One month had passed and Amanda’s party had made it to C rank.

“I’ve never seen such a fast ascension of rank except for Rose.”

“I mean it does make sense. It has two gods.”

“Yeah, but even Silith’s party only barely reached D.”

“I guess.”

Of the 5 groups, there were 2 F, 1 E, 1 D, and 1 C. Each group ascended quickly, but Amanda’s group still seemed to grow at an entirely different rate.

“What’s their secret?”

“Maybe it’s because both Ausar and Celios recognized Amanda as the leader.”

“That can’t be it.”

“That’s all I see.”

A god spoke up.

“It’s obvious that it was because there were two King candidates.”

Ausar snorted in laughter.

“Given how vain I was at the start of this, I was more a detriment.”

All the gods looked at him in absolute shock. At this point, all of the party members had reached A rank in strength.

All of us were terrified to know how much power would be there when we removed the binds.

“Maybe their party should also have the cuffs.”

I shook my head.

“That wouldn’t do anything. All it does is squelch the nature to that of a human level, so the two humans would be unaffected.”

The gods reluctantly agreed, they already were aware of that, but they hated that two humans had so easily surpassed them.

Mammon walked in.

“Alright, th’ tourney is startin’ soon, so get yer behinds out ‘ere.”

The gods obeyed. They understood that they had to reach at least Mammon’s power before their bindings could be removed.

The Preliminary round was almost starting. The announcer began to speak.

“You all heard the rumors, and I’m here to tell you that they are true!!! The gods all have been training here as adventurers.”

The narrative has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

Some people started protesting their involvement.

“Now, for all you people who are thinking it will be easy for them, think again. Each one is equipped with a relic that limits their potential to that of a human’s, so in combat they will be no more advantaged than anyone else, and their magic is sealed too.”

The people calmed down but were still grumbling slightly.

“NOW!!! START!!!”

People attacked the gods, and the war god, Demerial, struggled greatly against the B class that attacked him.

Despite being one of the strongest at base strength, Demerial was still very vain and was only at a B rank in terms of strength.

Upon seeing the struggle, the combatants began to band against the gods.

At the end of the preliminary round, 3 of the gods were eliminated from the tournament.

The people had entirely stopped their grumbling after seeing the gods fall.

People looked over at me to see my disappointment.

The gods started grumbling about it being unfair.

I spoke.

“What did I say, you keep thinking that being a god gives you a free pass to life. It’s because of this that you lost. If you trained harder and were less vain, then you could have decimated that competition.”

“You can’t talk, you are too strong to understand.”

“Oh, do I. May I remind you of my past? You are right, as an elven prince, my affinity for magic is more than most, but it’s because of that that I grew complacent. I thought I could beat anyone, and someone who could beat me was simply either cheating or in a realm beyond me.”

Every competitor had stopped to listen.

“Then I met Rose, the same person we are currently training you to be able to last a single second against.”

Some adventurers began to recall our first meeting.

“In the instant that I met her, I considered her an equal. I engaged in a rivalry, and even after she beat an A rank, I still assumed I could best her. Then, do you know what happened?”

The gods shook their heads.

“She demolished me. In that instant, I realized I was merely complacent and trained my butt off. At the point that she demolished me, she wouldn’t even be able to touch a hair on any of your heads.”

The gods looked smug, so I continued.

“Now look at both her and me. I can best each and every one of you individually, and Rose alone could do so as well. Even if I put on the bracelet, I’d just lose my magic. I guarantee that with the possible exception of Celios, Ausar, and Silith, I could beat any of you unbound, even if I wore the bracelet.”

The smugness has faded, but I continued to grill them.

“And you know the most disappointing part of this? The bracelets put your potential at a human level, but your growth rate is still at the level of gods, and two humans surpassed you. Now you can argue that Amanda started with skills, but even then, her skills were less than Demerial’s. Now she could wipe the floor with any of you. And even if you want to argue that point, Amy started with nothing but an archery proficiency that was suited only for stationary targets. Now she could best you all with swords. So cut the vanity and work if you want to improve.”

The gods, who were close to crying, nodded. I had crushed both their pride and vanity in an instant.

Only Silith, Ausar, and Celios, who had already discarded with vanity nodded easily. Silith understood that he still had a lot of room for growth, as expected for the current king of gods, but the other gods really understood their weakness when the vain Ausar was eating with humans as equals.

_

In the following two days, the gods all increased their efforts and got stronger.

Me and Mammon were talking in his office.

“It seems they really have taken to you.”

“I guess they weren’t expecting me to empathize with them.”

“Eh, they should have seen it coming.”

“Why?”

“Because you are as powerful as you are, equals with Rose, and able to keep up with Kala’s attacks.”

“Yeah, but they probably suspected that I wasn’t ever much weaker than they were.”

“Then our pantheon is made up of fools.”

His blasphemous words would drive any cult into an outrage, but, seeing them, I couldn’t help but agree.

“My only hope is that we will be ready when Kala makes the next move.”