Cyan makes it obvious that he finds Ishkal’s presence distasteful on the trip to the backstage. Brief as it may be, they spent the entire while bickering back and forth. Tossing surficial insults. Ishkal seems like the type that hates losing too so both of them are fighting for last word.

Lilith tunes them out, examining the surroundings. She spots Froggy first, blankly staring at his inventory hologram, one million richer and Anxious Bucktooth is nowhere to be found. Has his game already ended? That was so quick! Guess she was right that the only reason why Anxious Bucktooth hasn’t lost is because he hasn’t played. He probably got demolished in one turn.

Then, she goes past the contestants towards the curtains. Glancing past it, there’s a game ongoing. Cyan and Ishkal joins beside her. Finally stopping their argument in favor of watching the match.

It’s Blythe against Mr Business Savvy in the midst of their match. If she recalls correctly, Cyan called Blythe a Sicarius. Does that class come with utility skills too? It doesn’t look like it because she’s on the losing end, their status currently reads,

Number 52 Current Inventory: $23 819 920

Number 76 Current Inventory: $126 781

He must be bullshitting that he doesn’t know how to play the game right? But, why does he look so frightened instead, he’s frantically screaming at Cat boy,

“This is blatantly against the rules, isn’t it? She’s straight up threatening me.” pointing an accusatory finger towards Blythe who simply looks him with a monotonous stare and repeats,

“Let Blythe win.” she has a black dagger in hand. A straw puppet on the table, it’s marked with four roses across each limb. Corresponding to the sigils mapping on his body. They look like tattoos, except the vines are crawling across his veins. Cat boy dismisses him with a wave,

“Threatening isn’t against the rules. Violence is.”

“Well, she’s about to commit an act of violence against me if I don’t abide by her demands!”

“We’ll take action when that happens. She’s just telling you to let her win. It isn’t against the rules.” his messages aren’t conveying and Blythe has just forced the clock to start. Furrowing his brows, Mr Business is getting even more frantic, rolling up his sleeves to stick his arm out,

“This is obviously traces of her Magia! God knows what the effects of it are.” Cat boy again repeats,

“Magia isn’t against the rules. Violence is. From what I see, it isn’t actually hurting or restricting you, so she technically isn’t breaking the rules.” 10 seconds left. Whatever Blythe’s Magia does, Mr Business definitely looks creeped out by it. She repeats, showing him a card from her hand,

“Blythe is going to put a King next. Let Blythe win.” it makes him rather frantic,

“Or what? You add another one of these creepy roses to me?” but she doesn’t reply him. Instead, she simply slips it on the table, without much of a word. She does have an incredibly unsettling stare. Now that Lilith is seeing her without her hood. She can’t help but to think, her entire face looks rather unsettling. Her eyes are glassy yet reflectionless, hair, lank black, bangs cut to her eyebrows and her skin, pore-less and porcelain. Blythe looks like a doll that came straight to life off a manufacturing line. 5 seconds left. A bet isn’t entered yet, Mr Business is trying to bargain,

“Listen. Why don’t you tell me what the roses do before making demands?” so, he doesn’t know either huh. Is that Blythe’s strategy? Using people’s fear of the unknown against them, that’s why Cat boy doesn’t bother stopping her? Time’s running out. Blythe doesn’t respond when she’s talked to. Mr Business is forced into a decision,

“$1” looks like he’s stalling for time. But, he did relent to giving Blythe the victory. Their inventories show,

Number 52 Current Inventory: $23 819 919

Number 76 Current Inventory: $126 782

It’s Blythe’s turn next. She doesn’t look satisfied, tapping another King she reveals on the table,

“Let Blythe win all your money.” she says. Yet, it’s ironic that she bets,

“$1” she doesn’t want to take the risk herself. She wants him to submit. Mr Business is highly distraught, his panic, turning to frustration,

“No. I’m not falling for your empty threats anymore.” he’s putting a card on the table, “I bet the roses don’t even do anything. Even if they do, you can’t hurt me in anyway. You’re just trying to freak me out to an easy victory.” well. He is freaked out at least,

“I don’t have time to waste on a child. I’ve got people I need to save. Promises I need to keep.” time’s up. He’s taken the victory this time. It’s his turn next. At that, Blythe stabs her dagger into the center of the straw doll, right where the heart is at. Another stencil rose manifests on it. The vines, instantly collates inwards in a tangling crawl. It’s mirroring onto Mr Business in real life, black ink, pouring out of his chest. Whipping in place of a flower bud, grotesquely anchoring out of his torso. It doesn’t look like it’s causing him any physical damage, aside from creeping him out,

“What the fuck is this? What did you do to me?” he’s staring at it. Attempting to swat at the mark but his hand passes through. He can’t actually touch it. Blythe is just repeating,

“Let Blythe win.” as she places down the third king.

“Stop messing with me!” he’s actually breaking out in cold sweat now. Staring at the flower budding from his chest. Its petals are ever the slightly unfurling, slowly twisting open like a lid being turned, it’s attempting to bloom,

“Tell me what did you do!” he sounds exasperated, out of breath. Adjusting the glasses slipping down his nose. Then he focuses on his hand. His skin seems to be shriveling. Wrinkles creasing into his wrist, into his eyes and forehead. The petals are loosening as more and more age spots appear on his face. The definition of the muscles in his body begins to shrink. His shoulders retract inwards. Lilith knows what this is! Rapid aging. The flower is draining his Vita away. From the looks of how quickly things are happening. He won’t last through the next thirty minutes before he turns into an old decrepit corpse.

He gets it now, instantly turning his head towards Cat boy,

You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.

“Why aren’t you stopping her? This is blackmail!” he’s taking a while to ponder over the situation too, rambling,

“Well... Blackmail isn’t really against the rules. Violence is.”

“How is this not considered violence?” in just the span of a few short moments, Mr Business has significantly aged a few years. Now he looks like he’s in his mid-forties when he was just late thirties moments ago,

“She’s going to kill me!” it’s here Blythe retorts,

“Blythe isn’t killing you. If you beat Blythe. Blythe will just leave you as a feeble old man. You still have a choice to win against Blythe.” catching Cat boy on a technicality. He's taking a while to think about it.

The one rule to this game was, no violence. And from what Lilith is able to gather, the way violence is defined in this game, constitutes acts of physical assault or restraint. Anything that causes bodily injury or prevents the other party from playing the game. Like Bob’s bind for example, it’s stopped Kusma boy from switching his hand out. That’s why that was against the rules. Whereas everything psychological that aims to break, confuse and manipulate goes. The same way their truth bullet and mind control are allowed.

However, Blythe’s Magia is caught somewhere in the middle. On one hand, it’s true that her Magia is what causes Mr Business’s life to shorten. But on the other, her spell doesn’t exactly fall into the category of violent damage or physical restraint. Aside from aging him, it isn’t explicitly hindering his ability to play or win the game. She’s already made it clear she does not intend to kill him.

Mr Business isn’t accepting this bogus rationale,

“Choice? What choice do I have? It’s either I beat you, and live whatever remaining years of my life as an old fart, or I let you win, and you dispel this wretched Magia of yours. How is this game any fair to me?”

“Are you not willing to stake something precious on a victory? Blythe came to the conclusion, that is the very essence of this game. Fair play is not part of the rules.” but that line, isn’t directed to Mr Business. She’s sharp. Who she is truly trying to convince is Cat boy who makes the decisions here.

Initially, he sounds on the fence about it,

“She does have a point, you know. What’s the difference between staking your youth and staking your organs?” but the more he voices it out, the more he agrees with her perspective,

“If I stop her, I’ll just be a hypocrite with how we chose to run this game.” she’s got him on her side,

“This isn’t illegal. She isn’t stopping you from play, and she isn’t killing you. Threatening and blackmail isn’t against the rules.” The timer’s running out. Mr Business is sprinting to his fifties, begrudging beneath his breath,

“It’s bullshit. This is all bullshit. This game is rigged to favor Magia users. What else can commoners like me possibly do? We get the short end of the stick time after time!” Cat boy shrugs,

“How about not break the rules in the first place? You only have yourself to blame.” Mr Business is clutching his hands,

“Bet $23 819 919” he’s made his choice. But that immediately gets a group of prisoners in the crowd to protest,

“This isn’t what you promised!” they’re yelling at him,

“You said if we trusted our cards and funds with you, you’ll return an investment to help us advance to the second hall!” that’s getting Mr Business riled up,

“We can still make a comeback! Even if I lost the money in this bullshit tournament, we still hold majority of the cards in this hall. We can sell them on the market. The value is only going to increase as the day passes. And once we have monopoly of the Assassins, we can basically price set the value!” oh... that’s how he got so rich huh. He’s really playing a different game from the rest of them here. But his investors aren’t on the same page as him. They’re jeering him. Telling him that if he relents, they’re pulling out of the deal. Three seconds remaining. Mr Business needs to make a choice soon. The flower is almost blooming. It’s harboring a glowing white orb on the inside that’s slowly flaking out in light speckles. Either he sacrifices his youth and wins this round, or he protects his youth and loses.

One second. He places a card on the table. Time’s up. The buzzer goes off. Mr Business’s hair is white at this point. In his sixties, he loses the crown of his head in patches, developing a prominent hunch. The cards are revealed. He’s placed a Queen, submitting to the King’s feet. Their inventories adjusting to,

Number 52 Current Inventory: $0

Number 76 Current Inventory: $23 946 701

Blythe has become the richest player in the hall through a single game. No wonder her introduction was so contradictory. She must’ve lost to the players who her blackmail didn’t work on. Mr Business’s investors are going wild with protests. He isn’t addressing them, instead, he’s slamming a fist on the table, demanding Blythe,

“There, you got what you wanted. Now undo your shitty Magia from me.” Blythe snaps the doll in half. The ink like vines, shrivels into nothingness. Roses, withering away. The budding flower in the center of his chest collapses to dust, releasing the white orb it contains into an explosion of fairy dust. Drifting to the ceiling around him before fading away like light spots through the shade of trees. Mr Business is examining his hands. The wrinkles are still there, his skin is still loose and saggy, he hasn’t reverted to his original age. The look of betrayal immediately overcomes his face,

“What is the meaning of this?”

“Vita that has been siphoned cannot be returned.”

“Don’t fuck with me!” Mr Business lunges across the table. Through the wager holograms that are popping up. He doesn’t even consider taking them. Instead, he grabs Blythe by the collar,

“This isn’t what you promised!” jerking her forward like a ragged doll. She isn’t resisting, instead, she’s very monotonously, unapologetically, telling him as she’s being tossed about,

“Blythe has never mentioned that she can restore your youth.” it’s a Felmane adventurer that drags him off. Cat boy is trying to placate the situation,

“Alright, alright. Stop hoarding the lime light, game’s over the winner is decided. Please clear the stage for our final round contestants.” ushering them away. Mr Business isn’t having it. He’s losing it in a blinded fury, practically throwing himself for Blythe,

“This is fucking bullshit!” Trying to tackle her down to the ground. But she’s turned a shoulder, completely dodging his attempt and with the most disinterested expression as she watches him fall.

Cat boy immediately shouts,

“Hey. No violence!” and scorns his underling for not keeping a stricter look out. The underling immediately seizes the devastated man. Again, yanking him up and practically pushing him off the stage. He can’t overpower them. So, he’s just struggling like a fish on a reel. Cursing over his shoulders as he goes. Lilith feels bad for him... He’s no different from an old man now, a commoner at that too and they’re all ganging up on him. To win this game, one must be okay with being the bad guy. That’s what this trial is all about. Can you throw your opponents under the bus for your own merits?

Blythe certainly can. She is heading to the opposite direction towards the curtains. It’s here they make brief eye contact. Blythe quickly straightens her glance, yet she seems to be voicelessly mouthing something. Is she trying to communicate with her? Huh. It looks like...

Wait. What? Did she see that right?

Lilith calls out,

“Were you trying to tell me something?” as she brushes past. But when Blythe looks at her again, she’s giving her a clueless expression like she genuinely has no idea what she’s on about,

“Blythe didn’t say anything.” Did she... just hallucinate? Beside her, Ishkal and Cyan’s giving her inquisitive looks. They don’t know what’s gotten into her all of the sudden.

Lilith was certain she mouthed something along the lines of, don't trust anyone, come home safe. It’s exactly the same message as she’s received from the note. What the hell is going on here? Is it something to do with Luci? Are Luci’s allies looking for her right now? Should she ask? No... She can’t. There are way too many ears around. This place is crawling with Felmane adventurers. She needs to find a chance to speak to Blythe alone, so she chases after,

“Wait.” she stops her from turning the corner to the hall way, Blythe is tilting her head at her with a disinterested, perplexed face, what should she even say to her? She hesitates,

“Do you know me?” she nods, Lilith gasps, but Blythe corrects her misunderstanding,

“Enemy.” she says pointing a finger, “Enemy for the map.”

“No. I mean, do you know me,” she’s thinking of how to put this without being too suspicious, “like, on a deeper level?” Blythe isn’t comprehending her anymore. She shakes her head,

“Stranger. Not friend.” right.

“It’s nothing then.” scratching the back of her head, Lilith watches as she departs. Maybe she really was tripping.