After apologizing, Shade hugged her and offered his belated congratulations:
"Claire, congratulations on passing the trial of the 'Crown of Glory.' We all knew you could do it."
"Honestly, don't treat me like the kind of girl who can be sweet-talked into forgiving you."
The platinum blonde-haired girl said softly, but she did not push Shade away. This was exactly the sort of embrace she wanted right now. As for being angry, she was certainly still angry, but she decided she would listen to Shade's explanation later before deciding whether to remain angry. She was not the sort of girl who liked throwing tantrums.
Perhaps the luck that had changed from "↓↓" to "↓" after Friday's experience with the Ice and Snow Castle and the Demon had really worked. During Claire's solo climb for the trial today, she had actually encountered no accidents at all.
No Demon, no caves, no Infinite Snake, no strangeness on the Snow Mountain—nothing. She had simply followed the route map upward, found three tokens along the way, and then gotten angry at the finish line because Shade was nowhere to be seen.
Her day had been rather boring:
"I was originally thinking that perhaps I could use this trial to find the path to the Twelfth Order."
The Spire Platform where they stood was not the main peak of Fatumonst Snow Mountain, so naturally it was not the mountain's highest point. Even Sylvia's High Tower stood at a higher elevation than this place.
After complaining, Claire planned to leave with them. Though she was not afraid of the cold, after climbing all day, she was looking forward to a steaming hot dinner.
But before returning, Shade had one more thing to do. The current setting was quite suitable:
"The night I first met the five