I walked towards the castle that I could see a good distance away. Along the way, I smelled many delicious fragrances coming from shops selling food and other items. I walked down the clean cobblestone street eyeing the shops lined up in rows on either side. I expected there to be adventurers in this world, but I guess the Knights Order is good enough. I knew this because there was not a single sign of any person wearing adventurer like gear around, and there were only signs posted everywhere advertising positions in the Knight Order. I even saw a few alleyways littered with recruitment flyers.

The recruitment advertisements everywhere gave me an idea. Why don’t I try to infiltrate the kingdom from the inside? The reactions of the knights and royal family are going to be 100 times better if it’s someone they trusted instead of an outsider that betrays them. Just thinking about the outcome pumped me so full of energy that I almost formed a cruel smirk on my face, but that would have been embarrassing so I managed to catch myself. Soon, my thoughts were quickly occupied by my plan.

A sign said that the Knight’s Order was hiring talented new recruits to directly serve under the royal family. If you could get promoted to a high enough rank, you could even become the king’s personal guard! Pretty amazing if you admired the royal family, but it was different for me. This was the perfect opportunity to fulfill my goal! I had to seize this chance and deal as much damage as possible to this city that the king and his family resides in.

“Perfect,” I whispered happily.

Surprisingly, the way the new recruits were chosen was through a battle royale that would be located at the Knight’s Arena. On a side note, almost everything is named after the knights, pretty shameless huh. Back on topic, the last 5 people standing would be accepted for there were only 5 positions available. Luckily, the location was nearby because I had seen a huge arena like structure on my walk, and the tournament was set to begin in… 2 hours! I got to hurry up if I want to register in time! I sprinted towards the arena while people nearby looked at me weirdly. I didn’t mind it though, getting there on time was more important than opinions of people I don't even know.

I noticed that I was barely fatigued after that sprint, it was a expected change though. My MP is at 10000, so if I couldn’t handle a sprint, there would definitely be something wrong. Upon my arrival, I was taken by surprise by the sheer size of the arena. It rivaled a few of the largest sports centres back on Earth. There were an overwhelming number of people around, most of them were wearing armour and holding a weapon of some sort. To my left, a long line of people were lined up beside a sign printed with the word registration on it.

That might be where I need to go to sign up for this tournament. Uncommon to light novels I’ve read, no one disturbed me with the registration process. Everything went smoothly and there was even a festive mood in the air. This event must be pretty popular for so many people to come to either participate or watch. Is occupying a position in the Knight’s Order that prestigious? Apparently, it is because I heard a bunch of participants talking about the good pay and all the women that would come flocking to you upon your acceptance. That wasn’t what I was participating for, fulfilling my goal was my aim.

After the smooth sign up, I was directed towards the waiting area for participants. Approximately 2 hours later, the battle royale finally commenced and the competitors walked onto the field. I didn’t want to familiarize myself with anyone else, because it was going to be useless anyways. They weren’t going to be vital to my plan, only the four other winners could be considered actually having some importance. I needed to hold back on using my powers. I still don’t know what they do, but they must be very strong. I don’t want to accidentally kill somebody with chaos magic right? The chaos mixed in the air vibrated as if responding to my question, pretty ominous if you asked me.

“Hey, nice to meet you fellow contender. Wish you the best of luck in this battle!” greeted a joyous young man. He had blond hair, and seemed like the open type that is loved by everyone. He was pretty fit with a dashing smile on his face, and a decent looking dagger was hanging on his waist. I even spotted a group of girls giving glances towards him and giggling to themselves.

“Nice to meet you to. Hope you do well too,” I responded, trying to match his positive tone.

He must be popular, he does seem like he has a good personality. I wouldn’t be surprised if he managed to be one of the five that won the battle royale, he definitely has a personality fit for the role anyways. His strength, that’s a different story. I will only be able to assess that during the battle.

“I’m just going around greeting everyone. I wish that we can all be friendly with each other even if some of us don’t make the cut,” mentioned the blond man. “My name is Dochet by the way. What’s yours?”

“Nice goal you have there,” I said as I thought of how to respond. Should I tell him me real name or make myself an alias in this city? The alias should be the safer choice, even if no one knows my name anyways since I’m from a different world.

“My name is Damon,” I replied. “It’s nice to meet you Dochet.” I decided on Damon because it was the first thing that came to my mind. Meaning wise, it didn’t mean anything. I kind of just took Dochet’s name and added and took out a few letters.

“Glad I got to talk to you. I need to go introduce myself to some others. See you in the battle and hope we both manage to win!”

Little did he know, I basically had an 100% chance of winning this. Who could rival these secret powers I got from the system anyways? That’s why I didn’t even think about what kind of hidden intentions that man had for going around getting friendly with everyone. What he planned on doing wouldn’t work against me anyways. Speaking of my powers...

{Ryan’s Stat Page}

10000

[Active Skills]

Stealth (MAX)

[Passive Skills]

Absolute Defense (MAX) Absolute Strength (MAX) Mastery of Weapons (MAX) Manipulation of Chaos Energy (MAX) Persuasion (MAX) Resistance (MAX) MP Recovery (MAX)

|Demon Synchronization| (0.3%)

My Demon Synchronization has gone up. I can assume that it increases along with when I use my powers. I haven’t used my skills at all since that Laboratory Cell experimentation incident. That may be why the percentage hasn’t risen that much, but I still can’t determine if this may be a horrible thing or a great one.

I turned my head and looked around to try to size up some of the other contenders, while walking towards a shady area away from the sun. There were many contenders with very buff bodies, but through my chaos manipulation I was actually able to gauge their actual power level. By looking at multiple power levels, I learned that the average was about 50, and anything in the 70+ region meant that the person was fairly strong.

“Hm, that guy is a petty 10 while that guy is average at 48,” I wondered aloud. I might want to try this scouting on that guy from before but he’s already long gone. Probably crowded by fans—mostly girls by now.”

I looked through the waiting crowd of participants, but after my minutes of searching. I only found about 1 or 2 people worth keeping my eye on. There was this one boy that looked to be about 16 or 17 that had a power level of 85. He was about one head shorter than me and had light brown hair, and a bow was strapped on his back. He was the strongest I’ve seen out of everyone so far. I didn’t know the Knight’s Order accepted archers, but now I know it’s allowed. There was another guy that looked like a wrestler, bulging muscles on his whole body and bald, but no weapons anywhere. This guy’s fighting style must be specialized in hand to hand combat is what I deduced. With a power level of 78, he might be a challenge for the other contestants. But now that I think about it, what’s my power level? By surrounding myself with the chaos energy, I was able to gauge my strength…

...and it was a whopping 1578.

Damn, guess this power is for real. I really could rival the strength of a kingdom, and even onesidely slaughter them if I wanted to. I bathed in my thoughts for some time until the sound signaling the start of the battle royale started. All the participants started entering the arena one by one until everyone was situated in the ring. The ring was bigger than a football field, which was definitely needed to contain all the people partaking in this tournament. There were thousands of people watching in normal seats, and then there was one isolated area. It had red, silk drapes on the side of this area, and a roof on top. There were even a few thrones, which made me think this was the VIP section. Or the designated area for the judges of this event. Gold lined robes were worn by the people sitting in the VIP seats and a few other noble looking people were sitting to the sides in similar looking clothes.

Once everyone was done filing into the ring, a man started announcing the rules. No killing, only knocking out others, and the use of underhanded techniques such as poison is prohibited. Everything else was allowed and the battle didn’t have a time limit. It only ended once there were only 5 people still standing in the ring. And just like that, the man started the battle royale which would decide who gets to occupy a position in the Knight’s Order.