Experience has reached multiple breaking points. [Young Sunfang Dragon, Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor]’s Main Job [Virulent Corrosion] has risen from [Level 0] to [Level 1]

Attributes have increased due to level up

Individual [Sunfang Dragonewt, Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor] has switched her Main Job to [Taunter]

Main Job benefits have been updated due to Job change

Taunter Level: 10/10

Job Skill gained: [Taunt]

Individual [Sunfang Dragonewt, Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor] has switched her Secondary Job to [Virulent Corrosion]

Virulent Corrosion: 1/30

Multiple proficiency requirements fulfilled. [Air Walk Lv. 6] [Aerial Fighter Lv. 6] gained

“I’m in A.”

“C”

Tournament competitor 349 you are assigned to Group A of the Rumble stage. Make your way there in time. By the Grace of the God of Knighthood, Bravery, and Loyalty, show thyself worthy of the blood of Yeostar in the Arena of Proving and become the might of Yeostar manifested in mortal coil!

For a god of knights, this sure sounds more like the god of war, or something.

Because I am, for the Pantheon of Light at least. Each pantheon has one god specialized in warfare, since we act as a conduit for the mortal’s prayer for survival and cheers of victory. During peace, a knight is the symbol of chivalry and righteousness, but during war where blood and dust can cloud the minds of both men and women, a knight should be flesh and bones turned into a weapon. When a single second is the difference between life or death, you must learn to accept blood and carnage as an extension of yourself like your armor and weapons.

Sheesh, talk about breaking the fantasy and romance of a knight. Ellaine would hate to hear that part… but, I guess it’s a more realistic viewpoint on it.

As predicted by Fargryneill yesterday, the battle royale to decide the 32 contestants of the main bracket stage would be divided into four groups: A, B, C, and D. From the 931 contestants, about 232 fighters would be in each round, decided by a random number generator done by the dungeon itself.

I would fight on the first day, while Sister would be waiting for her turn tomorrow. Considering how all of this was done about two bells before the actual tournament, it was quite fair and not prone to corruption. Not like anybody could do something underhanded anyways, since Yeostar was watching over this match right now.

“Goooooood mooooorning, bloooood enjoyeeeeeeeeers!” I could hear the announcer’s voice vibrating even through the thick walls.

Every single tournament contestant was currently waiting in the foyer or the resting room, either cheering, trash-talking, or gulping as they saw the results of the draw. My group was in the latter room, but I could hear and see what was going on in the main foyer, and even hear the announcer already hyping up the crowd in the seats.

“Ha ha ha ha! Wonderful!” Master laughed merrily. “It seems we will have something to watch on both days! Mhm, this festival will surely be exciting!”

“Mhmm, burn them to ash, my whelping.” Mother clapped her hands in delight as she encouraged me, all while wearing what seemed like some of my merch from my last concert. Saori designed it with a scaled pattern to form multiple flowers and flames as well as adding one of my quotes to it.

“Let me be your shining light,” it said. I appreciated Mother wearing it to support me, but it felt pretty embarrassing to see my mom doing something like this to me. Didn’t she know this would fluster me?! Even worse, she managed to persuade Tasianna, Shay, and Beth to each wear one too! Even worse-worse, Master was wearing an XL version of it! Oh gods!!!

“Krahahahaha!” Krim-Slak suddenly slapped my back. “Show them mercenaries and wannabe heroes what a true force of nature is, Hestia!”

“Kri, we haven’t had a chance to watch you fight seriously, so go on and show us your growth, young scale. Send them running,” Grazlahta added, giving me an expectant look.

“Goo…d luck.” Even Akasht was here, cheering me on.

It felt nice hearing their support, but the thing that made it hard for me to look at them was how each of them was holding the same frozen signs with my name on them that Mother and the others held up yesterday! How could they do this to me?! How could I focus on the match if they were trying to actively embarass me here?

“Yo, Sis, you nervous?” Fargryneill nudged me with her elbow, noting my red face.

“N-No, nothing like that. It’s just something else. Don’t mind it too much.” I rubbed my hand against my head, trying to hide it from the suspicious Fargryneill. As an idol, I really shouldn’t feel like this, but having friends and family cheering me on felt weird.

In any case, with our placements now decided, I let out a quick sigh, relieved I wouldn’t have to fight my sister this early on. If we had to fight, then it needed to be when the tournament was at its peak! At the finals, of course!

After everybody gave me a last supportive cheer, I left for the underground waiting room, where all the fighters would be waiting. Since the coliseum was a dungeon, it could morph its rooms to accommodate more participants. Yesterday, it was just a small place for resting, but today it should be around the size of a football stadium.

And the moment I entered this place, I couldn’t help but feel the stares the other contestants were giving me. Nothing new, since I received them every time I visited an adventurer guild, but they made me feel that I was standing out like a sore thumb. Sadly, I felt more death stares than genuine curiosity. Inside this room of 232 participants, I couldn’t really say if I could trust any of them.

“Oooh, look at that, guys. Our ‘dark horse’ has entered.”

“Arggh, shit! Better hide somewhere before she wipes me out…”

“Hmm.”

The reactions to my entry could be divided into those three categories — reckless curiosity, genuine fear, and silent judgement. While the former two were easy enough to find and track with my hearing, it was harder to detect those who were giving me the silent treatment. Although the room was spacious, with the number of people inside, it was easy to bump into others.

I went into this room with as minimal giveaways as possible, only showing what I showed back at the testing match. Which were my glaive, Rajah, and my general appearance. I didn’t bring in my white mage cape nor the catalyst I usually put inside my weapon to activate its scale-dust functions. Since I didn’t know who the most prominent opponents were, I had to be careful to not divulge too much information.

They know my dragoon spearmanship, that I have a wind magic, and that I'm also a tamer. Since the announcer called me a dragonewt, you can easily see what my element is from my scales. They would expect me to be a fire mage or be able to spew fire. Hmmmmmm.

How can I win this by showing the least amount of tools while being as lazy as possible? Hmmm. Oh, wait, right, let’s see…

I activated my [Detection Sensor] as I, luckily, found a single chair against a wall. Sitting down, I focused my consciousness around the room, counting the numerous signals inside this place until I couldn’t find anymore. It was loud as everybody spoke, roared, and shouted inside this closed room, making it hard to calm down. Also it didn’t help how it smelled like fish, fried fat, and cheap booze in here.

162. 162 participants. Yeah, that was obvious. Same idea, huh?

People who could hide their presence were somewhere in here. In a battle royale, at least to my knowledge from playing those sorta games on Earth, it was best to not stand out too much. The champion’s team would be targeted after all, or in a competitive setting, the most favorable team to win it all would either be avoided or people would try to take them down.

Sis and I already failed in this department, but I could guess Fargryneill wouldn’t mind it too much. And those skilled enough to hide their presence would do it here, too. Unfortunately for people who could detect them, it only made you more noticeable. Of the 231 other participants, 69 were trying to hide their presence. And from those, I managed to pinpoint about 57 of them.

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.

Meaning, with a non-serious search, twelve people should be on my radar as they were either expert assassins or actually people I had to worry about. The higher the quality of their skills, the more threatening they were.

Hmm, okay, time to find them. Gotta appraise them before the match. Okay, one more—

“Oi, lass.”

“Hmm?” A voice suddenly took me out of my small meditation.

“That’s my seat.”

And here it was, the result of me forgetting to ask people if a seat was taken.

I looked up, noticing how a large shadow was cast over me. There, I saw a towering merfolk man with an appearance that could cause your heart to skip three beats. Not ‘cause he was handsome or ugly, but ‘cause he looked like something you would imagine if you thought of a deep-sea abyss monster.

Four round growing eyes drew my attention to his head and face. A hard shell grew from them, looking very much like a metal helmet if you didn’t look closely and notice, for example, his head's carapace could twitch. Going down to his mouth, tentacles surrounded it like a beard as he wore something looking like a black oxygen mask, connected to what seemed like a heavily-fortified tank on his back.

Looking at his gills, maybe this was a water tank so he could breathe? The merfolk I’d met before didn’t need something like this, they could breathe on land. Nonetheless, seeing as the mask was not clear, I couldn’t see what sort of mouth he had, but from the look of his jaw shape, it couldn’t be anything “normal.”

The rest of his body was less “alien” to me, seeing as he covered it completely in metal armor with plenty of blue and black scales and other merfiend materials. However, you could still see openings in it to accommodate the flappy fins on his elbows, shoulders, and back. There was also a thick finned tail growing from his bottom.

“Oh, lookie there, brudda! Lizard lass got her tail caught by that pirate hunter!”

“Shit, hahaha, sat in da wrong chair of dat monster.”

A barbed double-edged spear with another edged part in between the tip and the shaft was strapped around his arm with a seaweed rope, while a one-handed viking axe was hanging loosely with a rope from his belt. And just like his armor, not only were they well-made, but they had runes and enchantments strengthening them.

No joke.

“Shit! Oh, we getting a fight already?! ‘Deepsea Ebony’ Chahayat against that lizard! Hey, hey! What rank are they, again?!”

“The announcer said rank C for the girl, right? Or was it rank B? Hey, any of ya mercs know the fishman’s?”

“Ha? Dunno, but that Chahayat can sink pirate and smuggler ships all alone. Heard some rumor that he took down a demonkin ship all by himself. Stole some cargo from them fish sailors, and they hired him to do it for them.”

All that gossip entered my ears but they didn’t register properly. All my focus was concentrating on the staring contest I had with this man. He only showed a slight bit of displeasure at having his chair stolen, but once our eyes locked onto each other’s, he didn’t seem to get anymore impatient. Still, the silence was getting awkward with everybody hyping this thing up.

“Sorry about that. I didn’t know.” I stood up and bowed slightly before leaving. He didn’t say much as I walked away, simply sitting back down on his chair.

“Buuuuwwaaaa! Shit’s got funny. Bah! Whatevers.”

“Nah, she’s on his shit list now. Don’t need to do shit to her now. Let them take each other out, hahaha!”

There was an obvious disappointment in everybody’s mood, but I was more interested in the person himself. After all, he was one of the twelve people I couldn’t locate at first, and seeing as how he was still minimizing his presence to others despite how bulky he was, he probably had the advanced stealth skills.

Scary.

I didn’t dare risk using [Mana Eyes] on him now. Angering him here probably wouldn’t be smart. It would have been pretty nice to see what his level and Profile quality was, so I could get an idea on who the other eleven people were, but too bad, couldn’t do.

Still, got some clues. Now, time to—

Competitors! Your match will start soon!

As I was about to do some more reconnaissance, a System message from the dungeon interrupted me, followed by the room’s walls suddenly opening up and forming stairs.

Competitors! Choose one of the ten entrances and walk to the transfer platform. You will be transported to a random location on the field depending on the entrance you choose! Please, consider wisely.

I glanced over the message before Yeostar’s voice appeared in my head again.

I looked around after I heard his reasoning, noting the exit to the foyer was sealed off now, replaced by two staircases. Each direction of this rectangle room now had a set of two entrances into the arena, and people were slowly going into them.

There was no time to do anymore looking around, sadly. I guess, once all the competitors were inside the room, a countdown activated until the match would start. Nothing I could have done. At the very least, I learned about one of my potential competitors and where he was going.

For now, let’s avoid him. There were twelve strong people, but there could be more than those twelve. Some of the more rowdy guys probably didn’t think hiding themselves would be necessary.

Having fun fighting isn’t the goal here, it's to do my job. And that is to make it to the top eight of this rumble match. Better to avoid unnecessary bad matches.

Sadly, I didn’t know where the other twelve were, so I was still kinda hoping for luck. Oh well, it was time to use my best method to solve such a conundrum!

Eeny, meeny, miny, moe,

Catch a tiger by the toe.

If he hollers, let him go,

Eeny, meeny, miny, moe!

… I chose the door that merfolk went into.

Eeny, meeny, miny, moe,

Catch a tiger by the toe.

If he hollers, let him go,

Eeny, meeny, miny, moe! That one! Yup, got—

[“Master, why are you turning in circles?”] Rajah suddenly spoke to me, causing my eyes to widen like a goldfish.

I forgot to use Rajah as my scout!

I'm used to using Saori as my primary scout to check for monsters when we stayed in the Belzac forest, but I had forgotten to explicitly tell Rajah to do the same, since Saori always did the reconnaissance without me telling her! Even when we were in Artorias or Estralia, I never had to tell her “scout, please” she always did it herself.

“… Dang.” I facepalmed myself, worrying Rajah, but I told him everything was alright.

Remember, I have to train him. This is our first time going out to fight as partners. Parallel minds, do make sure to remind me of things like this!

‘Hey, we were more preoccupied trying to locate 231 people in what seemed like ten minutes or so. Give us a break, Original Mind,’ #2 complained, and I had to lay them off. She was kinda right.

Regardless of this beginner’s mistake of mine, I shook it off and just went through the entrance I chose. Yeostar did mention I had to be adaptable, so I had to do just that. Surviving was all I did in the Belzac forest, so this should be right up my alley! Well, hopefully, I didn’t forget anything.

While avoiding the stream of people rushing up the stairs, I eventually made it to a glowing blue platform. Everyone stood on it, waiting for it to activate, until the door closed up and the platform lit up. Our bodies were then shrouded in a glowing light before it shot up through multiple tubes in the ceiling, going through it like a rollercoaster.

Once light returned to our world, we were launched right into the sky, overseeing an arid battlefield where a decrepit castle was. Numerous fortifications and other things like cannons, pitfalls, and a field of armored skeletons could be seen in the center of this place. There was a single forest behind me, but otherwise, this place was bare as hell.

“Blooood enjoyers of all ages! Welcome to the battle royAAAAAAAAALEEEEE!” The voice of the announcer boomed in our ears as the sky transformed to show the numerous people cheering in the coliseum’s seats, having seemingly grown to increase capacity.

And before long, all of us flew up even higher and were shot in a random direction, making it seem like fireworks from a distance. As I saw numerous other people flying around, I looked to the ground, noting I was about to land in that forest I spotted earlier.

Oh my?

“And look at that, people! The starting flare, the beginning of this tournament and the festival of Yeos has started! Just like during the last competition, the first rumble stage will be our iconic battlefield of Schrade! Where God Yeostar fought with a small battalion to prevent the reconquest of the demonic castle Fatalisa from the demonic invasion! Only a shallow recreation, sadly, but all competitors will have to fight through not only themselves, but also the wicked leftovers of the demonic curses! All to become one of the eight illustrious winners of this rumble!”

“Yeaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah! Woooooooooooooo!”

“Blood! Blood! Blood! Blood! Blood! Blood! FIGHT!”

The cheers of the crowd set the mood. They wanted violence and even their cries overshadowed whatever I might of heard from my family and friends. I couldn’t even find them in this panorama of a ceiling. However, unless I wanted to lose, I had to focus on the match on hand.

After all, I could see a few streaks of light following me. I couldn’t see who they were, but they certainly were my opponents. I had to take them down before I could do what I wanted.

“Hear me! Who will be the winners this time! Who will conquer the mighty Castle Fatalisa? Who will dominate the bloodfield of Schrade? May this war strengthen your body and minds! And don’t die just like worms, alright? Hahahahahaha!”

Jeez, boorish.

But, as his laugh finally disappeared, it heralded my landing in the forest. Protected by the brilliant glow, I safely rolled on the ground and my instincts shot back into action, quickly locating the trajectory of my incoming enemies. I climbed up a tree like a tiger before sending Rajah out to my right, whilst I parkoured through the branches towards two incoming enemies.

The moment they landed on the ground and the glow disappeared, I blasted myself down towards them with [Wind Blast] and sliced through both of their weapons with my tail, landing a deep gash through their chest armor. As they cried out in pain, I shifted my body around, now on the ground. Digging my glaive into the ground, I then landed two decisive claw slashes, leaving five ruby red wounds on each of their backs before their armlets activated.

Held back too much. Should have been a one-hit KO.

Their pained groans stopped as their wounds healed up, where they turned around, scowling at me.

“Fuck you, bitch! We just landed! Come on!”

“You could have at least given us a chance to react! What the fuck was that?!”

And with a quick “phweeeeeee!” they flew up into the sky and disappeared from the arena. I didn’t believe they saw me give them a peace sign before they left. But, I couldn’t celebrate just yet.

I used [Aerokinesis] and formed my good ol’ wind rifle and loaded the wind bullet with a stone. Unlike my time in the Belzac forest, I didn’t need my parallel minds to control this thing anymore. I could do everything on my own, now so used to my wind manipulation, something complicated as making an air rifle and firing it was second nature.

I can’t poison them, right?

Got it~

I wrapped the stone in my hand, creating a purple flame inside of it to hide from the audience. Only a little bit of corrosive venom was on it now. I then detected Rajah using [Detection Sensor] and told him to move to the point I wanted him to. Once it was done.

Bam! But it was silenced, so nobody not in my vicinity could hear it. And after a millisecond…

“Gurraaaaagh!!” Somebody’s growls reverbed through the forest loudly, before a light flew out of it into the skies.

[“Master!”] Rajah came running. [“You shot right through his stomach! He survived, no problem!”]

Maybe adding that venom was overdoing it a bit…

But, regardless, it felt good. I felt at home again. The nostalgic smell of the forest entered my lungs as I shrugged off all the time I was stuck inside a city. I could finally hunt!

Welp, let’s see how many I can take down before having to leave this place.

However, while I could see the three lights I caused vanish, several more suddenly appeared, signaling the success of various other fighters. The match had begun and nobody was willing to show mercy as they reaped through their rivals’ chances to win.

Regardless, whoever saw mine coming from the forest would know where I was. I didn’t even need to [Taunt] for the flies to start coming in, greedy to take down a big game player. Whether they were strong or weak, they were like moths gathering around a fire.

Sadly, this forest had already crowned its apex predator, and I wasn’t accepting house guests today.