I checked, and double checked. But it was still my face staring back at me. I watched the counter tick down the seconds as the ten-minute mark went and nine came to be.

My heart rate picked up as the counter showed the seconds and minutes getting fewer and fewer. My arms were already sweaty inside the fingerless gloves, but I still wiped them against my trousers every few seconds. The sounds around me grew fainter and fainter as my vision narrowed to leave only the screen and the counter, my face so in focus it felt like the counter was counting down the minutes to my death.

And the healers came and went. What had they done exactly? I hadn’t really paid them that much attention. Maybe I should have, they did do something to me after all.

Was I breathing? Gotta breathe. I need that to survive. I reminded myself, pulling air forcibly into my lungs. And back out. All I had to do was forfeit and none of it would matter. Maybe they might refuse to give me the gold, but at least I would be safe. I would be free from all the anxieties I would experience in each fight I participated in if I won. Why would I even want to win? Going through this once was enough to last me a lifetime. I could have sworn I had aged a decade the time I spend waiting for that damn counter to stop counting. But I had promised myself long before I died, after the embarrassing race that I pulled out of, as long as my life wasn’t in danger, there would be no running. I hadn’t heard of anyone dying in the competition so far.

A nudge to my side nearly made me jump, but I controlled myself, looking to my left for the reason for the nudge. The old man was staring at me, standing next to me. I hadn’t even heard him approach. After a few seconds of staring, he said,

“You have been called up to the arena.”

Those words send a shock through me. Looking at the timer, it was below the three-minute mark, edging closer to two. I should have left at the three-minute mark. Even my opponent had already left, and the rest were staring at me. I quickly removed my long coat and placed it on the bench I had been sitting on. I left the vest on, and began for the exit. I stopped and turned to the old man,

“Thanks.”

And I rushed for the arena.

…

“And finally, he makes an appearance. It seems like being tardy is something of a trend for him...”

As the announcer donned on and on about my history of tardiness, not that I had any, I finally made it to the center of the arena. My opponent was facing something akin to a special viewing area for, well, special people. I stood a few meters to his right and faced that area too.

It was at the base area of the terraces, a rectangular enclosure that stretched to joined the terraces at the back. From my current distance, I could barely make out the shape of the figures inside it. The way it was positioned in relation to the sun, I didn’t think the sun ever directly shone into it.

As the announcer drooled on, an attendant, most probably a referee, brought a tray filled with small vials of liquids in three distinct colors: green, blue and red. My opponent took two of each, leaving two of each on the tray. When presented to me, I followed his example and took two of each. In summary, I took everything on the tray. I looked at him to see where he would place them, and I discovered he had slots in his belt for that. I looked at my belt, or lack thereof, and cursed inwardly. I tested one of the blue potions against my staff and it stayed intact. It also didn’t produce the distinct glass sound I was used to. I assumed that to be enough of an integrity check and placed the green ones in my left trouser pocket and the red ones in my right pocket, then a single blue one in each.

The sweating in my palms had increased the more I learnt how unprepared I was. I could feel a shake taking over my hands and legs. The noise of the spectators didn’t help at all. Even though the terraces weren’t filled like the ones in the Main Arena, there was still a lot of people.

“Take your positions.”

I turned and faced my opponent as he did the same. Then he took a few steps back and drew his bow from his shoulder and an arrow from his quiver. I maintained my position, it seemed like the same distance to the one I had kept in the fighting pits. The arena was way bigger though, not as big as the Main Arena, but still bigger than the fighting pits.

“Hartie, please take five big steps back.”

Wait, what? As I took the first step back, I saw the distance between me and my opponent get even bigger. And every step after that only increased that distance exponentially. They are kidding, right? The guy had a bow and arrows, the distance was a clear advantage to him.

I decided to check on his [Status].

‘[Human : Braden][Level: 35]

Status:

[HP: 6121/6191]

[MP: 6375/6437]

[SP: 5329/5477]

’

Fuck! Fuck! Fuck! He had a very solid build, beating me at two of the three [Status]s. And I couldn’t even call that a win for me, it was barely five hundred points in Stamina. He had nearly twice as much Health and around half more Mana than I had.

I decided to conserve my Mana, using it when I thought I could gain something, like enhancing a blow when I was sure it would connect, and dashing to him when he appeared to be getting away from me.

“READY!?”

I wasn’t sure if that had been a question or a notification for us. But I still nodded on instinct, and everything went silent, then,

“FIGHT!!!”

Even before I could decide what my first move would be, an arrow was already on me, forcing me to deflect it with my staff. I felt the staff slide slightly from all the sweat that had accumulated in my gloves. I should have waited and worn them right before the fight began. When the next arrow came towards me, I did a roll on the ground using my left hand to pick up some of the dirt.

Even before I was fully back on my feet, I felt an arrow glaze my right shoulder and another my left thigh. I angrily swung my staff with the one hand twice, feeling the strain where the arrow had glazed me, and lifting a cloud of dust between us. I used the second or two it lasted to rub all the dirt I had on my left hand on the middle of the staff and the one end I tended to hold the most. Then switched hands and grabbed some more dirt with the right hand as I used my left to send another dust cloud his way.

Unauthorized usage: this tale is on Amazon without the author's consent. Report any sightings.

When the dust cloud cleared, I found that he had moved back a distance, increasing the distance between us. At first, I was scared that I had made the wrong move, that I had given the enemy an advantage. But when I saw the next arrow coming towards me, I just smiled to myself.

He was too far away. I had had enough crossbow bolts fired at me at a much closer range that I had learnt to catch them with my hands. At the time, the skill seemed worthless, a party trick at best; even the System didn’t see it as a Skill. But when I caught my first arrow of the fight, I appreciated all those hours and days we spent working on my [Agility] and [Staff Shield], I had learnt arrow catching then. And it seemed long range was not the way to take me out. At least not that far out. Braden would need a faster arrow for that.

A tug on my hand made me look at my hand. It hadn’t registered before, but now that I had noticed it, it was pretty obvious. The arrow wanted to return. To Braden. I looked back at him, and then behind me. There were no arrows there, not even a single one. He had been retrieving his arrows. I quickly amended that, they had been returning to him was more like.

I held the arrow with both hands and broke it. It took more effort than I would have expected but the pull from the arrow disappeared then. I looked up as he fired another arrow; the new one was different, travelling faster than the ones before it. I tried catching it and only managed to catch the rear end. It was not good, not good at all. He could still hurt me from his new distance.

I changed priorities of the Skills I would use, [Staff Shield] and [Fast Dash] becoming prime with [Staff Strike] a close second.

He fired two consecutive arrows at me, the faster kind, and I decided dodging and blocking was better. I still didn’t activate [Staff Shield]. That was reserved for emergencies. I dodged the first one as I hit the second to the ground. I stomped on it while activating a minor [Earth Grab] and it broke easily, that was three. If his quiver carried the normal number of arrows, he would have twenty-one left. Otherwise, it could be an indeterminate number. Since he had the daggers at his side, I assumed the number to be twenty-one remaining. If it proved otherwise, oh well.

He was too far for [Fast Dash] to get me anywhere close to him, but it could get me close enough for another of my Skills to make it before he could react. I quickly activated it as he fired another arrow, I felt it whoosh past me before [Fast Dash] ended. The move had startled him enough that he actually fumbled with an arrow. Me on the other hand was calm and collected, all my nervousness from before the fight began had completely disappeared, having being chased aware by the adrenaline of the fight. Was I an adrenaline junkie? I hoped not.

During that moment of fumbling, I landed a direct hit on him with a [Fireball]. If I had known it would be such an easy hit, I would have gone with [Hurtling Projectile]. I would pay dearly, but so would he, and where it actually mattered.

I risked [Fast Dash] again while he was recovering from the [Fireball] and managed to get close enough. I closed the last distance in quick steps and began attacking with my staff, but he proved to be as agile as I was. Dodging and blocking all that I threw at him, occasionally managing to attack himself. He was using his bow as a staff, and as much as he was agile, his weapon wasn’t made for such kind of combat. Soon enough, I was landing blows more often than I was missing and I began using [Staff Strike] then.

The first few strikes to land didn’t produce any noticeable results, but I heard a crack somewhere around the tenth successful strike. I didn’t know what had cracked, I wasn’t even sure where I had hit. Was it the bow or his hand, maybe the shoulder or the head. I had landed a few of those, but that seemed to snap him out of his stupor. He quickly drew a dagger with one of his hands and slashed at me, leaving a light green glow heading for my torso.

I tried defending against it but it just passed right through my staff and into me. I staggered a little from the pain that raced through me, and got a kick to my gut for the lapse in attention. As I recovered, he had pulled back a few meters and was already firing an arrow. I was too close to ever hope of catching it, so I threw a [Fireball] at him as I tried my best to avoid the arrow. But the [Fireball] did nothing to his aim.

My [Fireball] found its mark, and so did his arrow. I managed to twist slightly out of the way but it still went through my left abdomen. There was no pain as it hit, but moving with it in there was proving to be painful. But I couldn’t afford to even pull it out, as he fired arrow after arrow at me. I dodged them as I took steps back from him. And when I got to a range I was comfortable with, I grabbed two from their route to my body and broke them, but had to roll in a dodge of another arrow. The arrow in me broke in the roll and the arrow piece sticking out of my back fell out.

Checking my [Status] showed that I was already more than halfway through my health, but so was he. Even though I had the more grievous of injuries, I had dealt more damage than he had during that encounter. Our Mana levels were practically the same, and I was still leading in Stamina. If we kept the same rhythm of skirmishes and I managed to keep myself from dying, I could tire him out.

I decided to pull the remaining arrow out as we settled into a staring contest. I was far enough that I could catch anything he threw at me, and he was far enough that other than [Fast Dash], he would have amble time to dodge all my other attacks. My health dropped farther as the arrow came out and I decided to go for my first Health potion, at least I assumed the green ones were that.

I was lucky enough to draw green on my first try, but the arrow that nearly pierced my hand wasn’t lucky. I looked up to find him firing another arrow and another one already drawing itself from the quiver. The new arrow also made for the potion. I grabbed the one after that and broke it. Is he… is he trying to destroy my potion? Is that even allowed?

If that was the case, I could have hit his potions so many times when we were engaged in close combat. I quickly grabbed another arrow as I rolled away from yet another one. My Health had just dropped below the thousand mark as I broke yet another arrow. I returned the Health potion to my pocket as I used [Fast Dash] on my way from the roll, I didn’t get close enough to use my staff but that wasn’t the intended attack.

The piece of earth the size of two human heads left the ground before [Fast Dash] ended, hurtling toward his bow arm. He managed to react better than the previous time, but it wasn’t enough. It caught his left shoulder and the cracking I heard was like a song to my ears. And I moved in.

With a Health of just below a thousand and him just below two thousand, I needed to hit harder without getting hit at all. And with his dagger arm temporarily rendered unusable and the other one still stuck on his bow, I had free reign. He would need to drop the bow to use the scary dagger attack, and that would leave him defenseless.

I rained blows on him without abandon, and even the ones that he did manage to block still dealt damage to the block hand. Soon, he wouldn’t be able to use it. He dodged some, blocked some and failed at both in others. He wasn’t getting any chance to attack me at all. Then I overstretched myself and the pain that raced through my left side was unbearable, I tried to maintain form but he had already taken the initiative.

Dropping the bow, he drew the dagger with his left hand. I immediately activated [Staff Shield] and was glad when the light turquoise translucent ellipsoid came to being before the dagger’s light green slash could connect. Sadly for me, it was the first time the shield was seeing any use against a magical attack, and it proved not quite up to par. It reduced the attack but did not nullify it. I still got hit and felt my Health drop even further.

I forwent the [Staff Shield] and went for an attack, aiming for the dagger hand that was coming for another slash. He managed to evade it, exposing his right side. I went for the already injured shoulder again before noticing the potions on his right side, I quickly redirected my attack to them.

It wasn’t as successful as I had hoped. I only managed to crash the green one and cause the blue one to fall off the belt, and I quickly used [Earth Grab] on it. Overall, a win for me. But I felt another slash through my chest. And I reacted wildly, glad when I felt the staff connect and saw the dagger fly off. I went to press my advantage but stepped back when I saw him forming a magic arrow on his left hand.

I quickly sent a [Fireball] his way as I released my left hand from the staff and retrieved two bottles. Green and blue, good. I quickly dodged out of the way of the arrow, but it still glazed me. As I came up, I quickly down the green one and turned around to find him doing the same. Dammit, I had lost the chance to finish him off. I quickly drank the blue one and a red one. I wasn’t that low on Stamina but I needed to be full for the next encounter.

When I turned to him, he was in the process of bringing a blue one and a red one to his mouth. I quickly drew and threw my dagger at the potions, hoping to hit them both. I only got the red one. And before I could think to rush him, he was already firing at me again.

And we were back to where we started, albeit with fewer potions. Far fewer for him. He only had the Stamina potion remaining, while I had a full set untouched.