My Servant System

Kat PoV

Sitting around the fire, I took care of the giant slabs of juicy, fragrant Drake meat that Jahi and her group had brought back, ensuring the sear was to perfection and that the simple yet tasty seasonings I had kneaded into it weren't burning too badly.

They actually wanted the flavor of the char to singe the meat, which wasn't ideal to me but as the chef for this entire party I wasn't in a position to say no to the various warriors who had a hankering for something more primitive.

At least I could understand and sometimes appreciate the flavor of charred meat, so there was that, but for now I was mainly focused on listening as Jahi began to explain her theory about this place to everyone as we waited for dinner to be ready.

With Leone operating a smaller fire beside me as she took care of our drinks and everyone else just lounging around as they healed themselves after the grueling trials we had gone through, we were all focused on the youngest Demoness as she proposed something rather interesting.

"I've been having a feeling this entire time that we've been here, something that nags at me constantly. These trials, don't they just seem far too... good? There's risk in them all, yes, but the things they give are just so..! Lucrative cannot even begin to describe these rewards!"

She looked at each of us like she was confirming her thoughts as she took in our reactions, and after a moment to catch her breath and orient her mind she continued on, not stopping until her point was made.

"All of them have been things that are just too grand for some trial that's barely challenging at all! Like a permanent increase to your Core size? How does something like that get made into a reward? That's impossible to induce into someone as far as I am aware, let alone for the cheap price of hunting down a monster or just killing a few dozen people.

The materials too are far too pure and high quality to just be some random reward for someone doing something simple. These are things that people would wage wars over just to get, and here they are treated like candy! Who made this place, and what were their purposes?

Trials are what we're calling them just because they are a challenge that tests certain aspects of your abilities, but what are they testing them for? These trials were just created to give things away? That's something I refuse to believe, and each time we enter one it just feels like there's a reason behind it, like someone made them for a specific purpose."

And by making her point I meant she decided to throw an entire web of conspiracies at us, entangling us in it and ensuring we were thinking about it as she added "I just can't shake the feeling that someone is observing this either. The complete lack of... well, anything at all within this city just makes me believe that someone is here."

Paranoia was both healthy and crippling, and right now it was a bit more of the latter thanks to the descent of night; yes we fought monsters and killed people for a living, but that didn't mean the eeriness of the darkness and the way it could slowly creep into your mind had been vanquished from our mortal psyche.

We still felt it just as much as normal citizens did, and if anything the things that made us paranoid would terrify them, so the idea was all the more stifling coming from someone who had lived a lifetime as that 'normal citizen' before.

If there really was someone watching us, someone who created these trials for a very specific purpose, then that was not a comforting thought to have, especially not when we were at our least prepared for that kind of confrontation.

"Well, we could surmise that the trials were made by Saturna Vera, an adept Time Mage. This entire place, really, was probably made by her, but that doesn't explain the other facet of this place; the space it inhabits, specifically the pockets of space that we travel into during each trial."

Lilith offered that up before falling silent, giving us a little bit of her mind so that she could leave us to comprehend it and provide her the entertainment she craved before she came back to add even more, something we all were just going to have to put up with for however long we were with her.

"That would obviously suggest either A - Saturna Vera located a very powerful, never seen before Space Crystal and used it to create these various pockets with her insane magical prowess - or B - there was a Space Mage here that helped her create these trials, someone who could go undetected for all those years and remain out of anyone's sight."

"Not impossible considering Space is such a terrifyingly broad concept, but yes, that is definitely one of the options. Still, whoever created it doesn't explain how they are able to do things like enhance our magic, boost our physiques, provide such rare and unique rewards... all of these things in the exact same area?"

"It ain't too hard to sit here and ponder over it, Chordeva, but it is hard to find the answer. It's best to keep an open mind about it but take it how it is first. We're here to make use of it as best we can, not crack all of its mysteries. Remember that."

Lady Fenyras was by far the most flippant about this, but Draka was the one to agree with her, sighing as she said "As much as I would love to learn about how these things are possible, I must agree with Lady Fenyras; if we wish to crack all of this open, we would need far more brilliant minds to puzzle over it then just ours. We would need a variety of specialists and researchers, materials, supplies and more. So... let's focus on the imminent future for now, alright?"