I've had enough.

Enough of being the background character of my own damn life. I was fed up with all my worth resting on how others perceived me.

Sadly, against the noble's sword, in my current state, there was hardly anything I could do.

'Or is it?'

An invasive thought exploded in my mind. And for the first time, I looked at the world before my eyes.

The dirty sand filling the battle arena. The worn-down stones making up the massive stadium that housed easily over twenty thousand souls.

The gritty cheers of the crowd as the noble stopped, lowered his center of mass, and readied himself for the execution.

It was all too familiar.

I've never seen stuff like that before with my own two eyes. But with the eyes of my imagination, I've visited places like this one countless times.

'This is all exactly like in those failed novels of mine!'

The novels that I've used to train my AI in quantum space. The mess of great worldbuilding and a lackluster plot that I've never done anything else with.

Everything was the same… but also different.

The details didn't match any of my stories, coming off as a mix of the ideas that made up all of the worlds I created in my imagination.

The elegant and colorful suits of the nobles from one of my novels mixed with the simple, militaristic outfits worn by the others and appearing in another novel of mine.

This was the world created with my novels at its foundation.

'So, as a damn creator of this world, shouldn't I have a trick or two up my sleeve?'

With this thought, my mindset changed.

I've decided to ignore how the time appeared to seemingly stretch, giving me more time for thought than I should have.

'If this world is based on my works, then there's bound to be logic behind everything,' I instantly recognized one of the faults of my writing. The problem that fellow authors often pointed out to me but a problem I refused to ever touch.

A problem of how strict I was with the rules I imposed upon my worlds. And in other words…

'There,' I thought.

My entire body tensed up the second the noble started his downward swing.

In the noble's eyes, this was the end of my story, a necessary sacrifice for him to raise his status.

Ting!

A strange sense of resonance chimed from the depths of my soul when the memories of my host suddenly clicked with the understanding of this world that I'd started to develop.

The noble's sword surged down, moments away from chopping my head off.

The outline of the noble's arm flashed lightly.

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The next thing I knew, my body moved on its own.

Even though I've yet to fully formulate the plan based on what I've figured out, my body refused to wait any longer.

Swoosh!

The noble's sword accelerated right as it was about to cut my neck.

'Heck!'

I inwardly cursed while rolling to the side.

That was too damn close! If I wasted half a second more on thinking, I would…

Swoosh!

The noble swung his sword again, his face showing how troubled and annoyed he was by my escape.

Now, his desire changed from executing me to paying me back for shaming him like that!

The outline of his body and sword shone again.

And quite noticeably, the colors of the shine were different around his body and around his blade. Yet, both of those colors were feeding off the aqua-colored mist… That I could clearly see originating from a small satchel by the noble's side!

'THERE IT IS!'

I had to hold myself back from screaming out loud. Thankfully, my host's instincts stopped my naive and childish acts before I could commit them.

"I'm going to fucking skewer you," the noble whispered in a voice full of pulsing hate. He held his sword in both of his hands while deeply lowering his posture.

'He's going for a lunge.'

My body recognized the potential attack… But also how insanely sloppy the noble's position was.

It was weird. To know things that I couldn't connect to the flow of my own consciousness. But according to my experiences, it was a side-effect of the dive that should sooner or later pass.

For now, though, I squeezed every last drop of juice that my body could offer. Every last ounce of strength remaining in my muscles and broken bones.

The noble's eyes flashed, giving away his intention. Then, a mere half a second later, he jumped.

And at the same time, my body gave its last hurrah before collapsing.

A single clash of swords followed.

I struck low, aiming at the noble's abdomen, as it was the least mobile part of his body during a lunge.

The noble twisted his hips while forcibly staying on his course, refusing to be distracted by my small attack.

The difference in strength between the two of us was that of four ranks. In other words, it was absolute.

And in all meanings of this sentence, he was right.

That's why, rather than aiming to hurt him, I carefully executed my swing and at the last possible moment, I aimed it at the noble's red-glowing sword instead.

Sure, I had no chance of averting the lunge. My sword simply bounced off the enemy's blade, instantly affecting my own momentary momentum, and pushing me off to the noble's side.

Unable to control the rebound of my sword, I allowed it to just swing through the air… And tear open a long hole in the satchel at the noble's side.

His sword struck me right at the edge of my side, opening up my flesh right below my ribs.

The last of my strength sizzled away, leaving my body to be carried away by the residual momentum of the clash.

And thanks to this momentum, I swirled in place, as if trying to turn around and strike the noble as he passed behind me along the path of his own attack. Sadly, my sword was way too short and the noble was way too fast, putting him far outside of the range of my blade by the time my body turned.

Then, two things happened at the same time.

With no strength in my body left, I simply fell face-first to the ground.

But behind me, the noble suddenly froze.

His body shook for a second.

And then, his sword suddenly ignited, creating a flame easily thrice as high as the man.

Still, it was only a spark.

With the fuel now openly igniting off the sword aura the noble used, it traced along the ray of mana dust that I scattered with the tip of my sword, greedily burning through it as it reached for the noble's satchel…

BOOM!

The entire stadium shook when the precious mana dust of the noble was caught within his fire sword aura, filling everything in front of the man into a sea of raging flames. Only the barrier that protected the audience from stray attacks managed to quell the expansion of the flames.

Thud.

The first thing I heard once the roaring of the flames died down, was a dull, strangely eerie sound. And as I went beyond my limit and twisted my neck to the side, I saw the scorched black body of the noble fall weekly to its knees.

But he wasn't dead.

By some miracle, the powerful discharge of mana that he was at the very epicenter of, failed to finish him off.

The noble's body trembled. He then started to turn his head towards me, instantly sending chills down my spine, regardless of whether or not it was already paralyzed by my sheer exhaustion.

Then, the noble forced himself up and stood back up. He turned towards me and took a step. And then another.

Only for the sword of the youngest of my mercenary group, the guy that the noble likely intended to spare as a sign of his mercy and malevolence, to pierce through the scorched body's chest, impaling the noble's heart on the cold steel of his sword.

The noble's scorched body trembled… and fell to the ground, finally marking the end of this despicable man, and the tournament as a whole.