After signing up I went over to one of the squares with no current occupant. The girl who was behind me spoke up as I walked off.
“Alfred, is it? Do you mind if I call you Al, Al?” As she was saying this she approached the counter to sign up herself.
“I’d rather you didn’t”
“Too bad Al, but you’re not the boss of me, Al, therefore, Al, I will be calling you Al, Al” She said with a smile creeping up on her face. Having reached the counter by now, she moved her ass onto it, shortly followed by her legs. Sitting sideways on the counter she reached out to the confused clerk with one hand and stroked his chin firmly.
“Sign up contender 1542 as Lea, would you please?” Before the approaching guards took action she had gotten off and headed towards one of the other unoccupied squares. I felt like I should run away, as far away as possible.
Once all the squares were occupied by two fighters, the clerk stood up and explained the rules.
“Touching the ground outside your square, inflicting serious wounds and surrendering are grounds for immediate disqualification. If your opponent for some reason cannot surrender or continue fighting, they are also disqualified. The remaining fighter gets qualified. The fights may begin!”
At his signal my opponent, a young man with decent physique, charged me with his sword. Because I had my face covered, I was no longer afraid to use some of my power publicly, so I accelerated with a step into the range of his sword. Before he could react, I had pushed aside his weapon and thrown a fist into his face. Not allowing him any time to recover, I rushed him with my shoulder, blowing him back and making him fall. The added length of his fall with the steps he took backwards was enough to land his flailing arms outside the square for a moment, settling the match.
As I was waiting for the central clerk to write down my qualification, I watched Leas fight. Mine had concluded so quickly that hers hadn’t even really begun. She was standing still at the edge of the square with her arms raise while smiling at her opponent. Now that I thought about it, a female contender was very unusual in these types of tournaments. It just attracted the wrong kind of attention to you if you ever wanted to marry into status. There were female warriors and adventurers, but winning competing in these kinds of high stakes competitions brought you to the attention of illegal gambling. In turn, you might quickly find yourself abducted and sold to a brothel, as a means to get rid of you. On the other hand, if you were a man, you’d just get killed. Is it better to be alive forced to work in a brothel rather than rotting in an alleyway? It’s subjective I suppose.
The fight had taken long to start because Lea was just standing there, arms raised, and her opponent was trying to figure out her plan. When he finally decided to approach with caution, she still remained immobile. Taking a swing at her, she finally moved, performing a cartwheel to the side. Once she finished it, she looked really satisfied with herself, and patted her own shoulder while chuckling. The man tried to strike her again, this time she did a cartwheel to the other side.
This nonsensical cat and mouse game continued for quite the while, Lea’s cartwheels becoming faster, her laughter becoming louder and her opponent’s temperament growing warmer. He kept trying to keep up with her speed, slashing faster, approaching sooner and acting on instinct and rage. This ended rather abruptly when instead of cartwheeling away, Lea leapt into the air, landing on the rushing bull’s shoulders, before she jumped off into the center of the square, pushing him out. After verifying his disqualification, the guards had to restrain and drag the poor sod away, while he protested rather loudly. Lea proceeded to applaud, herself? She was standing still, smiling and looking at the clerk in the center.
“Contender 1542, Lea, you’re qualified and may leave the premises. Sooner rather than later, please. Contender 1541, I see you’ve also qualified. It has been noted, you may leave too.” The clerk looked like he wanted to tell the guards to escort the nice lady far away. Though I agree, I cannot forgive him for giving her the attention she wanted. She obviously wanted to be signed off sooner rather than later, much like the rest of us here, yet he signed her off first? , unforgivable.
As I was leaving I felt a presence with my spirit, following me through the crowd. I didn’t want to raise any suspicion, so my spirit was only at the range of normal and untrained humans. This meant that, if I was right about my pursuer, she was following me very closely. When I stepped into a tavern, she followed me in. It didn’t matter currently, as I was just going to scour for information. I went over to a table with one chair, sat down and ordered a drink. Using life magic, I dropped in on the conversations of other guests. Lea was sitting at another table, smiling at me while trying to catch my attention with a variety of expressions.
The remainder of the day consisted of me going to taverns, ordering drink or food in small quantities while eavesdropping on conversations. Lea would follow me in and out of taverns, never speaking to me and only ever taking a break to start bar fights. After escaping ensuing chaos, she quickly continued her stalking habits.
At night I went to one of the lesser known inns of the capital, paying for stay until the end of the tournament with my quickly diminishing funds. Those would soon be filled though, as I had located the rough part of town from conversations earlier. Though, that was business for tomorrow, and with that I slept with one eye opened after making sure all entrances to the room were shut tight.
Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
What I had learned from my dining adventures of importance was that there was some turmoil in the empire currently. The Emperor was growing old, quickly, and predictions were that he wouldn’t last another year. This caused the court to be split, noblemen went into two factions. One sided with the Emperor’s heir, Magnus, a boy of young age. The other sided with the current emperor’s right hand man, Lucas, a fine strategist as well as combatant, whom had proven his loyalty to the empire and the emperor time and time again. The current emperor had voiced his thoughts on the matter; he wanted his son to claim the seat of power. However, as he would die before one could be chosen, his influence was somewhat limited on the matter. He was a good man, so he did not enforce punishment for siding with his right hand man. After all, he of all people could understand why one would like his greatest friend. There seemed to be no bad blood between the two, and most people considered this as a most sordid affair.
The current political side of the capital caused the nobles to behave cautiously, as any smaller mistake could have major repercussions down the line. As so, they were careful about their personal troops and guards, preferring to leave them outside the capital, in their estates. In response to this, most of the town guard focused their patrols around the nicer parts of town, or where the guards themselves lived. This caused a severe lack of patrols in the rougher parts of the city, and organized crime was at an all-time high. Especially known was a group that met up in a large bar in the rough part of town called the White Tiger. The group was referred to by the name of the tavern; henceforth they were called the Tigers.
In addition to the increased organized crime inside the capital, organized crime and banditry outside the city had also increased. Villages further from the capital were living in constant fear of bandit raid, and the imperial standing army was already spread pretty thin. The requests for adventurer and mercenary guilds to take care of these bandits were quite high, and the need for additional adventurers and mercenaries reflected this.
As morning broke, I headed towards the rough part of the city. Before leaving, I made sure I was not being followed, and continued to do so on the way. Was it because she didn’t recognize me without my armor? That I had left in the room, since there would be no need for it today. I made my way towards the White Tiger, only stopping to play “please don’t kill me, here take my money” with some kind, knife wielding, hood wearing brats.
When I entered the tavern, which was host to thirty something burly looking men, drinking and chatting. As I entered, the whole of the tavern’s attention was on me, with an eerie silence descending amongst them.
“So, are you the kittens?” Gods, how embarrassing, that woman must be getting to me. As I was saying this, laughter blossomed at the back, from a table with one girl sitting by it. I broke into cold sweat when I saw who it was.
The largest of the men, sitting by the bar, scowled in her direction with a bruised eye. He had a long face and an under bite that sort of fit his size. He then turned his attention back to me.
“What fuckin’ day is it today? Are we getting a full moon tonight?, cause we got two lunatics for the bloody price of one!” It seemed that my petty attempt to aggravate the men had not worked, not in the slightest. Note to self, don’t ever do something like that again.
“Look here, my new best friend, we do not serve milk here” At this, Lea coughed in an awkward, forced way.
“Okay, we served milk fuckin’ once, but don’t you go thinkin’ the service is goin ta repeat itself” The man was obviously annoyed with having Lea here, both for this ordeal, and in general. I couldn’t blame him
“I would like to buy your services” At this the big man smiled and chuckled.
“Mother of fuck-, look old beardo, it’s yer lucky day. Today’s special offer is two kidney removals fer the price of whatever’s on ye!” His comrades laughed at this, and some started pulling out their knives and moved closer. I picked the closest approaching and caught his neck while he was turning towards me. My grip facing downwards, I bent his neck until an audible snap was heard and his body went limp. Then I took out his leather purse. All this transpired before any of them could take any counter action, and they stared mortified at their companion.
“Are you sure, I pay well” I said, holding up the purse.
“Like I said old man, It’s yer lucky day! Keep yer money, we’ll do what ye say!” He looked like he’d simply had enough of lunacy for one day. He turned his head towards the bar again, and continued to down his drink.
“No, really, take it. I’m feeling generous with your money today" I said, throwing the purse at him. He caught it mid-air without looking. Already, this man was more impressive to me than Eric.
“I’ll come back in a while. Don’t go anywhere until then, okay?” I said, not really wanting to reveal my plans in front of Lea. It’s a pain, but I’d have to come back some other time. Their leader simply nodded and went on drinking. As I turned to leave, Lea appeared at my side.
“You and I are going to be the best of friends, Al. Whether you like it, or not”