Chapter 199: Unexpected Encounter

Kaelen remained in the shadows to think for a moment. From the looks of it, the white-haired lady wasn’t taking a bath but was rather swimming for the fun of it.

He didn’t need to account for Felix being around somewhere because, if he understood the tower rules correctly, every candidate was randomly assigned to a lobby, and the odds of the two of them winding up in the same lobby were extremely low.

He also heard a lot of noises and footsteps from the cabin, hinting that most of them were inside before he left, and that left only Lucy in the lake a few metres from the cabin. This would buy him enough time to fetch water if he submerged all his buckets at once before backup arrived—in case anything went wrong.

He didn’t plan on waiting because Lysandra’s party would be entering the second floor anytime soon, and she had already sent him a message asking if he’d be watching. Of course, Kaelen said he would and planned to do just that after getting his water. But before he could make his move, Lucy suddenly turned and spoke.

"Who’s there?" Her voice was calm but cautious.

Kaelen was surprised she had sensed him, even if it took her a moment. But from the looks of it, she wasn’t exactly staring at the spot where Kaelen was hiding but had a premonition that someone was around there.

Seeing this, Kaelen didn’t reply or move a muscle. He simply remained hidden and watched Lucy stare for a moment into the serene vegetation before she turned around and swam to the shore, where she grabbed her trousers. As she was already in her underwear and bra, she put them on and disappeared down the path that led back to the centre of the glade.

Kaelen sighed inwardly before shifting his attention back to the lake. He had the water all to himself now and could take as much time as he wanted if it weren’t for Lysandra’s pending stream.

He avoided the shore and the middle of the lake but went straight for the waterfall, which poured straight from gaps in the rocks, and began aligning his buckets beneath the downpour, storing them back into his inventory as soon as they filled up.

Kaelen had a total of 819 buckets and calculated it’d take forever to fill them all by himself, so he decided to summon a legion equal to the number of buckets he had remaining to fill them all at once.

Just as he was about to say the magic word, he sensed something to his side and instinctively shot his hand forward to grab a fair wrist wielding a dagger whose hilt had been aimed at the side of his head.

The attacker wasn’t trying to kill him but knock him out cold.

Before he could turn to see their face, he sensed their knee coming towards the back of his head.

Kaelen reacted quickly, using his grip around their wrist to yank and forcefully swing the attacker over his shoulder, slamming them into the surface of the water.

That was when he got to see the face of the attacker. But what he never expected was for Lucy to sink into the shallow water along the waterfall when he could clearly see the rock bed beneath the crystal-clear water.

With his firm grip around her wrist, he was caught off guard and pulled into the water as well by the momentum of her fall.

Contrary to his expectations, Kaelen sank a few feet into the water before getting a clearer view around him and realizing he was now sinking into a boundless body of water with several fish in sight. It was almost like he had been transported to an ocean.

He quickly began swimming to the surface and broke out of the water just under the waterfall where he’d fallen from, but before he could make sense of any of it, Lucy appeared before him with a dagger to his neck.

"Who are you?" She asked while catching her breath, but paused the next moment when she finally got a closer look at Kaelen’s face.

"You? What... how did you get here—" She had barely finished speaking when Kaelen used the brief distraction to knock the dagger out of her hand before tackling her and throwing her onto the wet rocks.

She struggled, but Kaelen firmly pinned her down until she slowly relaxed.

"Hey, I’m only here to get some water and have no business with you or anyone else here. I’ll leave as soon as I do that. Do you understand me?" Kaelen asked in a serious tone.

She didn’t reply. She simply stared at him with an unreadable expression and didn’t struggle any further under his weight.

Kaelen’s brows furrowed. There was no guarantee what she would do the moment he let go, and he wasn’t trying to make a fuss that would alert the Herald and expose him for a second time.

Even though Kaelen had learnt it wasn’t against the rules, this was an idea meant to be used discreetly, and that purpose would be defeated if he were to get caught every time and every candidate were warned against receiving any surprise packages from him.

"Rise."

The area was immediately covered by a heavy fog of shadow, where several shadow summons began rising like the undead.

There was no guarantee that this wouldn’t immediately trigger the Herald, so Kaelen wasn’t about to waste any more time. He loosened his grip around Lucy before stepping away.

With so many shadow summons here, she’d be cut down before she could even reach him.

Kaelen promptly dumped a mountain of buckets before them, and they began grabbing two each to make the labour easier and heading straight for the waterfall. As soon as they filled those two, they transferred the water directly into his inventory and returned to grab more after Kaelen began dumping more buckets than he had purchased earlier.

After seeing the depth of the lake and the aquatic ecosystems inside, he was thrilled and decided to entertain his greediness a little more by increasing the number of buckets to a thousand.

Unfortunately, there were no fishing rods currently on trade, as the buckets had all been handcrafted by fellow candidates using wood.

After recovering from the bizarre scene before her, Lucy finally sat down and rummaged through her pockets to pull out a pack of cigarettes. She brought a stick to her lips before searching herself once more and realizing she didn’t have a lighter.

She sighed heavily, the cigarette trembling between her lips. "Kaelen Cross, right? Are you a descendant of the Lightning Thief? You’re full of uncanny surprises. You somehow have a shortcut to everything, including invading lobbies and stealing water. Do you have no shame?"

Kaelen spared her a glance before shifting his attention back to his shadow summons at work.

"I’m curious. I understand the pill you used on the first floor was probably given to you by Elyndra. But make me understand how you were able to enter another lobby. Is it something you can do with other lobbies as well? Or was it the Herald that let you in?"

Kaelen tilted his head to look at her in amusement. "Why would the Herald let me in when they can simply give me the water I’m here to borrow?"

"I don’t know. You tell me... Isn’t she your wife?"

"...What?"