After my third and final battle for the day, which was another easy win, I met up with Atlessoa—in her non-illusioned sundress form—and we grabbed some dinner from one of the food stalls.

“I heard one of your beasts bit some guy’s head off?” she asked after polishing off another sausage roll of some kind.

“Hardly,” I said with a frown. That was a pretty wild rumor spreading. “He just… exerted some pressure. With his mouth. On the swordsman’s entire head. The man definitely lived.”

Atlessoa shrugged, unconcerned, and tucked into another roll.

“How did your bouts go?”

“Won all three,” she said after swallowing, then gave me a cheeky grin. “Not that there was any doubt.”

As we sat, ate, and chatted, I spotted a pair of familiar faces walking by, and called out and waved. Gorban and Shirel walked towards us, glancing at our food as if deliberating their own dinner choices for the evening.

“Gorban, Shirel, this is my friend Atlessoa.”

“Nice to meet you, Atlessoa,” Shirel said, glancing at the muskoon at her feet. “Another tamer? Did you come to watch Pilus compete?”

I was about to correct her before Atlessoa agreed. “Yup! He did so well, won all his bouts.”

Remembering Atlessoa was competing under a hidden identity, I rolled with the lie. “How did you two do?”

Shirel grimaced and then pouted, so Gorban spoke. “Shirel had the bad luck to face the Shadowblade of Roko in her second bout, and was knocked out. I managed to proceed through the day and make it to tomorrow.”

I had forgotten that they were both dagger wielders and would likely face each other early on. I mumbled some apologies for her loss, a bit uncomfortable.

“Ugh,” she groaned. “You would not believe how good he was. It was like I was being hit by blows I couldn’t even see. At one point, I could have sworn I was tripped, but when I looked back there was nothing there.”

I glanced sideways at the muskoon, who had likely been the invisible tripping hazard, and then again considered Atlessoa’s growth. Shirel was absolutely not a slouch, but the professional assassin simply had too many tricks up her sleeves.

“It’s fine. I’ll live. I’ll be cheering for Gorban from now on, but most of the other polearm users are having difficulty with the guandao style, and he’s mostly been trouncing them.”

“Guandao?” Atlessoa asked.

“The guandao is a polearm from the south,” I explained to Atlessoa, before realizing that the sweet young lady in a sundress next to me was a master assassin and probably already knew that, and was just playing the role of an innocent tamer who was uneducated on weaponry.

I saw Gorban and Shirel’s eyes flick over Atlessoa’s hair and eyes. “Where are you from, Atlessoa?” Shirel asked.

“Ah. I was born and grew up in Roko. I don’t actually know much about the south.”

“Roko, huh. Well, hopefully you never meet the Shadowblade in a dark alley whenever you return. That guy’s a monster.”

I only partially succeeded in stifling my laugh.

* * *

The next morning, the individual rings had been removed and replaced with a larger arena. In addition to a larger battlefield, there were also tall stands for more viewers to be able to see the fights. Having shrunk the total number of combatants to an eighth of the entrants in the first day, there would only be a single battle happening at a time for the rest of the tournament. That meant that competitors would all be able to watch the other bouts, which could allow for some planning and preparation.

Instead of a single judge, there was now a panel, and the tournament had added some kind of master of ceremonies who was announcing the battles.

“The winner of each bout is still determined by knocking out your opponent, throwing them from the arena, or through yielding. In the case of an unclear winner, the panel of judges will determine the winner. Should a combatant be killed, the panel of judges will determine if it was malicious or an accident and whether or not the winner will be merely warned or expelled from the tournament. A team of priests are on standby for emergencies to heal potentially lethal wounds,” the speaker intoned.

It was the same as before, only on a slightly larger scale. The bigger arena would work well for me, as it meant I could actually ride Horsey in active battle, like cavalry.

More eyes would make stealthily getting away with secret techniques a bit more challenging, but the secrets only needed to be kept from future opponents, as very little was actually disallowed in the tournament, aside from outside interference and overtly murdering your opponent.

That was not likely to be a problem for many of my bouts, as I planned to continue participating as a tamer. I would not need to personally fight until I faced someone who posed a serious risk to a pair of rank C beasts.

This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.

Assuming the draconewt I had fought as a child had actually been rank C, I had defeated it at Level 14, which was definitely premature, and I had only won the battle by surviving being eaten whole and then stabbing the draconic beast’s heart from inside. That was not how my tamed beasts would be fighting. I was not reliably defeating rank C beasts until Level 20, and even then, not two at once. Certainly not pairs of beasts with tactics being led by a tamer who could also influence the battle directly.

Realistically, I figured it would take an opponent who was at least Level 25, if not Level 35, to be enough of an issue to merit additional action on my part. At that level, adding some ranged attacks would probably be enough to turn the tide. Despite all the back and forth figuring out how many beasts I was to be allowed to use at once, there was definitely no rule about using backup weapons, so there would be no issue with me bringing my bow in, to use from tarandback. I also had my sword on my hip at all times, and could switch to that as needed for stronger foes.

With a rough outline mentally prepared for how I would proceed, I set in to watch some bouts and wait for my first one of the day.

* * *

Gorban’s guandao moved with practiced ease, deflecting the oncoming jab from his opponent’s spear. Seeing him in full force was quite impressive. I rarely saw double-advanced two-armed fighters, especially those that had trained with polearms. Of course, while his opponent was trying to spear him, Gorban used his own polearm quite differently.

Oncoming spear swept away, Gorban stepped in and snapped a high side kick, connecting with the opposing combatant’s jaw. The man stumbled, blinking, and tried to overcorrect by swinging his spear savagely, but between his swimming vision and the difference in skill, he stood no chance. Gorban easily deflected the aggressive swing, moved in again, and landed a palm strike on the man’s chest, blowing him backwards.

Gorban’s skill at unarmed combat was just as high as his two-armed skill, after all.

His opponent swung his arms trying to stay upright as he was forced back, but Gorban was already rushing forward to press his advantage. He had swung his guandao around, and using the butt of the pole, he landed a harsh thunking blow against the man’s forehead.

The man crumpled.

I frowned a bit, as a blow that hard and a concussion had the potential to kill, and did not want Gorban to get disqualified, but the man from Taraponi clearly knew his own strength. A priest ran forward to check the felled combatant, and waved a sign that he would live to the judges, then cast a moderate heal anyway. The judges announced Gorban’s victory, and he bowed to them curtly before walking off the arena stage.

While I had improved in martial combat against a human opponent by training all winter in Roko, in truth I did not think I could win a straight fight against Gorban using only mundane skill. The man had trained his whole life to fight people with his guandao and martial arts, and it showed.

Most of my fighting had been against beasts. When I did have to fight humans, I usually was able to overwhelm them with sheer power or by using magic.

Fortunately, should I need to fight him, Gorban did not have Strength in his skill list. That skill was obtained by lifting heavy objects, pushing the body to its limits against weighted resistance. You saw it more in laborers, and in people like blacksmiths who had to move around large, heavy items like anvils. Those hard-working folk did not often go on to master the use of weapons for combat in their downtime. Similarly, you rarely saw weapon users acquire Strength, or if they did it was rarely advanced. To spend so much time on resistance training to effectively grow that skill would put them at a disadvantage in their weapon training, which occupied the bulk of their time.

Gorban had speed and agility and technique, but I had Strength. If I connected a blow with my sword against his guandao, I could likely cleave the polearm entirely, though I would feel bad ruining such a handsome weapon.

Of course, I would not be fighting Gorban as a swordsman, if I fought him at all. I would use beasts, and while the man had spent his life mastering his weapon and body in training, he had not fought the diversity of beasts that I had, and did not have as malleable a set of experience and techniques for dealing with them.

“The twin-blade swordsman from Haklan, Iroha, against the gold-rank tamer from Gurt, Pilus,” the announcer’s voice declared, breaking me from my thoughts.

I appraised my opponent, named Iroa. The southerner’s name was mispronounced by the announcer from the capital, likely due to how it had to be written. I silently commiserated with him, as I had needed to register as being from Gurt, the nearest walled city to Freehold, as this was a citizen’s tournament and the expectation was that all registrants would be from a walled city. It was not comparable to call both southerners and settlers second-class citizens, as each had different issues to complain about, and settling was a choice, not an ethnic background.

Iroa wielded a pair of sabers that glinted in the day’s bright sun. They looked menacing, and he no doubt had skill with the weapons, but his level was lacking. Still, I knew better than most when to judge a person by their level, so I pulled out my bow. Occupying the blades by forcing them to deflect arrows would give my beasts a better chance to land some blows.

When the battle commenced, my urstrig went left and my mecrokotas went right, and I began launching arrows at the southern warrior. I saw his eyes widen as he tried, and failed, to track three threats at the same time, and rather than be pinned down he burst forward with impressive speed, trying to get at me and cut me down first.

As I was riding Horsey, I had the advantage of height, as well. I was not sure what exactly he had hoped to accomplish, but when he approached the mystic tarand he leapt up impressively high, as though he was planning to step up on Horsey’s face or antlers as a way to get to me.

Horsey twisted his neck abruptly, catching the man across the chest with his wide antlers, smacking him to the side. Iroa cried out as he was battered by the surprise twist of the head, and hit the ground. I fired an arrow at the man’s undefended knee, and he cried out again as it sank into the joint, locking his movement down for the rest of the battle.

He looked up at me with another arrow drawn and pointed at him from upon my large mount, and then at the approaching shadowy threat and slavering horror, then sighed. “I yield.”

I lowered my bow as the judges declared my victory and a priest came to fix Iroa’s knee. “Sorry about that,” I said, wincing. “I like your sabers, and would have loved to see them in action, but this was just a bad match-up.”

“I suspect they’re all going to be bad match-ups against you,” he said sourly, but then shook his head and straightened his expression out. “But I am intrigued at the novelty of what you are trying to do. Perhaps I will have to learn someday. There are some pretty dangerous beasts around my hometown…” His words dropped off as a priestess arrived, then he hissed in pain as she pulled out the arrow and began casting a heal for his knee and whatever damage Horsey had done to the southerner’s ribs.

“I’ll check out your fights if you join the survivor’s bracket,” I said as I walked away.

“I will try to put on a better showing,” he called after me. “Looking forward to seeing you win this one, though.”

I grinned to myself as I returned my beasts to their resting area and went to go watch more of the bouts.