Making her way back, Shiro stretched her body.
{Why did you leave that other candidate?} Nimue asked curiously since she thought that Shiro would have finished the job.
âThere wasnât any need for me to kill her. If anything, itâs more beneficial to leave her alone so that when we see her again, the party can get some exp from her death. If not for the fact that the controller annoyed me, I wouldnât have made a move personally.â Shiro shrugged.
{True. She really pissed you off huh? You actually chased her from the central region all the way to the north to kill her.} Nimue chuckled.
âMn, anyways, the girls should have made it back to the party. Hopefully, my little act didnât scare them too much. If they decide to surrender it would be pretty annoying since theyâre walking bags of EXP.â Shiro replied as Nimue laughed.
{Yikes how cruel. Despite all of their efforts in getting stronger, you casually refer to them as walking bags of EXP. The fact that youâre not kidding is rather disturbing. I remember when you used to do everything as low key as you could.} Nimue shrugged.
âOf course, with my personality, do you honestly think Iâd keep things hidden for long? Iâm strong enough to not hold back anymore.â Shiro replied since she knew that the main reason for hiding her strength before was because of her monster status along with the fact that she was too weak. If they discovered the power of her nanobots while she was weak, she would have been taken away due to her powers. Perhaps even experimented on once more.
However, since she was able to survive the initial âgrowing stageâ she could now live without too much worry. Of course, with the new age coming up, she had to be more careful but for now, she could live freely without worry. If things stayed like this, she wouldnât mind it at all.
Making her way back to one of the cityâs that they had conquered, Shiro was just in time to see Helion giving the party a few new pieces of equipment.
"Oh Shiroâs back. How was your little excursion in looking for the controller?" Madison asked with a happy smile.
"As usual. Theyâre dead, Iâm not. Though I must say, youâre looking pretty happy did something good happen?" Shiro asked with a smile.
"Fufu~ You noticed?" Madison grinned while showing off her armour.
"Helion made me a growth type armour like yours and it has high magic resistance. It is also Black ranked!" Madison smiled with joy as Shiro nodded her head.
"My my, this treatment is rather biased isnât it? We got armour that only lasts for 5 levels but Madi is actually getting a growth type equipment. Is there something you need to tell us Helion?" Lyrica glanced towards Helion with a smug smile.
*COUGH!
"I didnât have enough resources to make more sets." Helion said as the party knew it was an excuse.
"What happened to the âIâm working on something for youâ that you said to Madi a while ago?" Silvia giggled while sitting on the sofa next to Chen Yu.
Hearing this, Helion couldnât help but blush.
"Fufu leave the poor guy alone. Iâm sure you and Madison have plenty to talk about when youâre alone." Aarim grinned as Madison looked down with an embarrassed blush.
"Alright alright enough teasing. Weâll finish everything tomorrow and Madi will be the only candidate left. That way, she will automatically become the queen once the new age starts." Shiro smiled as the party calmed down.
All of the teasing stopped and they had serious expressions on their face.
"Is there anything else we need to prepare?" Helion asked as he had already given everyone their new armour with the magic resistance. In a fight, they should be able to hold their own quite nicely.
"Not much other than make sure youâre ready. I wonât interfere much unless absolutely needed so Iâll give you all the information I have collected. Ranks 1, 2 and 3 are still pretty much mysteries since we only know that rank one can turn anything he touches to ash. Iâll give you each a tablet now and itâll give you information on candidates ranked 4 to 10. 9 has been eliminated so you donât need to worry about her." Shiro said while creating the tablets.
"Rank 10 Asphil, in the rumours, itâs stated that she does not use weapons at all nor does she âcastâ any magic. She relies on her bare hands and theyâre sharp like swords. Her physical capabilities are on the higher end and her defences are rather peculiar. It seems like she works with space since she can stop attacks near her by collapsing the area where the attack is and dismiss it entirely. The only downside to this is that her defences have a cooldown of sorts depending on what kind of attack she cancels.
"Rank 8, Fellia. She is a weapon master that is specialised in using hidden weapons such as wires, daggers and so on but do not underestimate this since she can ignore most of the armour that her enemies wear. Her wires can cut through armour like butter and her daggers can be thrown at incredible speeds. Her magic is limited but itâs mostly used to buff herself with a few minor spells that can help her attack from range.
"Rank 7, Quinrad. A king candidate and a berserker. However, compared to normal berserkers, he is more magic orientated as he is able to use magic to fight while charging forth like a force of nature. Donât underestimate him."
Continuing to talk about the candidates while everyone looked at their information, Shiro gave them a brief lesson on how they should prepare against a few of the spells. Of course, she didnât tell them exactly how to fight them since doing so would be babying them too much.
Once she was done with her small lecture, the party double checked everything to make sure that they were ready.
Making a car, Shiro started to drive towards the northern border.
While this was happening, the remaining candidates were sitting in Nosticâs castle with a serious expression. From the information that they had gathered, Priscera had been killed and Asphil deserted. With two candidates gone, it was just 8 of them against the entire party. Their initial plan was to isolate them and deal with them one by one but now that their numbers were on the lower side, it was going to be hard unless they used some artefacts meant for Shiro on the party instead.
"What should we do?" The rank 5 candidate, Saresha asked with a frown.
"Nothing. There isnât anything we can do right now other than try to get as many artefacts as we can. There isnât a way for us to get strong in a short period of time so we can only hope that Nostic reaches tier 6 quickly. Heâs already been in there for a while now so it should end soon." Rank 3, Lynnri sighed as they were running out of options.
"Tch, if Priscera wasnât too hasty in provoking her then things would have been fine. Even if the cowards made their way here they could still be used as distractions without converting them. I donât know what Asphil saw that caused her to desert but honestly at this point we might have no choice but to surrender if we want to live or fight it out. And the odds of the second option succeeding is much lower." Rank 8, Fellia replied while scratching her head.
Hearing this the candidates stayed silent before Rank 3 coughed lightly.
"Donât think about it for now. Just focus on gathering the artefacts. If we play our cards carefully, we wonât have to fight the white haired one if we managed to procure the black ranked artefact. Once we do, we can seal her away and not fight her but Nostic will be sacrificed. But considering that itâs a one for one trade off, itâs not that bad." Wyslia, the rank 3 queen candidate, reminded as the other candidates seemed to calm own for a moment.
"Iâve managed to track its location but obtaining it is proving to be quite difficult." Saresha replied as Wyslia nodded her head.
"Just try to get it as soon as possible. Since theyâve conquered the central region, I can say that theyâre probably making their way here now." Wyslia narrowed her eyes as Saresha nodded before leaving the hall so that she could personally try to obtain that artefact.
Instructing the other candidates on a few tasks that they should do, Wyslia sat down and glanced out the window. Even though she said all of that, the chances of success was less than 10%. Most of them will probably die by tomorrow, closing her eyes, she could only sigh at her fate.