Chapter 1782 – The not-so-Small Tournament 4 – Early Rounds
“Alright, everyone!” John raised his voice once he was out in the sun and by that broad table. He looked out at a crowd that almost filled out the arena. Between the display of strength of the contestants and Romulus’ arrival on live TV (and his continued presence in the VIP area to John’s right), interest in the tournament had understandably skyrocketed. This could work out in the Gamer’s favour, considering the goal of the whole thing. The more eyeballs, the better.
Down in the arena, Nach and Hyozuma were standing on the designated starting spots in the otherwise empty field. John lacked the funds to create entirely new landscapes on a wheel like Romulus had and the elementals had taken their day off, so a simple field would have to do for these fights.
“You know the signal, once the star falls, the fight starts. Same rules as before regarding item usage.”
“Roger that, spoilsport!” Hyozuma shouted up.
“This is all a farce,” Nach sighed.
‘Well, this is going to be entertaining just because I’ll see him getting punched in his smug face.’ John sat down and waited for the fight to begin.
The star touched the ground. Nach clapped his hands. All around him, glyphs flared up in the air. Together, they created a network of traps too dense for anyone of Hyozuma’s size to weave his way through. “And just like that, this battle has been decided!” Nach declared and ran a hand through his hair.
Hyozuma matched the gesture with a cocky grin. “The heck you mean, man? You’re just standing there?”
“You cannot reach me, imbecile. I, however…” Nach stepped forwards. One of the glyphs lit up when he stepped on it, but did not activate in full. “…can advance step for step. Eventually this whole arena will be filled with my traps. You have nowhere to-“
“STEAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAL!” Hyozuma shouted and thrust his hand out. An arcane glow filled the air for a split second. When it subsided, the shirt of Nach had found its way onto the thief mage’s hand. “Dude, have you seen a single steak in your life?”
Nach pulled his eyebrows together. A hand on his hips, he presented his skinny chest without a worry in the world. “You’re entirely unfashionable.”
“The only fashion I care about is lingerie and maid outfits. GREAT TASTE, BY THE WAY!” Hyozuma gave John a thumbs-up. Not caring at all for his impartiality, John responded in kind, then had Aclysia hop from her chair into his lap. “Alright, time to end this then.”
“Yeah, just come straight at… me…?” Nach started haughty and ended flabbergasted when his opponent did exactly that. Stolen shirt slung lazily over his shoulder, the thief mage walked into the traps and then simply past them. “What the-“
“Tip for the next time, buddy, don’t announce your weaknesses on live TV,” Hyozuma stated, then suddenly dashed forwards.
The level gap between them was enormous and, importantly, Hyozuma’s Spellpower was relatively low, leaving most of his Stat Points in the Physical. When the thief charged in, it was already over. A smack across the face sent Nach flying. A couple of minutes of fighting followed, the trap mage trying desperately to gain some kind of control of it all. The only reason it took that long was because Hyozuma decided to play with his food.
“Soooo, wanna tell me what happened there?” Rave asked. She had popped up behind them at some point.
“Would be bad manners to speak the answer out loud… check the Harem Comms,” he told her and then typed out the answer.
Hyozuma was a thief mage of level 325. That fact afforded him a few additional aspects to his powers that went beyond just stealing items. Importantly, it seemed that he was capable of stealing magic signatures alongside the item in order to wield them even if they were coded to someone personally. Like all powers, it had a limit somewhere, but grabbing a shirt and with it the signature that Nach’s traps automatically ignored, lest he accidentally dodge into his own traps, would be pretty easy.
“Hey, he passed out!” the thief mage announced grabbed the arm of the skinny man that unconsciously hung from his grasp. “He surrenders!”
“I can see that,” John answered. “Hyozuma wins the first round!”
The thief mage put his opponent down gentle enough, then dropped the shirt without a second thought. “Come on, everybody, give it up for me! Hyo-zu-ma! Hyo-zu-ma!” The cheers that he had gotten initially reduced quickly to playful boos. He laughed, taking it in stride as he cleared the battlefield and healers collected Nach.
The next round was Inferna versus Anna. John was not looking forward to this one. Watching attractive women fight could be quite aesthetic, but considering the power the gothic half of the battle wielded, he doubted this would be pretty in any way. Density mage and anti-healer stood across from each other.
“I think you should surrender now,” Anna suggested and pushed up her glasses. “It would be a shame to ruin such pretty skin.”
Inferna responded with a simple smile, shifting her weight left to right. She was showing a lot of aforementioned skin and the dark brown colour elevated the showing of the care she put into it. The peaks and valleys glistened almost as much as the clinging fabric of her pants and crop top. The black-haired woman reminded John of his first fiancée in her choice of attire and attitude. “Yeah, but then I wouldn’t get a fight, so no deal!”
The star fell between them and the fight began.
Inferna was immediately on the attack. Snapping forwards, she moved rapidly towards her opponent. Her clenched fist absorbed surrounding light as she hurled it forwards. The power behind the motion of the dense object made Anna’s hair bun wobble as she stepped aside.
The black woman was obviously surprised by the speed of her pale-skinned opponent. Anna raised her hand and tenderly touched the side of Inferna’s face. John had to keep himself from wincing when he saw the blood vessels in the left eye of the woman burst, turning the sclera a worrying red. The cheek of her face popped open like a sausage that had been left in boiling water for too long.
Inferna’s foot came down on the floor heavy enough that John wondered whether she had used Seismic Step for a moment. The truth was much simpler: she had just made it heavy enough to crack the arena floor open.
Impressively graceful, Anna leapt away from the dust cloud, keeping close to the ground. Several stones were launched after her, all of which she dodged by skipping left to right. They had been sloppily aimed in the first place and Inferna had to swiftly surface from the cover of dust to get line of sight back.
Inferna kept on throwing stones. Their density increased, the rocks caused heavy ripples throughout the arcane shield that kept the watchers safe. Anna weaved through them, always keeping her calm, and soon went on the offensive herself. It had occurred to both of them that the gothic woman was advantaged in melee.
Their level gap alone was not enough to decide the fight. It tilted the odds in Anna’s favour by the difference in total Stat Points of about 10%. A big but not insurmountable margin. The issue was simply that Anna was slightly faster and only needed to touch her opponent. If Inferna landed a punch, it would be devastating to Anna, but that required the reverse healer to slip up. All the while, every mild brush of Anna’s fingers would rupture tissue.
The fight came down to the simple fact that Anna did not make a single mistake. All of the tricks Inferna tried, creating cover via dust clouds and hurling projectiles, the pale woman manoeuvred fluidly. One touch here, another there, and gradually Inferna collected wounds on her curvaceous body.
Raising her hand, the black woman caused Anna to stop in her attack. “Alright, I surrender!” she announced.
“Good choice,” Anna spoke with an approving smile and bowed respectfully. “A good effort.”
“Imma try this again another day…” Inferna promised and coughed, her lungs having partly deteriorated when she had been touched on the chest. “For now, healers!”
“I like her,” Rave said.
“Unsurprising,” John commented drily and lifted up the happy maid in his lap. Carrying her princess-style was the only appropriate way to transport Aclysia anywhere. The first two brackets of the day had run their course, so now there would be a fifteen minute break. Earth mages streamed into the ring to fix it all up. Had Gnome been there, she could have fixed it in ten seconds, but it was important to let the regular joes get their exercise in. “Hyozuma versus Anna tomorrow in the first bracket. That will be interesting, I suppose.”
“Interesting will be the next bracket,” Rave purred, following him and Aclysia back to the couch where Nathalia was still reading.
John put Aclysia down next to where he sat a moment later. By design, the cushions of the couch were deep enough that he could sit down in front of Nathalia’s thighs without squeezing her in. Really, it was more of a half-bed with a backrest. He reached over and got himself a handful of delectable dragon-ass meat, then the dragoness turned onto her back and angled one leg. The unspoken demand was clear.
“You mean because you’ll surrender?” the Gamer asked, while pushing two fingers into Nathalia. The redhead’s hairless slit was wet and ready like always. Index and middle finger glided back and forth, while his thumb teased her clit.
“No, jerk.” Rave had to plop down next to Aclysia. It was the norm that the first of the haremettes got a spot right next to John, especially when there were so few haremettes around, but the pink-haired bombshell would not have been the backbone of their absurd social dynamic if she hadn’t been able to be the figurative third wheel at times. “I wanna see the Hypercrush in action.” She turned her head to double check who he was up again. “Unswift… that’s the chubby turret guy, yeah? Does he have a chance?”
“I have no idea,” John responded. “Observe told me that Hypercrush has ‘reality bending powers fuelled by drug consumption’. It’s not one of those clear-cut powers like Unswift has, so I can’t make a proper estimation. Based on levels though… Unswift is going to get crushed.”
“Hyper crushed.” Rave giggled. “It’s like drugs in general, right?”
“You’re about to ask what would happen if he took Court Dust,” John guessed and she nodded. “I don’t really want to run the experiment.”
“It would be a way to dispose of it,” Aclysia remarked. John still had one pouch of the hyper-cocaine in the Guild Bank. He had elected not to use it a second time on insistence by Gnome, a choice that left him about 30 levels lower than he could be by now but also several days of garbled, embarrassing memories lighter. Even when drugs worked, they were bad.
“Could also create a monster in the process.” John shifted where he sat. Curiosity got the better of him. “Maybe I’ll offer it when he wins the tournament… I feel a bit happier to make risky decisions with Romulus here.”
“You -ah- need no other guarantor than mhmeee,” Nathalia insisted.
“Of course not,” John agreed with a smile. “But I still like having the extra layers of certainty. You know how I work.”
“Indeed, I… do…!” Nathalia moaned. Her hips bucked a moment later. The book she had been reading was put aside. Orange eyes glared hungrily. A singular orgasm was just oil to the fire for the volcano goddess.
‘Ah well, I have 10 minutes,’ John thought.