"Good morning, Serafina!"
Pauline greeted me as I walked into the dining hall the next day.
"Good morning. The meals you sent to my room last night were delicious by the way."
"Haha, glad to hear that! Though I do wish I could make something other than potatoes."
"That's the only thing that showed up in the kitchen, right? What else can you do?"
Pauline had explained to me that every day the cupboards in the kitchen would be refilled with potatoes and only potatoes.
There were condiments to help with cooking, as well as barrels of drinking water that got refilled each day.
But the main food ingredient that appeared was only potato.
Though Pauline tried her best to make them delicious by cooking them differently, they were just potatoes in the end.
"I actually have to admit, Pauline. I wouldn't mind to have some meat, or even just a plain bread."
And right at that moment, an unfamiliar old couple whose hair had turned grey, brought me my potato dish and two loaves of warm bread from the kitchen.
"I didn't know we actually have breads now!"
"These are Giacomo and Linnie. They arrived yesterday. They used to run a bakery together and know how to make breads from potato grinds. We just finished making a few batches!"
I raised my eyebrows upon the statement and looked to the couple.
"Together? You two knew each other?"
"Why yes! We've been married for many years and knew each other long before then too!"
"I've heard about this place from Pauline. I'm still confused but I'm glad my Linnie is here with me at least."
Interesting.
So the voice did not just pick solitary individuals.
People related to each other could be summoned together.
I wondered if my father and my brothers could be summoned with me had I stayed with them.
Then again all of this was useless thought. They had died and I was here.
All I needed to focus on was to climb the tower.
"Um, Miss Serafina, do you think master will send us to battle?"
Linnie asked in the middle of my meal.
"I wouldn't think so. You and Giacomo's skill in cooking would be needed even more now that we have more people to feed. I doubt master will leave everything to Pauline to cook for eighteen people."
"Really?"
"Of course you needed to work hard so that master would think yourselves as indispensable in the kitchen."
"Don't worry, we will work hard!"
I simply nodded to them.
It was nice to see these two to be quick on accepting reality.
It might also help that they did not need to risk their lives since they had non-combat skills to rely on.
I looked over the window and saw Jonah, Shanny, and Trudy working hard in the training ground.
I also noticed a few new faces training alongside them. They must had been those that came yesterday along with Giacomo and Linnie.
It seemed like Pauline and the others did well in explaining what they were supposed to do in this forged land.
That being said, I could still spy some trying to find a way out along the tall walls bordering this place. A futile endeavor, of course.
That afternoon I went to the equipment workshop and enchanted new batches of weapons Gerrits and the others had made.
It was then that master summoned another ten people in the summoning chamber.
As they had always been, none was carrying a weapon with them. More people who had no experience in battle had been called to the forged land.
"What? More people?"
Gerrits remarked with a grunt.
"Master wants to expand their army. You can't possibly think we would be the only ones here?"
I replied.
"Master can do whatever they want for all I care. But we're running out of ores and woods to make weapons now."
"Just reserve the best ones for Jonah, Shanny, and Trudy. They're our most experienced fighters at the moment."
I told him.
If we wanted to replenish our supplies, we needed to climb the tower.
Just like how the materials appeared after we cleared the first floor.
But master still did not make us climb yet.
[If I call your name, come to the square!]
The fairy's voice reached out all over.
[Shanny, Don, Gerson, Fritz, and Cale!]
The craftsmen and I stepped outside to see what was happening.
Shanny was already geared with her weapons, while the four others were rummaging through the storage for theirs.
The other four people that were called were those who came yesterday and trained with Jonah and the others in the training ground.
"Are they going to the trial?"
Gerrits asked me.
I saw the fairy flying over the large stone gate and made this exaggerated pose again.
[Open the rift of space and time!]
The gate lit up, forming this shining rift in the middle.
"Good luck."
I told to Shanny as she walked past by. She simply nodded to me with serious expression.
Having understood why they were called, Shanny and the other four stepped into the rift without posing a question.
The new arrivals from the summoning chamber were just standing in the square, looking all confused.
One of them caught me and the craftsmen standing by the square.
"Hey, what's going on? Where are we? What is this place? And where did those people earlier go?"
They asked relentlessly.
"Just stand there quietly and you'll figure it out."
I told them.
About five minutes passed and Shanny's party returned.
Their weapons and attires were now stained with dark blood.
Shanny did not look fatigued by the trial. But the other four seemed slightly disturbed, similar to how the two maids were after their first battle.
Murmurs were triggered within the new crowd after seeing Shanny's group walking past by them.
"W-what just happened? Why are they soaked in blood?"
I shrugged at the question.
"Why else? They were just sent to battle."
"B-battle?!"
The murmurs within the crowd grew louder. Panic started to strike some of them.
Ignoring those people, I turned to Shanny.
"First floor again?"
"Yeah. It's still the same four goblins."
I then looked over to the four people that accompanied Shanny.
Given how they just arrived yesterday, I supposed master wanted them to have a feel of the trial.
Perhaps the fact Shanny's party was called after the new crowd was summoned was not a coincidence.
Master probably wanted to show the new people right away what kind of reality they were facing.
It was then that the fairy called more people to the square.
[Trudy, Ulrich, Opal, Reiss, and Pablo! You guys are up!]
Trudy was called alongside with the four other people who were summoned yesterday.
But different from the group that accompanied Shanny, these ones were just wasting their time finding a way to escape instead of training or helping out.
As expected, they looked scared and hesitant to enter the rift.
"We tried convincing them to train. But they just would not listen."
Trudy said approaching me.
"If words won't get through to them, real combat would surely make them realize."
I said.
"NO! I WON'T GO IN!"
One of the four people suddenly shouted.
[What nonsense are you blurting?]
The fairy replied with a deep frown.
"I don't know how to fight. I will die if I go in there!"
The rebel said. It sparked the other three to join them.
"Yeah! We won't go in!"
"I'm not going to follow this master's order if it meant I'd have to kill myself!"
"That's right! We reject their order!"
The four people continuously threw their rejecting remarks and showed disobedience to master's order.
This sight made me curious about one thing.
"Trudy, did you guys not tell them about synthesis?"
"We did! But no matter how many times we told them, they just would not believe it!"
"Is that so?"
"Yes, they would not take our word for it."
I turned to the new crowd watching the scene on the square.
"Don't beat yourselves up. At the very least you would not need to convince those people over there."
Suddenly the door to the synthesis chamber opened.
The fairy's gaze turned to something unperceivable to us once more and then she looked back to the other four.
[Trudy, Ulrich, Opal, Reiss, and Pablo! Get into that door now!]
The fairy said while pointing not to the rift of space time, but to the synthesis chamber.
Trudy could not help but to look at me.
"Don't worry, you'll be fine."
With a stiff face the former maid nodded to me and walked into the synthesis chamber.
"Hey, what are you doing?!"
Meanwhile, the fairy was dragging the four disobedient people to the chamber.
"Y-you can't do this!"
"Let me go!"
"This isn't right!"
[Oh yeah? You should've thought of that before disobeying master's order.]
The fairy said before throwing them inside.
The door closed on its own and the synthesis chamber lit up with great light.
Once the light dimmed, the door reopened and Trudy walked out.
The four other people could not be found anymore.
"Wh-why is she alone? Where did the others go?"
One of the people in the new crowd asked.
"They were sacrificed."
I told them.
"Sacrificed?"
"Indeed. That's what happen to useless people in here."
Instead of murmurs, my words caused deafening silence among the crowd.