Chapter Two-Hundred-and-Four

Loopshard

Natalia frowned. “Why me?” she asked as they were going back towards the arena.

Diwa and Chien shared a glance.

“Do we need to state the obvious?” Chien replied.

“Couldn’t Adam just pretend to be a non-magical fighter?” Natalia suggested.

“They would absolutely figure it out,” Adam replied. “Not to mention, the collector knew I was a blood mage just by looking at me. If we get disqualified, then we lose our chance to take out the intruder, and we’ll have to do something horrible for Alexander.”

“What?” Chien asked.

“He’ll want us to snuff out the true flame on the wall and in the Old Town church,” Adam said. “It has something to do with him believing the Forlorn King won’t kill him, because he’s been helping his power grow. Also, I’m fairly sure he’s the one who’s responsible for the forlorn intruder getting into Gothershall in the first place, but I don’t know how.”

“Shouldn’t we just kill him then?” Natalia suggested.

“It would be a great way to fuck everything up, since he’s one of the most important people in the city,” Adam replied. “It doesn’t matter though, because you’ll be able to defeat his champion. Just make sure you kill him. The tournament format is first blood, but Alexander will bribe the announcer to ignore if his champion gets hit. For the other fights, you only need to draw blood, so it can be grazing strikes. We want to keep as many of the other fighters alive as possible, since they’ll help take down the intruder.”

“We are allowed to help with the intruder?” Chien asked.

Adam nodded. “It turns into a free-for-all at that point, basically. We might also have backup from the guards.”

They eventually returned to the main thoroughfare of Gothershall, which had banners lining the way towards the large stone arena. There were still many people coming in from outside the city when they arrived at the arena entrance. There was an attendant in a white robe accepting late entrants to the tournament and Natalia went over to him to sign up.

Diwa and Chien could technically enter as well, but it would see them pitted against each other, which was both dangerous and a waste of time.

The timing of the tournament no doubt served to distract the citizens of the city, many of whom would be fearful of the coming Shadow. Even if most thought they were safe behind the massive wall, it would be hard not to worry about their home ending up beleaguered by the enemy. Surprisingly, none of them thought they were in actual danger, which was in itself quite dangerous, since it made them complacent and unprepared.

With my mantle of atrophy, the true flame installed in the wall, and the forlorn intruder defeated, we must be able to repel the army.

Adam had no idea what would happen if they succeeded.

Although, the main threat of the stage wasn’t the army itself, but rather the Forlorn Shadow following them into previously safe parts of the stage. It would be able to make a new army out of anyone who perished inside its reach.

Hopefully the death of the forlorn herald will kill most of the soldiers, though I’ll have to collect all of their corpses before the Shadow revives them.

It seemed to only be players and forlorn knights that couldn’t be immediately absorbed by Adam’s raiment or manipulated by his powers, at least going by their encounter near the old church. He just hoped the same was true if the soldiers died within the Shadow’s reach.

< < Quest Unlocked > >

< The Gothershall Tournament >

< Win the Tournament >

< < Optional Stage Objective Updated > >

< Win the Gothershall Tournament >

Natalia returned to where Adam stood, deep in his own thoughts and plans. “You know what the fights will be, right?”

“I do,” he replied. “You will have breaks between matches, since the other participants also have to fight. The fights are guaranteed to follow a specific pattern so long as you don’t kill anyone.”

“But I should kill the big guy with the shield?” she asked for clarification.

“Definitely. He’ll try to kill you, and just making him bleed is not enough to force a win.”

“Who am I going up against first?” she asked as the five of them walked through a tunnel beneath the arena seats. An attendant waved them towards an opening that would allow them to find some available seats.

“A duellist,” Adam answered. “She uses a rapier but is lightly armoured. Don’t let her hit your sword or she’ll parry and disarm you. After that it’s an Elphin who uses a spear and is very aggressive. Next is a guy with a lantern shield, who uses his lantern to blind his opponents, and can block and attack simultaneously with his weapon. Then it’s the guard captain from Old Town, who is very good at parrying attacks, making him hard to hit. Lastly it’s the tower guard, who is encased in armour and is a lot faster than he looks. The final fight will be a fake-out leading to the forlorn invader’s appearance.”

As the others followed the attendant’s instructions, he stopped Natalia and said, “Fighters have to keep going down the tunnel. There will be a person at the end who explains the rules and tournament bracket.”

Natalia turned to look at Adam and Seo-Yoon who had stayed behind while Diwa and Chien found them a place to sit.

Her melody was filled with a kind of excitement that Adam associated with people who liked fighting. But she seemed unsure.

“You’ll be fine,” Adam told her. “If it looks like you might get injured, I’ll handle it. We’re not risking your life to bring out the intruder.”

“Still. In case something goes wrong, you should take this,” she said and handed them the oath ring.

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Since Adam couldn’t touch it, Seo-Yoon took it for now.

Natalia equipped her snap gauntlet in its place. Then she gave them a nod and continued down the tunnel. They watched her until she disappeared around a corner.

“She’ll be fine,” Seo-Yoon said.

“I think so too,” Adam replied. “The fights will be challenging, but she’s way stronger than the opponents.”

After all, Natalia had matched Adam’s amount of kills in Red Rian’s camp, despite his ranged advantage.

They went up and out of the tunnel, following the way the others had gone and emerging onto the eastern side of the arena, where rows of seats ringed around the sandy floor in the middle. Chien waved at them from the second row from the front where he’d found four suspiciously-vacant seats for them, despite almost every other place already being taken.

As Seo-Yoon and Adam sat down between the two of them, he was glad that they were able to get along despite what had happened the night before. Diwa’s melody was surprisingly calm.

She probably knows that Chien destroyed her helmet to save her, when she was too weak to save herself.

“What is the reward for winning the tournament?” Diwa asked.

“Fifteen-thousand Silvers and two upgrade chests,” Adam answered. “The intruder also drops his weapon if we defeat him permanently.”

“I will take care of that,” Chien promised.

“If you can’t, then I’ll bring his corpse to the true flame ensconced inside the city wall,” Adam replied.

“What about the things that are hunting Chien?” Diwa asked.

“I have an idea that might work,” Adam replied. “But we’ll have to leave the city to deal with them, since I doubt they’ll come close to the wall now. We’ll have to take them out before tonight, so we’re gonna end up being quite busy.”

“And then the army arrives tomorrow,” Diwa muttered, realising just how busy they were about to be.

“Since the Shadow will show up once we defeat the King in the Forlorn Castle, we want him to be as weak as possible,” Adam explained. “Every knight contains a part of the Shadow inside them, which is how they’re able to be revived until we burn them with the true flame.”

“Does that mean that we have a part of it inside us too?” Seo-Yoon asked.

Adam frowned. “I hadn’t thought of it that way. I don’t know the stage-specific reason, to be completely honest.”

“But regardless,” he continued, “defeating the knights is the best way to get a lot of points while making the final fight easier. Each permanent kill gives us an objective reward and a kill bonus.”

“How many are there in total?” Chien asked.

“Thirteen spread across ten objectives, I’m guessing,” he replied. “The only ones I wasn’t familiar with ahead of time are the ones hunting you. There’s three of them, but they’ll likely be treated as a single secret boss objective, which will be worth more. The objective for the intruder will be worth a bit less than the other knight objectives, since there’ll be quite a lot of allies to help deal with him.”

“You know how many points they give?” Diwa asked.

“For the most part,” Adam answered. “The objectives for the ones like the amalgamated knight and the ritualist will likely give five-hundred points, and each permanent knight kill also gives three-hundred. Given the requirements for triggering the amalgamated knight, we may be able to farm points that way, but I don’t know if it’s really worth it.”

“So, roughly eight-hundred points per knight?” Diwa asked.

“Something like that,” Adam replied. “Killing the elites is probably a lot easier if we want to farm points though, since they’re worth 150 each.”

“What about the demons?” Chien asked.

“They’ll be worth five-hundred,” Adam said.

“Have you done this before?” Seo-Yoon asked. “You know a lot.”

Adam shook his head. “This is my first time here,” he replied and it wasn’t a lie.

“Since Heiner is dead, the objectives will be worth more,” Chien commented, mostly speaking to himself.

Adam nodded. “A hundred points more for the knight objectives,” he answered.

“Unless more of us die,” Diwa remarked.

“No one else will die,” Adam told her.

“I will protect you,” Chien added.

Diwa frowned. “I don’t need your protection. I was talking about Natalia.”

“She’s not going to die,” Adam said.

A murmur went through the crowd as four figures appeared inside a fancy walled-off booth placed on the northern side of the arena seats. There were four highbacked wooden chairs with cushions prepared for them as they took their places. Amongst them was Alexander Tobias, the collector they’d made a bet with.

“What did you ask for in the wager?” Seo-Yoon asked. “Money?”

“A key for the Forlorn Castle’s dungeons,” Adam said. “One of the knights is a jailor, and there’s at least one secret to be found there. Something all of us could use.”

When Beck had told him about it, Adam knew it was likely one of the most important secrets for the entire rest of the Trials. Somehow, Emelia hadn’t known about it though, which made Adam realise just how lucky she’d been both times she’d gotten to the Singing City.

“Why would he have something like that?” Chien asked.

“Same reason why he has tomes of forbidden magic,” Adam said.

The other three figures seated next to the collector were old white-haired men, one of whom looked like a muscular warrior past his prime, another with a heavy-set body much like the collector, and lastly an emaciated man with tiny glasses perched on his nose.

“Are those the rulers of Gothershall?” Seo-Yoon asked.

“The city has a council of wise men, not rulers,” Adam told her. “But yes, they’re the ones in charge of the city. Alexander is the one handling the city’s money.”

“Of course the finance guy is the evil one,” Diwa said with a sour laugh.

Below the box with the four important men was a platform where a man in a jester’s outfit appeared, holding a cone-shaped thing in front of his mouth. It looked like a megaphone made of silver.

“It’s a magical object,” Seo-Yoon commented, just as the announcer’s voice cut through the chattering of the audience.

“Welcome, ladies and gentlemen, to the Gothershall Tournament!”

The crowd cheered, the sound deafening to Adam’s ears, though it fortunately didn’t interfere with his ability to sense blood melodies.

“Today we bring you fighters from lands afar and from the green hills just outside these walls. Some of our fighters will be familiar to those of you who watched last year, and I know you are all eager to see our champion take on this year’s challenger in the final match.”

“If we did things correctly, the champion won’t get to fight,” Adam told the others, although he wasn’t sure if they could hear him over the roaring audience.

“For our first match of the day, we have a traveller from afar taking on Lord Siberius’ granddaughter, Alicia. Will the unknown warrior be able to best the prodigal duellist? Let’s find out!”

The crowd stomped their feet as Natalia stepped out onto the sandy floor of the arena. Her posture was tense like a deadly spring.

From the opposite entrance came a young lady with her blonde hair set into a braid that slumped over her left shoulder to hang down in front of her chest. She wore a fancy blue shirt with frilly bits near her wrists, white dress pants, and lacquered black dress shoes. On her hip she carried a beautifully-crafted silver rapier.

“It looks like Natalia is the villain,” Diwa joked.

Adam could hardly disagree with that, given how Natalia wore the black jacket, shadowy cape, chimaera helmet, scale trousers, chain sleeves, the shapeshifter’s claw on her right hand and the snap gauntlet on her left, as well as the bladed mongoose chargers. Her potion belt was gone though, which meant it had likely been confiscated by the attendants.

People in hooded white robes with silver embellishments appeared inside the tunnels both fighters had emerged from, and Adam knew from Beck that they were healers from the church. They would be able to heal small injuries like cuts and bruises, but anything more they would struggle with. Adam swapped to his aspirant’s cowl, and sure enough, the robed people radiated holy mana.

“Shouldn’t we be betting on her?” Seo-Yoon asked.

“I don’t think we can,” Diwa replied as she looked around.

Around them, all the spectators were just watching the two fighters, and no money was changing hands. It was kind of odd, but it likely meant that gambling wasn’t allowed. Adam hadn’t even thought about it until now, but it seemed like a missed opportunity to double or triple their money.

The blonde duellist looked up to the booth with the four wise men, one of whom was presumably Lord Siberius. She raised her rapier to him and the crowd cheered.

“I will remind our fighters that the winner of every match is whoever draws first blood. We do not encourage killing your opponent, but we would also warn you to not let your guard down. Deaths have happened in this arena several times over the years, so matches are not without risk, despite the first blood rule. Should you happen to kill your opponent, you will not be punished, unless your opponent has already surrendered the match.

“Healers from the First Light’s Church are in attendance and will ensure that all wounds are seen to after each match, so hold nothing back.

“Given last year’s trouble, we have instituted a new rule this year which bans using the arena walls. Any fighter who touches the walls after the match has begun will be disqualified.

“And as usual, fighters using any form of magic will also be disqualified.

“Now then, with the boring stuff out of the way, stomp your feet and raise your voices for our opening match!

“Fighters! Begin!”