Chapter 78: Beyond Expectations

Raive watched as they were forced to decide.

Whether to end themselves before the time limit ran out, or wait for the contract’s terms and die from breaching it.

Of the fifteen, three chose to end it themselves, stabbing their hearts with a dagger in one go. Their faces warped in pain as they slowly bled out, before breathing their last.

The rest, on the other hand, kept begging to be spared right up to the last five minutes.

"Ack!"

But the instant the time limit was hit, they all suddenly clutched their chests and collapsed. Within seconds, they were dead.

Raive didn’t see pain in their expressions, but more like a mix of confusion and despair. This made him wonder if waiting for the penalty was better for them.

"Hmm?"

Right after, Raive felt presences gathering around. He couldn’t see anything, but he could tell there were now fifteen presences beside him.

He didn’t need to think hard to know who they were—the other "impostors" who’d just died below.

He could feel them watching him too, stirred up with all sorts of emotions. But strangely, he couldn’t hear a word they said. As if they were all cut off from each other, unable to communicate.

"Well, doesn’t matter anyway."

Raive just watched as the last five minutes ticked down.

There shouldn’t be any problems left now.

As an extra safety measure, Hazel used the item she’d gotten from her dungeon—the crystal that cleared all monsters within 15 kilometers of the user.

Raive watched it go off, a fast purple pulse rippling outward at the speed of sound.

Every monster it touched died instantly, dissolving into particles of purple light like they’d been purified.

But the extra-large ones remained untouched.

Monsters that hadn’t appeared until now.

Ones as powerful as the ones from the last red dungeon Raive had cleared. Boss-class, by the feel of it.

"There’s no way they can handle something that strong!" Raive gasped.

Only three minutes left, and with that much bulk and strength, those monsters would reach the castle within a minute if nothing stopped them. Everything in their path would be destroyed, every life they touched returned to their creator.

Raive felt worried.

Worried that Shymine and the others would make a reckless choice.

And...

"Let’s stop them! Everyone, to the walls!"

Sure enough, what he feared came true. The girls rushed to the walls, planning to intercept the ten hulking beasts barreling toward the crystal at the castle’s center.

By then, the ordinary players were already fleeing toward the castle, putting as much distance as possible between themselves and the monstrosities.

The most sensible choice.

Shymine and the rest should’ve done the same—thrown up barricades to slow the advance while leaving the NPCs as "bait" to slow down their advance.

But no.

They chose the harder path, trying to protect everyone even at the cost of their own safety.

"Absolute Zero!"

"Earth Fortress!"

"Dance of the Thousand Blades!"

Holding nothing back, they unleashed their strongest attacks.

Shymine sent out a wave of freezing air centered on herself. Everything it touched froze without exception—the wall beneath her feet, the air itself, even the giant monster charging toward her.

Even her best attack only slowed the monster down, though. It couldn’t lock it in place completely.

On the other side, Hazel raised a massive wall of compressed earth, so dense it had started taking on a metallic sheen rather than looking like plain dirt and stone.

She sealed the giants inside it.

Within seconds, fist-shaped craters appeared on the outside—clear proof the wall wasn’t going to hold.

Therese, surprisingly, had the most effective approach.

Summoning a thousand mana swords, each having Sword Flash applied to their edges, she unleashed a storm of blades at the enemy.

Where sword met monster, chunks of flesh began tearing away.

Almost like they’d been fed through a blender.

Within ten seconds, all three giants on her side had collapsed.

Not dead, but limbless, reduced to dragging themselves forward like desperate worms searching for soft ground to burrow.

"Urk...!"

Of course, a feat like that came at a heavy price.

Therese’s nose wouldn’t stop bleeding as she dropped to her knees, face going beyond pale. In that brief span, she’d burned through her entire mana pool. No surprise, really, given she’d layered Sword Flash onto a thousand swords at once.

She’d recover, but for now, she had nothing left to lend Shymine and Hazel.

Their own monsters were closing fast.

Hazel’s fortress gave out, and the giants lunged for her. With no other option, she slid along the wall, pulling herself across it with her skill.

Shymine did the same, forming ice blades under her shoes and skating away from the enemy’s reach.

Thankfully, they escaped, safely.

But in doing so, they’d abandoned the very thing they’d been guarding.

CRUMBLE!

"S-Shit...!"

The walls came down, crumbling helplessly to the ground.

Hazel and Shymine both cursed at the sight. They felt useless, weak. Of course, they didn’t miss how Therese, with a lower-rarity skill than either of them, had neutralized her enemies cleanly. Meanwhile, the two blessed with stronger skills were struggling.

The gap between the results was almost insulting.

"If Therese managed it..." Shymine muttered, as if talking herself into it. "Then I should be able to too!"

All she needed was to pour out everything she had in one go, holding nothing back.

Her focus sharpened, and soon thunder rumbled across the sky. The air turned bitterly cold, rooftops across the kingdom crusting over white.

The temperature plummeted—10, then 5, then 0, dropping straight into the negatives.

Seeing what Shymine was doing, Hazel caught on fast.

Using her skill, she conjured a powerful tornado right within Shymine’s frozen field.

In moments, an ice tornado tore through the air, hurling sharp shards that battered the monsters trapped inside. More than that, the swirling wind dragged the temperature down even further, pushing it toward the absolute lowest it could go.

Absolute zero.

Not just a name anymore—the real thing.

Under that kind of cold, the giants slowed to a crawl, then stopped entirely. Their bodies froze over, hardening into solid ice.

Then, with Shymine and Hazel both out of mana, causing their skills to fizzle out—

CRACK!

Due to the sudden change in temperature, the frozen giants shattered into a million pieces, scattering through the air like diamond dust.

Raive was speechless.

He hadn’t expected that kind of growth from them in that short amount of time. Much less that they’d manage to kill something even he would’ve struggled against.

But they succeeded, and were mostly uninjured after it all to boot.

With all that happening, the timer finally ran out.

The second trial was officially over!