“If you turn right and then go straight ahead, you can’t miss your school group. I have to go back now.”(Guard)

“Thank you very much.”(Me)

“Don’t mind, don’t mind. Unfortunately, my shift isn’t over yet and I won’t be able to watch the first round. Sigh. Perhaps if we meet again, you can tell me how it was.”(Guard)

“Definitely.”(Me)

We parted and I did as he said. First, turn right and then go straight ahead. After a while, I could see them from afar. If at least one person of your school made it to the first round, your school would receive a free ticket for a certain section on the ground floor.

Sonya academy too, received one. It wasn’t big enough for the whole school, but still had enough space for about a hundred people.

“Yo. What’s up?”(Me)

I went to the first person I knew. He stood at the back of the crowd and silently watched the tournament.

“Did Mr. I’ll leave in the last second finally decide to join us.”(Takeshi)

Takeshi seemed rather angry. I didn’t know if I was the cause of it or not. I wanted to know though.

“It’s not like I missed something right?”(Me)

“Well actually you did. A lot.”(Takeshi)

“Don’t joke around. What did I miss? Or did you decide to participate?”(Me)

“No. 4 people of our school managed to reach the first round.”(Takeshi)

“I know that much.”(Me)

“Does Mr. I know everything also know who?”(Takeshi)

“Seriously why are you so aggressive? I don’t know who. If you are that eager to tell me, it has to be someone important.”(Me)

I didn’t care at all, who advanced, but it had to be someone important, otherwise he wouldn’t be so concerned. I really wanted to know what was able to anger him that much.

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“I know you’re not really interested and to be honest I don’t care about the other 3 either.”(Takeshi)

“But?”(Me)

“Sakura is the fourth and she already advance to the second round.”(Takeshi)

Well that was certainly surprising and something I missed. Still, it looked like Takeshi wasn’t happy about it at all. It was the opposite, he looked really pissed when he said that she advanced.

Did something happen?

“Doesn’t this tournament have participants that are like 18 years old and should already be experts at magic?”(Me)

“Yes it has. Sakura was a little bit lucky in the preliminaries.”(Takeshi)

“What do you mean?”(Me)

“Well. I watched some other preliminaries and she had one of the easiest. Still she barely managed to win.”(Takeshi)

“If she was only able to barely win the preliminaries, how did she even win the first round?”(Me)

Takeshi got depressed the second I asked. I definitely found the reason behind his behaviour.

“You don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to.”(Me)

“It was… She’s currently at the medical station. She’s probably not going to be able to participate in the next round.”(Takeshi)

Takeshi had a deep affection for Sakura that much was obvious since I met them. I was only wondering about him not staying by her side then.

“Haruto and Ryo are with her. If I would have to see her only for a little bit longer, I don’t think I could hold myself back.”(Takeshi)

I didn’t know what happened, but I didn’t want to ask. I had to change the topic quickly, or Takeshi would explode right in front of me.

“Is there anything noteworthy?”(Me)

“Yes. The beastmen are trying to win this tournament in a dirty way. Those fuckers are trying to cripple everyone, only to be disqualified afterwards. While they focus one their 3 strongest to easily advance to the finals and win the whole tournament with no real effort. Just because 21 of them made it to the first round, they think they can do whatever they want.”(Takeshi)

I totally failed. At least I more or less know what happened. Sakura won because her opponent was disqualified. Luckily, Takeshi cursed silently, so no one heard us. In that kind of situation, it wasn’t good to curse about the other race.

“Is it that bad?”(Me)

“I don’t know about the other’s condition, but the medic said that Sakura would need 2 whole months to at least be able to leave a bed. Is it bad?”(Takeshi)

It was bad. Even worse than I thought. Why did I even ask?

“I hope she’ll fully recover.”(Me)

“You better hope so, if she won’t, I’ll personally go kill that fucker.”(Takeshi)

From what Takeshi said, the humans weren’t in a good spot to win this tournament.

“Is there even anyone strong enough to win on our side?”(Me)

“Arthur Pendragon’s son, Ryan Pendragon. He’s the only one who could win this tournament for the humans. You can forget about everyone else.”(Takeshi)

I was surprised that Arthur already had a child. He didn’t look that old to me. I was deep in thought, when suddenly the whole crowd went crazy. It got extremely loud and I wasn’t able to hear anything Takeshi wanted to say. I could see in his expression that he was surprised too.

We both went to the front of the section as fast as possible. Something huge had to have happened. It was hard to see much, because we weren’t the only ones who wanted to see what happened. I found myself in the middle of a crowd of Sonya academies students. I could barely move, but at least I was able to see the middle of the arena.

Both of them were humans, but one lied on the ground. Probably only unconscious. I didn’t know any participant except for Sakura, so I had no idea who was fighting. Still it looked like the beaten person was quite important. The winner looked like he hasn’t even shed a drop of sweat.

“Is that Ryan?”(Me)

I pointed on the winner and asked Takeshi, when it cooled down a bit. Same as the crowd, he was stunned by the outcome.

“No, that’s Ryan.”(Takeshi)

He said and pointed on the unconscious person.

“I have no idea who the other guy is.”(Takeshi)