As they enter the arena, they’re hit by the cheers from the audience. The waves of encouragement crash into them, and Sen is amazed. He’s seen some pretty big crowds before when played Gladiator, but they seem to have expanded the instance of the arena to the point where there are at least a few tens of thousands people watching.

Admittedly, he can look at the viewer count and see that there are just over a billion people watching at this point in time in between all the instances, but the numbers just don’t hit him the same way the physical crowd does.

After the group is finished gaping at the crowd, the each do a little ritual to calm down, most of the taking deep breaths of practice swings, while Sen shrugs his shoulder harness onto the ground and carefully draws his blade from it, reveling in the sensation of metal sliding from the oiled leather.

The walls of light go down, and they see the enemy team has gone with the five fighters and one array user that seems to be the most common in the final tournament. Sen recognizes the group as one of the top teams on Iowes. While he can’t name any of them, Lynna looks very excited to be fighting against them.

The enemy team, likely having watched one of their earlier matches, doesn’t sit around defending their array user, and charge in the second the walls of light go down. Sen and the group go to meet them in close combat, and when Sen slams his sword into the fighter using a spear and shield, his opponents shield only budges a tiny amount.

Sen gapes, his opponent has to be at the very very top of rank C, if not already rank B in strength. With his opponents return thrust with his spear, Sen finds out that his strength isn’t an outlier in stats, but his speed is significantly faster than Sen’s as well.

Sen is stuck fighting in a very careful manner, using Earth Step along with Gale Steps in order to keep a bit of range, and striking out at his opponent from the edge of his range, his long sword reaching a bit further than his opponent’s short spear, each of the knives being easily blocked, even when they come from tricky angles. Looking around, he sees that he’s not the only one outmatched.

Xue is trading blows pretty evenly with her opponent, but he has a slight edge in speed, and is using it to take advantage of the fight. Kang is getting beaten pretty badly by the woman he’s facing, barely able to hold on, while Jennifer is in an even worse position than Kang. Lynna seems to be playing a bit hesitant, and it’s making her do even worse than she would otherwise.

Not even Julie has an advantage. While her arrays are better than her opponent, her opponent apparently has a higher speed stat, as he’s able to lay out arrays a good deal faster. Sen’s focus is grabbed back to the fight as he has to dodge to the right to avoid a thrust towards his heart. He still takes a blue line across his chest, and he grimaces. He’s going to run out of energy if this keeps up.

Even with his control over the wind and wind element body enhancement skills, his opponent who seems to be using water type body enhancement skills has the edge in speed. Sen continues to parry the blows, using his pommel and the wind to blunt the occasional shield bash as well. Eventually, he takes some distance and sends his wind ball flying towards his opponent. He grins as he sees him stumble, but is forced to dodge to the side as the person Kang had been facing comes in from the side with a stab of her spear.

It doesn’t seem to be going to well for the group, as even when Lynna finishes her slowing array, her opponents are barely slowed, and while Sen may have been able to keep up with his first opponent due to the slow, he’s now facing two people.

It takes only a few more minutes until Sen runs out of energy, and looks around to see that all of the other opponents had finished their respective fights, simply watching him die to the two players he’s been fighting. As he turns to blue sparkles, his point of view remains in the arena as he sees his opponents give a bow of respect.

They exit the arena, and for once, Lynna looks more excited than annoyed after a loss.

“We just fought Sovereign! Sen, you got to play against Instant!”

“Should I know them?”

Lynna give him a flat stare. “They were the champions of Last World Online PVP for the last three years? Instant is generally considered the best player in the world by most people.”

Sen nods, Instant had been as skilled as Sen. Even without his advantage in stats, Sen probably would have lost, simply due to using a greatsword rather than a single handed weapon and shield, but Sen has no intentions of changing his weapon. Let alone the fact that he is more skilled with it, it’s far more useful for hunting monsters.

In other games, playstyles such as dual daggers and large two handed weapons are supported by skills and stats so they’re more viable, but in a completely realistic game like this, a shield will give you a significant advantage.

The group is interrupted by their AI guides, who helpfully inform them that they’ve all earned three B ranked cores, ten C ranked cores, and fifty practically useless D rank cores, which they all agree to trade in for contribution points.

The group chats for a bit, before agreeing to go meet up offline for some celebratory frozen treats. By the time they meet up, Sen is practically shoved into the seat next to Xue by Lynna, and the two turn a little red.

After their shaved snow, they stay for a bit chatting, until Sen and Lynna have to head back for dinner. They each get a farewell hug from the other members, Xue lingering a bit with Sen.

“I… I’ll see you later Sen.”

“Yeah, you too Xue.”

Lynna can be heard snickering in the background of the two feeling awkward. They part, each with a hint of red on their face. Sen wonders for a bit how Xue manages to be a innocent when it comes to relationships as she is, but figures he has no ground to stand on.

At dinner, Sen and Lynna share their success with the rest of their family, and their father seems to be surprisingly excited to hear they’ve done so well, giving them more congratulations than they deserve, leading Sen to wonder why the hell it’s so important that they got second in the tournament.

Before bed, Sen reads most of one of the novels he’d gotten for his birthday before caring for the sword he’d gotten for his birthday, even though he’s not sure if it even can rust.