Divine Luck: SSS-Rank Battle Maid Harem

It took the two familiars a while to cull the fish people enough that they couldn't reach Zach's barrier before dying. But that could also be related to the piles of corpses stacked up around him that prevented them from approaching.

It was a massacre.

Zack looked at the scene spread out before him without knowing what to feel.

There was not a drop of blood on his hands or clothes.

Alzara and Yanael were also surprisingly clean. They only had a few splotches of color on their maid dresses. Considering the mayhem they had gone through and the number of fish people they had killed, their state of cleanliness was nothing short of a miracle.

As if to highlight that, their weapons, on the other hand, were dripping with blood, mucus, and brain matter, Alzara's hands included. Her sword alone hadn't been efficient enough, so Yanael resorted to using her shield to beat the life out of the fish people.

Zach felt a little miserable. His barriers were helpful against stronger enemies since he could take the pressure off of Yanael and Alzara. His Material Extraction was useful for Alzara's potion-making.

He wasn't useless.

There was just a limit to what he could do. But he didn't want to just sit back and watch his familiars do everything for him. Everything else aside, it was boring.

There was only so much admiration he could show before he got used to how skilled and capable Yanael and Alzara were.

"Is that it?" He asked when Yanael and Alzara regrouped at his location after finishing off the remaining fish people.

"There are a few left in the outskirts of the city, but others are already dealing with them." Alzara walked up behind Zach and leaned down, draping herself over his shoulders to rest. Yanael looked at her with a frosty expression.

She also wanted to do that. Unfortunately, she didn't have it as easy being that affectionate with the person she served. She had standards.

Alzara sensed Yanael's gaze. She was tempted to tease her with a wink. Instead, she closed her eyes and relaxed. She had gotten a little caught up in enjoying the admiring way Zach looked at her when she fought and exerted herself. The fish people hadn't been that strong, but they had been numerous and tenacious.

They had eleven Trials left, so it was best if Alzara and Yanael recovered as much as they could while the other entrants finished off the remaining fish people or the Trial ended.

Zach looked at the piles of dead fish people while holding up Alzara.

"Did we overthink the Trial?" In the end, it hadn't mattered that they found but couldn't enter any shelters. It wouldn't have changed anything since Yanael and Alzara just killed everything they were supposed to find shelter from.

"Maybe." Alzara's voice tickled Zach's cheek.

"There might have been a mechanism that weakened the fishies with every shelter found or reduced their numbers. Every shelter you found could have also increased how much damage you dealt to them. It didn't feel like that, but it's hard to tell. Or nothing changed. We could have just as well waited the twenty-four hours in the plaza."

"Master, I think it's better to overthink than underthink. Something more absolute than a swarm of fish people could have been what we were supposed to survive. It's better to try and die than not try at all if you ask me." Yanael's words weren't exactly encouraging since she was aware that they still hadn't necessarily succeeded in the Trial.

They had just been strong enough to deal with the consequences of failing it.

Zach and Alzara agreed with her. It would have been depressing if they hadn't even tried to look for a way to survive and then ended up dying.

"So, what now?" Zach asked. He was ready to get started with the next Trial. It felt like he hadn't done anything for over a day. And the only things he had done had frustrating outcomes.

"There's only a few left," Alzara said with her eyes still closed. And a few moments later…

[Trial (1/12) complete. 23 survivors confirmed. Results confirmed. Adjusting difficulty level. Determining next Trial. Trial (2/12) set.

Preparing…]

Just in time for Zach to finish reading the message, the ground shook, and the city rumbled. The blood from the fish people was drawn into the blood like water after a drought. The bodies melted and joined the blood.

The houses shook before all the stone crumbled into pieces and shards and rolled around the city. All the buildings were leveled and turned into moving clumps of stone rubble.

Zach looked around in confusion, suddenly feeling the ground beneath his feet join the movement. But the stone bricks of the street didn't transform or break up. A platform large enough for him, Yanael, and Alzara to stand on slid up on the ground before starting to glide forward.

Zach was surprised. It seemed like the place was going through a hasty renovation. But he couldn't sense how. He looked at Alzara. She looked at the ground with a deep frown until she noticed Zach's look. She shrugged.

Whatever mechanism was behind the city's transformation was beyond her understanding.

Occasionally, the platform picked up the speed to rush past a moving cloud of rubble. Other times, it would slow down to let the same moving cloud of rubble pass.

After a while, Zach started seeing the hairy heads of the other entrants. At the same time, the clouds of rubble convened in large masses of what had once been the underwater city, Haya.

Several loud minutes later, all the twenty-three remaining participants were gathered in the center of the now much smaller area than the city had been.

Around them were twelve large statues.

[Use the console to arrange the deities in the correct order.]

Zach waited for several minutes for a more detailed explanation. he didn't get one.

That was the entire second Trial.