Talia’s Perspective

‘Oh… what's this, my little Taylor is actually talking to someone. And it's a boy of all things I never thought I’d see the day.

He even has a crest which means that he has to be from some sort of Nobel family. What a catch.

I waited a bit before approaching them so that I could try to remember what family the crest was from but before I knew it the handsome boy left without a trace almost like he was running away.

Panicked I ran to my little sister to see what was going on.

“What the hell, why is he leaving?!” I almost shouted as I fell to the right side of my sister.

“I saw you coming,” she said back with zero expression and a flat tone in her voice.

“Oh… you didn’t want me seeing you talking to that boy, did you. Well it's too late I saw the whole thing,” I said trying to tease my sister a bit but she didn’t give me a single inch to work with.

“No, he is dangerous,” she said back to me apathetically completely ignoring my taunts.

“Is he strong?” I asked my sister looking back at the boy who left a few minutes ago my impression of him going from a pretty noble kid to actual competition.

For what it was worth Taylor tended to know what she was talking about and had good instincts when it came to these sorts of things.

“Don’t know”

“Why is he dangerous then?”

“He's not like us”

“So he isn’t a street urchin without any money and absent parents I could of told you that on my own?” I quipped mocking how open-ended she made her response as if I was supposed to read her mind to get what she was saying.

“No, a child”

That was an interesting statement if I’d ever heard one but I knew that Taylor didn't have a habit of going in-depth with these kinds of things.

I looked at my little sister noticing that thing was slithering under her skin moving up her neck causing it to get red and veiny.

“Is that thing still inside of you?” I asked her in a worried tone.

“Yes my metamorphosis will not be complete until two months from now”

“Are you really planning on going through the competition with that thing slowly eating away at you?” I whispered softly.

The whole thing seemed extremely painful and I couldn’t understand how she was able to go on without showing any obvious signs of suffering.

Despite her frail appearance, she was strong. That was for sure.

“It couldn’t be helped, she had just finished maturing so if I had waited any longer the process would have been suboptimal” Taylor countered in an emotionless voice. We had already had this conversation multiple times and she was clearly already tired of it.

The thing under her skin began to claw all the way up to her face causing blood to slowly pour out of her eyes and nose.

Ever since that thing has been inside her she's been eating like crazy yet still, she grows smaller and smaller by the day.

I grabbed a rag from my pocket and began slowly wiping Taylor’s face before she even realized she was bleeding but she didn't flinch when I approached her.

I lifted her body a bit moving her from being directed against the wall before sitting down with her and hugging her from behind trying my best to hide the fact that there was anything wrong with her.

Her body collapsed onto me like a puppet whose strings had just gotten cut from above. I loved the way she trusted me with her body like it was unfathomable that I would ever do something to harm her.

My sister didn’t show much of her emotion through her outward expressions or tone so what made me know that she really cared was how comfortable she was being vulnerable in my presence.

I was the only person in the world who got to receive that privilege.

I handed her the food that I had gone to get her. An adult's portion at that and she devoured the entire thing in seconds.

She would still need to eat again in three hours but since I wasn't planning on socializing for the rest of the day I wasn't in a rush to go get it for her.

Whispering into her ear I asked her what I thought would be my final question.

“Is there anyone else we need to be worrying about?”

“Allison, Amani, Wayland, and Tilda. All four are strong, we won't be able to win the third week” she announced flat and uncaring.

The fact that she was able to get all that information just from sitting there made me uneasy. I just spent almost two hours talking to people and I only knew one of those names.

“So what's the plan, did we just come all the way here for nothing”

“No, we try our best the first week and then try to team up with one or more of those five in the second, we should be able to get more than enough rewards to make this whole trip worthwhile just from that”

“You said to team up with one of those five but you only mentioned four names”

My sister just looked off into the distance in the direction where the strange boy had left.

***

Norman’s POV

How the hell was everything going this terrible?

I thought I was just unlucky or picked the wrong person to start with when it came to Taylor but everyone I talked to seemed to treat me with suspicion, disinterest, or outright hostility.

I started to think that maybe the common people just hated the nobility but when I tried to talk to one of the seemingly relaxed people from the church factions I was given an entire speech about how my presence was ‘desecrating the light of the priestess’ and was quickly shooed away.

I hadn’t been able to make any serious friends so far but I did gain a fair amount of information.

Looking back into the direction of the church group stood the girl considered the priestess.

Far from what that name implied. The girl stood encased in a large domineering suit of heavy metal armor that didn’t let even the smallest shard of light sip through its crakes.

Around the suit were a number of strange runes that glowed red with heat.

The girl simply stood in the center of a group of children all wearing the symbol of the Exceed church bearly moving or speaking to anyone while the people around her conversed and made everyone else stay away from her.

Even others from their own religion stayed a few steps away from her.

The reason she wore the oversized suit of armor to my understanding was not to protect herself but to protect the people around her.

She was born with a tier ten affinity to fire mana which was something that had never been observed in the history of this nation but there had been examples of people being born with such a high affinity in other countries around the six great continents even if they appeared scarcely.

Affinities for magic that were around tier 1 - 4 were great boosts in magical prowess allowing the individual to cast magic of that particular element with much more ease and power than someone without it but past that, it became a never-ending story of disasters.

Another boy who only had a tier 6 affinity for air who I talked to earlier but who was antagonistic with me for no reason was sitting down on the side of a wall with a heavy backpack at all times so that he wouldn’t begin to float in the air.

On his body were numerous scars and bruises and his left arm was broken, covered in bandages.

The problem with having a natural affinity for an element that was higher than tier 4 was that your body would take on the properties of that element more and more.

In the boy’s case air was light and gaseous. So in becoming like air his body became light and easy to damage.

Even the slightest impact would bend his soft bones and cut his tender flesh and a strong gust of wind could carry him into the distance.

If just having a tier 6 affinity for an element could cause so much damage to someone fundamentally changing the way they had to live their life in comparison to a normal person who knew how damaging it must have been for someone who had an affinity at tier 10, especially as a baby.

For this reason, the girl's parents gave up on trying to raise the child giving her up to the church hoping that they could do something to help her.

The baby that was given to the priests was filled with burn scars, smelled of smoke, and was hot to the touch but seeing potential in the little girl they took her in and raised her as their own.

This entire event happened about two years before me and my sisters were born as she was currently eight years old.

Moving away from the strange girl I also figured out a lot of the general events we would be facing since the kids I was talking to had all been to similar events before to qualify for this one but it was mostly things I was already expecting.

Seeing that the time before we had to go to bed was slowly ticking away I decided to go back to what I had dubbed the commoner group looking for another lone person sitting on a wall.

The entire waiting room was more than large enough for the two hundred-plus children who were currently staying here to be quite spread out.

Looking around I couldn’t believe that I didn’t see this person before.

A little girl lay down sleeping on a wall in the room with three dogs beside her all curled in a ball.

Her clothing was old and stained and her hair looked like it hadn’t been washed or combed in years.

I wasn’t sure whether I should have been shocked, concerned, or laughing it was such an absurd sight and the worst part of it was that the four were so calm and unobtrusive that your eyes would easily pass over them without a second thought.

Once your eyes did lock on to them of course you couldn’t look away.

I was going to leave the four alone not wanting to get involved in whatever “that” was until I realized the strange veins of light that were barely visible under the fur of the animals.

It was a telltale sign that they were Feral creatures or that they were close to becoming one.

Judging by the fact that;

One, the creatures were not currently biting and clawing at everyone in sight but instead quietly sat in a corner sleeping and, Two there were too many of them for them to all be the girl's familiars not that she looked like she was old enough, or could have afforded to have a familiar in the first place.

Both added up to one thing which was that she had to have an ability that allowed her to tame dogs that had become Feral possibly even ones that were Unconscious or Delusional.

If not now, it would happen when she reached a higher level of gaining that ability.

For her age, she couldn’t have gotten her first class to anywhere above Level nine and she was more than likely much lower than that.

It's a shame that you were only allowed one item during the process of these tournaments because if she could use her pets together she would already be a favorite to win this entire thing.

That’s if animals can be considered items one can use in the first place.

In any case, just judging by her current ability she would for sure become incredibly strong in the future as long as she eventually maxed out her class.

For that reason I was basically forced to interact with her there was no way I could pass up an opportunity to become close with someone with that kind of future and it definitely would be something that would make my guardians proud which was the whole point of this adventure in the first place.

I thought for a bit about how I would approach before temporarily leaving the area and heading to the place that was serving refreshments for the guest.

I waited in line to get a plate of food from one of the vendors.

A line of adults in uniforms stood behind a set of pure white wooden tables full of food in metal trays.

When one was close to being empty someone would come from what I assumed was the kitchen bring the tray inside then come back with it refilled with food.

After gathering my plate of mostly meat I went back to the girl trying to feed one of her dogs.

If I did this as an adult to another adult’s dog this would be a massive social faux pas that would get me called a creep and other bad words.

That being said kids didn't tend to have the natural distrust of intentions of other kids that adults had for each other.

Not to mention that it would be a lot more awkward if I stood there waiting for her to wake up or good forbid woke her up from her nap just to talk to her.

In any case, she couldn’t blame me for being awkward when she was literally taking a nap on the floor in the middle of a social gathering.

Moving towards the dog it slowly opened its eyes before looking at me with a wary gaze.

I approached slowly, drumstick in hand showing that I meant no harm.

In retrospect trying to feed a Feral rank animal with my bear hand while it was barely being controlled by its currently sleeping master was not a very smart idea but I had already made it this far and I wasn't planning on quitting.

Seeing the dog's unnaturally sharp and long teeth as well as its incredibly muscular jaw did make me consider it though.

Before I reached its mouth however the girl who was previously sleeping jumped up and bit the piece of meat straight out of my hand.