Reincarnated into a Doomed Novel as an Unknown Extra
Chapter 48: The Second Challenge

Chapter 48: The Second Challenge

Stepping out of the gate, the first thing I felt was the smooth flat ground under me.

*BOOM!BOOM!BOOM!*

A chill ran down my spine as I heard the sound of explosions.

My grip on my katana tightened instantly then I looked at what caused the sound.

"Eh?"

In front of me were only 2 figures I didn’t expect to see.

The first was the saintess Celestina, but unlike before, she wasn’t hiding her face with her veil, revealing her beautiful face and glowing golden eyes completely.

Beside her was a man that no one didn’t know, he was a man with short brown hair and light brown beard, his deep black eyes were sharply fixed on the stone wall in front of him as if looking at his mother’s killer.

He was Maxwell, a member of team 5.

In his hand, he held some small eggs tightly before aggressively throwing them at the wall.

*BOOM!BOOM!BOOM!*

The eggs exploded on impact making big explosions, but the wall didn’t even get scratched.

"I think you should stop now. I’m sure we only need to wait a little." Celestina tried to calm Maxwell and stop him from throwing more eggs.

"Don’t touch me, woman!" He yelled as he slapped her hand. "If it didn’t collapse from that, then I just need to throw more! HAHAHAHA!"

*BOOM!*

"..."

I stared in confusion as he kept throwing eggs over and over again pointlessly.

But where was everyone else?

Turning around, I couldn’t find the gate anymore.

’Shit.’

I looked around and started examining my surroundings.

Celestina, Maxwell and I were here alone surrounded by 4 stone walls without any exit at all.

Suspended on the ceiling was a small red lantern that was barely lighting the room, gleaming only enough to let us see each other.

Behind it there was a familiar screen in the air with a message on it.

════════

[The challenge will start after 38:27 minutes or when all challengers enter the gate]

[Challenge Target: reach the centre of the maze]

[Additional rule: Killing all the people that started in the same room as you directly will make you return to your world]

[Note: There are no gifts on the first month]

════════

Reading these messages, only one thing echoed in my mind:

’We are doomed.’

The first challenge was to go to the mansion and kill the boss.

Clear and simple.

But the result?

Slightly less than half the challengers died and 10 of them were even before entering the forest.

Now ignoring the fact that we were in a maze that was probably filled with either monsters, traps or both, they separated us, gave us a new rule for killing and wouldn’t let us get gifts in the first month.

Shit, I didn’t even want to imagine the next challenges.

"Oh? isn’t that Yami?"

Celestina suddenly noticed my presence, once our eyes met, she waved to me with a bright smile on her face.

I raised my hand to wave back to her, but suddenly—

*BOOM!*

Maxwell threw an egg that was the size of his head, and yet, the wall was completely fine.

"Eggs Monarch, can you see this? Your fucking eggs are completely useless! You are useless!" Maxwell clenched his fists as he screamed while looking at the ceiling, furiousness and frustration visible in his voice.

I stood close to him and started patting his back with Celestina, but he suddenly slapped our hands.

"I said don’t touch! Let me grieve in peace or I eill feed you these eggs."

"..."

’Sir, I just wanted to help!’

Feeling irritation, I sat at the opposite wall far away from him.

The next moment, Celestina sat gently behind me and put her hand on my shoulder.

"Please don’t take that personally, he is having a tough time currently, but that uncle is actually too kind. Hr just... has anger issues."

I sighed, "Yeah, I understand... wait, uncle?"

"Pfft," She chuckled, "Uncle Max is 20 years older than me, don’t let his face fool you, he is Exalted after all."

My eyes widened slightly, I knew that the mana cores makes people age slowly, but that was truly amazing.

"So, how old are you?" I asked her curiously.

Her smile suddenly froze, taking a deep breath she answered: "I will give you advice for the future, never ask a woman about her age... never."

I tilted my head in confusion, but decided to not think too much about it.

It’s not like knowing her age would matter anyway.

For the next few minutes, I kept talking with Celestina to spend the time while ignoring uncle Maxwell who was still cursing the eggs monarch loudly.

The minutes kept passing, yet the challenge didn’t start

[The challenge will start after 9:48 minutes or when all challengers enter the gate]

"Tsk, they are really taking their time there." Uncle Maxwell said before sitting behind us.

He finally calmed his mind, or just got tired but it didn’t matter.

"Maybe something happened there..." Celestina murmured with visible concern in her tone.

Having nothing to do, I decided to improve my control over the tentacles.

Now that I have a natural talent for soul, I had to focus on other things too.

"This thing... is terrifyingly disgusting." Uncle Maxwell narrowed his eyes as he stared with disgust at my glove.

"You have trauma from the parasites? You should have told Braham." I said before continuing my practice.

"I never said anything about parasites. Tsk, you are too young to understand."

Celestina suddenly stared at him dangerously, making him flinch and apologize immediately, but before I could ask about the problem—

*BAM!*

All of a sudden, someone flew out of a gate and hit the wall.

"Andrea!" Celestina rushed towards him instantly while summoning her golden staff.

Maxwell and I ran with her, and after getting closer we froze from shock.

Andrea — the man with blue hair and pair of blue eyes who gave us drinks — was laying down unconsciously on the ground.

His body was covered in blood, many teeth were missing from his mouth and his right arm was half ripped off.

"What the hell happened!" Maxwell’s eyes were wide open while taking a healing potion out of his ring and feeding it to Andrea.

I stood frozen in my place while seeing his state.

Only 2 theories came to my mind.

"It’s either the thing that killed Ruby... or traitors!"

If the second theory was right and Andrea ran from them, then the second challenge would have a problem.

*Ding!*

Suddenly, a screen materialized in front of me.

[The second challenge will start in 5 minutes. Good luck!]