The Lady's Butler: I Reincarnated To Serve The Villainess

Chapter 237: Cedric’s Trial 2: A Dungeon

"Seriously?"

Was all Cedric could let out as he noticed the beast that the Bisons were running from.

Calling it large would be an understatement, since it basically dwarfed Cedric.

If one looked at him from the beast’s perspective, they’d think he was just a large pebble.

Even while hunched forward, with both its hands forming a fist and touching the ground, it stood well over twenty meters tall.

It had fur covering its entire body, with large ice shards growing out of its back and limbs.

If Adrian was here, he’d have identified it as a Yeti.

The creature had tusks coming out of its mouth, and its eyes were completely milky white.

And Cedric hoped that was because it was blind.

After all, fighting a giant in such a narrow space was definitely risky since there was not enough space to maneuver.

Looking to his left, Cedric let out an exhausted sigh.

Right there was a cliff that led straight down to the bottom of this mountain, and a fall from this height was definitely not ideal.

Then again, there was no way around the creature, so he very much hoped its milky eyes were because it was blind.

Fortunately for him, the creature’s eyes weren’t tracking him, which meant that it truly was blind.

Unfortunately for him, though, the yeti had long developed another way to ’see’ since it lost its eyes,

Mana.

The moment Cedric was close enough to it, its large hands suddenly moved with speeds that didn’t match its large size.

Cedric wasn’t allowed enough time to react before the fist suddenly reached him, slamming into his side.

"Ugh—"

He let out, but soon realized that his air time was longer than it was supposed to be.

He suddenly noticed that the Yeti was getting smaller by the second....or rather, he was the one moving farther away from it.

Cedric finally realized that he was falling off the mountain, and soon enough,

BOOM!

Fortunately, he landed on a thick blanket of snow, but that didn’t mean he was completely unharmed.

Cedric was certain that quite a few of his ribs had left their positions, hence the pain he felt in his side.

And now, he had to start the climb all over again.

"Damn it," Cedric muttered as he slowly rose back to his feet.

He dusted the snow off his shoulders before looking back up at the mountain.

The peak was nowhere in sight.

"..."

Without another complaint, he started climbing again.

If this trial wanted him to reach the summit, then reaching it was exactly what he’d do.

***

BOOM!

For the fourth time since his breakthrough trial started, Cedric found himself at the foot of the mountain again.

This time, he stayed in there for a while, simply looking at the mountain ahead of him.

No matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t get past that damn yeti.

It was as if the thing were a literal invisible wall, and regardless of what Cedric did, the Yeti would only swat him away like an annoying pest.

Instead of frustration, there was a smile on Cedric’s face as he looked up the mountain.

The past four times hadn’t only been about failure, they had been trying to teach him something particular, and he finally figured out what it was.

Standing back up, he let out a sigh and started climbing again.

Despite his meager mana, he was a lot more confident this time than the previous four times.

Hell, Cedric was certain that his current mana levels would make what he was about to try easier.

Soon enough, he found himself before the beast again, and like the previous times, it was still waiting for him in the same position.

The yeti’s attention subtly moved to him, and if it was previously, he wouldn’t have even noticed since he was always focused on its eyes.

"Alright," Cedric muttered, "let’s hope this works."

He suddenly started restraining his mana until nothing was leaking out of him.

It was almost as if he didn’t possess even the slightest bit of mana, and that was exactly what Cedric had aimed to achieve with this.

From the yeti’s perspective, the ant-like human had suddenly disappeared as if he wasn’t there in the first place.

Cedric had quickly noticed that although the damned creature was blind, it still noticed him even when he had been restraining the amount of sound he made in all the previous attempts he made.

After the third try, he quickly realized that the creature was relying on its mana sense, so he was using that information to his advantage.

The Yeti’s head slowly turned from side to side, as though searching for something that had suddenly vanished.

Cedric quietly walked towards it, although he could easily make his way past the giant creature,

He wasn’t going to do so without taking revenge for the multiple times he had been knocked to the bottom of the mountain.

Placing a hand on the side of the mountain, the Yeti’s head suddenly snapped towards the direction he was standing, but it was too late.

A shard of ice suddenly grew out of the side of the mountain, slamming into the creature and sending it tumbling down the mountainside.

Cedric watched it go with satisfaction evident on his face. Given its size, it should take a while before it makes its way back to the mountain.

With that, he continued up the mountain, though he was certain that the trial was far from over.

***

He was correct.

About halfway up the mountain, Cedric encountered his third obstacle.

The path that he had been following was suddenly gone, replaced by a wall with no way around.

Since his goal was to reach the top of the mountain, Cedric continued forward, towards the wall.

If there truly was no path, then he’d just scale it.

Shouldn’t be too hard...right?

Fortunately, Cedric didn’t have to find out, because the moment his hand rested on the wall, multiple texts started appearing, each glowing blue.

Before he had the chance to withdraw his hand, he was pulled inside.

***

Cedric opened his eyes in what could only be described as ruins.

He seemed to be in some sort of cave, and ahead of him were structures that seemed to have long collapsed, each encased in ice.

There was also fog that made it hard for him to see anything ahead of him.

"A dungeon?" Cedric muttered, a bit confused.

Breakthroughs always came with trials, but he had never heard of a dungeon being part of said trial.

Perhaps this was due to the lotus?

Regardless, his goal was to become an S rank, and not even a dungeon would stop him.

He looked at the broken bridge ahead of him, noticing that falling off it meant falling into the abyss.

With a sigh, Cedric took a step forward and finally stepped on the bridge made of stone.

"It’s not so bad," he muttered, but it seemed he spoke too soon, because the next second,

RUMBLE.

The pillars holding the bridge up suddenly started trembling, almost throwing him off it.

Cedric caught a glance below, and he immediately realized what was causing the trembling.

Hanging on the pillars that held the stone bridge were multiple little creatures that seemed to be made entirely of ice.

The moment they felt him step on the bridge, they immediately started climbing upwards, towards him.

And Cedric was certain that this was not good news.

"I just had to go and jinx myself," he muttered before looking ahead of him.

He could try going back, but he was certain that the bridge would soon collapse, leaving him stranded on the other end.

Which meant, if he wanted to get across, he had to take the chance now.

Cedric immediately started running, and the moment he did, the creatures climbing the pillars sped up in response, their ice bodies moving in haste as they sensed him moving faster.

The bridge shook harder in response.

Chunks of stone started breaking off the edges, falling silently into the abyss below.

Cedric kept running, but he quickly realized that the other end of the bridge was further than it looked, and the creatures were already creeping up the pillars around him.

The first one reached the bridge surface and lunged at him.

He kicked it without breaking stride, the ice creature shattering on contact, but three more immediately took its place from the same pillar.

"Damn it."