by Brent Tyman
“She wasn’t nearly as enthused when she served me,” Clarissa complained. “She told me that I had some silly sunlight beam spell or nothing at all, for my options.”
I guessed no one else at the Academy thought much of that spell, either.
Aurielle smiled as she sheathed her sword and flipped her shield onto her back.
“No, this is very much our time of need. I owe you much and will willingly expend my magic to help you achieve your goals.”
She looked down at the snow for a moment. “Because I am unable to use my Ethereal magic for long, I decided to wait to use it on the last floor, where it would have the most impact. I hope this is enough.”
I walked over and rested my gauntlet on Aurielle’s armored shoulder. She looked me in the eye and I could see a small, yet noticeable, blush on her cheeks.
“Seriously, Aurielle, we are just glad you are here and willing to help us at all. Thank you,” I said honestly.
“Oh, well… It is my honor,” she replied, now even more flustered.
We ended up staring into each other’s eyes for a long moment. Once again, her beauty mesmerized me.
“Do you think they will kiss, Juliana?” I heard Clarissa whisper.
“Hmm, we will need to speak to Aurielle about this sooner than I thought,” Juliana replied.
I whipped around. “What are you two talking about?” I asked.
“Don’t worry your pretty head about it, handsome,” Clarissa chirped.
“Yes, it is very much… something you need not fret about,” Juliana added.
I found myself tilting my head to the side in confusion, but it seemed the women weren’t going to elaborate any more than that. I looked back at Aurielle, only to see that her blush had deepened significantly, running down her neck and even turning the tips of her ears pink.
Even all flustered and embarrassed like that, she was still beautiful.
“Uhh, should we not actually… you know… the tournament…” Anny said, fidgeting.
As if a veil had been lifted from me, I shook my head and got back to business.
“Right, then. If Aurielle is willing to do so, she can use her teleporting skill to speed things up so we can check this floor off pretty quickly,” I said.
“Yes, I believe that if I only use Ethereal Blink, I should be able to keep it up for another fifty monsters or so,” Aurielle confirmed.
“Great,” Clarissa said, clapping her hands together. “Let’s go!”
“Indeed,” Juliana said, nodding.
Anny pointed us in the direction of the next Raging Wolf pack before dashing away to collect the loot from the three Wolves Aurielle had dispatched.
I was feeling even better about our chances, now. I doubted anyone else in the tournament had anything remotely approaching Aurielle’s teleporting skill. It seemed rather unique as well, given her ‘Chosen’ status and all.
It shouldn’t be long before we found out how well we’d done in this first stage of the tournament.
Just forty-seven more Wolves to go…
22
As soon as we finished off the fiftieth Wolf, and Anny confirmed that we were done, we rushed to the exit that led down to the next floor. That was where we would report our results and see how we’d stacked up against everyone else.
The icy bitter cold of this floor didn’t appeal to me, but apparently the tournament organizers would rather hang out here than in the eighth floor’s shin-deep water.
After trudging through endless snow, with Aurielle quickly dispatching another pack of Raging Wolves that stood between us and our destination, we finally reached the exit from the seventh floor.
In front of it, were a lot more people than I’d expected, which made me worry that we’d been beaten by another party. It was actually the headmaster, who noticed us first and moved to great us. His flowing white hair blended in with the swirling snow quite well.
“Greetings, headmaster,” Juliana said formally.
“Ahh, Juliana and Clarissa. Marvelous, marvelous. I’m sure both of your fathers will be pleased,” the headmaster said.
“I doubt it,” Clarissa quipped. “I’m fighting for the Tasbergs, against my father’s wishes.”
Evidently, this wasn’t the first time the headmaster had heard this.
“Yes, yes. I gathered that from the register of participants. I’m…” He paused and frowned. “I’m sure he will still be proud of his daughter, despite the circumstances.”
The headmaster gave me a curious look, as if he wanted to ask me something, but then shook his head.
“You five are the winning team of the first stage, provided you have your bag with the appropriate amount of loot?”
Anny took out the bag and handed it to the headmaster. He, in turn, gave it to one of the many Academy staff surrounding us. We watched as the entire contents of the bag were spilled out all over the snow and the staff began sorting the loot out into piles for counting.
I had honestly thought there would be a more… elegant way to do this.
“Might I say,” the headmaster began. “We made logical projections about how fast a party should be able to complete this trial.” His eyebrows rose. “You arrived much sooner than even the most optimistic of estimates.”
“We trained pretty hard for this,” I said. “And I think we work well together as a party.”
“Is that so…” the headmaster mused.
We waited patiently as the staff counted out our loot and in a few moments, they’d finished. One of them whispered something in the headmaster’s ear.
“It appears everything is in order. Congratulations on your advancing to the next stage,” the headmaster declared formally.
“Yes!” Clarissa cheered. “We did it, handsome!”
“Thank the Gods,” Juliana breathed.
“Yay!” Anny cheered, hopping around in an impromptu victory dance.
I let out a sigh of relief, and Aurielle smiled at me.
“Nice work, everyone,” I said, giving each of them a hug, though Clarissa didn’t settle for that and pulled me into a rather intense kiss. I managed to escape the blonde’s embrace and turned back to the headmaster. “Do we need to wait around for the other parties to finish?”
“Yes,” the headmaster confirmed. “We will explain the specifics about the next stage once we are prepared to declare which parties will advance. Please remain here for the time being.”
I supposed it couldn’t be helped.
“There are some seats over there,” Juliana said, pointing to a couple of rows of wooden chairs laid out in a loose semi-circle. A few of the staff occupied several of them.
At least they weren’t golden chairs…
“Yes, please feel free to have a seat until the others arrive,” the headmaster agreed, and we did just that.
Juliana and Clarissa occupied the chairs to either side of me when we sat down, and I was surprised when both women laid their hands in my lap.
“I can’t wait for Stephania to show up,” Clarissa beamed. “So much for her claims of getting first in the tournament.”
“Remember, this is only the first stage of the tournament and there are two more to go,” Juliana said, crossing her legs. “But yes, it would seem she was overly optimistic about her chances.”
Was it just me, or was Clarissa rubbing off on Juliana? I was pretty sure this wasn’t the first time I had noticed this…
It took quite a while before the next group finally arrived. Heck, I was pretty sure we could have made our way to the tenth floor and back before anyone else showed up. No one was surprised, when Stephania’s was the next group to appear. The way her eyes bulged when she noticed us, made Clarissa’s grin grow all the wider.
“Stephania!” Clarissa waved her over. “Come bask in our winning aura!”
The headmaster quickly intercepted the Yunissan heir, and he gave Clarissa a look that demanded silence.
She stopped teasing the blue-clad team, but not
even the headmaster’s glare could wipe the grin off her face.
“What a farce,” Stephania complained as she finally made her way over to us after speaking to the headmaster. “How long have you been sitting there, Clarissa Vos Hoganna? A couple of minutes?”
“Actually,” Juliana said, “We finished quite some time ago. I was hoping someone would hurry up and finish; it’s too cold on this level just to sit around without moving.”
“Impossible,” Stephania scoffed, shaking the snow out of her silvery ponytail. “My legs ache from running from encounter to encounter. Surely you have some kind of trick up your sleeves.”
If I told her Aurielle had pretty much crushed every Wolf pack in her way in seconds —the whole pack and not just a single wolf—on this floor, she wouldn’t believe me.
“Perhaps your retinue is simply lacking,” Clarissa smirked, clinging to my arm. “It’s not that much of a surprise, really. You don’t have someone like my handsome Alex, here.”
I rolled my eyes at Clarissa’s snarky remark, but was surprised to see how Stephania’s eye twitched as she narrowed them, glaring at how Clarissa’s arm was wrapped around my own.
“I must admit, this is quite the surprise,” Stephania admitted.
“Don’t read too much into it, Stephania,” I said, trying to head off the shouting match brewing between the two beauties. “We trained really hard to get ourselves ready for this tournament, and there was plenty of running around for us, as well.”
My words seemed to placate the Yunissan heir, and her eyes softened.
“I see. Perhaps when the tournament is over, you and I can discuss your methods in greater detail in a more private setting , Alex. I would very much like to hear about them from you,” Stephania said.
I thought that seemed like a reasonable request, but my ladies’ faces twisted up in shock and anger.
Jeez…
I heard a low rumble from Clarissa that sounded an awful lot like a Raging Wolf’s growl. Juliana’s narrowed eyes, raised brows, and compressed lips radiated even more danger. If looks could kill, the Yunissan heir would be little more than a smoking corpse, as she and her retinue turned to find some chairs at the other end of the seating area.
“What’s wrong?” I asked my women once Stephania was out of earshot.
“To think the woman would be so brazen as to suggest…” Clarissa hissed.
“I agree,” Juliana ground out through clenched teeth. “That woman truly has no shame.”
The two beauties continued to complain about Stephania and I could only scratch my head at their antics. I considered pressing them for more details, but a much wiser part of me decided it was best I just leave well enough alone.
I only had a guess about what had set them off, but if I was right, I had absolutely no interest in finding myself caught up in it.
Nope, not one bit…
The next group arrived, and I was disappointed to see that it wasn’t Juliana’s retinue. I hoped they showed up before the headmaster declared they had enough groups for the next stage.
The third group turned out to be five very tough-looking adventurers with blue plate armor covering every inch of their bodies. I couldn’t imagine running through the fifth floor in that heavy armor, but on the other hand, at least it looked like it could take a heck of a lot of damage.
The fourth group were a party of Elves, with gigantic bows slung across their backs. I could only imagine they’d relied on their excellent ranged skills to push through each floor. After that, the next few groups came in within minutes of each other.
I sighed in relief when I spotted Juliana’s retinue as the eighth group to finish. Surely that would be considered good enough to advance.
At least I hoped it would.
“We are pleased to see you here already, My Lady,” Vencia said when the staff had finished counting up their piles of loot.
“I can’t believe so many others made it here ahead of us,” Daiver whined as he looked around. “Do they not know how heroic I was in there?”
“Oh please,” Kesara said, flicking the man’s shoulder. “Daiver had a lot more trouble than we’d thought he would, taking down monsters without Juliana’s added damage.”
“I did not,” Daiver protested. “Despite the rather generous growth of my Strength stat of late, having so many monsters attack me all at once forces me to take some time to… consider my options.”
“I’m sure you meant to say, that when you get overwhelmed you flail your arms and legs around aimlessly,” Karl said dryly. He pushed his glasses further up onto his nose and shook his head. “It was a rather poor showing from us, regardless.”
“Ugh. Don’t remind me,” Kesara said.
“I think you all did quite well, given my sudden and unplanned for absence from the party,” Juliana said with a smile.
“Yeah. Everyone else here has five in their party. Getting here with only four is rather impressive,” I agreed.
“I suppose we shall learn momentarily if it was enough,” Karl said, nodding.
There was a noticeable shift after the eighteenth group came through. The headmaster’s staff no longer checked the contents of any bags after that.
They also began to turn those parties away, with the staff leading adventurers and Academy students alike, back the way they had come. The last of the eighteenth group had finally settled where we were seated, and I figured that everyone here with us would advance to the next stage.
In terms of numbers, the headmaster had really thinned out the participants. There were easily over a hundred parties when we had begun the tournament. Despite knowing that the majority of people that participated wouldn’t advance, it was still interesting to see how whittled down the tournament field had gotten.
I could only imagine what the final party count would be for the last stage, maybe seven or eight?
Once the amount of participants that arrived here had slowed down enough for the headmaster’s staff to handle on their own, the man approached us and addressed the winners of the first stage.
“Congratulations once again on your success,” he said, looking over everyone. “As you may have noticed, we decided that only eighteen groups will advance to the second stage. You will be pleased to know that all of you will advance. We will need a few more details from each of your party leaders, before we proceed.”
“Headmaster,” Juliana said, raising a hand. “Will you please explain the specifics for the second stage? We wish to be as prepared as we can.”
“All in good time, young Juliana,” he said, motioning for her to lower her hand. “But first, once my staff are available, we must first confirm which nation everyone represents. This, combined with the order in which you have come, will determine how we group all of you for the next trial.”
Huh. They wanted to group us up? I wondered what that entailed. There were just under ninety of us here, but luckily, once some of the headmaster’s staff had come over to note down our names and which nation we represented, the process didn’t take too long.
I was pretty sure they had this information already, but I supposed it was fine if they wanted to double check and confirm. We all gave our names and I affirmed we were representing the Sovereignty when someone came to speak to us.
The atmosphere had turned fairly quiet when the headmaster had his staff talk to everyone, allowing me to listen in on how many of each nation were here.
There was only one party that openly looked like they were from Hoganna, a group of green uniformed students. From what I could tell, there were quite a few more students that represented the Sovereignty and Yunissa, with the rest probably being adventurers, if I had to guess.
After keeping track of what each party leader indicated, it seemed that there were four here representing Hoganna, six from the Sovereignty, and eight from Yunissa.
That really surprised me. I would have thought things would be far more even, but based on this, it seemed that the odds of victory we
re firmly stacked in Yunissa’s favor. At the moment, the odds tilted their way, if we only accounted for the number of teams that represented them.
Once the staff had what they needed, they went off to confer with each other before one of them approached the headmaster and whispered in his ear.
“Ah yes, yes,” the headmaster said, bobbing his head quite sagely to his staff. “Very well.”
He turned to us and cleared his throat, before speaking.
“Please listen to my words. All of you must be eager to learn what the second stage of the tournament will entail. Allow me to detail this to you now,” he said.
“In the first trial, your opponents were all of your peers. For the second, you shall only be competing against two other groups, as assigned.”
We all listened intently as the headmaster revealed the specifics of the next stage and also a few more details on the final one.
Each of the three nations wanted at least one of their representative parties to advance to the finals. The last stage would eventually consist of six parties, with one-on-one fights between them to determine the Tournament’s winner.
Ideally, each nation would have two representatives pass through to the third and final stage, giving them a fairly even shot at winning. Unfortunately, with how open ended the first stage of the tournament was, there was the potential for some nations to have way more representatives than the others and even for one of them to be knocked out of the tournament altogether before the finals.
Any of the three nations would not be happy if they weren’t represented at all going into the final round. It seemed the headmaster had accounted for this and planned to add in some guarantees for the second trial.
There would be six groups of three parties for the second stage. We would be competing against two other parties.
To ensure that at least one party from each nation would advance, three groups would be stacked with parties representing the same nation. This pretty much guaranteed that a nation would have someone representing them for the finals.
Yunissa was in a pretty good spot, even with this system, as it allowed them to have better odds in winning per group.
