Only three stayed behind, Lucas, Asta, and Alastor. If Bell was here as well, they would at least have someone to break the tension. Now, they only stared at each other.
Alastor smiled at them before asking a simple question. "Who do you believe orchestrated this?"
Standing opposite of one another, Asta and Lucas exchanged a single glance before Asta answered. "Why would our answers matter to you?"
"How novel, you won't answer again. Let me display some options for you then. In my opinion, there are only a few possibilities. Agares, for example, prizes strength and wasn't present yet. She has the excuse of being late, and it would make sense to test the other candidates on their strength."
Asta shook his head. "Agares is a powerful woman, sure, but she can't think straight. Making up such a plan would be out of her reach. Even her advisors aren't smart enough to avoid the detection spells from my father's mages."
"How astute. Then, let's try to think who it might be, shall we?", Alastor said as he vanished into the opening, his footsteps echoed for some time before they disappeared.
"Wow, he's annoying," it wasn't just a single part of Lucas that thought this.
"You don't have to tell me, I grew up with him. Either way, he has a point. There aren't many who would be able to orchestrate something like this."
Lucas was lost in thought as he simply tried to view all the pieces of intel he collected. There was no point in trying to make the puzzle yet, he first needed to see what he held in his hands.
"Let's keep up. I want to see what this place is."
"You think there might be a link to the perpetrator?", to which Lucas simply shook his head slightly. They just didn't have that much information to work with. Passing the corpses of the ants, Lucas took a moment.
Standing over the bodies of the ants, he inspected their carcasses. Far from a professional, nowhere near even, he still held a lot of fascination with all walks of life, making him quite knowledgeable.
Shaking his head, they moved on. Walking past more corpses of ants, eventually they came across a body not of monster or beast, but a demon. He looked dried out like a prune, as if his blood was sucked out.
"Know him?"
"I only know qualified people. I can only tell that he's part of Agatha's group due to the insignia on his clothing. Actually, never mind, I phrased it incorrectly. While he's a follower of Agatha, it's only in name, I believe. She holds no true authority."
Grabbing the arm, Lucas ripped the skin open to find that nothing came out. All fluids were removed from his body.
"This isn't from heat, is it?"
"I doubt it, his eyes still look fine. I want to see what they are fighting against, let's hurry."
Nodding in response, they quickened their pace until they heard the noises of battle down the hall. Most of the nobles were talking to one another while the candidates and a few followers cleared a path.
Standing behind the group, Asta and Lucas didn't find a great way to join them in a natural fashion. Seeing no hope in his other self, part of Lucas took over. His demeanor relaxed as he moved forward towards two Demon nobles that were enjoying a chat.
"Hey, the hell happened to that straggler?"
The demons looked at him with a strange look. Noticing he was human, they scoffed at his appearance before Lucas grabbed the shoulder of one of them. Putting some strength in his grip, he could easily break the bones, but barely refrained from doing so. Forcing a smile on his face, he got close to the demon's face.
"Didn't you hear me? Answer me before I do something you'll regret."
The noble felt his arm giving out, any more and his entire shoulder would be disintegrated. "Ah- The- He- the ants, they ate him."
"That's right! He was one of Agatha's men, a weakling. He got ambushed by the ants, and they killed him," his friend jumped in after he saw the pain displayed on his companion's face.
"I see, thank you," letting go of the shoulder they quickly moved back to the main group.
Dusting his hands off in the air, part of Lucas couldn't agree with this method.
'What a terrible way to ask for information.'
"Listen," Lucas spoke to himself loud enough for Asta to hear him. Putting up his guard, he closed his eyes to listen to all the sounds in the area.
'Speak through your thoughts idiot!'
'Listen, you were nervous about approaching them. If you weren't a scaredy-cat, I wouldn't step in. These dumbasses think strength is everything, so just show it and they'll listen. See how those two answered perfectly?'
'After you threatened them with their life, might I add.'
'I never did that, I just showed him we are powerful, and therefore they must follow our commands.'
'Do you really think the Demon Society is that simple.'
'Isn't it?'
'...'
Switching back, Asta shook his head towards him. "I can't hear anything out of the ordinary."
"Don't worry, I must've imagined it. Either way, while an ant can chew, there were no bite marks. Some species are known for sucking nutrients out of prey, but they normally first slice them up."
"There were no incisions on the body, nor were the clothes ruined."
"That's why I don't think this was done without magic," the effects looked very similar to a spell Lucas used sometimes. The Life Drain spell worked great to regain energy, but the willpower of whatever held the energy had to be defeated first. Lucas found it hardly believable that an ant would have stronger willpower than a Demon, but perhaps they weren't using the same spell.
As they kept moving, more corpses started to pile up, mostly ants, but a few demons were caught up in the fight as well. What confused Lucas was why any demon would fall here.
"Weren't they all supposed to be the strongest?"
"In theory. Like I said, the horns just show potential, it's hard to say how far someone got on the path based on just the horns."
Staring down the tunnel, they moved on.
Eventually the group slowed down, arriving at another cavern. The candidates at the front seemed to be tired out, sweat had started to build on their foreheads. They were fighting for hours, without any breaks, it would put most of the mages out of breath.
"What do we do? We've been wandering for so long without any change," Descartes spoke, accompanied by heavy breaths as he tried to regain some mana into his core. The air was extremely thin with magic, making meditation a lot less efficient.
"Hah! Are you already getting tired? I've just started," Isale spoke with a light-hearted tone, contrasting the dark caverns they were standing in. She stared Descartes down with a vicious stare, hiding the fact that she was also starting to get exhausted.
The demons accompanying them also started to wear thin. They were all Rank 2 or Rank 3 mages, so they were a lot more powerful than normal mages, yet the ambushes of the ants instantly killed some, making their magical prowess useless when stabbed in the back.
Most of the supporters of the candidates were slowly being dwindled down. Agatha didn't have any supporters left, but she was the weakest, so many didn't really care. The other two candidates, Klaro and Protaris hadn't made any significant movements, the spotlight went to only a few.
"Gentlemen, this trek forward is a futile endeavor," Alastor spoke as he rested against the wall of the cavern. He hadn't fired off a single spell, yet nobody dared to openly criticize him, as he was the most powerful among them.
"Why say that?", Descartes stopped his meditation after feeling barely anything enter his core.
"Can't you see it yourself? Do any of you not see it?"
Complete silence appeared afterward, even Isale, who loved to attract attention, knew that this wasn't the time. Not having the answer would only show their incompetence compared to him, such a sign of weakness wasn't to be revealed in front of their followers.
"None?", Alastor lost his smile as he noticed not a single demon, candidate or otherwise jumped up to respond. "Surely you two have figured it out already," pointing at Lucas and Asta, the former frowned hearing that.
"Big brother, don't give that worthless one any attention. He not only cut off his horns, but brought a human to Sabaoth, he deserves to be punished if anything," Isale instantly jumped at the moment she saw some wiggle room.
Alastor ignored her as he stared at Asta, who slacked a sigh before responding. "We've been going in a loop this entire time."
The group of demons were shocked as they instantly started to inspect their surroundings. Even Lucas had no idea. He was terrible with directions, so he never bothered to keep track of where he went as his attention was clamped onto something else.
"Correct, I knew you would have the answer, Astaroph. Now, I've asked you a question, it's only fair I give my attempt at one of yours."
There were plenty of things to ask, an absurd amount frankly, but before Asta could think of an appropriate question, he felt Lucas grasp his shoulder. A single knowing look was all it took for Lucas to step up.
"He'll ask one in my stead," Asta spoke calmly, as Alastor simply nodded. The other candidates felt disgusted instead.
"Astaroph, you'll let that worthless human speak for you?! Have you completely cut ties with your roots to let a human hold so much authority next to you?", Isale wasn't talking lightly. Severing his roots meant giving up his candidacy, yet the moves he made only showed Asta discarding demonic traditions.
"Indeed, what could this useless human even ask?", one of her followers added to fuel the fire. His mere presence was an insult to many present, yet the man in question fully ignored the riffraff. Directing himself to Alastor, he had a single question in mind.
"How are the ants regenerated?"
Exclamations of confusion were audible from the group, as Asta stayed silent, confident that Lucas wouldn't ask stupid questions.
'Why ask that? We don't even know for certain.'
'It's to gauge his intelligence. He's lorded as the smartest one around here, if he can't figure out the things we know, he's not smart.'
'Yeah, then he'll be even more stupid than us.'
'Indeed. Still, we should be able to somewhat correct him if necessary.'
'How so?'
'We only know that the mana from the attacks spells are being used to heal or perhaps recreate those ants.'
'That and the fact that those insectoid bastards don't exist in Aurora, at least not in any bestiary I remember.'
As Asta inspected the environment, Lucas inspected the system and the ants. After careful inspection, they didn't resemble anything from Aurora or in the books he had. Still, Sabaoth was a new planet, so new variants could exist, but there was a conclusive piece of evidence that showed the ants weren't naturally formed. Using that, Lucas came to his current conclusion.
Alastor nodded with a big smile. "That is a great question, sadly a simple one. I believe everyone here already knows the answer," gesturing to the crowd, all he got back were blank faces. Many avoided his eyes, staring at the ground or ceiling.
Turning his smile upside down, Alastor held back a sigh. "It's obvious. These ants don't exist in the natural world, which makes sense since we're in a modified space created by someone. This pocket dimension has the power to extract mana from the air and use it to form the ants."
Descartes faced Alastor head on as he thought things through, "In other words, the more we fight, the more disadvantageous it becomes for us."
"Exactly," nodding in response, Alastor was glad at least one of his siblings figured it out.
"Then what do we do? Break through the walls?", Isale spoke up as she tried to hide her frustration. They were all constantly fighting for no reason at all. Wasting so much effort would demotivate anyone.
Descartes shook his head. "No, we would just find the wall of this space, we need to find the entry point. Besides, we don't know how large this space truly is. For all we know, it's a few miles wide, then what?"
"I haven't heard any suggestions from you, speak up only if you got a better idea!", Isale pointed at Descartes, putting all the attention on both of them.
"Listen, my naive sister, we've been pushing through this place for more hours and hours, you barely did any of the work! Don't complain to me when you've done nothing yourself."
"I don't want to hear that from someone who keeps eating pills to recover their mana. If I had it, we would be pushing through this place, but you're the one with the most followers here."
"As if followers matter to you! The only reason you even have people behind you is because they lust after your body, you don't bring anything else to the table!"
Isale felt shocked, and right as she was about to dish some insults out herself, a cold voice stopped them both.
"Would you please stop this incessant babbling? Are you all still idiots, facing a problem head on without thinking about anything? Have you learned nothing when I was gone?"
Asta stepped up as for once, Lucas could see him actually being frustrated. "Even when we were young, you two couldn't help but be at each other's throats for no reason at all. Just shut up for a moment and let us dismantle this place."
Descartes was surprised by the sudden outburst, enough to keep his words to himself. Agatha never had any place to argue, while the other candidates didn't bother interfering. Isale hadn't felt this insulted for a long time. Taking a step forward, she opened her mouth, only for Lucas to step in front of her.
"Don't."
"Wha- You think you can-", an aura so oppressive appeared that Isale fell to her knees. All her followers stared at the origin with fear in their eyes. The sudden bloodlust that covered the place, turning it dark red, nobody dared to speak up.
"Let them handle this, for your own sake."
Stepping back, Lucas retracted his aura. He knew what effect his aura had, using it against mages of his own rank would only pressure them slightly, but having your mind twisted was enough for many to back off.
"Lucas, create a flat space. Alastor, get off your pedestal, we need to create an array to destabilize the arrays supporting this place," giving out orders as if he was used to it, the people jumped in action. Lucas stomped his foot to flatten the ground in an instant.
His imposing figure held anyone back from interfering, and if they dared, Lucas wasn't worried about killing them. He had witnessed them fighting the ants for a long time and after seeing their spells, Lucas deemed them all weak. Especially since the followers were max Rank 3.
"We'll need to create a multi-layered array capable of attacking the very existence of this place, but that will require a lot of energy and runes pertaining to spatial magic. Of all the people here, you seem like the only one that would be able to know them."
Alastor stared at Asta for a moment, "Do you think breaking this space down will be enough to escape? Whoever trapped us in here only chose candidates and their followers, including the both of us. If they can trap us, I'm certain they know of our capabilities."
"You're saying that a simple solution was never going to work?"
Shaking his head, Alastor revealed his own theory, "I don't know for certain, but this place doesn't feel like a challenge in the first place. Again, it all comes back to my very first question to you. Who do you think trapped us in here?"