We left the arena and even though the semi-finals would be held the same day, I didn’t plan to attend them. It was already decided who’d win the tournament anyways, so I didn’t see a need to watch it.

“Where do you plan on going now?”(Hiro)

“I don’t really want to go back in there again.”(Me)

“So you will heartlessly leave Sandra behind. After all you did to her?”(Hiro)

It was better than admitting that I had totally forgotten about her.

“I told Arthur to take care of it for me.”(Me)

“Sigh.”(Hiro)

Hiro wasn’t satisfied at all. I didn’t remember him being so empathetic. It almost felt wrong to me, as if the one before me was a completely different person.

“By the way do you think he knows about you?”(Hiro)

“Most likely. Moreover, if I’m not wrong, he already met Kylie, so he should know about the future as well.”(Me)

“That means the only one missing is the one none of us ever had contact with, right?”(Hiro)

“Yes. And I have been thinking about how to find him.”(Me)

“Any ideas?”(Hiro)

“None. How should we find someone we have no information about?”(Me)

Even an idiot could hear the discomfort in my voice. It was extremely annoying not knowing what to do.

“Well I found you without any information and you found Dragon and Beast, so.”(Hiro)

“Yes, but Kylie more or less prepared it. Besides if you weren’t even able to find me that would be really sad.”(Me)

“True. Haha. Who knows, perhaps Hayate knows about Spirit’s whereabouts.”(Hiro)

“And if he doesn’t? This time even Kylie won’t be able to help us. The only other option would be to go to the Spirit’s continent and hope for the best.”(Me)

“No other…”(Hiro)

Before he finished his sentence, there was a loud explosion, followed by a shaking ground. It was way too suddenly.

“What? An attack?”(Hiro)

“I don’t think so, but we should still look into it.”(Me)

Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

We ran towards the explosion to see what happened. We could see a guard running towards our direction, not because of us, but more likely, because he was headed towards the colosseum.

“What’s wrong?”(Me)

Everyone had seen me in the opening ceremony, even the guards did. Still, every time they saw me they would be scared for a moment before they snapped out of it and could answer me.

“A… I… The…”(Guard)

“Stop shaking and answer me already.”(Me)

“Yes sir. I’m sorry.”(Guard)

It always went like this. It was extremely annoying.

“The… There was an explosion.”(Guard)

“We heard that. What else? Are we under attack?”(Hiro)

“I… I don’t know. The explosion destroyed a large part of the east wall. It’s damage and impact even damaged some of the buildings near it. Many guards lost their lives and the remaining ones sent me to report to his majesty. I don’t know if we are under attack, I am sorry.”(Guard)

He was more or less able to report without further stuttering, which really surprised me after he was that nervous. I looked at Hiro, he nodded and we ran past the guard to the destroyed wall, which didn’t even take a whole minute, given our speed.

When we arrived, even we couldn’t help but be shocked. Normal people would be scared of the damage, or the extent of the explosion. The first thing we noticed though wasn’t any of these. We couldn’t explain how an explosion could have such an outcome.

“This definitely was no explosion.”(Hiro)

“No.”(Me)

Normally everything would blew up, with rubbles lying all over the place, burn marks everywhere, half-destroyed buildings and the entire explosion like stuff. Nothing. It was as if none of the things located in the diameter of the explosion, never existed to begin with.

A perfectly round explosion, which even left its perfectly round mark on the ground. It had to be something else. The most obvious explanation was magic that hadn’t been discovered yet.

There was only one problem; normally some of the mana used for magic would still be lingering around. At least there would be something. Even when I used my unorthodox black mana, the pressure of my magic could still be felt for about half an hour afterwards.

There was nothing. I was an expert in experimenting with different kinds of magic. I already tried almost everything I could think of and it would never result in anything like this. I felt defeated.

Hiro and I searched all over the place, but except for the confused and scared guards looking around as well, there was nothing.

“What do you think about this?”(Hiro)

“Well this shouldn’t be possible.”(Me)

“But it is possible.”(Hiro)

“I can see that.”(Me)

After about five minutes, the two kings arrived as well. They were rather fast, but it was to be expected.

“Ho. Your esteemed guest was the first to arrive here. That’s rather strange.”(Sam)

He boldly tried to accuse me of being the culprit.

“I’m sorry, but those two arrived shortly after the explosion.”(Guard)

“Who gave you the right to talk?”(Sam)

His suspicion was void after the guard immediately answered, which that “humble” king obviously didn’t like at all.

“Calm down Sam, we are all on the same side of the boat.”(Arthur)

“Hmpf.”(Sam)

“So? Out of us three the Nightmare arrived first, what are your thoughts?”(Arthur)

“I want to know something first, for that I’d need to talk to you in private though.”(Me)

Everyone was surprised, even Hiro was. I just came up with a suspicion and I didn’t have the time to tell anyone. With a confused expression, Arthur and I went to a remote place and after I made sure no one could see nor hear us, I stated my presumption.

“It is exactly as you think. It looks identical with the one in Sonya city a few weeks ago.”(Arthur)

“As I thought, they have something in common. And it is definitely not magic.”(Me)

“Yes. But I just don’t understand why you needed me, if you knew about all that; I mean you were in Sonya city yourself.”(Arthur)

“I thought of it as a normal explosion and didn’t look into it further. Who could have thought that it would be something like this?”(Me)

Arthur thought for a bit and asked the obvious question.

“This is not something that can be ignored. What should we do in your opinion?”(Arthur)

“It would be best to leave the details a secret. Just tell everyone it was a normal explosion.”(Me)

“So I have to come up with a good story.”(Arthur)

“Yes. In the meantime I will look into it.”(Me)

“And the tournament?”(Arthur)

“It has to continue. I made a promise, which I don’t really want to break.”(Me)

I used the rest of the day to analyse the explosion. With a good cover story, the tournament continued normally. Arthur told me that the final match would be between Hayate and one of the favourite beastmen to win, called Lim.

I wasn’t able to fall asleep that night.