Lady Fenryas stepped forwards and grinned at all of us, her silver eye flooded with anticipation as she began to speak, her words washing over the assembled Knights like a cold ocean wave.
"I was thinking, and that's such a shame for all of you. See, I could keep continuing with the sparring, and add in some extra... 'oomph' by forcing you all to spar against me one by one, and while that would certainly improve you going forwards..."
She approached Chordeva and Belian, grinning wildly at them as she continued "Some of you wouldn't get much of a return on that type of training. You don't have much that needs polishing; you need more material to add to your 'blades' and further improve your strength. So how could I torture you all into acquiring that material~? That was the question, but then~!"
Lady Fenryas turned and approached Lady Theresa, beaming at the shorter Elf as she gave her an exaggerated bow, which made the woman roll her eyes.
"Our esteemed Theresa came up with an excellent idea~! What if I brought back one of the more... barbaric trainings of the Fenrika tribe? What if I had the Hunting Grounds of the Academy reserved for a few days and nights, and brought some of the tougher critters out of Zhu'Rong Caverns? What if we had someone with really potent Nature Magic - alongside a contingent of other Nature Mages - working around the clock to breed and stimulate the growth of said monsters~?"
Everyone stared at the Demon Wolf with wide eyes, not daring to think about any of the possibilities of what she was insinuating.
"Hand selected, selectively bred and nurtured, for each and every single one of you~? Monsters that are around - or even above - your level and meant to challenge you and push you to your limits. To push you past those limits, so that you can finally become stronger, so that you can finally work past your flaws in some real combat, and not spars. That is what we are going to be doing for the next few days. Each and every single one of you is going to be fighting against a monster selected and nurtured specifically for you... and that includes you, dear children. Both groups of you. There is no escaping this~!"
Her grin turned evil, and we all shuddered as we looked towards the Empress, who was wearing a small smile as she nodded, confirming and sealing our fates.
If the Empress thought that this was a good idea, and that she agreed with Lady Fenryas, well...
There was nothing we could do to stop it.
Even her own children - Leone included - were to be sent out to fight against a monster, but...
"Respectfully, Lady Fenryas, how have you managed to locate, nurture, and contain a monster that Chordeva and I could possibly find challenging? There are few to be found, so..."
The Demon Wolf grinned at Belian, who flinched as she cooed "Good question, my dear little Demon~! You see, you seem to have forgotten that we've a nice, helpful Arch Fiend chained inside the Palace, one that specializes in researching and experimentation~! Of course I took time to look after my two precious gems... Neither of you are exempt from being polished further, Belian, Chordeva."
The Marquess just set her jaw as she met Lady Fenryas' gaze, likely wondering just what abomination she would be facing down inside the Hunting Grounds of the Academy - a place we had yet to step foot into, but one that was supposed to be home to various monsters that were raised and nurtured for the sole purpose of providing the students deemed worthy - and strong enough - a place to temper themselves.
"The tradition that Fen speaks of - the one that the Fenrika used to use to select their elite warriors - was called a 'Monster Mash'. Simple enough premise - the monsters either mashed you, or you mashed the monsters. Now, we can't be losing any of you, what with the changes taking place around the world at the moment, but that doesn't mean I will be stepping in to save you should you be in mortal danger. Remember, Arc has potent enough healing magics to bring you back, and with the Nature Mages and the cooperation of Tza'Yul, you will not die. That doesn't mean you should slack, as you will wish you were dead when you get to feel your body ripped to pieces. Not a pleasant experience, I can tell you that much."
We all blanched as the Empress smirked at us, while her children shuddered as their Mom all glanced towards them, that same smirk directed at them.
"That includes you, my children. Whilst it does pain me to say this, I will not coddle you going forwards. Another age of strife is upon us, and I will not rob you of an opportunity to improve yourselves, no matter how much it might hurt me to watch. Each of you is capable of coming out of this triumphant; you just need to apply yourselves..."
She looked back towards the Knights, her smile softening as she added "That goes for you as well; each of you were carefully studied and provided a monster that you can beat. No matter how Fen tries to put you down, each of you are far more capable than you believe. Trust the skills that you've honed over these years, trust yourselves, and you can beat these monsters. You wouldn't be Knights otherwise."
Lady Lorelei looked towards us, her smile slightly pained as she said "As for you, Leone, and your group, try your best... and good luck."
"Yeah yeah yeah, whatever. Either beat your monster and prove yourself, or enjoy the taste of death without actually dying~! I'm sure you can all do it, but that doesn't mean I won't find amusement if you fail~!"
---
Webnovel added a new thing for every book to do, and some of you have likely already seen it; they added the ability for you to vote on characters inside the book - provided that I create the character entries.
Just open up 'My Servant System' to the point where you could read the synopsis and all that, and you should see the characters - currently I have Kat, Anput, Jahi, Leone, Chordeva, Ria, Julie, and the Empress.
You have the ability to vote for free once a day, or vote with points, as well as voting with coins if you want to support me further.
Anyways, that's it; I'll have characters on Reincarnated soon, so... yeah.
---
Follow current novels on (f)reew𝒆bnovel