Defying the Fate of Beheading

Louis and his team thus explored 51 regions around them where the terrain and ecosystem had been permanently altered by the shadow plane.

"It's about time, let's prepare to head back."

Alice glanced at her pocket watch and turned to the group.

Everyone nodded.

The Adventurer Guild gave them 2 days to gather relevant intelligence about this area.

As the 2-day period was nearing its end, they had to return to the safe zone in advance.

Failure to finish within the time would be considered a competition failure.

Louis and the others immediately set out on their return journey.

It was just that the journey there was smooth, but the way back wasn't as easy.

The closer they got to the safe zone, the more traps there were around.

"Instead of overtaking the opponents, are they trying to torment others?"

Alice said, speechless.

Clearly, some adventurer teams, seeing they had no hope of completing even the basic tasks, were starting to massively hinder others.

In the titled adventurer preliminaries, only the top 100 were awarded entry to the final competition.

But considering the first and second rounds were team-based actions, the number of teams that could actually pass wasn't much.

Due to the team limit of below 15 members, realistically, those who could enter the finals were usually no more than 10 teams.

An 8-person team like Louis, Olivia, Alice, Grace, William, and the Fox brothers was already rare.

Many teams would directly get 14 members to improve their chances of passing.

Plus, due to the competition mechanism, some teams would even have members leave before completing the task to increase the chances of passing.

The members who left weren't counted in the scores.

By reducing the number of team members, the average score of the remaining members could be improved to some extent.

Did the Adventurer Guild know about this bug?

Of course, they did.

It's just that no one had any opinion on it.

Because the number of lone adventurers was rare in itself.

They're either unwanted newbies or were the true elites of adventurers.

So, the guild's task layout... actually assumed only one person in the entire team would survive.

As long as you had the ability to make the rest of the team willingly submit, you could even kick everyone else out and no one would say a word.

Upon returning to the safe zone.

Louis and the others saw quite a few adventurer teams already gathered there.

When the Moonlight Cat Cat Group arrived, all eyes landed on them directly.

No other reason.

The number of survivors in the Moonlight Cat Cat Group was too many.

A lone adventurer who returned after Louis and his team was dumbfounded:

"An 8-person team?"

Another team that was left with only 2 adventurers was speechless:

"Are you kidding? Are they just here to make up the numbers?"

Someone next to them chimed in: "Their average age is too young, they must be fillers."

Suddenly, a team left with 5 members snickered:

"Are you blind? Didn't you notice that almost the entire team is at the Paragon level?"

Only then did someone notice something amiss:

"Wait a minute, isn't this team's average level a bit too high?"

"No, could it be some big noble is leading their juniors?"

"Lead what? Look closely, these people shouldn't be over 40, which in any family, is the age to still be improving strength."

A member of a Nine Sword professional team also from the Ense Empire glanced over:

"Hiss, what did I see, a young female swordsman who is already at Paragon level?"

Someone was curious: "How do you know?"

A team member from the Nine Sword team explained:

"The sword style that girl uses is one that only Paragon levels would use, using it without reaching the level is pointless."

Another Paragon level mage was surprised:

"Not just that, pay attention to that likely underaged mage, her occupation level seems to already be at level 10."

Someone asked: "How do you know?"

The Paragon level mage said:

"Her spiritual power is too active, normal mages have very steady spiritual power before reaching their current stage's peak, her extremely restless spiritual power is a sign of an impending breakthrough to Paragon."

"Damn, what's with the Nine Sword guy?"

"Let me take a look, damn, what is this thing?"

"A Radiant Gold adventurer? For what?!"

The same person from the Nine Sword team commented:

"That guy is a Nine Sword professional, looks like he hasn't broken through to Paragon either!"

"Without breaking through to Paragon, how did he become a Radiant Gold adventurer (note: the usual level for Radiant Gold adventurers is just starting Paragon)?"

"He probably triggered the Adventurer Guild's genius mechanism."

"What genius mechanism, how come I don't know?"

"People who are bad at everything are like that, they know nothing."

"Wanna fight?"

"Bring it on!"

"You guys stop fighting, I know about this."

"How so?"

"Don't worry, it's not insider information, it's a genius clause any professional can apply for."

"Tell me!"

"It's simple, you just have to independently kill a level 11 or higher monster under the Adventurer Guild's verification."

"???

"Damn!"

The scene became uproarious.

Such a situation quickly drew the attention of everyone at the Adventurer Guild.

Soon, it was the turn of the Moonlight Cat Cat Group to submit their investigation report.

Same as always.

The adventurers needed to swear to the truthfulness of the information under the witness of the God of Contract.

The guild member collecting data even changed expression upon seeing the information collected by the Moonlight Cat Cat Group.