Chapter 129 - They’re Ready

Anna pinched her brows and had a troubled expression on her face seeing her son act so recklessly.

She had a helpless smile on her face since she knew this was just how her son was, as long as it was practical and efficient, anything goes.

"Alright you two, you can go back now. I bet your friends are beginning to worry."

"Yes, mother."

"Okay, mama... when... when will I see you again?" Lucia was clearly unwilling to separate with her mother just yet. It's been almost a year since they've seen each other and it goes without saying that she dearly missed both her parents.

"Don't worry, honey. You'll see me real soon."

"And Papa?"

"Papa as well, now go, stay with Cecil alright?" Anna gently said.

"Mhm. Bye-bye mama!"

"Bye-bye, pumpkin~" Anna said, but the she quickly leaned in to Lucia's ear and whispered, "Make sure you don't let any other foxes steal your Cel~"

Lucia blushed madly at this and only bobbed her head up and down shyly.

"Hahaha~ off you go now."

"Mhm."

Cecil was waiting for Lucia near the door. The girl quickly arrived by his side and pushed open the door for them. Cecil paused a little and turned back, he could see the gently smiling Anna waving them good bye.

Cecil smiled and said, "Good bye, mother."

Anna smiled back in reply, "Keep my daughter safe, sweetheart. Oh! I almost forgot... I left a little something in your ring, be sure to take a look at it. It'll help you with your current... problem"

Anna eyed Cecil meaningfully and gave a discrete glance to his arms. Cecil widened his eyes in surprise and bowed once more to his foster mother. It seemed like nothing could escape her attention.

Cecil then turned around to catch up with Lucia. On their way towards the moving platform they met up with a lonely Headmaster who was currently sipping his tea on a bench close to the platform.

"Headmaster." Cecil and Lucia bowed in greeting.

"Oh~ are you 3 finished?"

"Yup! We'll be going now, sir! Thank you for sparing us your time!"

"No problem kiddo! Ah! Don't forget about the trials! I look forward to when you kids come and turn them in!"

"Yes, please look forward favorably."

"Of course~"

After the short chat, Cecil and Lucia got onto the platform and headed straight down. They quickly exited the building and went back towards their dorms. It was already late in the evening by then.

Along the way however, Lucia was tightly holding onto Cecil's hand as they walked. Cecil was just puzzled at her actions, but he let her be. He was currently scrutinizing the information that he received on his MID.

"Hmmm... doesn't seem so hard." Cecil mumbled and Lucia agreed as well.

"Mhm... they're pretty easy."

Cecil's trial was only to bring back an A-grade level natural treasure and submit it to the academy. Lucia's trial had her bring back the core of a manticore, an A+ level monster. It honestly wasn't anything hard for them.

The monsters they faced during their quests were much harder. As for the trials, they thought nothing of it. The same couldn't be said for their friends however. They had similar trials with similar difficulties as Cecil's and Lucia's, but the trial was meant for only a single person to do.

They had experience facing monsters on A+ to S grade, but that was when the party was facing it together. Completing such a feat by themselves made the difficulty shoot up much higher.

It was only until the next day that the other party members voiced out their concerns to Cecil and Lucia. Telling Cecil about their worries was something they were going to regret for the rest of their lives.

Once Cecil heard their concerns he devilishly smiled and announced that they would immediately begin their hellish training.

"Alright guys let's begin your tortu– keheum, training." Cecil said with a smile.

"...this brat..."

"He was about to say torture wasn't he?" Eli said with a blank look.

"Owh... here we go again..." Fina tiredly said.

"Hic... n-no... I wanna go back!" Velicia screamed in horror, just as she was about to escape, Cecil grabbed onto her tiger tail and stopped her in place.

"Hohoho~ I'm sorry... but since you guys are complaining only because of these low level small fries... looks like you need some serious training to be done."

"How?! How could a person of our age be such an unreasonable devil?! AND! A Grade monsters aren't small fries!!!" Velicia yelled.

"Oh really now~ but, I'm no devil. I'm your trainer~"

Thus began their hellish training. The 4 friends were bashed, mashed, and thrashed by their demonic trainer. Lucia only offered her prayers in silence and went ahead to go finish her trial with Silver.

It didn't take long for her to finish it. She quickly took care of the manticore with a Red Laser and collected its monster core. She was able to finish her trial in only 3 days thanks to Silver's traveling speed.

The manticores were found much farther away than any of the places the Little Kings had previously visited. It was close to the Magic City's domain. Usually, the journey was 5 days by carriage.

Good thing she had Silver, the 5 day journey was cut down to only a little over 1 thanks to his speed. The fight didn't take long as well, so it was about a 3 day round trip back to the city.

When she got back to the Academy, she immediately went to look for Cecil. She searched around the Academy once and couldn't find her party members, so she injected her mana into the bracelet Cecil gave her and tracked the source of his mana.

She found that it was outside of the city deep into the forest where they normally trained after finishing a quest.

Lucia hastily made her way over and found 4 corpses lying in the middle of the clearing. She then saw the 'Devil King' leisurely sitting next to a campfire close by. Lucia took another look at her 4 friends' corpses and saw that they were still alive and breathing.

They were only knocked out from the harsh training. Lucia made her way towards Cecil and jumped on him.

"Cel~"

"Oof!"

Cecil was a bit too focused on making the food in front of him he didn't notice that Lucia had approached him from behind. Well, he did notice a presence come into the vicinity, but since there was no malice in it, he didn't pay it any mind.

Lucia wrapped her arms around Cecil and looked at what the boy was doing. She saw that he was making some sort of stew.

"Whatcha doin'?"

"Cooking of course, but I can't seem to remember to recipe... are you done with your trial?"

"Yup~"

"Okay."

"Do you want me to make it?"

"Hm? Sure, perfect timing actually. I'm pretty sure those 4 were in need of something good to eat. They were complaining that they had to eat barbecue all day long for the past 3 days, so now they wanted something else for a change."

They had Cecil to blame for that. All the time he spent on his family's private island learning about survival, the only skill he got in regards for cooking were related to barbecuing and roasting.

"Alright~"

Lucia took over Cecil and immediately began to get busy. Cecil went over to his friends and carried them up with Silver over to the campfire. He asked Lucia to cast a cleansing spell on all 4 of them before he quickly took out blankets and some bedding.

He laid them down and let them rest so they could recover from their exhaustion.

"How are they? Are they good enough now to take on their own trials?" Lucia asked while she was cooking.

"Hmm... actually they already are. I can imagine them winning against any A Grade monster that they encounter on their trials, but they seem to lack the confidence in doing so. It's mostly been our entire party fighting against A to S Grade monsters, so I can see why they'd lack confidence in doing it alone."

"I see... it's better if you just tell them to go do their trials now. They won't be building any confidence if you keep thrashing them around like this."

"...you may be right. It's decided then. We'll have the 4 go and do their trials starting tomorrow! I'll let them rest for today. Let's consider the trial also a part of their training~"

"...Okay. You should get yours done quickly as well."

"Of course," Cecil replied with a smile.

"The stew's done. Just serve it to them when they wake up. Let them rest for now."

"Sure... Wanna go for a round or two?" Cecil asked while pointing towards the open field.

"...we're going to wake them up if we cause such a ruckus."

"No mana, skills, or magic. We'll only use our martial arts."

Lucia grinned and flickered towards the middle of the clearing. Once she arrived at a good spot, some tens of meters away from the campsite, she took her stance and beckoned Cecil over. Cecil flashed a couple of meters ahead of her. He got into a similar stance and waited.

The two didn't move from their spots and waited for the other to make their move. Lucia was the first to become impatient. She quickly dashed at Cecil with a soft cry and sent her palm towards his chest.

Cecil blocked and rotated his body. He backhanded his fist sending it straight to Lucia's side. The girl blocked it with her arm and kicked at him.

The two's martial arts were one in the same since Cecil was the one who taught Lucia hers. So they kept on evenly exchanging blows over and over.

Over time, Lucia was beginning to become more and more proficient with the Silvaria family's martial arts. She never neglected her training and now she grew to the point where she was able to evenly fight it out with him.

To Cecil, this was very good news. Whenever Cecil finished his mana training, he didn't always like spending his remaining time doing meaningless body training. No matter how much he trained his body, it wasn't going to get any better than it already was.

He was still too young and his body wasn't fully developed yet, so there were various limitations to him training his body. Cecil opted to hone and train his techniques instead, but he never found a worthy opponent to spar with. But now that Lucia, the genius that she was, had finally arrived at a level where she could proficiently fight with him without using mana, Cecil didn't have to waste his time anymore.

The two kept going at it for over an hour and only stopped when Lucia couldn't handle it anymore. Without the enhancement of mana, Lucia's physique was much lower leveled than that of Cecil's. So with every hit, block, and parry, Lucia's body was acc.u.mulating more damage than that of Cecil's.

In the end, Cecil won since his body was much more fit and tolerant than Lucia. Of course, he held back using any advanced techniques on her so he was fighting on her standards. This way he could help Lucia quickly improve and rise further so that her skill level may quickly reach his standards.

Cecil picked up Lucia into his arms and walked back towards the campsite. At the camp, Cecil found that his 4 friends were already awake and were currently eating their soup with some bread... while at the same time they were spectating the two's spar.

"Hmm... so how was it? It was pretty awesome, right? We didn't even use mana." Cecil said in a smug tone. He quickly put down Lucia and began massaging the areas that were bruised or hurt from their earlier fight.

"...you two are just abnormal." Ainz said.

"Well... your styles are really unique... but it seems that it may be hard to pick up, even if we wanted to learn."

"Yeah... what Eli said, although, it does look interesting." Velicia added.

"It's a shame that I already have my family's techniques engraved in me... it'd be hard to transition into using your fighting techniques." Eli regretfully said.

"Well you guys should just stick to your own methods. Lucia and I have been doing this since looong ago. So it's been engraved into our bodies, the techniques and skills. You should just train and hone yours so that it'll catch up to our standards." For Cecil it indeed has been a long time, but for Lucia it's only been half a year or so.

"It's easier said than done." Eli retorted, to which Velicia profusely agreed.

"Right, right!"

Cecil smiled at them. He was still massaging Lucia, but the girl had fallen asleep comfortably while he was doing so.

"Anyway guys, this should be enough training for you. Tomorrow, you should hurry up and go do your trials."

His statement caused everyone to widen their eyes in surprise.