The Gamer's POV-Chapter 181: Background Extras

Later that day...

——

As Cedric stared at his party members, who were all gathered around him with huge smiles on their faces, his face scrunched in embarrassment. His face was flushed pink because he was really happy, but extremely shy at the same time.

The reason for this was that, just a few seconds ago, Ino had come to call him from his room, saying there was an emergency and that he needed to get to the general area. But when he got there, all his teammates immediately surprised him in unison:

"Happy Birthday, Cedric!"

’Ah...’

He was absolutely at a loss for words.

Just then, the others turned to look for Evelyn. Ino spoke with a bit of annoyance, "Where is that bat? Where did she take the cake?"

Not long after she asked, Evelyn rushed inside with a giant slab of meat that had a single lit candle on top.

"Here, here. Sorry I’m late," she panted.

Ino then turned to Cedric and clapped her hands once, then said with a grin, "Celeste told us it’s your birthday today."

Cedric’s gaze flicked to Celeste, who had one hand on Audrey’s shoulder and was smiling like someone who had done something to be proud of.

Ino continued. "Since we couldn’t find a cake in this cursed place, we decided to use this instead. So, make a wish!"

As Evelyn brought it closer, Audrey muttered, "At least it’s seasoned."

Dion salivated, whispering, "Gosh, I want to eat that."

Leon hit him upside the head, "Wait for dinner, you glutton."

Cedric smiled.

It really was a strange coincidence that both he and the original Cedric shared the same birthday.

Well, since the original Cedric never got to celebrate his birthday either, he decided to make the most of it for the both of them.

Although moments before he blew the candle out, he cringed a bit.

’Wait... why do I feel like I’m too big for this?’

Of course, despite now being 18, his past self was 26 and after being used to not celebrating his birthday, he had grown out of it. Anyway, after blowing the candle out, he noticed that half of the meat had already been eaten. His gaze shifted from the meat to Evelyn’s mouth, where he could see a stray piece of fat clinging to her lip.

Evelyn gave an awkward, sheepish grin.

When Ino saw him staring at Evelyn, she leaned to check what he was staring at, and that was when she saw that Evelyn had snuck a few bites while carrying the "cake" over.

"You bat!" Ino shouted, lunging for her. "Don’t you have any self-control?"

Evelyn ducked behind Cedric, still chewing. "I’m sorry! I’m hungry, okay?!"

Cedric shook his head, and the awkwardness from before faded into a small, genuine laugh. 𝒻𝘳𝘦𝘦𝘸ℯ𝒷𝘯𝘰𝑣ℯ𝑙.𝘤𝑜𝘮

That aside, the party had dinner soon after, as everyone was suddenly hungry.

During dinner, Cedric kept stealing glances at Leon. He knew that Leon wasn’t really happy with him killing Levi, but surprisingly, Leon seemed to pretend as if that hadn’t happened.

When Leon caught him staring, he smiled, shook his body, and winked. "Are you falling for my looks already? Awwwn, I’m shy."

Cedric bristled. "Shut the fuck up!"

***

A few days later...

——

As an Arbiter, Princess Aurora called the leaders of the different parties at the grove to the barracks for a meeting in preparation for the journey to the home of the hollow ones.

She stood just in front of the branch of the weird-looking tree while the others stood in a semi-circle around her, with the leaders of the higher parties in front and the lower-ranking groups trailing behind them.

A beautiful lady with similar white hair to Aurora’s stood beside her. She had flawless ivory skin with gray eyes and was dressed in a maid’s outfit, holding a whisper globe which displayed the map leading to the home of the hollow ones.

Everyone else held a whisper-script, which acted as some kind of transmitting device while Aurora spoke.

"...It’s already been almost two months since we had our last meeting where we decided on the date of the journey to the home of the hollow ones. However, a lot of things have happened since then."

Her voice grew a bit somber. "From that time until now, the number of cadets that converged at the grove had grown to almost two thousand. But due to a lot of factors, including the situation with the cadets from the Bastion of the Somarian Pride, that number has significantly reduced. Now, we are down to roughly a thousand, two hundred. That’s a deficit of nearly half our projected force."

She paused for a bit as a few people began murmuring. As she looked out over the crowd, her expression hardened with resolve.

"I know many of you look at those empty spaces beside you and feel a flicker of fear. You wonder if we are walking into a grave. Well, the truth is that if we do not move now, we are simply waiting for the grave to come to us. If we fail to take down that bridge, the monsters of the first ring will pour into the empire. They won’t care about our ranks or status; they will target the children and families we left behind."

She looked directly at the leaders in the front row.

"Our fathers, our mothers, and the strongest members of our families are already giving their all in the higher rings. They are holding the line so that we have a world to return to. It is only fair that we do the same here. We are the shield for the innocent, and that shield cannot break. We need to take down that bridge, not just for ourselves, but for every life that depends on us."

As Cedric and Aika listened to her motivate the others, Aika spoke mentally to Cedric. ’She’s certainly got the "Princess" act down. If I didn’t know any better, I’d probably be shouting for glory, with my feet ready to charge into a pit of hollow ones right now.’~~

Cedric chuckled. ’It’s effective. People need a reason to believe they aren’t just fodder.’~

Aika sighed internally. ’Ah... what a sad time to be background extras.’~~