"Bob, I’m glad we didn’t make Alex and Dim Dim our enemy," Grint said, looking very pale as he eyed the young man from afar.
"He’s a devil," Jorven commented, his voice slightly higher than normal due to the madness he had just witnessed. "I feel so sorry for Renard. If I were in his shoes, I would have gone crazy, and I definitely wouldn’t have lasted as long."
Bob was also sweating buckets. He had never realized that the easy-going Alex and the innocent-looking Dim Dim had this crazy side in them.
Even now, the three could hear "kukuku" from the pair. This evil laughter made them swear in their hearts that they would never offend the monsters who had traumatized the poor teenage boy.
"Guys, remember, even after this trial ends, we must stay on his good side, okay?" Bob stated.
""Yes!"" Grint and Jorven replied firmly as they sincerely never wanted to experience the hell that Renard had gone through.
Lavinia and Charles were also shaken, not expecting that Alex would have this cruel side to him.
They didn’t know why the young man was so hell-bent on recruiting Renard, but they also believed that he had a good reason for whatever he was doing.
"Maybe he saw a vision," Lavinia said softly so that only Charles could hear. "Just like he saw that you needed his help."
"I’m just glad he was at least very kind to me." Charles shuddered. "I really pity Renard. If I were him, I’d hate Alex for life."
While the two were discussing the incident in hushed tones, Nessia muttered something right beside them. Upon hearing her words, Lavinia and Charles couldn’t help but tremble.
"I give Alex and Dim Dim eight out of ten for psychological warfare," Nessia muttered. "But if they had truly wanted to break him, they should have..."
It was not only Lavinia and Charles who heard Nessia talking to herself.
Bob, Grint, and Jorven all took a few steps away from the bespectacled girl, who was coming up with the perfect way to break Renald Vale completely and make him lose all hope in humanity.
"If I had been in charge of this operation, trust issues would have been the least of his worries," Nessia continued, sounding a little disappointed. "I could have made it so that if he even heard a word, he would have started suffering from PTSD and gone into a seizure..."
Lavinia and Charles also slowed down a little to distance themselves from the young lady. Despite her innocent and sweet appearance, she turned out to be more devilish than Alex and Dim Dim combined.
"Um, Renard, are you done?" Alex asked a few meters away from the hole. "If you need more papers..."
"Renard? Are you okay?"
After hearing the scream, Nessia smirked and muttered something along the lines of "He finally snapped" before fixing her glasses with her middle finger.
"Renard, listen! Everything is going to be okay!" Alex, who sensed that Renard had finally lost it, peeked into the hole and tried to pacify the raging man, who had finished his business in peace.
"Come down here and tell that to my face!" Renard shouted, his face beet red from both anger, embarrassment, and humiliation. "I promise not to give you a quick and painless death! I will kill you first, then kill myself!"
A sigh escaped Alex’s lips because he understood he might have gone too far and pushed Renard past his limit.
"Renard, listen to me," Alex said calmly. "Have you forgotten the reason why you want to enter Frieden Academy?"
After hearing Alex’s words, Renard finally calmed down a bit, but he still glared at Alex, wishing nothing more than to punch him into oblivion.
"Renard, I’m similar to a Seer." Alex knew that he needed to pacify the angry teenager, so he turned to his knowledge of the game. "I know the reason why you wish to enroll at the academy.
"Also, you’re right. What you are looking for is there. However, if you don’t pass this trial, you will never have a chance to meet her again."
"..." Renard clenched and unclenched his fists several times, doing his best to rein in the anger that was about to go out of control.
A moment later, a shout erupted from the hole as the teenage boy repeatedly punched the wall of the pit, venting out his frustration.
Alex and Dim Dim watched and patiently waited until Renard finally regained his composure.
This took a full fifteen minutes, but after he had managed to vent out his frustration, he became a lot calmer and asked Alext to take him out of the hole.
Taking out a rope, Alex pulled Renard out and apologized to him.
"Dim Dim." Dim Dim also apologized, but the teenage boy only glared at the two of them.
"This is not over," Renard declared, barely restraining the anger in his voice. "After this trial ends, you and I will settle this score."
"I understand." Alex nodded. "We’ll settle it after we become scholarship students of the academy."
After that brief discussion, Alex introduced Renard to his team.
Bob, Grint, and Jorven, who felt very sorry for Renard, did their best to cozy up to him.
However, Renard had trust issues, and this only intensified after this incident.
The three weren’t too offended by Renard’s reaction because they believed they would have acted the same if they had been in his position.
But now that their team was complete, they all looked at Alex for his next course of action.
"Right now, we have two options," Alex said. "The first is to find a place that will serve as our base until this trial ends. We will put defensive measures around it, making it as strong as possible.
"The next option is to hunt the Rank 4 Boss Monsters. Aside from getting the Sigil, I’m sure we would also get some valuable treasures if we are lucky."
The group looked at the young man as if he had gone crazy.
The first option was still fine since this was their goal.
As for the second option?
But seeing how confident Alex looked, Lavinia tried to ask how he planned to defeat the Boss Monsters.
Alex didn’t hide anything. After hearing his plan, the group realized that he might be on to something.
"I think we can do both," Nessia commented after hearing everything that Alex had to say. "We can create a safe place for us to stay as well as fight against a Boss Monster if it happens to stumble into our location. But for that to happen, we will need a few things."
Alex nodded because he already knew what Nessia wanted.
In fact, this was where the Phoenix Tactician’s specialty was going to shine, giving them a higher chance of passing the second trial. The trial would only become more difficult the closer it was to the deadline, so Nessia’s contributions mattered.
Alex believed that as long as everyone played their part, they might just be able to kill a Boss Monster and impress the Professors, who were closely paying attention to them right at this moment.
Ramza, Cairo, Elaine, Efa, and Roselia had sweated buckets after seeing Alex’s and Dim Dim’s shenanigans. The Headmaster, too, had witnessed the fiasco.
As to what Rowan thought of the two troublemakers, only he knew about it. However, it didn’t change the fact that one of the Paragons of Arcana currently had a faint smile on his face.