A cacophony roars all around me. Thunderous sounds as the multitudes speak, shout, and laugh. The sound of hundreds of feet stomping around, above, and below me. I keep my breathing calm and steady, my mind focused on the task I have ahead. I check every strap holding the armor to my body. The tough leather bites into my skin as I make sure everything is secure. Once strapped up I take a drink from a wooden cup with shaking hands. I just barely get a drink without spilling all over myself. My eyes are locked on the dull white crystal above the door in front of me. My gaze does not waver as I wait. Suddenly it begins to glow until it is a dazzling golden glow, illuminating the dim room in a wonderful hue. With a grunt, I stand up from my chair and touch my toes before walking toward, and out the door in front of me.

I walk through the dark hallway ahead and reach the light at the end. I step through the illuminated threshold and can almost feel the sound hit me as I enter the arena. I roll out my shoulders as I try to ignore the crowd around me. Across from me, my opponent enters the arena with similar cheers. From my time in the little room, I heard the crowd reach its peak a few times, and from that, I judge I am the 12th match. This means, if the bracket is made in an intelligent way, it is a 32-man bracket.

It was explained to me earlier this day that the tournaments rarely have more than 30 people contending due to societal pressures. Basically despite each grade having around 60 students they don't want to bring shame to their families by taking a loss so only the confident or powerful ever compete. My guess is there are at least 25 competitors today in the anything-goes tournament. I should in theory have 4 matches if I win all of my fights.

My opponent is someone I don't recognize. A very plain-looking dude. Dirty blond hair and a set of steel-colored eyes, no features that make him stand out. I don't let myself underestimate him though. Sometimes the most unassuming people are the ones you have to watch for.

I was told earlier what to do in these tournaments, there is no handshake we just bow to one another, not in the Japanese style, but the fancy European style where you have one arm across your waist. Then a bell will ring and we are to fight.

We both bow to one another showing respect and then once we are both upright the bell rings.

My first action is to rush him and to keep the pressure on. I stand no chance at range due to being unable to use magic, and I never thought to make a bow, which I am very bad at making.

The distance between us is about forty yards, I haven't measured how fast I am, but I know full well I am just barely below a six-second forty. Upon the bell, my opponent raises his hand and begins the chant for a spell. His first shot goes wild, and a small burst of flame comes out of his hand and to the left.

With my chance secure I drop my body and spread my arms wide. My shoulder impacts with his gut. I hear the sound of the wind getting knocked out of his lungs. Thanks to the small shoulder pads I built into my armor I barely feel the impact from the tackle thanks to the runes.

I take him to the ground but quickly get back to my feet. I allow him to slowly stand up. He doesn't have a weapon so I plan to fight fair using only my body as a weapon.

He takes a swing at me, but I catch it and pull it over my shoulder. I spin my body around and drop to my knees while pulling the wrist through. Thanks to the momentum he gave me with that punch he goes sailing over me and onto his back. Once again he is left gasping for air. I get back to my feet and wait for him to once more stand up.

There are three ways to win in these fights. One is for someone to surrender after they can't handle any more punishment. The second is when someone is completely unable to fight anymore. Lastly, is the moderators of the fight decide it's too dangerous for someone and call the fight to avoid death. I don't know how I'm going to win this one, but I don't want to show my full hand during this fight.

He gets back to his feet flustered and wildly comes after me. His swings are slow and untrained making them easy to dodge. After a few moments of dodging I decide it's time to wrap things up. I wind up a swing and he flinches back, holding his hands up to try and block the punch. I raise my fist higher making him raise his hands to block the supposed downward punch. I do throw the punch, but not at him.

I punch downward throwing my body with the momentum and swing my left leg up and to the back. This causes me to spin and with it, my heel connects with the side of his head before he can react to the roundhouse. The blow is devastating and I watch his eyes roll into the back of his head as he limply falls to the ground following the momentum of my kick. In the entirety of both my lives, I have never once thrown a roundhouse, and I can now say for certain it is hella fun.

The bell rings and the fight ends as my opponent doesn't stand up. I check on him to make sure I didn't accidentally kill him or something. He's fine aside from a new gash on his eyebrow so victory is mine without anything unnecessary. I am ushered back into the holding room I was in before and am told to wait for my next fight. Thankfully they brought food and I eat greedily of the cheese and sausage they had left for me.

With my first fight done, any nerves I had before are now gone. I sit there in the single chair in the small holding room munching on my sausage and cheese. I just wish they had mustard, that would really make this the best. Outside of my room, I can both feel and hear the crowd roaring as the fights continue. The ground quakes a few times, I take a guess that someone must've unleashed something devastating in the arena.

I count the peaks of the cheers to gain an understanding of how many matches have happened since mine. Unfortunately, this is impossible because I don't know if there is a consolation bracket, or if there is will they do them between championship rounds? So I simply stay in my room keeping stretched and making sure not to eat too much before my next fight. Without warning the golden glow returns and I head down the hallway into the arena once more.

I have to catch myself when I see my opponent. I nearly started laughing upon seeing the fat neckbeard of the Schneemacher family. I keep my face stoic knowing that if he is in this round, he isn't a complete pushover.

He is wearing the same helmet as before with his neckbeard on full display, but this time he is also wearing full-plate armor. It looks heavy and difficult to move in, but at the same time, I know it's quite protective. I also note that the entire set of armor shimmers slightly. I assume that means it has some form of magical enchantment on it, but I can't be sure.

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We do our bows and then the bell rings. He draws a fairly impressive greatsword off his back, no colossal sword, but still a solid five-foot-long blade. It also has the same shimmer as the armor. I need to be careful. I draw both of my weapons and start my approach. He simply stands there with both hands on his sword. He appears to be waiting for me. I carefully come within three yards of him and decide my plan of attack.

I lunge forward, staying low to get within the effective reach of his sword. That's my advantage, I don't have a minimum arc to swing from. Then with surprising speed, the hambeast swings downward onto me. I manage to catch the blade with my shortsword and parry it skyward. He is staggered by the impact return from my much smaller blade. I feel a sharp cold shoot down my arm when I block. I step back after the parry and kick him in the chest with my foot trying to topple him. When that happens my foot becomes stuck on his breastplate. When I inspect my foot I see ice growing over my foot and when I check my now numb right hand I see ice has completely encased it and my sword. I realize now what his enchantments might be. My best guess is it's something to do with freezing his opponent stiff. I hear him laugh and he says to me,

"Sorry, little Outcast! I am the frozen wall you will be dashed against. I enchanted all of my gear myself! It will slowly encase you in ice the more you make contact with me, and since you can't cast magic you'll be frozen soon! I won't even have to raise my hand again now that you've started to freeze."

Just as he said I watch as the ice slowly begins growing from my hand and up my arm. The same is happening to my leg. I cuss under my breath before I give a light laugh. I reply,

"Well... I really don't feel like freezing."

I bring my right hand across my body and using the frozen appendage I backhand him in the helmet. The ice while it covers the runic gauntlets still exerts a force against them causing the reflection rune to still activate. Rather than give a hearty smack as I predicted, it instead exploded the ice outward and into the eye-slits of my opponent's helmet.

He bellows in pain as exploding ice fragments go into his eyes. It's not enough to blind him or do any real damage, but I'm sure it hurt like a motherfucker. With my hand now free I raise my sword and slam the flat, steel pommel onto the top of his helmet. The weight rune and impact rune work as intended and the helmet not only deforms slightly but cracks and splinters. There is a loud "POP!" and a cold breeze for a moment before the shimmer on his helmet disappears. I guess breaking an enchanted object in any way causes the enchantment to break as well.

This impact causes the big man to stumble backward and I push my weight onto my stuck foot making him fall all the way down. I am now standing on top of the huge man as ice is climbing up my leg. It's almost to my knee now. That enchantment is honestly impressive.

I take my sword breaker and start smashing into his breastplate as hard as I can to try and break the enchantment, but this plate appears to be even thicker than his helmet. I decide on desperate measures. I spin my short sword around making it face downward and with one hand on the flat pommel, I drive my entire body down onto his gut. The sharp point assisted by the impact and weight runes easily pierces the armor and I feel flesh getting shorn by my blade. It's his big belly so I hope he has enough fat to avoid being badly wounded. My guess is I stuck him at least eight inches deep before I caught myself from driving any deeper.

The same loud sound mixed with the wind permeates the now silent arena as I get my foot off of his chest and begin smashing it with my heavy sword breaker. I leave my shortsword embedded in his belly in order to prevent massive bleeding. Then he lets out a pained scream followed by,

"I Give!"

Then the arena explodes in cheers. A medic appears out of nowhere and begins healing the fatso. I retrieve my sword once they begin healing him. They don't seem worried about his condition so I relax before returning to the small room. My food has been replenished along with some drinks. I only partake in the water and a little sausage this time. Just a couple more fights... and I'll have won, for what reason?

I question why I would want to win. I come to one solid conclusion. Because I want to and not just that, I need to.

Next up is the semi-finals. That means whoever I face is going to be a real powerhouse. All I can do in preparation is keep myself from becoming stiff. There is no time limit on these matches so the ones before me can take however long they want to. Staying warm and limber should be a top priority when just waiting around to participate.

The room glows gold once more and I take my short walk down the hall and into the arena once again.

I raise my eyebrows in surprise upon seeing my opponent. It's Zandra. Rather than her normal plain and dark-colored attire she is now wearing a bright red and orange set of armor. The armor appears to be metal and it only covers her torso area from her neck to her crotch area. It is also divided into three interlocking plates. The rest of her is covered in a similarly colored robe or dress or something. Maybe you would call it a tunic? Regardless it doesn't exactly match her dark hair and light blue eyes. In her hand, she has a long and decorative stick, which I assume is like a wizard staff or something.

We bow at one another and the bell rings signaling the fight to start.

I am thrown off by the crowd who suddenly started chanting when Zandra raised her staff high into the air. They are chanting,

"Firestorm!Firestorm!Firestorm!Firestorm!"

I watch in amazement as a massive ball of flame appears over the staff. Gouts of flame appear from nowhere and begin flowing into the ball of fire making it larger. I feel the temperature of the arena slowly climb and the wind rushes upward as the heat grows more intense. I realize now that I should probably close the distance before something really bad happens.

I don't bother to draw my weapons as I sprint toward the stoic girl. She then says in a flat tone,

"Malestrum Flare..."

Then my vision goes white and I am deafened by the massive explosion. My entire body feels as if it is burning as my vision slowly returns. It looks almost as if I were in hell. Pillars of flame shoot upward out of the ground, the dirt of the floor itself smoking and some of it turns to glass from the intense heat bearing down. I feel the heat coming from the ground through my shoes which are now smoking and are threatening to burst into flame. All I can hear over the ringing in my ears is the crowd going wild.

I manage to catch sight of Zandra who appears to be preparing another, much less destructive attack. I will not allow that. I'm still not sure how I managed to survive that attack.

I begin my pursuit anew and am blocked by a pillar of flame that moves to block my path. I now understand why I survived that spell. It wasn't an attack, it was a set-up move. A spell designed to make the arena her home turf to most likely both protect her from other magic users, especially ice ones, as well as most likely amplify her fire-based attacks. I can't help but laugh a little at how impressive it is, but I'm not going to let a little thing like this deter me.

I cross my forearms over my face and I leap through the flaming pillar.

It's a very unpleasant experience, I feel any exposed skin being burned by the flames around me, and my armor begins to heat rapidly. Not even a second in the flames and I feel like I'm dying. I make sure not to hit the scalding dirt below, but it appears my stunt worked.

Zandra stares at me in confusion and surprise as I come through the flames and grab ahold of her. Once I have my hold I say,

"Conceed and I won't hurt you"

She hesitates for a moment and says emotionlessly,

"No."

I sigh and bring my head backward and then quickly slam it forward into the crown of her head causing her to collapse unconscious. The pillars of fire all at once extinguish and the room becomes much cooler. I stand there with my forehead busted open and with the unconscious Zandra in my hands. Victory is declared mine and I am made to go back into the waiting room after a healer cured my burns and the cut on my head.

Now... it's time for the finals...