After my meeting with the Tigers, myself and Lea had the second part of the qualification process to partake in. Since I was not wearing my armor at the moment, I had to go back to my room at the Inn to equip it. As if it had become a routine now, Lea followed close behind, and even came into my room with me. Why didn’t the innkeeper stop her?, did he think she was someone close to me? Maybe I needed to have a word with him after this, showing him Lea and ask him to bar anyone looking like her from entering my room.
Once inside my room, I began equipping my armor.
“Lea, how come you’ve been stalking me?” I did not face her, doubting her facial expressions would give anything away.
“Why, for fun of course, Al!” Why of course indeed.
“Why do you insist on calling me Al?”
“Because Al’s your name, Al”
“No it isn’t-“
“Because we’re friends, Al”
“No, we’re not” Most decidedly not.
“You know the saying, Al. The one where friends are the family you choose? Well, Al, I chose you” At this point I was done strapping on most of my armor, and sat down on my bed to attach the remaining shin guards.
“Then why did you choose me, of all people?”
“Why, for fun of course, Al!” Of course, my ass. Is she trying to get under my skin? At this point, she was succeeding in that.
“How did you know I was going to the White Tiger?”
“I followed you, Al” I looked up from my shin guards.
“How could you follow me and then end up ahead of me?”
“Oh, Al, that’s easy” Is it now? Well, I’m waiting here, that’s not an appropriate or fulfilling answer to the question. However, she showed no signs of continuing her statement as she simply smiled as usual. There was no happiness in that smile. It kind of hurt by now.
“Really, do tell?”
“Why, I can read minds of course, Al” Shit, could she? The fact that I was inclined towards believing her was unsettling in a major way. Though, thinking about it, that would make a lot of things about her make much more sense. Though, reading minds?
“Oh, my dear Al, you shouldn’t think too much about it. It was only a joke!” Was it though? Because that’s exactly what a mind reader would say. Anyway, thinking about it further wouldn’t yield any results, only misery.
“Well, let’s get to the arena” I said, standing up and heading towards the door.
“Good talk, Al. We should do this more often!” Gods, is this a nightmare? Please be a nightmare.
As we arrived at the arena, I remembered that I should have warned the innkeeper about Lea. Half of my brain was telling me to go back and tell him, to forget about the tournament, it wasn’t worth it. In the end I still chose to enter the arena.
Day two of the qualifiers was a last man standing ordeal. However it was more appropriate to call it last group standing. The fighters that had qualified yesterday would all fight at the same time in the arena, until ten were left. Unlike yesterday, though, the standing part was quite literal. You could kill people here, as this was a match intended for entertainment, and monitoring faults among the contenders was nigh impossible.
The gate of the arena was a large metal portcullis, currently raised. The floor inside was filled with dirt the color of sand, scattering in the wind from the movement of the fighters inside. There were several banners hanging from the walls, both above and beneath the raised seating areas. I could recognize the bear from Brill on one of them, so I presumed the rest were also city banners, presumably from the cities participating in the tournament. The walls and the arena itself was primarily made from stone, with wooden supports in places and a wooden rain cover for the audience.
Entering the arena, I could somewhere in around a hundred other contenders standing around. The bigger ones were doing some warm up, while the smaller fighters were talking to others in groups. They were probably grouping up, there weren’t any rules against that. It’s fun for the crowds, so I suppose the arrangers left it in. The champions were the ones expected to win anyway, who cared if the other fighters got eliminated unfairly? Thinking about groups I wondered if me and Lea were one. Then I discarded the thought, because that would involve talking to her, and I was not going to talk with her voluntarily.
Before the fighting begun, I spent my time trying to get away from Lea. Surprisingly; she was not following me around as usual. Once I considered myself a reasonable distance away from her, I began inspecting the spiritual properties of the other contenders. Like most trained combatants, they had their spirit in a layer around them, most of them at least. This was the sign that they were in control of their willpower, something men are not typically born with. I too, had my spirit in this way, as did Lea, though in my case I was hiding great amounts of spirit in the layer. It was manifested as mist currently though, so it wasn’t protecting me. I kept it this way to avoid suspicion from seers, those with the power to see spirit, like me. I hadn’t encountered any spirit magic yet, so using it myself would probably draw far too much attention.
In fact, I hadn’t seen any magic outside life magic used by humans. The arena was no place for mages, even with no specific rules against it, but still. I shouldn’t use any kind of magic unless I saw my opponent use it, or it was necessary to win.
As the sun reached its zenith, the gate to the arena dropped shut. Everyone present tensed up, many clutching weapons. I didn’t, but I still had the sword Thomas had given me, sheathed in its scabbard. Maybe it would finally see some use.
This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.
The audience’s murmurs slowly died down, as its attention focused at a spot in the seating area opposite the closed entrance. There was a large seat there, with several smaller but still relatively big seats next to it. The large seat was unoccupied, but in the seats next to it a young boy and an older man sat. They were probably Magnus and Lucas, the hot topic of the capital. A nicely clothed man, middle aged, stepped out beside the row of seats and enhanced his voice with life magic casually.
“You may begin” He said, with a loud voice, starting not only the second qualification match, but also the roar of the audience.
Since I wasn’t using my spirit for detection, I was vulnerable to sneak attacks and ranged attacks at my back. With this in mind, I made sure to keep my eyes peeled as I unsheathed my sword and charged forward. The idea was to make it difficult for anyone targeting me to strike by continually staying in motion. A nearby man noticed me with a grunt and swung at my torso. Using my charging speed, I slid under the strike, permanently solving all of the man’s future foot aches by literally removing the root of their causes.
Doubling over, the man cried out in agony as I tried getting onto my feet again. However, the outcry called the attention of those nearby, who finished off the man as well as targeted me as I was on the ground. I rolled forward just as swords hit the ground behind me. Returning to my feet quickly, I simply ran away, as those who had been after me were now closer to each other, occupying themselves with each other.
Performing a charge, I shouldered into a group of unsuspecting men that had clung together. The man I had hit first stumbled into the others, tipping them off balance while they looked for my next move. I exploited this momentary clash by burying my sword into my original target and the man behind him, before jumping back, out of range from their comrades’ swords. I didn’t manage to do this before one of the men lodged a dagger in my abdomen.
At this point the amount of fighters had significantly dwindled down. I myself had only killed two, three if you count the man I assisted. Even if the others had only killed a third of what I had, that would result in a halving of contenders, all in mere moments. Though bloody and vicious, this method of eliminating applicants was efficient.
After taking distance from the already small and rapidly dwindling group of men, I walked left towards the walls of the arena. There were far fewer targets to keep track of now, so I didn’t have to fear being cornered by the walls and others. If somebody tried, I could just run away before they closed the trap. Turning my attention to the dagger in my abdomen, I drew it out slowly. The wound was non-lethal, especially to me as I could just use life magic to heal up. However I couldn’t just flaunt massive amounts of life magic, so I only sealed the wound on the inside, stopping the bleeding. From the outside, the wound still looked deep.
The group of men I had previously assaulted must have decided I was weakened, because they approached me by the wall. But as I previously mentioned, they had no way of surrounding me before I slipped out to the side. From the side I took them one by one before the others managed to assist. These men couldn’t stop my enhanced thrust, like Eric could because of his life magic. They seemed to have some grasp on the fundamentals of it, however unfortunately for them their training was quickly becoming useless before me.
As the last men realized this, they ran away from me. Although looking like cowards, this was a worthwhile tactic as the other fighters were killing each other. They might advance simply from staying alive. It was not a tactic I preferred however low a profile I was intending to keep, as I was approaching the remaining fighters in the center.
As the number of contestants continued to drop, the edge of the battles was now far further in, which is why I was advancing on the perimeter of the fighting, aiming at the back of a currently preoccupied foe. Although I would never be caught retreating, striking somebody from behind wasn’t something I considered dishonorable. I thought of it as mere exploitation, though I doubt the man now impaled on my sword shared my views. His opponent looked relieved for a second, because his assailant had stopped his flurry of strikes. However when looked up at the tip of my sword, the emotion quickly vanished along with his life.
Now it was my turn to look up, as the piles of corpses made it difficult to spot remaining contestants. I quickly found the nearest threat however; as it smiled a bloody grin in my direction as we locked eyes. She stood on the spot, no weapons in hand and no blood shed on her armor either, as I advanced on her position.
“Congratulations!” A familiar voice boomed. Looking up, I spotted the loud mouthed man, from which the voice came from.
“We now have our remaining ten participants. Please stand by outside as we prepare the arena for the final stage of the qualifier!” The heavy metal gate to the arena lifted, and in came lots of staff who began dragging corpses onto broad carts. Me, Lea and the eight other remaining fighters walked towards the exit. Surprisingly, Lea wasn’t doing cartwheels, though she still wasn’t taking this seriously. Mind reader though? Those don’t exist, right?