I fell delightedly into my seat, an absolute mountain of foodstuffs teetering dangerously on the plate in front of me. “Heeeeeeeeeeee~” I’ve been dreaming of this for the better part of a month now. “With trembling fingers, he grabbed an airfish sandwich, the sweetrose sauce glistened temptingly between soft bread and succulent airfish. Oh yes. He brought the sandwich to his –“

“Dude just eat the damn sandwich.” Julian sighed, collapsing into his own bench and snatching a beef sandwich from my pile.

“Fiiine.” I took a bite. “OHH WHAT IS THIS HEAVENLY FLAVOR.”

“Shove off mate, you’ve eaten that every day for the past week now.” Julian put his head on his hand and grumbled around his beef.

“True, but it tastes so much better now. Surely you know this immutable fact of the universe Jules? Free food tastes better.” I raised a cup of chef’s delight chowder and some tea and cackled.

“Fair enough. This chestnut and herb soup did have something of a flair when you were the one buying it.” Jules took a reflective sip from his own cup. “Anyway, have you finished preparing yet?” I finished my own cup before looking back at the diminishing tower of food.

“Hmmm. Well I don’t know. How much can I really prepare when we don’t know anything about it?” Jules, who had been downing his soup in a similar manner, choked, offering everyone at the table a light chestnut soup shower. “Thought you’d be better with swallowing warm fluids Jules.”

“Fuck…hugh…you.” Jules pounded his chest with his fist a few times while glaring at me. When he’d gotten his breath back he leaned on the table towards me. “We were told all about the trial two days ago in control class! You should know about it by now! Right Kel?” He directed the end of his sentence at the small elf sitting next to me, her black and green hunting blouse shockingly not stained by the impossible amount of food she had just stoLEN FROM MY PILE.

“KEL WHAT THE FUCK.”

“What?” She said, glancing sidelong at me while brushing a few crumbs off the table in front of her. “I thought your teacher told you so I didn’t think I had to.” She shrugged lightly and reached back across the table, aiming for a sweet roll. Not on my watch.

I slapped the offending hand with a spoon while arming myself with a pair of chopsticks. “I meant my food dammit.”

“Oh that~” She hummed innocently while parrying my fork with a knife, her other hand snaking through the opening bare inches from the sweetroll. I slammed the fork down, pinning her sleeve against the table. Her fingers trembled, straining against her clothes to reach her glistening treasures.

“Yeah so Piercil didn’t tell you anything?” Julian asked, a spoon flicking the sweetroll towards his mouth. Kel and I reacted at the same time, sending both knife and chopsticks to save the sweetroll. Our utensils collided with Julian’s own, flinging the roll straight up to the bright clinking of dropped silverware.

“No.” I grimaced, clutching my newly dislocated fingers.

“Fucking hell Jin.” Jules gasped as well while Kel repeatedly banged her head on the table in pain. Wait shit, the roll. I glanced up in time to see the roll fall into the waiting palm, and subsequently mouth, of Grey.

“Well..shck, shlup…we can fill you in quickly then.” Grey licked his lips and wiped his hands on a napkin. Prissy fuck. Stealing my roll. Your time will come, Grey. Dammit. I quickly used treatment on the three of us and gestured with my repaired fingers for Grey to continue.

“Well, in the simplest sense, it’s a combat trial.” Grey said after a short pause. “In a less simplistic sense, it’s a lying game I guess.” I raised an eyebrow at him.

“A lying game? In a magic school? Why?” Grey frowned and shook his head.

“Actually I know why.” We all turned to look at Julian. “It’s simple if you think about it. The magic academy gets a lot of its money from teaching hopefuls the magic novice skill and its derivatives, but they also get funded by grooming magicians.”

“What?” I tilted my head at Jules this time, trying to work out what he meant.

“You mean for the kingdom.” Kel leaned back and crossed her arms, an expression of ‘aha’ written on her face. I looked at Jules pleadingly. He smiled and continued.

“Yeah. Jin,” Jules looked back from Kel to me, “where do you think most of the magicians go after they get the skill from here? At least, the ones that aren’t already part of some group.” I hadn’t thought about it since I thought I was just gonna stay with the Assassin’s Guild.

“Don’t they just stay here?” I threw out a guess. Jules nodded while continuing.

“A few do, but most of the students here payed a lot of money to get a deceptively rare skill that everybody wants.” Jules threw a glance at Grey whose face lit up with the same epiphany that had hit Kel.

“Of course.”

“So you’re saying they look for someone who would pay them a lot to be not only powerful but smart right? Oh OH.” Jules lit up with a grin and he nodded as it hit me.

“Yep. They compete.” It was something I had learned about this world while at the Assassin’s guild. Mari, the secretary, taught me about the world while Cat taught me how to fight, and she taught me about something called the Festival of Champions.

“The Festival of Champions?” I glanced up from my sloppy notes, my exhaustion adding a tremble to my handwriting that no amount of focus could amend. Mari was standing in front of a wall in her study covered in maps and notes.

“Yes. It’s a competition between all the nations on our world. At least, we believe so as we haven’t discovered any that don’t participate.” Mari held a short baton up to the map on the wall and grabbed a book off her desk with her other hand. The black skirt and elbow length white blouse she wore matched with her square glasses and ponytail, making her look even more like a secretary than the first time I’d seen her. “As you can see, we haven’t yet moved past the great seas and found any continents beyond this one.”

“So…if everyone participates, who’s the referee? Also what do they fight for?” I squinted back at my terrible notes then glanced up at Mari, who in turn smiled and patted my head.

“Ohhh! It’s so nice having a bright student for once! Do you have any idea how long Cat took to ask that question?” She leaned in conspiratorially, “Two weeks. She didn’t realize they weren’t just fighting for fun for two weeks. Wanna know how long Boss took?”

“The gods.” A gruff voice reverberated suddenly through the small room. In the corner, Luan pushed off the wall, uncrossing his arms and moving next to the map on the wall.

“Ah! That’s…yes the gods are the ones who referee the Festival.” Mari quickly sped behind her desk and tried to look professional: very successfully I might add. Luan rose one thick eyebrow at her while she very pointedly studied the floor.

“Yes. And they compete for power.” Luan directed his gaze at me, “power, land, wealth, a wish…anything really. The winner can’t choose their reward, but the reward is always worth the price to win it.” Luan turned toward the map on the wall then called out to me. “So Kid. Knowing this, what stands out to you about the countries on this map?” I leaned over to see past Luan and noticed a problem immediately.

“That one on the North coast, it’s way bigger than the others. Shouldn’t they have an advantage in the Festival? I mean, unless every country sends one guy or something.” Luan grinned over his shoulder.

“A bright student indeed.” He turned back around. “That country is Eredin. In the past, it won seven festivals in a row and were rewarded every time with land.” Luan flipped the map up, revealing underneath an older map with Eredin barely half the size of Taron, about the size of a grapefruit on the ten foot square map.

“What? Land? How is that possible?” I focused on the map. No matter what was said at some big competition, moving borders shouldn’t be that easy.

“A good question. You’ve seen the great mountains that surround Taron, correct?” I nodded. “They separate nearly every country on this continent, and when Eredin won, they moved.” I widened my eyes at that. Those mountain ranges weren’t just piles of rock. I’d never seen Mount Everest, but I’d seen pictures and I don’t think I’d be exaggerating to say you fit twelve of it in one of those mountains.

“That’s…that’s…” Luan nodded and leaned back on Mari’s desk.

“That’s why we say the gods are the ones in charge of the festival. No other power we’ve ever seen could cause such an impossible change at a whim. Mari will fill you in on the structure of the Festival.” Luan waved a hand and started off towards the door.

“Yes Boss!” Mari fired off a salute and stood back up from behind her desk. While she was walking back to the map Luan leaned down to me.

“I asked the same day. I was just tired so I took a nap first.” With that, he wandered out the door. Heh. Sure thing, Boss.

“Alrighty Mr. Jin, this is how the Festival works…”

Basically, if I remember correctly, the Festival is divided into a bunch of different competitions. There are individual fights, massive wars with no limits on people, competitions of strategy and speed, magic and cunning, technology and design, monsters and survival, and even a cooking battle. The Festival demands a country to bring everything they are to bear and throw it against their enemies.