Catherine looked wordlessly from Pip to the two merchant brothers, as they had now been confirmed.

“That was... quick,” she said to Pip.

Pip practically swelled with pride. It had indeed been very quick after the older brother had been convinced, and from there all it took was tracking down Catherine so that they could get things going.

“And what did you say their ranking was?” She asked, slightly dubious at the recommendation.

Pip perked up yet again. “That's the best part,” she began. “The older one is at 3,021, and the younger one is at 10,461. They're perfect!” She said, gleeful.

Catherine looked between the two for a moment, suspicious, before turning back to Pip. “And they're not nobles this time?”

“Nope, I already checked. They're merely very rich merchants, so there is no reason for concern,” she replied. Indeed, Pip had anticipated the question, and found that looking into it before hand was the right move. It would have been a very, very bad idea to go back into another deathmatch so soon after the last. While she accepted Catherine for who she was, even in spite of not knowing exactly what that was, it was best not to test that fact.

Besides, she didn't feel like killing any other mortals in the short run anyway, and she didn't want Catherine to be forced to either.

“And this also isn't a duel to the death?” The mousey girl asked, dropping the kind smile and subtle sarcasm from her last question.

“No,” Pip replied sternly. It was not that kind of duel this time.

“We both agreed it should probably just be to capitulation, just like the ones that we've been practicing,”

“Good,” Catherine nodded in assent, meaning that Pip had gotten the all good.

Immediately a warm feeling passed through Pip, who realized that she had wanted to get the task right a lot more than she had thought. She supposed messing it up so badly last time might have made her a little self-conscious about how things went regarding her setting up duels, which she felt was fair.

It wasn't very often that one got their first and only friend in a duel to the death thanks to the intervention of a noble.

“Now all we need to do is work out how exactly we're going to beat one of the best duo's in the city,” Catherine said, a spark of enthusiasm seeming to finally make itself know.

“Best in the city? The younger one is ranked at over 10,000, and those clothes? Those aren't the kind of clothes that the real professionals wear. Those are the clothes that are compensating for something,” Pip replied, suddenly very glad of her observation of duelists from the Land of the Gods.

It turned out that applying standards she had seen while spectating some of the more popular duelists was working out extremely nicely for her. Truly, it had been most fortunate that she had dedicated so many hours to he study prior to entering the mortal realm. It was hardly her fault that social interaction was so Gods dammed complicated. Who ever heard such a thing as 'too formal', anyhow. That was just silly.

“Catherine looked momentarily stunned at Pip's relative competence in dealing with people, which brought back the warm feeling in her chest. Immediately afterward, she let out a long-suffering sigh at Pip's remark. This made the warm feeling in her chest fall very, very quickly.

“You're not strictly wrong, Pip. Clothes like those are normally pretty unnecessary for chosen. What good is leather, or even steel, armor against the power of a fire chosen, right? It doesn't do much good to be burnt alive comfortably, does it?”

“indeed,” Pip replied.

“But, that's only true if it's not enchanted,” Catherine said, looking at her as if at a baby wyvern that was too stupid to realize exactly how stupid it was. It hurt a little, but she guessed it was better than being looked at with the same hopeless stare that the girl had used when the deathmatch had been announced.

Instead, she just looked at her like she was cute for being so foolish, which was of course incredibly humiliating.

Pip may have been the weakest and youngest of the new Gods, but she was a God nonetheless, and had a God's pride. She was not cute, she was to become a force of nature. This mistake was simply a minor set-back that could not be avoided given the circumstances.

“And armor is part of the reason why they're so good, I presume?” she asked Catherine, trying to reclaim her pride following yet another screw-up,

“Yes and no. Yes, because enchanted armor makes them better at almost everything, including not being stabbed in the chest by a sword, and no, because that's only a small part of why they're considered to be one of the better duo's in Dasgad.

“And what are these reasons, Catherine,” she asked, schooling her expression as best she could. If they were harder to pierce, than how was she supposed to damage them with her weakness? She had barely cut the throat of the other boy even with his complete shadow, not even considering the fact that he had been completely defenseless. If she faced someone that knew what they were doing and how to appropriately defend against her she was screwed.

Of course, she didn't say any of that to her teammate that would be in the arena with her. It was a matter of pride, after all. What was a Goddess except her Pride? Besides, it wasn't as if it was a match to the death. She would have told her if that was the case.

“The first is that they know how to work together, which we really don't. I still remember the beating we got against those two random earth-rankers you challenged, I didn't sit still for two whole days after that,” she said, and Pip had the decency to look sheepish at that.

Of course she knew that earth-rankers represented a challenge, but it hadn't been as bad as she made it out to be. They weren't meant to win anyway, it was all about the experience of fighting at a disadvantage. If Catherine had been his in the rear by a solidified piece of mist, then that was her own fault and she should not have been taking it out on Pip.

“The second is that, they are rich. Like, buy a crystal wyvern and crush it into paste for their face cream rich,” she said, miming out the crushing of said crystal wyvern into paste.

“And how does that make them strong? Their material wealth is not considered when the duel begins, I already checked,” Pip said confidently. Indeed, they would not be able to bring in any outside help that money might have provided them. No Artefacts, or treasures of any sort. The only thing that they could bring in with the exception of their enchanted armor was any weapons that they weren't able to summon using their apostles.

Catherine looked at Pip, slightly confused. A question went to her lips, but seemingly fell apart in place of another sigh that seemed to speak more than enough on its own. “Pip, the reason we need to be concerned is because they're super rich. As in, rich enough to afford private tutors to teach them how to duel, rich,” she finished, finally allowing Pip to understand.

“But we don't know they are that rich, Catherine, Private tutors are quite expensive, from what I gather,” she said, optimistically confident. Surely they wouldn't be that rich. Enchanted armor wouldn't be that expensive.

Again Catherine sighed. Again Pip rebuked herself for her confidence. Surely it went against some divine right for her to be wrong so often. She had studied better than this. Far better, in her own opinion. This must have been some trickery of the Greater Gods to punish her for her insolence. Being so wrong so often could never have been natural.

“Yes, we do know they're that rich. Enchanted armor is expensive, Pip. I don't know what it's like where you came from, but in Dasgad, enchanted armor costs thousands of gold per piece. Only nobles or merchants can come close to affording it, and if they do they normally don't bother. Its that bad,” she said, smiling at the naivety of the girl.

Pip was, of course, still furious at her lack of knowledge. The fact that Catherine seemed not to mind all of that information coming to light only made her more incensed at her mistake. This was not allowed to be made light of. It went against her nature as a Goddess.

Seeing Catherine spare her a small giggle calmed that assessment a small amount. She would permit it, in this instance, given that. But the mousey girl would need to be very careful in the coming days. Even a friend would do well not to insult a God. even if that God was weaker than even the most elementary of Chosen.

She would grow stronger, eventually. Even is she didn't gain chosen she would still be stronger with time. In a few millennia, she would be the one giving Catherine a cute little giggle behind her hand. And then she would see what was so funny.

“So they're going to be quite a challenge then?” She asked the obvious question. It would be best to clear up any misconceptions.

“Yes, they will be, but that isn't a bad thing, per se,” she began. 'It just means that we have an opportunity for some proper growth. The bigger one is certainly a match with me without my apostle, if his rank and reputation are anything to go by. Supposedly he is well at the end of bone, much like myself,” she finished, growing slightly excited at the prospect,

Pip certainly hadn't pegged Catherine as one of the excitable types of chosen. Especially not after learning of her nature around those at the orphanage, but it made sense enough. She was quite strong, in the end.

“And what about the other one. Is he strong as well?” Pip asked, hoping for an answer in the affirmative. It would be an excellent test of her skill should that be the case. A strong opponent would be a great way of testing their teamwork and seeing if it would be up to par by the time they reached the tournament.

“Given his rank, it's unlikely. He's scored better than average, but that's probably only thanks to his brother. Odds are, he's middle of the road bone, and even then he probably isn't that great. Reputation suggests he isn't the better of the two as well, but plays more into a support role for his brother, which means you'll probably have to death with him while I take care of the bigger one,”

“But that does mean that we will be going ahead with the duel?” She asked, excited that her choice of partners was still considered viable, even if it was for reasons slightly different than those that she had initially thought.

“Sure thing,” Catherine said with yet another incredibly warm smile toward her. “Worst case scenario, we lose and get a little embarrassed. It won't be like last time,”

And with that the warm smile was replaced by her regular one. Pip missed it already. Perhaps in a few millennia, when she was stronger, she would have to make sure her first friend would not have need of this lesser smile. Maybe it could even be done far sooner than that? If Catherine's apostle gave her trouble, maybe she would take Pip's instead?

Though whether Pip would be willing to do what was necessary to give it to her without a binding was in question as well. It may simply have been best if they were to wait a while longer.

“It looks like you two are nearly finished,” came the rather annoying voice of the younger brother, souring Pip's mood immediately. All thoughts of Catherine becoming her first chosen were quickly thrown to the wayside as the smaller of the two boys sauntered over to them, his brother quickly following behind.

Catherine flashed her regular smile to the boy - the one that she used when Pip accidentally mentioned the fight a few weeks ago - and asked “We are indeed. What about you two? I take it you're finished as well.

The Rudd nodded to them before his younger brother was able, much to the annoyance of Theo. “Yep, we were raring to go from the start. Not too many people come around to challenge us these days, so we like to take our opportunities when we can get them,” he said jovially.

All in all, he was pleasant enough. If it wasn't for the ever-present arrogant hanger-on that was his little brother, Pip would have gone as far as to call him outright pleasant. Although, her standards for pleasant company weren't exactly all that high. The greater and true Gods weren't exactly stellar conversationalists, as it were.

“Well, if that's the case, when would you like to start. Me and Pip talked things over, and we're happy with the arrangement,” Catherine said quickly, before Pip was able to say anything. She thought about butting in anyway, but had enough social tact to realize Catherine was taking charge on purpose.

Thinking of her vehement denials when Pip had spoken to Ferros, Pip agreed with her decision.

The reminder of Ferros proved to be a bitter one.

“Well we are quite busy, of course. Not that peasants would truly understand that sort of thing, so we would like to get this whole business out of the way rather quickly,” Theo added. The boy's arrogance began grating on Pip. He sounded a bit too much like some of the other Lesser Gods for her liking.

A quick nudge in the stomach by Rudd soothed that thought, as the older brother continued on. “What Theo is trying to say is that we'd really like to do it sooner than later. We haven't had many duels lately, so we're pretty pumped about this one,” he said, once again proving his superiority over his brother in Pip's eyes.

Catherine looked over to Pip, who nodded to the brown-haired girl. As far as she was concerned, the sooner the better. It left more time in the day to practice after the fight, and they would absolutely need the practice.

Honestly, when Pip asked herself whether they would win the fight, she wasn't entirely sure. Catherine was strong, that was without doubt. She doubted that Rudd we be her match even without her using whatever Apostle she kept hidden away.

Where Pip was concerned was for herself. She wondered if she would be able to best Theo at all, even with Catherine locking up Rudd. But, time would tell in the end. There was not much more she would be able to do than hope for the best.

A short conversation later, both duos agreed on an appropriate time, two bells later. The venue would of course be the training hall, and they even managed to snag hall two, which would leave them with quite the watching audience. Whether Pip wanted an audience for the fight, she was still unsure.

The backlog of fights was going to take a while, so she and Catherine decided to sit back and watch some of the other fights in the meantime. She was most interested in the earth-rank bouts, but Catherine insisted they watched the bone-rankers so that they would better be able to strategize for the fight.

At any time there was only one or two duo fights in the whole training hall, which came as a slight surprise to Pip. It may have been quite lacking compared to many of the halls she had seen when watching the mortal realm, but she attributed this mostly to the city itself, and had assumed that in terms of size it would serve well

Dasgad was certainly an uncouth and terrible city, filled with smog and death as it was, but it was not small. At least, not small compared to many of the frontier cities from what she could tell. Her research had yielded little in the way of proper population metrics, much to her disappointment.

Therefore it was a surprise that there were so few fights in what was the most popular (and only properly legal) training hall in the city, at least for dockside and the majority of citizens. Even the rankings only had around 30-40000 active participants. It was a travesty.

What that meant for the pair of them was constant trips between all of the duo fights within the bone-rank. It had at least made for some decent cardio, according to Catherine. Pip's heaving lungs, a painful reminder of her weakness, was proof enough of that.

The indignity of a Lesser Goddess running around looking for fights to watch so that she could improve was not lost on her, nor was it appreciated. Gods should not be running around the place. They should be escorted. Such were her sacrifices for her friends.

The painful reminder of what her life was like in the Hall of the Gods, and the suffering that she had been inflicted with by all of those same prideful Gods, had nothing to do with her decision to subject herself to such embarrassment. She hardly felt the sting of their horrid remarks at all.

She barely even remembered what it was like to be treated like an aberration by the only family that she had ever known or would ever have claimed. No. It was for her friend that she continued to let the sub-par treatment continue. Definitely.