Ivan was dead tired, as soon as the ice wall perpendicular to where he entered the room melted, he stepped through the opening and face planted into the icy floor.
"T-That suicidal bastard… I'd kill him if he weren't already dead…" His voice muffled by the snow, he let out a sigh and closed his eyes for a few seconds. 'Alright, I should probably set up an actual camp to rest at.'
Laying in the cold wasn't exactly the most optimal way to recuperate, so he got up to his feet and held out his ring in front of him. Leaving the mirror battle room seemed to be a good move by him as seconds later the previously melted wall reappeared out of thin air.
"Just the tent will be fine for now, a little nap is all I need. Just enough to restore both mana and my sanity. I'll need to get up soon and find the rest anyway."
Something probably worth mentioning was that the opening to the mirror battle room had led him to an incredibly long hallway. Even looking both ways Ivan wasn't able to see an end with his enhanced eyes.
Thankfully the hallway was wide enough to plop a tent down. So looking at the large blue tent, Ivan shuffled in, planting his face again, this time into a comfortable mattress.
=====================================================================
"Wake up."
"Hm…?"
"I said, wake up!"
"Ten more hours please…" Ivan rolled over, nonchalantly urking the person who had spent the past three minutes trying to wake him up.
"Father, wake the hell up!" She grabbed the hem of his mattress, pulling it from underneath him. Ivan jolted at the feeling of the frozen floor. Even with his protective gear and atmospheric tent, coming in contact with something cold was different than feeling cold air.
He hastily looked around, a grenade in one hand while the other rested on the pin. And then his face was hit by a furry white tail.
"Gweh!" He settled down a bit, caressing the tail that was wrapped around his head and covering his eyes. Canis normally wouldn't be so playful unless she was in a good mood, not to mention that she wouldn't be so loud either, if anything she would have slept in the tent alongside him.
So that meant—
"Oh, it's just you, Felis~"
"Bingo! Hmph, though I would appreciate it if you didn't say it so unenthusiastically." The tail unraveled itself to reveal the cheeky tigress. Her tail nimbly maneuvering until it reached her behind.
Seconds past and without talking the two left the tent. Ivan only held his ring toward the tent before it disappeared.
"So, how was your trial? He asked unceremoniously, the two walked down the halls in hopes of running into their comrades as did Felis with Ivan.
"Meh, it wasn't a big deal~ In fact I spent more time wandering these halls than I did fighting my copycat. Just know that the fight involved a lot of punching!" She brushed off his question, stating that nothing interesting really happened.
Ivan took that as a message to disregard his worry, judging from her demeanor and words just now the trial hadn't really affected her. If the last trial was anything to go by, then it must have been related to the dream she was shown.
'In that case, it would be…'
Her copy might've attacked her with the fact that she wasn't his biological daughter.
=====================================================================
BANG BANG BANG
The two heard the sound of battle in the distance. No doubt these empty and large halls made for a good echo. They glanced at each other for a second before nodding, then they went from a walk to a sprint.
They hadn't run into monsters the whole time so that meant the only things that would be in combat would be one of their comrades and a mirror copy. While they wouldn't be able to interfere without affecting the result of the trial, they could still be on standby until something dangerous happened.
Ivan brought out his recently made tool, drilling a hole into the ice walls and jamming his perception and foresight camera-like stick into it. He covered one eye with his left hand and assessed the situation.
"Oh hey, it's Canis!" He hollered cheerfully.
BANG BANG BANG!
"Argh!" At least that was until the rubble from Canis and her mirror's battle flew through the air and went straight into his eye.. He backed up a bit before staring through the hole again, wiping his eye that had been glaring into the periscope.
The two met fist and fist, leg and leg, head to head, they were mirroring each other in a true sense. Both parties not backing away from each other for even a centimeter. As far as Ivan could tell they were evenly matched.
"...."
Though what irked him was the silence. Where were the psychological games? The aggravations? The whole point for the trial? Instead the two were just comparing physical strengths.
It seemed that due to the lack of the real Canis' responses, the copy just gave up on trying to toy with her mentally, deciding that it'd be futile.
Ivan couldn't tell if that attested to the girl's mental fortitude or her lack of regard for the words of others.
But then, an upset happened—
In the blink of an eye Canis sweeped the feet of her copy, it hovered in the air with wide eyes before adjusting to land in a way that would allow it to counter. Canis only glared, and in the split second from which the copy fell toward the ground and made contact with it, she stuck her tail between her legs and stabbed it like a spear toward the eye of her opponent.
"Uagh!" The copy failed its landing, holding both hands to her pierced eye in a futile attempt to stop the bleeding.
But it was a copy of Canis, a homunculi, Canis knew that she couldn't allow the copy a second to regenerate or else the advantage she made would disappear.
And so a grenade appeared in her hand, taking a page out of her father's book, she drove it forward like a pile bunker, stabbing it into the heart of the copy that was still falling toward the ground.
The heart being where her mana core was stored at.
KABOOM!
Both the copy and Canis were enveloped in black smoke. But Ivan wasn't worried, at least not for his Canis. The other Canis… Well, he already knew what the result of her fate was. The grenaded was something he manufactured after all.
"...."
When the dust settled, all that was left was the illuminating gold of a beautiful lioness, her stoic face lit by the reflections of the icy caves and sprawling fire caused by the grenade. Her clothes were singed, but a worse fate was in store for that of her opponent.
Ashes. The copy had been destroyed without a single second to utter her last words. And all it took was less than three seconds.
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