The Extra's Odyssey

"Your earrings… where did you get them?"

Leon was staring at my earring suspiciously.

Did he recognize them?

This was why I had been trying to hide them.

Though the situation wasn't dangerous. After all, it was Leon.

"That…."

I opened and closed my mouth a few times.

My eyes were turned toward the ground, and I was clenching my fists tightly.

Leon, who saw me hesitating, shook his head.

"You don't need to tell me. It was insensitive of me to ask it out of the blue. I understand that there are things that one wouldn't take about."

He self-rationalized my hesitation, thinking it was connected to my past.

'How gullible are you? I didn't even speak, and you were fooled?'

It didn't look like Leon was going to ask me about the earrings anymore.

However, that wasn't my goal.

I needed to take care of this golden opportunity.

"No, I'll tell you."

I managed to get these words out with great difficulty.

Seeing me struggling, Leon tried to stop me. But would I?

No, I wanted him to ask this question! Why wouldn't I answer it?

"This is... related to my stigma."

Leon's eyes widened.

Materializing objects with the help of stigma and maintaining them continuously wasn't normal.

This meant that I had a special stigma. A powerful one at that.

Leon nodded to himself.

"That explains a lot of things."

'Huh, it does?'

What crap was he spouting?

"It's called… [Sword Successor] and I-"

"Wait."

Leon stopped me from me speaking more.

"Before this… did you tell anyone about your stigma?"

I shook my head.

"Why?"

I sighed in a way Leon could see before speaking.

"My stigma is… different. I didn't know whom should I tell about it."

Leon again nodded to himself.

"It's like I thought. You were hiding your stigma because it's powerful. You didn't know what will happen if others came to know about it, so you hid it."

Looking at his expression, I could tell that he believed his hypothesis.

'I can't tell if I'm scamming him or he is scamming himself.'

I agreed happily.

"But it felt suffocating. Every day I would be afraid of others discovering me."

I lowered my tone to add extra effect.

"Sometimes I thought I should reveal it, but I couldn't decide the repercussions it would come from revealing that I have a growth-type stigma."

Society wasn't good. Who knows that someone might attack me if they realized my potential? It wouldn't be difficult to harm or threaten a no-name like me.

…Or so I was posing.

I looked at Leon's face to see the result.

He was pale as a sheet, and his jaw threatened to fall to the floor.

"A growth-type stigma?"

A whisper came out of his mouth.

'Why is he shocked like this? His stigma is also growth-type'

Does he not realize th-Ah!

He had only gone through 1st awakening. He wouldn't know about his stigma being growth-type.

Tsk

Ten years' gap had made me forget a few things.

'Well, whatever. Even if he knows or not, it won't affect this situation.'

"Yes"

I nodded with great difficulty.

Leon couldn't bring words out of his mouth.

Growth-type stigma was the same as being an Irregular. No Irregular had their stigma strong from the beginning. If they did, they would've died from their own powers, rather, they have stigma that grow with them.

It was similar to Goliath unit members. The only difference was that their growth wasn't natural.

After their stigma strength crosses a certain threshold, it would harm their bodies. Their bodies didn't have the genetics to handle their stigma.

An example would be not having fire resistance if you had a fire creation stigma.

This was a compatibility issue that rarely occurred with natural stigmas but was a normal case for Goliaths.

The only way out of this situation was to lower the stigma's power by sealing it.

"We should get our lunch."

At my words, Leon stood up, and we walked out.

I wasn't going to give Leon all the information about my 'stigma' in go.

Giving him information in bits and pieces would make it more believable, and he would think I was genuinely struggling to tell others about it.

It was a laborious job, but the results would be worth it. Since I had decided to go all in, I couldn't back out now.

"We should get our lunch."

We entered the canteen to find that it was packed with cadets in a variety of uniforms, chatting amongst themselves and eating their lunches.

The crowd parted as we entered, allowing us to take our seats at one of the tables. I smiled broadly.

This was the result of Leon's rising fame.

Single-handedly, taking down a Royal Demon wasn't something that could be ignored, especially when the Royal Demon had almost defeated the strongest combat class.

We took our lunch and sat in the empty seat near the door.

Though I said cadets, there was not a single cadet belonging to the first-year combat department.

All of them were rushing through the floor to complete the task.

The three combat departments classes 'Katana', 'Wand', and 'Shooter' would be having a competition among their class members on the 10th floor.

Cadets with the best performance in every class will then enter an inter-class competition on the 13th floor.

Both these competitions would decide their practical score. Everyone should be nervous and focusing all their attention on it.

Should be.

"When will start going down the dungeon?"

Leon choked on his food.

"Cough..cough.."

"Drink this."

He emptied the glass of water in a single gulp.

Watching his arms shaking, I knew the answer to my question.

This guy had messed up due to the Goliaths' mission.

He was late.

Isabell was a student council prospect and thus could skip exams with permission. However, Leon couldn't.

"Don't worry, you can reach the 10th floor if you try hard enough."

I lied as easily as I breathed.

With less than 3 days left, only Susan was capable of clearing the 10 floors. That if she didn't get lost on the way.

"But if you waste your time more than this, I don't think it would be possible to reach the 10th floor."

Leon breathed in all the food at my comment. One second there was food in front of us, the next second it wasn't.

"I had given up all hopes after Isabell said it wasn't possible to reach there in the remaining time. I knew she was lying."

I acted as if I didn't hear his mumbling as he packed food for his trip.

Leon again thanked me and rushed out.

Hehehehe..

The only way to reach the 10th floor within the time limit would be to skip floors.

After every 5 floors, the challengers of Dungeon of Trials will go through an individual trial. This was a boss fight where the boss' strength would differ depending on the difficulty of the boss you chose.

The difficulty can only be chosen at the 1st trial and cannot be changed later.

If Leon is lucky enough, he should be able to get the prize of skipping a few floors from the first trial.

But even then he would have to grit his teeth and continuously fight 3 days without sleep.

Suffer the consequence of attacking me, Leon! Suffer!

Muhahaha..

Cough..cough.. I wasn't worried if he could reach the floor in time.

During this time in the , having suffered a crushing defeat, Leon's spirit was at an all-time low.

He would've managed to get selected to fight on the 13th floor. However, among the cadets who were also there, he wouldn't be of much help.

It can be said the story will again change if Leon managed to reach the 10th floor.

With awakened stigma and [Raikou], our Leon was stronger than one in the when he would enter the 2nd year.

"X should be coming to meet me when they realizes that I again made changes, no?"

Though for that Leon have to reach the 10th floor.

Also, I will be following him in a few days. Mother's Embrace can be chosen as the prize of the 4th trial at the max difficulty.

Dungeon of trials was a work of wonders.

It was called Dungeon, looked like an inverted tower embedded into the ground, and every floor was a different pocket dimension.

It was technically a Ruin, while also being classified as a legacy artifact.

One could even say it was as special as my art and Leon's legacy skill.

"Cadet rank 2169, Nathan Hunt? Is that you?"

A gruff voice entered my ears, and I saw someone standing at the door of the cafeteria.

"Vice-Headmaster the asking for you."

A sigh escaped my lips, again.

Can't have a break, can I?