Dimensional Descent

[Second chapter otw]

Leonel led Aina into the basement. The sudden movement caused everyone to look in his direction simultaneously, their gloominess on full display.

Kaela smiled somewhat weakly when she saw Leonel. Realizing that he was holding a girl's small hand, she looked over and gave a polite nod to Aina as well. As for the fact she was wearing a mask… Well, Kaela wore a lab coat everywhere, so who was she to judge.

Leonel scanned their faces. He couldn't help but feel a twang of guilt seeing their downcast expressions.

The truth was that Leonel wasn't very surprised to find them all here. It was clear and obvious that none of them cared to go to the arena after hearing the bells because they somewhat already knew what would happen.

However, what Leonel didn't expect was…

"I'm sorry!"

After a deep breath, Kaela suddenly stood and bowed to everyone. She did so, so deeply that her forehead almost rebounded against her shins. It would have almost been comical had tears she had been holding back not spilled forth at that very moment.

It was obvious to everyone that Kaela was only waiting for everyone to be present for her to give this apology. All her frustration and rage welled up in her eyes, flooding forth. It became obvious very quickly that she had only bowed so low in an attempt to hide the tears she could no longer hold back.

known things wouldn't be so simple and

as a leader. She had walked them all right into a trap and wasn't even any wiser. She knew that her former master wasn't

falling to the

she could lose balance, a

the same time as Rum's, but his speed was much faster. It was easy for Leonel to tell that Rum

passed Kaela off to Rum. But, the big man was just

at all, Kaela!" Litia immediately interjected, rushing up and helping Kaela to wipe her tears. "We'd never blame you for

Litia's words. Even the quiet Thilly hummed

'blame', it would be him. Kaela was a convenient target not much unlike he was. Leonel had a feeling, though, that regardless of which Faction he had chosen to enter,

not only had their name been dragged through the mud, but all the resources they had poured into their products were considered to have been wasted too. They had no Ores left, their merit points were now deemed useless, and even if by some miracle they managed

everyone, Kaela couldn't hold back her stream of tears, her shoulders

believed her master wasn't looking out for her. Since then, despite having poor combat prowess as a Crafter, she managed to join Brave Peak and claw her way back, gathering a group of friends and

smoothly. Everywhere she went, it seemed that she would

on stores, the difficulty in completing a novel design with her lack of knowledge… It

finally reached the peak of the last, instead of finding shining sun and colorful rainbows, she

laborious work

didn't know of her story, but she could still feel a shadow of something familiar when