I wake up to the feeling of someone shaking me rather violently. I can feel the light coming through the window heating up the room as I hear them fly open.

“Ugh, Nazuko cut it out, I exist for sleep,” I grumble as I turn away from the light.

“It's not Nazuko you twat!”

I open my eyes to see an elven girl with brown hair staring me in the face.

“Oh it's just Remi, thank god it's not someone telling me it's their turn to train me.”

“No, because today’s a special day, no training is needed. Wanna guess what day it is or have you already forgotten?”

“Well since it's you waking me up today, Happy Birthday Remi, now let me go back to sleep,” I say, still half asleep and bringing the covers over my head.

A now annoyed Remi summons her elemental spirit which picks me up and walks me to the balcony, holding me over the edge. The blankets fall and I’m left staring at the city of Colonus.

“Are things starting to ring a bell yet?” Remi questions.

“Um, today's the day the tournament starts isn’t it.”

“That’s right, the opening ceremony is today. Did you forget that Azura told us to meet up an hour before the ceremony starts outside the stadium?”

“I didn’t forget I just thought someone would have woken me up before then, what time is it anyway? Also where is Nazuko, she should have woken me up right?”

“It’s half past 9 and Nazuko is probably out there taking advantage of the ceremony stealing stuff right now. If she told you what she was up to you probably would have stopped her. Now get dressed, the ceremony starts in half an hour,” Remi commanded as her elemental tossed me back on the bed.

I run around the room looking for my leather armor set as I still haven’t gotten my old set repaired by Vulcan yet.

“Where is that armor set? I can’t seem to find it in the closet,” I mumbled.

I stumble around looking at every possible place it could be until I look at the blue slime sleeping on my table.

“Blue did you eat it,” I accuse the slime as I pick it up and start shaking it.

“Blue? You seriously couldn’t think of a better name for it?” Remi began.

“The name is a work in progress. Now spit out the armor,” I commanded.

After vigorously shaking the slime it ends up spewing out the armor set as well as a bunch of other clothing I own. The darn slime seems to love eating clothing, I have no idea why. The problem now is all that clothing is now covered in a thick viscous slime.

“Ugh, you really gonna wear that?” Remi asked, disgusted by the amount of slime on the armor.

I take a few moments to stare at the armor,

“Um, I guess I don’t really need the armor, it's just the opening ceremony right? Are there even fights today?” I ask Remi.

“Luckily for you I don’t think so, it's just the emperor giving out a long speech while also explaining the rules. I then think there’s supposed to be a cultural festival that happens on the first day.”

“Thank god. Now Blue, stop eating all my clothes and eat the food I actually gave you for once!” I ordered as I put it back down. The blue slime goes back to sleep after being placed back on the desk. It seems like it turned a much lighter color after spewing out all its contents onto my floor.

I put on a tan shirt and pants before heading out to the balcony, climbing onto the railing.

“What are you doing?” Remi questioned.

“We’re going to the stadium aren’t we? Come on, let's go.”

“Umm, the castle portals are on the bottom floor though.”

“Why use those when you have someone who can make portals standing in front of you? Come on, don’t you trust me?” I ask her.

“You first.”

“Fine by me.”

I stare at Remi and fall off the balcony backwards into a portal that leads to the stadium. I fall through and crash right into a crowd of people lined up in front of the stadium. Moments later Remi falls through landing on me and the group of people I landed on.

“Ugh, shoulda just taken the portals in the castle,” I groaned.

“Told you so.”

I get up from a pile of bodies I created, apologize to the innocent bystanders and take a moment to take in my surroundings. There’s a series of stalls set up outside the stadium offering food and other commodities. The crowd of people here is so dense that I’m barely able to keep track of Remi. I see long strings of pennants guiding people on where to go as well as a large gaudy statue of the emperor holding his sledgehammer over his shoulder.

“I bet the Emperor is already inside the stadium. From the past recordings I’ve seen of this event, he gets way too excited for these things,” Remi comments.

“Yeah well I’d be excited too if I wasn’t the one doing the fighting,” I responded.

Remi and I wait in line for like 5 minutes before realizing we are not going to make it in before the damn thing starts.

“Hey we’re gonna be late at this rate!” I complained.

“And whose fault was that?” Remi says with a hint of sass.

“Damn, can’t we just skip the line, don’t we have like fighter’s privilege or something?”

“I swore this line was a lot shorter an hour ago when I was with the rest of the party,” Remi noted.

I look over the shoulder of the person in front of me to see Willow and what seems like a few other guild’s managers taking tickets at a snail's pace.

“Hey I just had a brilliant idea, if I don’t show up to the ceremony on time, does that mean I’m disqualified?”

“I don’t think Armstrong is going to let that happen. You know what, let’s just hop over.”

“Hop over what? The line?”

“No, I have a different idea in mind. Follow me.” Remi instructed as she led us to a grass clearing away from the massive line.

She summons her 20 ft tall elemental spirit and climbs onto its hand. She then signals for me to do the same. I slowly climb onto the palm of the elemental, grabbing onto its branch like hands.

“Ok so I’m guessing the plan is to have your behemoth run through the crowd right?”

“No! Do you want to get in trouble for attacking the public... again?” Remi emphasized.

“So what I don’t see where this is GOING-”

I’m interrupted as the forest elemental aggressively throws us into the sky, easily clearing the top of the stadium. From the sky we see the stadium is filled to the brim with people, only the topmost sections haven't been filled in yet. The stadium is structurally similar to the Colosseum except a bit larger in size. I see several banners laid out in front of the seats each representing the guild’s symbols. 7 symbols for the 7 guilds and 7 states arranged in this order: (Ayana: Kraken),( Astus: Basilisk),( Atrad: Griffin), (Oclana: Unicorn), (Zefren: Angel), (Dreden: Dragon), (Albium: Leviathan).

I can identify the people who are rooting for each guild as a lot of them are donning memorabilia or clothing matching the guilds symbol. It seems that people from different states are being separated from one another so as to not cause fights in the stands. In the middle section dividing the stands is an area I presume is where the emperor will be seated as a large throne occupies that space. Our wide view of the stadium narrows as Remi and I end up crashing into a group of people once again causing a big pile up.

“Ow, Remi, could you give me a little more warning next time?” I complained.

“Oh come on, you get chucked into the sky like every Tuesday,” Remi exasperated.

“And that’s the problem.”

We look around and apparently we’ve crash landed in the area of the Krakens as we see the symbol of the large sea monster displayed before us. A bunch of men in martial art gi’s can be seen flexing their muscles in an attempt to impress the people from Ayana. I think I can see how Sirius was able to fit in with these people, they’re all buff as hell.

“Remi, I think I’m starting to feel inadequate.”

“I mean you got a little bit of muscle here and there,” She says trying to comfort me.

I noticed that the fighters from the other guilds were attempting to intimidate one another through their appearance and presence. I could feel more than a dozen auras sprout up as Remi and I made our way through the stands. Part of me is starting to think that not wearing my armor was a bad idea.

“Anyways, where are we supposed to meet everyone else? Also we were supposed to meet up with Quincy’s group, right?”

“I didn’t see them when I went to fetch you, but they must have met up with Azura and Ryder by now. Let’s check the area where Dragon’s Descent is. Azura is probably seated near the top.”

“Why the top?”

“I figure you haven’t seen one of these things before. Blood, magic attacks, weapons, and arrays of magical creatures tend to get flung into the stands during the fights. Also there’s a tendency for fights to occur the lower down you sit.”

“That sounds incredibly dangerous, fighter and audience included,” I noted.

“Yeah there’s supposed to be a forcefield that gets set up to protect the audience but every year some attack of immense power ends up destroying it and the staff can’t keep up with the maintenance as the tournament goes on, so stuff leaks through. I only got to see it through a recording, but you should see the last Skirmish, someone ended up flinging an entire spirit whale into the stands. The emperor ended up throwing it back in at the fighter who did though,” Remi added.

“They threw an entire whale!?” I gasped.

“That one’s actually quite tame, considering no one in the audience died from that. Some people did get hospitalized though. One important thing to note is that if you willingly use an attack that can intentionally endanger the audience then that’s a means for disqualification.”

“Huh, so just asking but let's say if I were to ‘accidentally’ use my tornado spell in the middle of the arena and people happen to get sucked in, does that count as a disqualification?”

“P-Probably not?! I don’t think you should try it. Do you want to destroy the arena?”

“No, but I have a feeling it's gonna get destroyed long before I get the chance.”

Eventually we walk over to the top seats where we see Azura, Ryder and Lilith. I see Quincy's group there along with them. Quincy as usual has his face buried in a book, Warren just has this thousand yard stare like he normally does. Akane and Nerva are busy trying to entertain a... child? And last and least Adam is being… beat up as… entertainment for the child? I’m not sure if I should ask about that. Azura and Lilith are both donning T-shirts representing Dragon’s Descent on them while Ryder has a dragon hat on. I do notice that Ryder’s cannon is taking up an entire seat and has a Dragon’s Descent T-shirt on top of it.

“Even the cannon gets a shirt?!” Remi says as we walk up to them.

“Look if the cannon didn’t get a shirt, that would be a crime,” Ryder answered firmly.

“Nazuko still is nowhere to be found, huh,” I say, noting her absence.

“Oh I’m sure that we’ll see a trace of her around here soon,” Azura said grumpily.

“Yep we’re gonna have to end up fishing her out of the dungeon or something,” Lilith agreed.

“Well if she does get caught then we can take our time getting her back out. Let’s say we wait a few years,” Remi jokes.

I feel a small sense of vindictiveness in her voice that implies she may not be entirely joking.

I take a seat right next to Azura and Quincy as I lean in trying to get his attention.

“Hi Quincy.”

“....”

“Oh hi Will,” he says with a delayed reaction as it took him nearly a minute to notice my presence.

“So did you also do any involuntary training for the tournament?” I asked him.

“Yee maybe. I feel like all I did was run around a lot and now I know how to clean things with attention to detail. Also I have a newfound hatred for sand,” Quincy said.

“Sand. It's rough, coarse, and it gets everywhere.”

“I hate it, no more sand. What about you, what did you do to prepare for the tournament?” Quincy asks, turning the question to me.

“Well I punched trees. Over and over again. I defended my (not) future marriage from a bunch of suitors and got beat up by Lilith’s buff mom. I don’t think I like meeting people’s parents in this world,” I griped.

“Speaking of parents, I happened to get quite associated with one rather recently,” he mentions.

“Oh who did you get the pleasure of meeting?”

“Look down there near the bottom seats. Do you see that man sitting near Armstrong in the cowboy hat with his legs crossed?”

“Yeah, what about him?”

“Take a guess, what’s your first impression?”

I think I’m gonna cheat a little bit and take a more educated guess.

“Mythril, give me a report on the guy in the cowboy hat,” I mentally whispered.

“Power Analysis threshold has been surpassed.”

Name

Jack

Class:

?̵̖͔͓̤̗͇̗́̅̒͜?̶̢̛̘̪̫͕͍̝̦̏͛̋̌̅͑̏͊̋?̶̱̈́̌̕?̴̲̭͓̞̎͒́̑?̵̡̮͚̘̲̦̫̆͐̉̐̾͊̋͌͆̐̆̑̕͘͝ͅͅ

Element:

?̵̖͔͓̤̗͇̗́̅̒͜?̶̢̛̘̪̫͕͍̝̦̏͛̋̌̅͑̏͊̋?̶̱̈́̌̕?̴̲̭͓̞̎͒́̑?̵̡̮͚̘̲̦̫̆͐̉̐̾͊̋͌͆̐̆̑̕͘͝ͅͅ

Defense Level:

?̵̖͔͓̤̗͇̗́̅̒͜?̶̢̛̘̪̫͕͍̝̦̏͛̋̌̅͑̏͊̋?̶̱̈́̌̕?̴̲̭͓̞̎͒́̑?̵̡̮͚̘̲̦̫̆͐̉̐̾͊̋͌͆̐̆̑̕͘͝ͅͅ

Aura and Magic:

?̵̖͔͓̤̗͇̗́̅̒͜?̶̢̛̘̪̫͕͍̝̦̏͛̋̌̅͑̏͊̋?̶̱̈́̌̕?̴̲̭͓̞̎͒́̑?̵̡̮͚̘̲̦̫̆͐̉̐̾͊̋͌͆̐̆̑̕͘͝ͅͅ

“Welp, that's just great. Another freak with currently incalculable power. I guess if you were unable to calculate Archer’s level of power, then this man must far surpass him.”

“I cannot give an accurate estimate on his strengths and abilities. However, if I am to make a judgement… I would say that man is comparable to the one you call Armstrong.”

“What? He’s comparable to Armstrong?”

I take another look at the man more intently and by some strange occurrence he somehow turns his head in our direction, and tips his cowboy hat. That alone somehow caused a spark to go off in my head as my instinct ability subconsciously activated.

“I’m gonna take a guess and say that since he’s an associate of Armstrong, he’s probably similar in strength to him,” I tell Quincy with my new found assumption.

“Lucky guess, anyways that guy is actually Adam’s dad,” Quincy revealed.

“No way, that guy is like a million times stronger than Adam. I thought Adam would come from a line of regular people.”

“Adam is like the runt of the litter. No, that’s the guy who made me develop my hatred for sand and made me clean the guild like 20 times.”

“So that’s the cleaning warden huh. I could do that in like 10 seconds using my portals,” I stated.

“And that’s the worst part. We had to do it all without aura or magic. So there I was handicapped, slightly blind and in pain because he made us wear these heavy vests while doing it,” Quincy complained.

“Yikes, sounds painful. At least you didn’t get beat up by a buff mom though. The only parental figure I need to deal with is this one right here,” I say as I put my arm around Azura in camaraderie.

Slightly annoyed Azura removes my arm before pinching me in the cheek.

“OW.”

“I am not your mom! Anyways, what happened Will? I thought we agreed to meet up outside the stadium an hour before the ceremony started?” Azura reminds me.

“Hey listen, I have this alarm clock, her name is Nazuko. When I woke up there was only Remi and the slime.”

“Maybe the slime ate Nazuko? What if Nitro is a man eating slime,” Ryder suggested.

“Nitro?”

“Yeah man, sounds like a cool name for a slime right?”

“Yeah, but I’m still working on a name. I’ll come up with it eventually. You know, I tried to make Blue do that in the past. The slime only eats clothing for some reason.”

“I wonder why Aqua prefers a diet of purely apparel,” Lilith says.

“Aqua?” Remi questions.

“You know because it's the same color of water and it's slimy.” She explained.

I am on the same wavelength as Lilith so I have no right to criticize that decision. At this rate that slime will never end up getting named.

My train of thought is immediately cut off as loud trumpets begin to blare as a marching band walks through using the back entrance to the stadium.

“Oh guys it's finally starting,” Azura announced.

At that same moment I see a large black and red dragon fly overhead before seeing a figure drop overhead from the sky. The familiar visage of the emperor soon landed in the area right before the throne. At that same moment a display of hard light appeared in various areas around the stadium showing a focus on Emperor Marcus’ face. He was donning his signature golden suit of armor as his red cape flowed in the breeze behind him. The Emperor’s loud laughter echoed through the stadium as he took in the festive atmosphere. The crowds cheered as the emperor made his appearance, the mood turned from confrontational to jubilant in an instant.

“Hello everyone, it is with great pleasure that I stand before all of you today. For this is the 277th Westphalian Grand Skirmish,” the Emperor boisterously began.

“Man the emperor has a lot more energy than usual today,” I remarked.

“It must be because of the tournament, he’s like a little kid on boxing day,” Azura responded.

“Boxing day? The Canadian holiday?”

“Canadian? What’s that? Boxing day is another event involving boxers duking it out on a national broadcast. Quite violent,” she lectured.

The emperor stood up and picked up his sledgehammer right next to him. He raised it up over his shoulder as he continued his speech.

“I would now like to announce the seven guilds that will be participating in this year’s Skirmish. First starting off with the guild from the fertile farmlands and the large coastal state of Ayana. We have the mighty Krakens Deep!”

The displays suddenly change focus as the Kraken guild is now highlighted as the guild leader and all the guild member’s stand up and start flexing.

“Wow, just look at those muscles. Certainly a guild with well built bodies.”

The display then flashes back to the Emperor who prepares to announce the next guild.

“Next we have the guild from the rocky mountain state of Ascus. Let’s have an applause for the menacing Basilisk’s Gaze.”

The display changes, focusing on the unfazed looks coming off of the members of the Basilisk guild. The guild leader simply adjusts his tie and puts his gloved hands in his pocket giving off a smug look as a wry smile forms on his face.

“Look at that smile, I can feel the confidence from here,” Marcus complimented.

The emperor took a moment to let the cheering subside before announcing the next guild.

“Following that we have the folks from the arid desert state of Atrad, let’s give it up for Griffin’s Nest!” The emperor bellowed.

The display flashes once more, focusing on the stoic looks of the Griffin guild members.

“Ooo what could the members of Griffin's Nest be thinking right now. Ways to defeat their enemies in one swift attack I bet,” Marcus states.

Some of the members of Griffin’s Nest are wearing desert turbans covering their faces apart from their eyes so it's a bit hard to tell if they have any expression at all.

“After that, representing the land of magic aplenty, Oclana, we have the fabulous Unicorn Wonderland!”

Accompanying the usual display change, an array of rose petals and glitter falls from the sky as the members of Unicorn Wonderland start posing. I feel like throwing up in my mouth, but I barely manage to keep it in.

“Look at them go, Oclana never ceases to capture everyone’s attention. I’m simply taken aback by their beauty right now.”

There’s a strange mix of cheering and booing but it seems to cancel each other out. This gets interrupted as the emperor sneezes due to the glitter and he opens a portal to suck in all the small particles.

“Achooo! Sorry about that, I guess I took in the beauty of Unicorn’s Wonderland a bit too literally.”

An attendant rushes in to give Marcus a handkerchief as he prepares to announce the next guild.

“Descending from the Northern state of Zefren, we have the Punishing Angel’s Folly.”

The sky darkens before a ray of light focuses on the Zefren guild members.

The members of Zefren’s guild unsheath a bunch of weapons en masse, such that the light reflecting off them is blinding.

“Look at that folks, don’t blink or you’ll miss the Angel’s shining radiance,” the emperor complimented.

The sky lightens and everybody can finally see again.

“Coming from the state of technological marvels we have the majestic Leviathan’s Throne of Albium!”

The hard light display is suddenly modified as a solid 360 degree metal screen appears showing the members of Leviathan’s Throne wearing what looks like a metal exoskeleton. The light reflecting off their suits is almost blinding and flashy.

“Their technology changes every year, who knows what we’ll see from Albium’s greatest engineers this year.”

Out of all the guild members I’ve seen thus far, them and the Unicorns are certainly the most unique.

“And last but certainly not least, representing the home state of Colonus, we have Dreden and the Furious Dragon’s Descent.”

Suddenly all the other guild members of Dragon’s Descent, whom I don’t recognize, start yelling a war cry at the top of their lungs.

“Ah Quincy no one told us we had to yell. Quick yell something stupid!”

“Rawr,” Quincy quickly says.

“Gao,” I say sarcastically.

“You two, really aren’t feeling the spirit of the tournament are you?” Azura says as she facepalms.

“Nope.”

“Not really.”

It's a good thing our meager yells got drowned out by the sound of the more enthusiastic members of our guild.

“YEAH F*CKING DRAGON’S DESCENT LET’S F*CKING GOOOOOOO!!!” Nerva yelled as she tossed Adam into the sky and shot fire from her hands.

“AAAAAAAHHHHHHHHH!!!” Adam screamed in terror.

Ryder also shot a small firework into the air that exploded beside him.

The display then shot up to capture Adam as the violent eruption of aura and explosives shot up from our guild.

I look over to my right as I see Akane pestering Warren in an attempt to get him to yell, but he remains steadfast in his pursuit to not do anything. He continues to stare into nothingness as he sits alongside the child who has her ears covered due to all the screaming.

“Warren, you must yell with all your fury. We shall yell together, on three. One, Two, Three.”

“...”

“Aaaaaaaa,” Akane yelled in deadpan.

If not for the tone I’d say she did a good job.

I suddenly feel the stands shake as I hear a beastial roar that overpowers everything else. Soon what sounds like an actual dragon roar is heard in response to said roar. A large red and black dragon soared over the stadium as if it was called here.

“WHOA NELLY I can feel that energy from here. Even got a response from Julia,” Emperor Marcus noted.

“Where the heck did that come from?” I asked.

“I don’t know, maybe it was Remi’s stomach,” Lilith says.

“Hey! It is not that loud!” Remi argued.

“If I were to guess, that was the result of the aura being unleashed by the two individuals below,” Mythril says in my head.

I look down in the stands and I see a clash of auras fighting for dominance between Armstrong and Adam’s dad. Actually I think that makes sense, I still remember the draconic noise given off from Armstrong’s attack when he nearly killed me a while back.

The Emperor silences all the noise as he slams his sledgehammer down with one hand. The shockwave reverberated throughout everyone’s ears.

“And there we have it folks, the seven guilds of the seven states encompassing the Westphalian Empire. I will now move on to announcing the rules of this year’s Skirmish.”

A man in golden armor walks up to the emperor as he hands him a scroll.

“Thank you General Dane,” Marcus says as he opens the scroll.

“Ahem, this year’s tournament shall be a series of one on one battles. Each guild shall select representatives to fight on behalf of their guild. Once an individual has been defeated they can no longer fight on behalf of their guild. However the winners are eligible to fight multiple times if their guild leaders so wish. Any tactics, weapons, magic are allowed has long as they abide by these rules: ”

The hard light display is then enlarged so that the following rules can be read by the audience. Emperor Marcus begins to recite said rules.

If an attack is known to be extremely dangerous to the audience and the user chooses to use this attack intentionally then they are at means of disqualification. No killing, plain and simple. Our expert healers cannot heal death. No exiting the fighting area. If an individual has been outside the stadium for more than one minute then they automatically lose the fight. No means of external help during a fight or attacking opponents prior to the appointed fight times. If evidence of cheating is found before or after a fight then, that representative shall be personally dealt with by my hammer.

“Apart from the rules listed above combatants are allowed to use any means available to them,” Emperor Marcus stated.

“Any means available huh?” I say as a wicked smile appears on my face.

“Oh no, what are you thinking Will?” Azura demanded.

I turn over to Ryder as I open my pocket dimension.

“Ryder, can you hook me up with a few bombs before my first match?”

“Will the question you should be asking is not can I, but how many?” Ryder says as he instantly understands my plans.

Ryder manifests a few sticks of dynamite before tossing them into my pocket dimension.

“But that’s… Well I guess it's technically not cheating, but the tournament is supposed to be a contest of strength,” Azura interjected.

“Hey the tournament is not just a test of strength, but a test of wit too,” Adam piped up as he finally fell back down from the sky.

He instantly gets smacked by Nerva as she joins the conversation.

“The f*ck you know bout being witty ya dumbass. Anyways, all weapons are fair game and all that. I’m even bringing a cool *ss weapon that Quincy was supposed to pay for,” Nerva says proudly.

“Man I wouldn’t have paid for that even if I did have the money. That’s your weapon,” Quincy argued.

“See Azura, I’m just doing proper preparation before the fights actually start happening. In fact we should probably do proper reconnaissance on our opponents before the fights happen. That’s something I’ll delegate to Nazuko if she hasn’t gotten arrested yet,” I claim.

“I bet that she already has,” Remi says.

As the emperor finishes announcing the rules a large parade enters the stadium.

“To all the guilds please decide on your representatives before the end of the day. As for the rest of the public, please enjoy our special cultural show that will be put on by the talented performers from each state,” the Emperor presented.

I look on as I see the performers start playing off by playing what might be the national anthem, I’m not sure. It's sad to say, but in the few months I’ve been in this world, I have been ill informed on its history. It’s a good thing Quincy doesn’t know that, if he did I feel like I might die before the demon wave even begins. With the loud music filling the scene, I take the time to relish this moment before the inevitable pain begins.