After a long moment, it was announced that I would be the only contestant to pass on to the next round of the tournament in my group, and that the missing people would just mean less fights. The crowd wasn’t particularly pleased with me for that result, but I had given them a good fight, so there wasn’t too much trash thrown at me.

I strolled calmly through the gate on the opposite end of the arena, they had told us previously that the victors of each group would be kept in a special area with separate rooms, and not be allowed to see the other fights to avoid an unfair advantage. The groups that had yet to go, of course, were also kept in the waiting area so they couldn’t see. This, of course, had brought up the question of how there would be an unfair advantage with the victors in the same groups since they would see each other fight. Apparently, the one on one battles that would make-up the rest of the tournament would be arranged so that the people that were in the same groups would not fight each other until the ends of the tournament, that way, they wouldn’t be knocked out early due to the fact that the opponent knew their fighting style.

I was a little sad that I wouldn’t be getting to watch some good fights, but I was also a bit excited about facing an enemy with little prior knowledge about him, those fights always kept me on my toes~

Since the waiting room was empty, I had free pick of whatever room I wanted. Inside each of the rooms, there was a small table laid out with all kinds of fruit, bread and meat, a small cot, and a comfortable looking chair. Since all the rooms looked exactly the same, I picked the room that was the farthest away from the entrance of the large room and turned the ‘open’ sign that was hanging from a nail by a loop of string to it’s opposite side that read ‘occupied’ and then entered the room and shut the sturdy wooden door behind me. Plopping down on the bed, munching on a roll of fresh bread, I settled down to wait for the next part of the tournament to begin.

King of Serac’s Point of view:

I sat calmly in my throne as the next group of fighters filed out, for all outer appearances focused on the arena and upcoming fight, but in reality, my only focus was on watching Theron out of the corner of my eye as he spoke quietly with a harried looking servant. After a few moments of whispered discussing the servant handed Theron a small roll of paper, then bowed and quickly left. Abandoning all pretense of paying attention to the fight that was now vigorously in motion down below, I turned my head to Theron and quirked an eyebrow.

“Well? What do we know about her?”

Theron grimaced and handed me the roll of paper.

“Not much at such a short notice, according to her sign up sheet, she is Delta A. Aquis, age 25, outside of that, we haven’t gathered very much, she’s a traveler that has visited Serac capital before, she has left a good impression on any of the people who have met her that our agents have talked to, though a few crazy old bats claim that they knew her twenty years ago and she looked exactly the same…..

But those guys are all on the record for prior mental delusions about mermaids and magic songs, so I don’t think we need to give any weight to that particular detail…

However we did get some solid confirmation that she’s pretty close friend with Drest Maddock, the owner of The Blue Tail……..Oh, and the guy that was in charge of her registration for the tournament says she might be mute.”

I scratched my chin thoughtfully as a small shiver ran down my back, Drest Maddock…...he was half-giant…...and well, let’s just say he had a Very formidable reputation, even I, as the king, wouldn’t dare to cross him lightly…..

“So you basically haven’t picked anything up about her past, just that’s she’s been in Serac before and that she’s close to Master Maddock….not the least amount of information a Royal guard has been accepted with, but the thing about her being mute…...how is she going to take the oath of loyalty? If she wins, that is…..”

Theron shrugged.

“I don’t know, I’m not exactly a magic expert, but I’ll send a message to the head mage to see if he can figure anything out….”

Theron walked to away from me and I turned my attention back to the arena, sighing as I did. Fighting was no fun if all you could do is watch and not participate……

Delta’s Point of View:

After several hours, the other group skirmishes had finally finished, and after another thirty minutes or so there was three soft knocks at my door. I opened the door and a servant girl dressed in a simple cream dress and blue apron bowed to me and then gestured for me to follow her.

“It’s is your turn to fight Miss Delta.”

I nodded, slightly impressed by her professionalism, and smoothly followed after her. The annoying ox man from earlier was waiting in the open room, he was likely my opponent. I quirked an eyebrow in surprise, I didn’t think someone like him would make it through…..but I guess I did open up an extra slot in each category, he must have gotten lucky…

Once the man caught sight of me, he sneered at me in disdain, winning in the fight must have restored the confidence I had crushed, really, what an idiot…

“Well if it isn’t you again, you won’t get so lucky like you did last time, your petty tricks won’t work on a real warrior like me now I’m prepared!”

…..Seriously!? This guy must have more holes in his memory than swiss cheese! I’m amazed he can even remember how to wield a sword! Though….based on what I’ve gauged from him already, he probably just swings that huge blade around, relying on his muscles and not any technique to get the job done...I snorted scornfully, really, people like him don’t even deserve to be called warriors!

We walked out to the arena, it didn’t look like it had been touched, much less experience several large skirmishes, it must have been spelled to return to this state….A horn was blown and a wiry man with a glowing speaker stone announced our names and descriptions.

“Alright folks, here’s our second pair of fighter for today! The tall and muscular Zylen Thunderpunch versus the only woman that has ever participated in this tournament, the lovely Miss Delta Aquis!”

The servant girl then reminded us about the no killing rule, informed us that the fight would not be over until one of us conceded defeat or was knocked unconscious, told us to choose our positions in the arena, and then left the arena with quick steps that sent the sand flying in front of her. I positioned myself so that the sun wouldn’t be my eyes and turned to watch the ox man as I waited for the signal to begin the fight. The idiot didn’t even bother to move, a sneer on his face while he squinted his eyes against the sun to stare at me.

This content has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

“Hehehe, hey, I’d like to make a bet, when I win, you have to come over to my place tonight~”

…..Seriously, he’s still trying to pick me up!? And he’s so confident too, what a moron. Man, I really wish I could speak right now, I would agree to the bet on the condition that he cut ‘that’ off if I won. Sadly, I couldn’t figure out how to convey that without words in the short time I had before the fight started, so I would just have to be content with beating him up in the fight, while they had said no killing, they hadn’t said anything about serious injuries~

The horn gave two short blasts, the signal to start. The ox man charged forward, drawing his sword back as he ran forward in preparation to swing. Hmmm, he was a bit lighter on his feet than I had expected….but he’s still no good. I didn’t bother trying to move, just waited for him to cross the few meters between us while firmly placing my leather-clad feet in the sand in preparation to jump. There was this move I had always wanted to try, but I had never encountered someone with a wide enough broadsword….until now that is.

Ox man swung and I jumped straight up, my naturally strong leg muscles easily sending me above his blade, now here was the tricky part, I reached down and clamped the blade between my fingers as it passed below, careful to make sure to to let the sharp blade hit my palm, and used my hold to pull my feet firmly onto the blade. Wind whipped firmly at my body as the ox man finished his swing but thanks to my firm grip on the sword, I easily stayed crouched on the blade. As soon as I felt the blade stop moving, I quickly let go of my grip and stood up on the blade, waiting for the big man to look and see where I had gone.

Just as I had guessed, he swung his head around to look at me and gaped slightly when he caught sight of me standing on his sword. I grinned and in a flash, drew my blades and cut through his sword, leaving him with only a stud of iron on a long handle as the rest of his sword thumped onto the ground with me still standing on top of it. It stared at his now useless sword hilt for a long minute, his face gradually growing redder and redder, waiting for him to explode, I calmly slid my blades back into their sheaths and drew a small dagger from my boot instead.

The man slowly looked up and his eyes were truly murderous, he tossed away the remains of his sword and charged at me wildly with his arms spread wide to catch me.

“IT TOOK ME A LOT OF MONEY TO GET THAT MADE!!!!”

…..Seriously? He had that lump of useless iron made? And from the sound of it, he had to pay a lot for such a low quality blade…..really, it’s kind of sad in a way….But I’m still not going to go easy on him! As I looked at the murderous man running at me with pitying eyes I slid to the side, ducking under a meaty arm to avoid his mad rush and then grabbing said arm, I swung myself up onto his shoulders and wrapped my legs tightly around his neck. I held my dagger at his neck, but as I expected, he didn’t get the hint that he’s lost as he kept trying to pry my legs off with his hands so I casually slammed the hilt of my knife into his taut right shoulder, neatly popping it out of joint.

“GRAHHHHHH!!!!”

Oh dear, that seems to have only enraged him further…..I dislocated his other arm in a similar fashion.

“MOOOOOUUUUUUHHHHHH”

...Wow, that almost sound like an actual ox sound, could it be the angrier he gets, the more he connects with his inner ancestral ox spirit? Both of his arms now useless the man threw himself backwards, trying to crush me underneath him, but I easily slipped away as he fell back, landing lightly on my feet beside him. Not giving him chance to stand up, I grabbed the nearest huge leg, twisted it as much as I could with muscles impeding me, then slammed it with the hilt of my knife, dislocating his knee.

“MOOOOOOOOOOOOOH!”

Ah, a true angry cow sound! The man still struggled to get up, but he really couldn’t move any more. stepping in between his legs, I put a foot against his chest, pressing my  full weight down to keep him from moving, then stared coldly at him as I waited for him to calm down at bit. After a minutes of angry struggling, the ox man calmed down enough for his uncontrolled rage to turn into a concentrated angry stare. I smiled coldly at him and waggled my knife at him, drawing it to his attention, he glared at me even more.

“I-I won’t concede to a woman!”

Yes, and he didn’t look like he was going to blackout any time soon, his skull was too thick to knock him out and his throat muscles too thick to knock him out by hitting a pressure point…..but I did have something valuable to left to threaten him with….

I tapped the dagger on his nose, making sure he kept his focus on it, and then slowly dragged downwards, scraping it across his stomach until it hovered over his crotch, a man’s most prized possession. His face paled.

“Y-you wouldn’t dare! I would totally die from blood loss if you c-c-cut it off!”

I put on a thoughtful face, that was true….but there was a solution to that! Once again smiling, I held out my free hand and conjured a ball of fire, holding it out for the man to see. If I cauterized the wound, he wouldn’t die from blood loss and I wouldn’t be disqualified! The man’s face was now completely white.

“I-I CONCEDE!!!!! JUST GET HER AWAY FROM ME!!!!!!”

I let the fire got out and pulled my dagger away, walking to the winners gate as healers rushed passed me with a floating stretcher. As easy as eating eel pie~

The King Of Serac’s Point Of View:

I discreetly crossed my arms over my lap, covertly protecting my sympathetically tingly royal jewels as the poor man that had been Delta Aquis’s vic-opponent was carried off on a stretcher.

“......you don’t think she would have really done it…..do you Theron?”

Theron stood next to me, his back straight, but his hands clasped tightly in front of him instead of their usual position at his sides.

“.....I honestly don’t know sir…...but I’m rather glad we don’t have to find out.”

I slumped slightly into my chair.

“Well, at least if she becomes my royal guard, her oath will stop her from doing that to me…..”

Theron turned to look at my, his lips pale.

“Yeah, but none of the rest of will be safe…..”

I shrugged.

“Eh, that’s your problem~”

“....I hate it when you say that….”