

"Well yeah! Who would want to be kidnapped and forcibly married to some random prince that they don't know anything about? Hey, look over there Cel~ you see that skinny, unkempt Dragonewt? Apparently, he's the one that has his sights dead set on Elizabeth~"

"Oh? Hey, I thought the Empire was ruled by a Were-lion family?"

"And like any Emperor, they of course have a harem~"

"H-harem?!"

"Well, yeah~ I heard that the current Beastman Emperor has 10 wives and 8 concubines~"

"W-what the hell?!"

"Actually every ruler on Urrugdrasil is like that~ all except for the Beastkin, Merfolk and Elven Kingdoms of course. Unlike everywhere else, our kingdoms advocate monogamy instead of polygamy. It's much more enforced in the Elven Kingdom though.

It's actually pretty lenient at Anglaria, you could have one or more wives if you're able to support them."

Lucia explained.

"Exactly~ so you can take both me and Lulu as your wife, Cecil~" A lazy voice cooed gently right by Cecil's ear.

A chill ran up Cecil's spine and he quickly flashed behind Lucia. Right where he was just standing stood a pink haired rabbit-kin girl. It was Serilla.

"W-wh-what do you mean by that?!"

"Eh~? Didn't Lulu just explain to you~?"

"Uhm...well..."

"Ah, so you did understand right?"

Serilla flickered next to Cecil and caught his arm.

"Gotcha!"

"Uwaaah!!!"

Lucia only sighed tiredly. Even though she wanted to monopolize Cecil, but no matter how many times the boy rejected her love rival and ally, Serilla would just keep coming back for more. It was now to the point where Cecil would sometimes just give up when he was accidentally caught by the rabbitkin girl.

"Hihihi~"

"Cecil, Lucia..." A voice greeted them.

When they turned to look, it was the student council president, Zephyr Arks.

"Oh, what's up Prez?" Cecil answered.

"Here, these are trackers," Zephyr took out a small badge that was in the shape of Arks Royal Academy's crest.

"I'm guessing these are for when we get separated later?" Lucia asked.

"Yeah. Every tracker can trace each other as long as they're in a 1000 meter distance of each other. This way, if there are others close to your area, you can quickly meet up with them." Zephyr said, and then he leaned in closer and whispered.

"I hear that this year's trials will get very bloody. The Empire's been invaded so they want to maximize all the benefits they can get during the trials...they'll resort to anything, stealing and killing is also one of their options...stay vigilant later, trust only those from our academy."

"Thanks for the tip, prez!"

After Cecil thanked him, Zephyr went ahead and began to personally give the tracking crests to every single member from their academy. He would also lean in and whisper what he just said to Cecil and Lucia.

After the tournament, Zephyr became a little more...mellow. He wasn't so uptight and edgy anymore. One good thing about the students from Arks Academy was that everyone was compact.

They had all trained together under Cecil and the instructors. They grew closer together and probably thanks to this, they no longer viewed themselves as individuals grouped together into factions, but a single entity under the name of Arks Academy.

The Beastkin had no fear of anyone of them betraying each other. The faction settings inside the academy played a large role in their 'all for one' line of thinking. Now everyone was united under one name and banner, it was all the better for them.

This couldn't be said for the other academies however. Even from a glance Cecil could see that they were divided amongst themselves. He could now understand why. Since the other Kingdoms' Kings had many wives and concubines, the many offspring would of course vie for the throne.

Why would they bother helping each other out especially when they were in the trials, where everything was permitted? The Elven Kingdom wasn't any better. They were closer to a parliament and each elven race represented themselves individually. There was no need for them to help each other out unless the situation calls for it.

It was different for the Beastkin Kingdom. Since the crown prince, Zephyr Arks, was already decided, the other children of the King were required to pursue a different goal. For instance Eli, she was trained to become the next Sword Saintess along with Serilla. Then there was her older sister, she was educated to become the Kingdom's next Court Magician, their younger brother, Lance, was trained to become the next Kingdom General.

The monarchy of Anglaria Kingdom was so thorough in their placement of roles that it didn't invite any sort of conflict between the royal siblings. It even amazed Cecil at how such a thing was possible. Every stereo-typical monarchy would surely have some sort of power struggle, right?

Well, not in Anglaria. It was maybe due to the wisdom of the dragons that this sort of thing was made possible, but this might be a biased conclusion on Cecil's part. Anyhow, Cecil had to praise the Arks Royal Family for this. He was friends with Elizabeth Arks, a princess of the Kingdom. Cecil honestly didn't want him or Lucia to be embroiled in a power-struggle for the throne.

'Good thing our Kingdom is a peaceful one. The problem is...'

"WON'T YOU TWO STOP CLINGING ON TO ME?!" Cecil released a frustrated shout.

"What~? No way~? You'll only run away again~" The rabbitkin girl on his left said in a singsong voice. To which the foxkin girl on his right agreed to.

"...Seri does have a point there..."

"Ah, come on!"