Bro, I'm not an Undead!

The cruelty.

The injustice.

How did this place make him feel even colder than Genhuis City?!

While wrapped up in another one of his semi-stylish, fuzzy jackets that made him look like a human sized, white-furred ground hog, the pale man cursed, cursed and cursed some more with a furious flame in his eye that extended to his face, carving a grim scowl over it.

A faint hue of purple, its ascent and texture akin to that of smoke that rose from the dying embers of a bonfire, covered him like an Aura.

"Fuck this! That brilliant... no, extravagant fool should have warned us!" Aurolio muttered.

He hugged himself and treaded steadily in one direction while paying keen attention to this environment which had several, strange elements to it, even for a Cluster.

Well, this was a purple Cluster, so it was to be expected.

Among the relatively simpler ones – in Aurolio\'s view – out there; white, blue-white, blue and purple-blue, none quite compared to this Cluster. It was in a higher tier in terms of scale and uniqueness.

The ground sloshed grumblingly under the boot, the excessive moisture within having turned it to a thick mud. A few vines swam within it in heaped, messy tangles, some with shades of colour that suggested that they were poisonous. What else was one to think when they saw the innards of the thick, wooden serpents gleaming faintly in dark crimson.

"Hmmm..." Aurolio hummed in fascination and disgust. Disgustination? "I guess the \'nothing here can kill you\' bit only extends to things placed in this Cluster by the Game Master, and not the natural environment. I guess that should have been obvious. "

There were no trees in sight where he was, but a rather large meandering river passed seven meters to his right, and a long stretch ahead, beyond what his eyes could see in the mostly lightless area, it dumped its water body somewhere, the sound of the fall registering in his ears.

The ground had few surprises so far, but overhead in the angry skies, Aurolio felt a subtle sense of apprehension.

Clouds of blue, their wispy bodies anvil-shaped to the refined eye, strode softly in the air a couple of meters above.

They caused Aurolio the most worry, instilling onto him an overbearing sensation that leaned more towards depressing and threatening than anything else.

The pale man wasn\'t all that fazed, however. He had entered worse Clusters environment-wise – higher tier Clusters. One thing most combatants who hadn\'t entered high level Clusters didn\'t realise was that the environment could benefit the natives of the land in more than one way. This was what Aurolio was concerned about above all else.

In spite of the gloom though, a dazzling glow in the shape of a rectangle worlds away put a smile on the pale man\'s face. Even the massive silhouette it was perked on lightened his spirits.

\'The cold is my strongest enemy here. I must get away as soon as possible,\' he convinced himself with a sudden jerk, and a warm blow into his hands. Then he looked up. \'The kid must only be allowed to move on and around that mountain. Hmm....\' Aurolio hissed out before continuing. \'That\'s an easy enough way to get this over with...\'

When he boosted his physicality with mana however, launching himself forward, he paused with a brow raised only several strides later.

*

With her hand on her hip, Vali smirked at the glowing shape far off in the sky.

No wonder the Game Master had said they would know the GOAL when they saw it. However, getting to it wasn\'t going to be easy.

Those clouds treading north just above her...

\'If this is how this world works, then reaching far into that distance probably won\'t be as quick as I was hoping. I doubt even Speed-type Auxiliary Techniques will speed things up,\' Vali thought as she puffed up he, and blew out a pressurized hot breath of air.

She pouted and sat back down on the rugged granite she had appeared on. Unless she looked up, nothing around Vali caught her attention.

It was rocks, rocks and more rocks, most which were half buried under putrid, stagnant waters that she swore to never touch.

Only a hundred meters into the distance did the scenery change, shifting to a mountainous plain that began with humble hills adorned with carpets of shrubbery, some of which, held what looked like fruit.

Vali\'s dreamy eyes scoured through all this disinterestedly, with the wind attempting to blow through her hair which was twisted into a French braid, and weighed on by a golden, scorpion tail shaped hook at its end.

The cold didn\'t affect her at all, even though her black battle dress that only modestly covered up to above her knees, a golden rimmed gap on it below her chest that revealed her toned skin and abs, allowed the unfriendly chill to taste it.

Vali actually felt good.

She had been looking for a decent challenge, and besides the fact that Aurolio was here, she considered this whole idea to join the Premium Age Royale a rather rewarding one. If not for the tens of Families she had brought as subsidiaries under her own by providing enticing contracts crafted to draw the desperate, then for the chance to meet some interesting individuals she was trying to invest in – in more ways than one.

Speaking of which...

\'I wonder. Can I finally get to interact with him as much as I want here?\' she thought.

*

Crestin considered himself lucky.

He had been the only one in the Premium Age Royale left without anyone to fight for the Second Round of the Preliminaries.

When it had come time to decide his fate, he had expected to be matched against someone outside the remaining contenders, just to make things fair. In his head, that would have automatically translated to him facing an abnormally strong opponent, and dying miserably.

Contrary to his pessimistic forecast though, the Game Master exerted his powers without limitation, and allowed him to participate in the Royale regardless. Just like that.

Crestin didn\'t know what he had expected where the other contenders were concerned, but no one cared. No one argued against the decision in the least.

The young man didn\'t know how he felt about that.

It made him feel invisible, and unimportant.... which by all accounts he was, as a mere wandering Contract Knight who had decided to take a shot at earning a spot in the illustrious EverSword House.

Crestin sighed.

Indeed, he considered himself lucky, but now, not so much.

The space within the Cluster spread a severely ominous tone to his story, which, at this point, had flavours of nobility and heroism – he hadn\'t even killed his opponent in the Royale just because he valued people\'s lives.

He had appeared on a cliff, looking down at the world that expanded before him on the lower ground to bounds unseen.

Some parts of it were beautiful, he had to admit, but some...

\'Hmmm?\'

Something suddenly caught Crestin\'s eye.

Beyond what seemed like a dying lake past what was beneath the cliff, and on a bare, barren plain that came after, something strange could be seen.

At first, Crestin was tempted to rush to it, but he quickly killed his urge to do so..

The ground on the plain had signs of a large bulge, as if something big was buried there. Inconspicuously too.

But this wasn\'t what made him hesitate.

What rubbed him the wrong way were the extensive groves carved into the earth around the bulge in a giant network of what looked like tens of complex arrays, and several runes.

On one hand, because the soil was wet, making the carvings a bit imprecise, this looked like a traditional, ritualistic engraving of some kind, but...

Would it really be that complex?

Was this done by the residents of this Cluster that he was yet to see, or... by something else entirely?

At that moment, a fierce gust of wind almost pushed Crestin off the cliff, but he quickly caught himself, dodging the large portions of tattered and torn objects it carried.

He was so shaken by this random occurrence that he dismissed any ideas about the peculiar engraving, and rushed away, committing to his reason for coming here.