“I lost....” Serena muttered dejected in the presence of the others. Miriel patted her on the head and said, “Don't worry, the enemy was just a bad match up to you” trying to comfort her as much as she could.

Serena was in a state of almost tearing up and crying as she was the only one that wasn't able to get to the semi-finals of this tournament. Everyone else with a varying amount of difficulty did. It was this fact alone that made Serena feel especially inferior to them now and her fear of being abandoned increased again like in the past.

Those who are not useful are worthless and to be abandoned no matter what talents they have.

Those words echoed in her heart time and time again and would never escape from her mind no matter what, no matter how long it had been since then when she was deemed 'useless' and thrown away even though she inspired to be stronger like her teacher that day...

“Stop comforting her like a spoiled brat. She lost and that's it” said Shadow in his usual twisted and yet blunt tongue.

His words shocked everyone who listened but even more so to Serena.

“What the hell was that for?!” Lyndis screamed, “Can't you have one moment where you aren't down-talking others?!”

Shadow scratched his ear uncaring and said, “What she needs right now is not for you all to fatter her on every turn and to comfort her lightly at every mistake but to make sure she learns and grows up! She will be useless at this rate and will be kicked out by someone if she doesn't get her act together!”

“Shadow! Shut up!” Miriel shouted with a glare, “Else do you want to be restrained and whipped until you are like a dog?” she threatened with a look of a devil. While she was angry, one part of her was strangely happy that she could do this and a small slight grin that could barely appear was on her face.

Seeing this expression quite clearly, Shadow started complaining to Miriel, Lyndis started shouting at Shadow and Miriel was saying something to Serena and she was looking all worried while Raven was expressionless as always.

“All of you be quiet now” Sain said in a single calm voice.

The chatter in the room all stopped when Sain said this.

“Seriously when I usually do this why don't you listen to me and now you do?” he asked the others looking a bit reluctant to talk much more on their own.

“That's because you're usually not serious on your 'commands' outside fighting” Shadow replied.

“But this time you are” Lyndis continued after Shadow as if they were getting along all the time. Seeing this, Sain sighed and then said, “To think things were easier at the beginning where you all did not say much at all and followed what me and usually and most of the time Miriel said as well.”

“Well get used to it now since we are used to each other now, we will now have complaints about each other” Miriel said, “Though only you haven't really changed that much out of all of us” she pointed out.

Sain smiled a bit and said, “That's because I, from the beginning was always being honest to you all though Lyndis I say is similar but not exactly the same in that aspect as well. Notice how she was less antagonising to anyone else especially at Shadow before but now” he continued to smile at the others.

“Do you keep track of how everyone changed from the beginning?” said Shadow with some sarcasm in his tone.

“Of course” Sain replied brightly, “Do you wish for me to explain how everyone changed since the beginning?”

“““““NO!”””””

Strangely enough all of them somehow agreed to that at the same time and shouted the same thing at them as well.

“If that's the case than I won't” Sain smiled at them but in their hearts they somehow knew that Sain was keeping tabs on them and could use it against them...he was even worse than Miriel in that sense.

In his heart he made a mental note of all of their changes so far which to the dismay to the privacy of the others.

xXx

“Well we need to talk about what will happen tomorrow” Sain suddenly said, “First of all, me and Miriel will have to fight and whoever wins that will face Raven if he wins as well. On the other side is Lyndis facing Shadow If she wins and to the finals as well.”

“Looks like I get to kill Shadow” Lyndis sneered.

“Not if I kill you first” Shadow said back to her. He gleamed at the possibility of facing her fair and square and prove that he was a better fighter than her to prove something unknown to Sain.

“Why do you two...not like each other that much?” Sain had to ask.

Both of them looked at Sain and spoke at the same time.

“Because he's an asshole” “Because she's a bitch.”

“....”

“Language aside this might be a good opportunity to solve your issues with each other” Sain had hoped that after this they would get along with each other a bit better with this. However on the minds of both Shadow and Lyndis, they were thinking of one thing.

'I will put this bastard/bitch down!'

Judging from their expressions, Sain could more or less tell what they were thinking about as well. They were planning to kill each other in this tournament.

“As a reminder, do not kill” Sain warned with a firm voice, “If you do, I cannot say you might die somewhere outside of range from the people's eyes.”

“You won't do it” Shadow let out a dry laugh, “You are far too trusting and kind to do that and plus you don't ha-”

Stab!

Sain's hand moved to his spear and he shot it at Shadow's head. If not for the fact that he drew his dagger at the same time to block the attack, he would be killed by Sain.

“....”

Sain gave Shadow a smile, a cold smile while Shadow could only smile with sweat gathering from concentrating too much of surviving from that surprise attack.

“While I am not as good with the spear as Raven” Sain looked down at Shadow who looked a bit troubled, “I am very good at tricks though I don't like using them.”

“Tricks? Your tactics involve very straightforward ideas Sain” Shadow questioned him a bit. Lyndis smirked thinking that Shadow had made a bad move there.

“Well you are right but at the same time I am not used to using tricks with other people. Doing so along is easy enough” he replied.

Miriel giggled a bit and then said, “Sain, out of everyone, I think you changed the most or rather finally started to show your true colours at last.” Understanding her words, Lyndis and Serena nodded as well.

“Really now?” Sain raised his eyebrow.

“We picked you as leader because you were the most trustworthy one but now since we do trust you with everything you revealed yourself to be...cunning at some extent” said Miriel while smiling slightly.

“I have no idea what you are talking about” Sain replied still with a smile. All he felt that it was the right move to do this right now. He looked at Miriel and then said, “Don't you dare hold back on me.”

Miriel smiled back and said, “I naturally won't.”

xXx

At a location where it was possible to spy on the group talking...

“Hey, you want to bet on who will win in the end?” Eart asked. Arch frowned at the notion of gambling, it was essentially putting things to luck most of the time. However in this case they both knew the facts.

“Sure who will you bet to win?” Arch asked.

“Sain” Eart replied immediately, “That person was really really chilling to me when he went out of character.”

“In that case I will bet on Miriel. A hundred thousand gold or one guild mission to do?” Arch proposed.

“Make that two guild missions and you have a deal!” Eart replied after thinking of it. A mere hundred thousand gold was really not worth betting on to them but a guild quest..something that they all had to do and extremely difficult to complete as well.

For getting rid of two times he had to do it, this bet was worth it.

“Got it, I'll send a message to Eden when I won this bet” said Arch confident. As always, Eart was quite bad with reading other people. There was a good chance to him that Miriel would win.

“By the way...” Eart could not help saying.

“What?”

“Why are we hiding here?” asked Eart.

“....”

Arch took a moment to summarise his thoughts into, “It would be awkward to come in now.”

xXx

The next day the tournament went onto the final rounds. First of was Raven and the unusual dual wielding user that used zig-zag swords to battle.

Character Name: Raven

Finals Participant

Current Round: 1

With the message at scene the counter went down and it eventually ticked down to zero. Raven and the other player were at opposite sides of the stage, roughly twenty metres in fact. It would take a good 3 seconds for them to hit each other.

Countdown: 3 Seconds

Countdown: 2 Seconds

Countdown: 1 Seconds

Countdown: 0 Seconds

Start!

The match started and both Raven and the other player charged at each other immediately. There wasn't much to think about as it was a simple one on one battle.

Raising his shield to charge Raven said, “Footwork! Ram!” instantly increasing his speed at the player.

Clang! Clang!

The player took two swipes at Raven as he dodged and passed by. Raven used his shield to block the two attack on him and moved to block the third and fourth attack that was coming in as well.

Clang! Clang!

Using the force of the two attacks that came to slide himself a bit away from the player Raven stopped and started charging again attacking with his spear. He stabbed three times but all of them were blocked by the two swords that seemed to entrap his own weapon.

Figuring that he needed to go faster Raven used, 'Double Strike' in the middle if his attacks as well. Using his quick paced attacks he forced the player onto the defensive and continued to strike without mercy.

“Let rage boil into fury, dual strike!” the player shouted swinging both of his swords with glowing light at Raven.

'Can't get hit with that no matter what' Raven thought seeing the power in that skill.

“Shield Parry!” Raven responded as well. His shield and the blades collided and caused sparks to fly as both of them were blown away from the blast. Raven's timing was slightly off due to the light on the player's sword but was able to block it.

Taking out some throwing knives, the player aimed at Raven though at the same time digging his swords into the ground.

“Footwork!”

Taking a step back for a moment, Raven charged once again dodging left and right quickly from the throwing knives thrown at him.

“Haaaa!” Raven let that shout as he swung his spear down at the player.

Bang!

The player blocked it using his dual swords in a cross space. However Raven did not stop and proceeded forward doing a side swipe hitting the side of the player that blocked some of the attack with his armour.

BANG!

Dealt Critical Hit!

The player was knocked away from the impact of the attack as Raven pressed on to attack again and again. Eventually his spear made his way to the throat of the player killing him.

Character Name: Raven

Finals Participant

Current Round: 2

“I...won...” muttered Raven as he looked around before returning to watch the next match.

xXx

“Make sure you don't hold back on me” Miriel reminded Sain again while they were walking to the stage.

Sain smiled and said, “Don't worry. Make sure you don't as well...I want to test something...”

The two got onto the stage and separated each other by 20 metres and waited for the counter to start ticking. In his mind, Sain was calculating how Miriel would move. If he were to charge at her with his spear then she would use her whip to stop him.

And if he used magic first she would return fire with her spells that were stronger than his.

'In that case...'

Countdown: 3 Seconds

Countdown: 2 Seconds

Countdown: 1 Seconds

Countdown: 0 Seconds

Start!

The match started and Sain immediately shouted, “Compressed Magic Mastery Release!”

Compressed Magic Mastery has been released. Magic Strength +300%

With his body full of magic strength, Sain now had more damage in terms of spell damage than Miriel at least for a few minutes until it runs out.

“Ice Bolts!” Miriel finished chanting that spell and fired 5 of them at Sain. Dodging it closely enough Sain chanted, “Magic Arrows!” and fired 5 of them at Miriel as well. She too dodged the spell quite easily while chanting another spell at the same time.

'I'm too slow in chanting at this rate and have no time to summon Luna. Need to distract her.'

“Mana Bolts!” he chanted but at the same time Miriel chanted, “Ice Barrier!” creating a physical barrier to defend herself.

Bang bang bang bang bang bang bang bang bang...!

All of his 'Mana Bolts' hit the ice barrier and were stopped in their tracks. Taking this time, Miriel casted 'Cracked Barrier' onto herself and also chanted, “Melody of Speed” to enchant her agility by 51% which according to what Sain remembered was around 100 points in agility at any rate.

Surprising Sain, Miriel moved out of the cover of her 'Ice Barrier' and ran at Sain with her whipe swinging it a couple of times at him.

Snap! Snap! Snap!

She hit him three times in a row thanks to her increased agility but not much damage was done to him.

You took 321 damage

You took 221 damage

You took 356 damage

“Let strength gather and become the wind! Swift Legs!” Sain chanted increasing his agility by 50 points which at this point was lower than Miriel's. However at the same time he was far more superior in close combat at least.

“Poison Shot!” she chanted while moving in, he shattered a couple of those spells at her watching as Miriel tried to dodge them while attacking Sain at the same time. Getting close enough he trust his spear at Miriel which narrowly missed her head.

In the next instant he chanted, “Mana Bolts!” firing off the magical projectiles at her at close range.

Bang bang bang bang bang bang bang bang bang...!

Sain knew that she took a fair deal of damage thanks to that but it wasn't too serious. But at any rate he was far too close to Miriel now which means...

“Ice Burst!”

Sain jumped back at the same moment she said those words trying to reduce the damage he took as much as possible. However while jumping back may have reduced the damage by say half it was still a lot that could have killed him in one shot.

You took 3755 damage

Most of his health was gone and as such he chanted, “Moderate Heal” in time to allow his body to move again. He healed around a third of the damage that Miriel caused him.

'Honestly it is so difficult to fight when my damage output and other outputs are lower than hers...' Sain thought with a sigh.

In the end he decided to spam spells at her to make an opening at the very least to summon Luna.

“Mana Bolts! Paralyse Shot! Poison Shot! Magic Arrows!”

He shot all of those spells as Miriel created another 'Ice Barrier' to block the attacks, however due to his magical damage increasing the 'Ice Barrier' broke pretty quickly though he was met with several 'Ice Bolts' in turn as well.

This continued with a few more minutes with both of them shaving off each other's health bit by bit. Sain with more health, defence and a healing spell was in an advantage due to him able to take more hits while Miriel had an overall better attack option.

Eventually however, Sain managed to corner Miriel with his spear pointing at her throat.

“Surrender” he said calmly to the point that Miriel thought he was a completely different person. However Miriel had a plan for this...a plan that would only work on Sain as she didn't want to reveal her thump card yet.

“Please don't hurt me” she immediately whispered within the vicinity of Sain which caused him to flinch.

“....”

With her eyes pointing up on him and blinking lightly, Sain for some reason could not move at all but was stunned at what Miriel was doing. To him she was a completely cute girl right now. As such some useless thoughts came about in Sain's head which allowed Miriel to move in to attack in close quarters.

“Haaaa!”

Miriel tackled and saddled onto Sain and casted some 'Mana Bolts' to be floating waiting to be shot at Sain. By the time Sain recovered from Miriel's 'attack' he realised his situation and sighed.

Raising his hands and letting go of his spear he said, “I surrender...” a bit disappointed at himself.

And as such Miriel was the winner of this round.

xXx

“Two Guild Missions for me then” Arch smirked at the results while Eart was wide mouthed at the end results as well. Sain was literally at the verge of victory and yet...

“How is this possible?” Eart asked wondering what was going on with this world for someone to lose in that position. It was literally improbable that that would happen.

Letting out a small laugh Arch said, “You underestimate the cunningness of Miriel in that situation. She used her last weapon and it worked on Sain.”

“You mean making Sain blush like a little girl?”

“More or less.”

“....”

“Remember the two guild quests you owe me now” Arch reminded him, “I'll get in contact with Eden after all of this is done to tell him my good news.”

xXx

With a bit of a sigh Sain followed behind Miriel as they went back to the others. He tried not to look at them as Miriel seemed very pleased at her work.

“Though I asked for you to not hold back...I did not expect that. You looked...really cute then...” Sain muttered under his breath so that only Miriel could hear. Hearing this Miriel turned into a slightly darker shade of red before turning back to normal.

Her light skin made it very easy for others to tell when she was embarrassed.

“I can't believe you lost like that. I lost a bet thanks to you” Shadow immediately said when Sain and Miriel was in earshot.

“Sorry...” Sain let out a dry laugh to hide his embarrassment.

On the other hand Lyndis had the opposite expression and said, “Good work Miriel. Knew you could win in the end.”

They saw that Shadow gave Lyndis some coins to which counted to 10 gold in total.

After that Serena proceeded to heal the two from their injury as Miriel started to mediate to recover lost mana from the match.

Soon after this the match between the thief player and the two handed player went away. Over a series of events where both sides were quite close on beating each other, the thief player in the end was the one who won. And such as now it was Lyndis' turn to battle.

xXx

Lyndis was in a good mood. The reason was as simple as you think as she was facing a strong foe.

Character Name: Lyndis

Finals Participant

Current Round: 1

With the window confirmed as went out on the stage to face the knight player. Wearing medium to heavy armour, Lyndis realised that this player probably had the same amount of defence as Raven but was much slower as evident on the noise he made while moving.

It was very likely he had three layers of armour; leather, chain-mail and finally plate on.

'He must have good connections else a lot of money to get all of that while under level 150' she thought looking at him.

Other than the fact that this player looked plain except for the fancy armour, Lyndis couldn't tell if there was anything special about him. But at the same time she had to keep her guard up as well though.

Countdown: 3 Seconds

Countdown: 2 Seconds

Countdown: 1 Seconds

Countdown: 0 Seconds

Start!

The match started and the knight charged at Lyndis. She noticed that he was much faster than she expected with all that armour on. Perhaps his boots were enchanted with a speed boots or something.

“Flame Strike” Lyndis pointed and fired her attack at the knight. He blocked it using his shield and continued onwards.

“Flame Strike” Lyndis used the skill once again to which was blocked again. By the time her second attack hit the knight's shield he was already close enough for close combat. Lyndis picked up and drew her blade and said, “Fire Blade!” turning it into burning red blade.

Clang!

Lyndis swung down at the knight to which he blocked using his shield again. The clash between the red hot blade and the metal shield started with her attack not cutting through and only causing a minor cut to the shield.

“Ack!” the knight backed away when he found that his shield was more damaged than he thought it would be.

Not letting this chance go, Lyndis activated 'Precision Stance' and 'Sword Dance' and started attacking rapidly at the knight.

Clang! Clang! Clang! Clang! Clang! Clang!

Each time Lyndis tried to strike down the knight, the more he blocked with his shield not daring to attack back. And each time the durability of his shield would decrease by a bit due to the extreme heat that her sword was making.

Also Lyndis was hitting nearly the same spot on the shield each time which further accelerated the decline of the shield's durability.

'This is taking too long! Time to finish this!' she thought after a full minute of this bashing of sword to shield.

“Power Strike!” she shouted also switching to 'Power Stance' as well and taking a breath in to increase power.

BANG!

Lyndis struck on that weak spot on the shield that she had been making in one go and a large crack appeared on the shield as it crumbled away. Shocked the knight tried to attack Lyndis but due to the passive effects of 'Sword Dance' which increased sword damage, sword speed and agility, Lyndis was able to knock the sword out of the knight's hand before pointing her sword at him.

“Surrender?” she suggested to him.

“....” The knight looked back at her and then said, “I Surrender” with his hands up a bit upset that his shield was broken like that.

“Yay~!” Lyndis shouted excited that she won.

Character Name: Lyndis

Finals Participant

Current Round: 2

With this window appearing, Lyndis nearly started skipping to where the others were.

xXx

Character Name: Miriel

Finals Participant

Current Round: 2

The next round came in another half an hour in order for both players to rest up a bit and for some extra events similar to commercials in the game to appear. Miriel's opponent was a water mage while she was a combination of a ice, sound and illusion mage all in one.

In terms of pure specialisation she was at a disadvantage as the mastery of the water mage's skills and spell were probably better than hers. However Miriel had more diversity in her spells as well. Aside from actual healing spells, she more or less had powerful attack, defence and support spells to use.

Miriel looked at the the water mage with some confidence at least. The water mage was a female like her but had this old looking robe on compared to hers. Miriel knew proper mage equipment weren't that expensive but the spells were.

She would not take any chances here especially when she saw what another water mage almost did to Raven. Even with his defence that were three times higher than her plus his shield blocking the attack, Raven lost a lot of health that would kill her even with his defence and shield blocking.

She just wondered how she and Sain battled it out for so long with their defences especially hers was lower than his. Perhaps it had to do with their higher magical resistance or the fact they dodged most of the attacks they thrown at each other.

Either way, Miriel waited for the timer to tick down and for the match to start.

Countdown: 3 Seconds

Countdown: 2 Seconds

Countdown: 1 Seconds

Countdown: 0 Seconds

Start!

With the match starting Miriel immediately chanted, “Ice Bolts!” and shot five ice bolts at the player. Barely dodging the attack, the player immediately counter-attacked using 'water bullets' at her as well.

As expected it seemed the water mage was more skilled than her in pure specialisation since there were seven 'water bullets' to her five 'ice bolts'.

'I need to finish this quickly than!' she thought quickly preparing a barrier at least.

“Ice Barrier!”

A wall of ice appeared to block the water attack and then Miriel immediately went to the next spell as well for some more protection, “Cracked Barrier!” She created a barrier that negated half the damage she took for the next two strikes.

'Now to increase my stats as well...'

“Melody of Agility!” she chanted next to place the stat boost on herself.

Agility increased by 51% for 10 minutes

By this time the player moved in order to get a better view of her and attacked using 'Water Bullets' again. Miriel dodged the attack much more easily now with her agility being increased by around 100 points.

Miriel counter-attacked with her own 'Ice Bolts' but they were stopped by this water barrier around the player. Frowning Miriel continued to dodge some attacks and attacked herself but the water barrier always stopped her.

Then Miriel realised that the player was consciously controlling that water barrier.

“Shriek!” she immediately chanted when she had the chance.

Shrieeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeek!!!

The sound caused all but a few to stop in their tracks and cover their ears. The water mage player being the closest felt it the worst. As such that annoying water barrier disappeared and now she could attack as much as she wanted.

“Ice Bolts!” Miriel immediately chose to attack at least wanting to deal some damage first before anything else and five 'ice bolts' hit the body of the water mage and caused her to spit blood out.

If she wasn't going to die soon, she was critically injured right now.

Tap Tap Tap...

Miriel walked over to the water mage and asked, “Surrender?”

Unable to speak the water mage nodded a bit and Miriel had won her match.

xXx

Following Miriel's match, Lyndis and Shadow went out to the stage as well passing comment at her each on her victory. The water mage was taken by some healers and was back to normal within minutes.

Right now Lyndis wasn't feeling that excited at all. She knew Shadow. She knew what he was capable of and when serious he was almost like a monster itself and as such she could not lose focus like that when against her.

“Ready to lose?” Shadow asked with a smirk on his face. That look made her want to punch him right here and now but she resisted and taunted back with, “How badly do you want me to crush you?”

And that was it for the two of them until the counter ticked down to begin.

'Even a split second blink could kill me...' she thought. The scary part was that Shadow's agility was twice as hers and his strength wasn't that far behind her at all.

She drew her sword and waited for the timer to tick down.

Countdown: 3 Seconds

Countdown: 2 Seconds

Countdown: 1 Seconds

Countdown: 0 Seconds

Start!

The moment the match started, Lyndis released that she had already lost Shadow...and he was her only opponent right now and they were alone on this large stage!

'Damn that Stealth ability of his!' she cursed in her thoughts. She knew that his stealth skill was at the higher levels in the intermediate but to think it would cause her to lose him so quickly.

Then she felt something bad was about to happen behind her...

“Flame Coating!” she shouted causing flames to burst out of her body to protect herself. It was just in time to deter Shadow from landing a critical and likely fatal hit on her.

You took 800 damage

Thankfully the damage he can deal was lower than her to begin with else this might have ended immediately even with that.

“Fire Blade” she made her preparations and lit her sword on fire and counter-attacked Shadow when he actually dared to attack her head on. Just in case she also used 'Speed Stance' and 'Sword Dance' as well as he moved in.

“Burst Speed.”

Suddenly Lyndis felt that she could not keep up with Shadow at all. His speed increased by almost three times with the skill active and this frankly made him even more fearsome.

“Speed Strike!”

Using her instincts, she spent the next two seconds blocking attack after attack with her own. Also using the other skills that were active, she managed to cause some damage back to Shadow at the same time.

'Curse his speed...'

Using her 'Flame Coating' she was able to deter Shadow from hitting certain vital points but otherwise was near powerless against his rapid attacks. However Lyndis did notice that his attacks were...predictable.

'No better time to test this than now...' she thought with a grim smile on her face.

“Fire bomb! Fire bomb! Fire bomb!”

Consuming 150 mana in the process, Lyndis created and threw three 'Fire Bombs' at certain locations and allowed them to explode.

BANG BANG BANG!

All of these explosions missed Shadow of course but it lead him to directly attack Lyndis at the front which was a bad idea no matter your speed. Taking up the 'Precision Stance', Lyndis shouted, “Speed Strike!” swinging down on Shadow with the blunt end of her sword slamming Shadow onto the floor.

Knowing that Shadow could not move she whispered to him, “I win~” and as such the match against Lyndis and Shadow ended.

xXx

“Ow ow ow....I think dying would be better than this pain...” Shadow cursed a complaint against Lyndis again when they met up with the others.

“Hey you're lucky I used the blunt side of my sword to save you from a death!” Lyndis retorted back immediately as well kicking Shadow on the back which caused him more damage and more reason to curse at her.

“Do you know how painful it was to be hit like that on my back?!”

“Looks like you two are getting along now” Sain said with a smile noticing that they while they were fighting there was less malice involved now.

““Who the hell is getting along?!”” both of them shouted. After some words, Sain and Serena healed the two as there was a while until the next match which was between Raven and Miriel.

“Anyway I want to say one thing” Lyndis looked at Shadow while he was silently waiting for her response.

“What is it?” Shadow finally asked after waiting for a full 10 seconds for her words that never seemed to come.

“You were so easily baited into a trap by me” she said bluntly with a smirk on her face of her superiority to Shadow and the worse part for him was that he couldn't repute it at all. He did fall into her trap and lose because of that.

He who was several times faster than her lost like that.

“....”

As such all Shadow could do was glare at her to which amused her even more.

“Healing is done” Serena said all of a sudden next to Lyndis as she finished healing her, “Lyndis being mean is bad!”

Her unexpected words and more to the point, her not stuttering was a large surprise to Shadow. It was like the person he knew was completely different...no she was completely different from what he remembered.

After Lyndis and Serena left some words, Shadow immediately went up to Serena and then pat her on the shoulder to which, surprised, she turned and asked, “W-What d-do you w-want?” in a frightful manner.

“....?”

Shadow was a bit confused here. Why was Serena fine talking to Lyndis normally, well like a normal person and yet was like this to him.

“Umm...what are you doing to Serena?” Lyndis asked tapping him on the shoulder as well. There was a smile on her face but at the same time Shadow could not help but to be frighten of her right now.

“Ah...” Shadow muttered, “I was just wondering something.”

“And what might that be? Hmm...? Serena you can go so I can take care of this 'thing'”

“....”

Shadow was a bit disturbed that he wasn't even a human in Lyndis' eyes right now as Serena left and it was just the two of them together alone now. While she didn't draw her sword to cut him down then and there, she did ask, “So what do you have against Serena?”

“What?” Shadow was astonished at the question.

“Why does it seem like every time you see her you would bully her?”

“What? Wait, you think I'm bullying her?” he asked completely surprised. Well he was a bit harsh on her at times but that was nothing to be worried about...right?

Frowning at the expression that Shadow had on his face Lyndis muttered, “Strange...” and continued to say, “Looks like you don't realise that Serena is avoiding you a bit.”

“A bit?” Shadow let out a cold laugh. She made it very apparent that she was trying very hard to do so.

“I think she is clearly hating on me or is simply afraid. Well anyone would if they found that someone was not especially kind to them” he simply said in response after thinking about it.

“I hope you're right...I rather not have Serena avoid you ALL the time from now on” Lyndis replied back in a quiet tone.

xXx

The next two matches were of Raven and Miriel and the thief player and Lyndis. To summarise things, Miriel won the match against Raven by a narrow margin thanks to using her magic in certain ways to restrain Raven in place while she beat the crap out of him.

As for the match between the thief player and Lyndis, it was an overwhelming win for Lyndis who defeated Shadow before. In terms of pure speed alone, Lyndis was even a bit faster than the thief player which she felt as strange.

Character Name: Miriel

Finals Participant

Current Round: Last Round

And so it went to the final match where the champion would be determine...

“I guess it's up to us now” Lyndis said with confidence to Miriel, “Either way we get the top two prizes.”

Miriel smiled in return on the thought of all that gold but instead said, “However there is another pressing issue we need to determine here for a while.”

“Yes...” Lyndis also had the same thought.

““I am definitely stronger than you!””

Both of them said those words and thoughts out aloud at the same time on the stage and waited to attack each other in the end.

Countdown: 3 Seconds

Countdown: 2 Seconds

Countdown: 1 Seconds

Countdown: 0 Seconds

Start!

“Ice Bolts!” Miriel chanted pointing her staff at Lyndis.

“Flame Strike!” Lyndis shouted at the same time.

Bang!

The attack on both side with equal power cancelled each other out. Before their attacks landed on each other, the two already moved to the next attack. Lyndis charged straight in to the side with her sword while Miriel took out her whip and chanted, “Ice Barrier!”

“Like that will work! Fire Blade!” Lyndis shouted smashing through the ice barrier with brute force.

Bang!

There was a short explosion of noise as she broke through it.

“Tch!” Miriel clicked her tongue seeing this. Her skill proficiency with the 'Ice Barrier' spell was too low seeing that Lyndis was able to rip through it like that.

'Need to get further back...'

Miriel continued to retreat as she casted her next spell.

“Melody of Agility!” she chanted increasing her agility in this match as well by a hundred points due to the effects of the spell.

Agility increased by 51% for 10 minutes

She would need it against Lyndis who was much better at close combat than her. In fact Miriel knew for a fact that it was a bad idea to face against Lyndis in close quarters as she was really good with the sword even compared to other players as she shown before, especially in the tournament.

“Ice Burst!” Miriel shot that spell at Lyndis who was closing in causing her to fall back a bit before charging at her again.

With her increased speed Miriel instead of just running away tried to surround Lyndis into a corner. With a couple of her 'Ice Bolts', Miriel managed to control Lyndis' movements to the nearest corner to which Lyndis probably realised.

However it was too late for escape.

Snap! Snap! Snap!

“Ow ow ow! That hurts like hell!” Lyndis complained while Miriel ignored her and continued attacking.

She started by attacking Lyndis with her whip. But Lyndis wasn't going to have any of that so she shouted, “Fire Bomb!” and threw one at Miriel or in her general direction.

'Shit!' Miriel luckily hit away the 'Fire Bomb' that was heading straight to her.

BANG!

You took 115 damage

The 'Fire Bomb' exploded in the air pushing Miriel back a little bit while causing her some minor damage as well. Not flinching to this damage she chanted and fired her 'Ice Bolts' at Lyndis which she cut down using her sword.

'Damn she's a monster to cut down those attacks like that' Miriel grumbled in her thoughts seeing Lyndis doing that. Miriel continued to shoot her 'Ice Bolts' at Lyndis while retreating at the same time as Lyndis cut them down while proceeding forward.

“Ice Barrier! Ice Barrier!” Miriel created two more barriers in between herself and Lyndis.

Using the time gained with the barriers, she chanted, “Cracked Barrier” placing one on herself for some extra protection.

“Mana Bolts! Ice Bolts!” she then chanted twice using the two spells to fire off various projectiles at Lyndis as she smashed through her 'Ice Barriers'.

“Life Burn!” Lyndis responded in turn using her health as a fuel for her flame attack to which completely knocked away Miriel's attacks, well at least the 'Ice Bolts'. Lyndis was still hit by several 'Mana Bolts' in the process as well and took some damage.

'Need to continue attacking...'

Miriel held her whip in her left hand and continued attacking Lyndis with it.

“Flame Coating! Speed Strike!” Lyndis shouted speeding up to charge close to Miriel with her sword and body on fire.

“Shit!” In an instant Lyndis was up close to Miriel with her sword coming down onto her. Miriel dodged to the left with a roll and fired 'Ice Bolts' at her which narrowly missed.

With Lyndis so near, Miriel had no choice now but to try to stun her at close range.

“Shriek!”

Shrieeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeek!!!

“Ahhhhh!” Lyndis let out a scream of pain as the spell worked. However at the same time her blade went down on Miriel and made a deep cut on her side.

You took 745 damage

'Time to use 'that' then' Miriel then barely thought with her life in danger.

“Glacier Strike!” Miriel chanted quickly.

The spell activated as she expected though it was something she only had a short time on using as she only created it a day ago. From the ground, water gathered and turned into ice and shot up in a diagonal manner hitting Lyndis straight at the chest knocking her back as if she was flying.

BANG!

Lyndis flew away and fell flat on the ground. She had won.

“Fuueeee...” Miriel let out a relieved sigh seeing that Lyndis did not come up. She was knocked out unconscious from that attack.

Character Name: Miriel

Finals Winner

Congratulation you have won the tournament!

Fame +200

You have levelled up x3

Gained 3000 gold in prize money

Tournament Winner

This title is given to anyone that has won a tournament before. The effects of the title depends on the level of competition that you have won. The higher the level, the better effects this title will give.

This title stacks with the effects of other titles

+ 10 to all stats

Discount to all purchases in Lily City for the next three days due to fame

Seeing these windows, Miriel grinned to herself as went to Lyndis to pick her up as it seemed that she was actually knocked unconscious.

xXx

“That one won...cash in the bets we made on her” said one person cloaked said to the others. The other people cloaked rushed around doing things as one person only stared at Miriel.

“Can she die now?” he asked the first person.

The first person smiled and said, “Yes.” Now that she won, they had no reason to keep her alive and it would make sure this one would be calm for at least a while longer until everything he wanted goes to plan.

Even if this fails, it would give them some time away from the eyes of the Kingdom to act a bit more freely.

Onwards?PreviousExitNext

Author's Notes:

- Word Count: 7100~

- This chapter took a long time for several reasons. Mainly due to me writing most of it in the last two days since I had my wisdom teeth pulled out