(A/N): Since it's been a whopping 6 months since a regular upload, here's a short recap of the last few chapters AND the rules of the Pleiades Watchtower:

Summary:

(Y/N), Omega, Meili, Ram, and Roswaal spent three days traveling through the harsh Augria Sand Dunes before breaking through the mysterious Sand Time to reach the Pleiades Watchtower. There, they hoped to recruit Shaula, who was revealed to be the Sage's Apprentice, into The Crusaders. However, Shaula, who has been watching over the tower for four hundred years now, attacked everyone on sight. To make things worse, Shaula later revealed that Omega is Echidna in front of Ram, causing the oni to enter a fit of rage. In addition to this turn of events, it was also revealed that nobody could leave the tower without completing a total of three trials. While the first trial was easily passed thanks to Omega, the second trial proved to be an impassible test, as it required you to defeat Reid Astrea, the first Sword Saint. (Y/N) failed the trial miserably and bordered mana deprivation, and now a new day has begun.

The rules of the Pleiades Watchtower:

1. It is forbidden to leave the tower without completing the trials.

2. It is forbidden to violate the rules of the trials.

3. It is forbidden to disrespect the library,

4. It is forbidden to damage the tower.

5 (the secret rule). It is not forbidden to destroy the trials.

Now that I got that out of the way, let's get started with the chapter!

The first thing you noticed when you woke up was the fact that your body was drenched in sweat.

This must have been the result of your body recovering from the mana deprivation, and once again, you wished that you still had some bocco fruit so that you could've recovered already.

As you blinked and adjusted to the slightly dim light in the Green Room, you saw that Omega was standing next to your side of the bed, and she was patiently waiting for you to get the sleep out of your system before trying to speak.

"So," you asked as she stood there silently, "are we getting ready for the strategy meeting soon?"

Omega nodded her head tenderly. "Everybody else is prepared for the meeting, and they are awaiting our presence in the dining hall."

You looked to the bed next to yours and saw that it was already made, with no Meili in it. On the other side of your bed, Patrasche was curled up on a patch of grass next to the comatose Rem in her wheelchair.

Seeing that you noticed Meili's absence, Omega explained, "I suggested that we allow you to rest until the meeting began. With the state of your health being as poor as it was, we decided that it would be best to awaken you only when it was necessary to do so."

You gave Omega a smile to thank her for the thoughtfulness, and you proceeded to slowly drop your legs over the side of the bed.

As you moved, you definitely felt less sore than yesterday, and the strength was finally returning to your limbs.

"If I were to speculate," Omega said softly as she watched you carefully, "I believe that you have regained between fifty to sixty percent of your mana, meaning that you are no longer in a critical condition. However, your body will still be facing the consequences of yesterday's mana deprivation."

You stood up on your own, and at this point, the hunger in your stomach was bothering you more than the fading pain throughout your body. Trying not to think about the food you'd have to eat soon, you asked, "So, does that mean I'll be back at 100% tomorrow?"

"If you do not cast spells for the remainder of this day, you are correct," she replied. "However, in terms of your physical health, I believe that you will still feel slight discomfort tomorrow.

You shrugged. "If it's just some discomfort, then I'll be fine."

Omega slightly furrowed her brows at that statement, and she proceeded to offer her shoulder for you to prop yourself up on as you walked. However, you declined.

"Actually, can you dry me off really quick? I guess I was sweating a lot last night."

"Of course!" Omega replied energetically, switching away from her more somber mood. With the corner of her mouth turning up, she backed a few steps away from you and held her hand out to cast a spell.

You knew what was coming, so you closed your eyes and plugged your nose.

"Huma! Fura!"

Omega chanted these spells verbally so you knew that they were coming, and your body was suddenly encased in a swirling ball of warm water. You could feel the water wash away all of the grime from the past day before a quick gust of wind wound itself around your body like a big, magical hair dryer that dried everything off.

The entire process took less than five seconds, and once the wind was gone, you held out your arms to make sure you didn't fall since your legs still weren't at the strength they were usually at.

This process, minus the trying not to fall, was one that you had gone through a few times already, and it was very valuable on long trips like this one. The combination of water and air magic served as a quick bath for you while also cleaning your clothes, and it was very efficient in terms of both time and resources.

Seeing just how refreshed you looked after the cleaning, Omega decided that it was time for her to do the same to herself.

This time, she cast the spells without incantations, and the same ball of water and gushing air left her feeling cleaner than ever.

There wasn't a name for this combination of spells yet, but Omega was perfectly content with leaving it nameless, for it was much simpler to cast the two spells separately than to imagine them being cast simultaneously. In terms of magic, it was an astonishing feat to maintain two spells at once, and even more so to cast two at the same time, so Omega decided that there was no need to make such a mundane task more complicated and stuck to casting Huma and Fura separately.

Now that the two of you felt much better than you did a few moments ago, you took Omega up on her earlier offer and wrapped an arm around her shoulder for support. Patrasche squawked as the two of you slowly exited the Green Room, and you waved her goodbye, as if the earth dragon could understand what that meant.

Once the stone door to the Green Room slid shut behind you with a grinding sound, Omega helped you steadily walk to the dining hall, which was located in the center of this floor.

Thankfully, the fourth floor was much smaller than the fifth and sixth floors below, so even though you were walking slower than normal, it only took a minute to reach an entrance to the dining hall.

Once you entered the dining hall for the first time, you saw that it looked a little smaller inside than it looked from the outside. Of course, that probably had to do with the fact that the stone walls were thick and two long tables and a well (of all things) filled the room.

The well looked really out of place, but you quickly dismissed it since it was probably magical.

As you approached the closest table, which was occupied by everyone else in the group, you eyed the plates filled with leftover mabeast meat and some bones. As hungry as you were, you didn't want to eat that disgusting meat yet, so you settled on eating later.

"Good morning, (Y/NNNNNNN)~" Roswaal greeted you first, and you just nodded your head at him, acknowledging him but not greeting him back.

Meili forced her last bite down, and after barely shuddering, she wiped her mouth and said, "Good morning onii-san! You're feeling better today, right?"

Smiling, you confirmed, "Yup! My strength's coming back and everything is a lot less sore, so I'll be more or less back to normal tomorrow."

"Yay!" Meili cheered. "I was really worried for you, you know? Don't get hurt like that again! Only a weirdo like Elsa-nee would get hurt like that over and over on purpose!"

You chuckled slowly. "Hey, that's the point of this strategy meeting, right? We'll find a way to beat Reid so that we don't repeat what happened yesterday."

"Indeed," Omega interjected as she helped you to your seat, which was more like a wooden bench that ran along the length of the long table.

From the other end of the table, Shaula hopped up and began running toward Omega. "Let me help you, Auntie!" She insisted, "Your new body looks really weak, like , even weaker than you already were, so that boy must feel reaaallly heavy!"

You deadpanned at the rapidly approaching Shaula, and before she could pick you up, you plopped yourself down next to the head of the table, where Omega would be sitting.

Roswaal was sitting at the opposite head of the table, and Meili sat to your side, with the silent but fuming Ram sitting close to Roswaal.

Omega dismissed Shaula since her help wasn't needed, so the Keeper of the Tower sat down directly across from you with her shoulders slumped and her face looking like a sad puppy.

"Now that we have all assembled here," Omega announced as she took her seat, "we shall begin strategizing in order to pass the second trial of the tower, in which we must defeat Reid Astrea in an arbitrary task."

Roswaal flicked his hand up mockingly to ask for permission to talk, as if he was making fun of Omega for taking the lead of this discussion.

Omega didn't show any reaction to this. Instead, she simply motioned for him to speak.

"Beforrrre we begin, I believe that Ram has somethingggg to say," he proclaimed.

This caught everyone off guard, and you heard Ram click her tongue as Roswaal said this. Making eye contact with you for the first time in this meeting, she forcibly said, "I apologize for my actions, but I do not apologize for my words. Take that as you will."

You could tell by the anger in her voice and her red face that Ram had to swallow a lot of pride to say what she did, and you took this opportunity to try and offer your own apology, even if it wouldn't do much right now. After all, you had a lot of time during the previous evening and night to think about what you would say to her.

"Ram, I'm sorry for both my actions and my words. I tried to justify lying to you for a long time, and it's my bad for trying to force you to accept that. If you can't find it in you to trust me again, at the very least, can you take my word that Omega is here to help? She isn't the evil person you think she is."

Ram remained silent, but you could tell that she held a little less aggression in her expression after what you said.

You looked over to Omega to see if she would say something since she and Ram had argued quite a lot the day before, but the Witch looked with cold indifference.

Refusing to apologize to Ram or perhaps not seeing much merit in doing so, she continued where she left off.

"That was very nice of you," Omega said dryly, "and now that we have finished that business, I believe that it is time to discuss our approaches to pass the second trial. Are there any more interjections that any of you have left before we begin?"

Silence followed Omega's question, so the meeting to strategize Reid's defeat began.

Time Skip

After an hour of discussion, a few things had been decided:

The surest way to defeat Reid was to find a specific book, which was still not explained to you, in the third-floor library. However, since the library was so huge, everyone would only be allotted four hours to search for it before abandoning that book for the moment and challenging Reid.

There were a few challenges that, given Reid would agree to for some reason, could be won because of a trick that probably couldn't be countered, even with the Master Swordsman's skills and intuition.

The better suggestions included having Omega challenging Reid to trivia about himself, where Reid would lose if Omega got the question right. Since he didn't seem to remember Echidna, she would have an edge there.

Your suggestion was to say random things like "You hate women if you don't let us pass," or "Only gay people win against us," and see if that would work since Reid seemed to be the kind of person to react pretty strongly against those accusations. Of course, that idea was quietly shot down, but you thought that it would be a good thing to try if nothing else worked.

Meili suggested something she learned from an assassin once: have the target stand still and bet that you could make them move by the time you walk in three circles around them.

The trick to win this bet was to stop after walking in two circles and never completing the third, so you would win whenever the target eventually moved. This was really similar to the first challenge that Reid gave you, where he told you to make him move at least an inch, so it would make sense for him to accept it. The only problem here was that, after you didn't finish the third circle, Reid could make this a waiting game, which would be dangerous if he decided to be patient and stand still indefinitely.

Some more ideas surfaced, but these were the ones that you liked the most, and it was decided that if Reid wasn't accepting any of your challenges and was dead set on only accepting those that he set of his own accord, then the challenger would provoke him, asking things like "Are you too scared of losing?"

Omega said that provoking Reid had a 50% chance of working, but any chance was still better than no chance.

In the end, if it still came to a matter of defeating him head-on individually, then Roswaal was the first designated fighter against the Master Swordsman.

With all of that said and done, it was now time to walk up the stairs leading to the third floor to search for the book that would evidently defeat Reid.

As Omega stood beside you in case you needed help getting off of the bench, Shaula finally moved from her seat. She had been frozen by the fear of getting fondled by Reid as his name kept on getting mentioned, and now that she was moving, you saw her zoom toward the well and something behind it.

In the moment it took for you to swing your legs around the bench and to slowly stand up on your own, Shaula was already back in front of you with a plate black mabeast ribs and a cup of water.

"Order up! Auntie told me to make sure you eat this, so here you go!"

Shaula shoved the plate into your chest, and you stumbled at the force of it. "Geez," you said under your breath, "Of all the things Flugel taught you, I guess being gentle wasn't one."

You saw Omega's mouth twitch as she almost smiled, and Shaula cocked her head to the side, causing her scorpiontailed-hair to swing around, hitting the table with a succession of dull thuds.

"What do you mean?" the ignorant Apprentice asked. "I know that Master taught me to ask guys to be gentle with me, but I know that he was just feeding into my ero-kawaii thing, so it was probably a joke!"

Omega sighed and shook her head as she found yet another piece of stupid information that Flugel taught Shaula.

At the same time, you were getting surer that Flugel was someone with a personality kind of like Subaru's because of the random things that Shaula keeps on saying.

"Come on now, eat your food! You can't stall forever!" Shaula pointed at your plate, and she started intently into your eyes, waiting for you to eat so that her order from Omega could be fulfilled.

You pursed your lips as you stared at the unappetizing meat. Your stomach, which had been rumbling during the meeting, suddenly felt fine as it told you not to eat the 'food' in front of you, and you felt the impulse to set the plate down and walk away.

However, Shaula took her orders very seriously, so when she saw that you weren't intending to eat right away, she grabbed the ribs, broke the bones apart from each other, and before you knew what was happening, there was one being forced into your mouth.

You gagged as soon as the vile meat made contact with your taste buds, and you grabbed Shaula's wrist that was holding the rest of your food.

Her wrist was thin, but you could tell just how overwhelmingly strong she was by the fact that it felt like you just grabbed something that wouldn't budge.

"How about this," you said as you swallowed a small bite of the food in your mouth before spitting a bone out, "I'll eat half of it if you eat the other half. I think both of you can see that it might hurt me more to eat this stuff than to not eat for now."

Shaula glanced over at Omega, who sighed. "(Y/N), you understand that eating properly is essential to recovering your health, do you not?"

"Well, yeah, but to be fair, the food isn't usually something that makes you even more sick."

Omega glanced at the mabeast meat. She didn't have to eat since her new body was made of mana, but she did acknowledge that, when she was alive 400 years ago, bad food sapped her appetite.

Shaking her head to herself since she didn't want to waste any more time on this matter, Omega relented to your suggestion. "Fine. Just make sure you consume your half quickly, as we must search the library as much as possible before the allotted four hours has expired."

Shaula gulped her ribs down, bone and all, as if it were nothing.

You stared at her in shock as you forced yourself to eat your portion.

"What?" the scorpion-girl asked blankly. "Is it because I ate it so fast? After eating the same thing three times a day for four hundred years, you get really used to it."

You shuddered at the fact that she had been forced to eat this kind of food for every meal during these last few centuries. Eating something for too long could make even the most delicious food become unappetizing, so eating something this vile for so long was honestly a horror of a punishment.

With that said, it made your respect for Shaula go up, if ever so slightly.

Time Skip

"Was skimpy-oneesan slowing you down?"

Meili's question was the first thing that met you as Omega and Shaula accompanied you to the top of the stairs and into the third-floor library. This was your second time in this room, but its massive size still amazed you.

This room filled the space of what was previously the first trial of the Pleiades Watchtower, but it turned into this library as soon as Omega passed the trial. With that said, the library was circular in shape, and the ceiling was a considerable distance above the ground.

Since it was impractical to design bookcases that spanned the height of the wall, there were several small floors along the walls that reached up to the distant ceiling of the library, and you imagined there were either ladders or stairs somewhere to go up to each of them.

After taking in the view of the impressive library, you chuckled in response to Meili's remark since she was obviously trying to make you feel better about still recovering, but Shaula didn't see through the light sarcasm.

Crossing her arms, Shaula pouted and said, "Why is it 'skimpy-oneesan' now? At least try to flatter me if you're giving me weird nicknames!"

"What?" Meili asked, cupping her ears as if she couldn't hear Shaula. "I can't hear you over the sound of me looking for a book. Maybe you should help!"

"That's unfair! Master told me that I can't!"

As Shaula stormed away into the maze of books, you couldn't help but chuckle again. Sure, it would probably be better to get closer to Shaula so that she'd be more willing to leave the tower if that was