“To the surprise of no one, this round was barely even worth watching! It’s a wonder you guys all paid this much for the seats! Will the next one be any better? Our matchmaking if fully random after all, what are the chances? Anyway, let’s keep going! Up next, a certain Andarian Hero who has been making some waves…”

Love’s voice died down as the group was teleported to another waiting room. It was a bit less shabby than the previous one, modeled after the interior of a log cabin. Soft moonlight entered through the frosted windows, not letting the contestants look outside.

Bookie undid his fusions and jumped around, “I won, I won! Sofia! I won!”

“Hmmhmm, good job Bookie. I’m proud of you. Not going for a second one?”

“No, no. I don’t want to steal all your tournament!”

“Alright. What about you Pestle, want to take a round or two for yourself?” Sofia asked.

“Can Pesle has leg?!” the fairy asked, shocked, flying in front of Sofia’s face.

“Sure? Maybe try to be clean about it, you have seen how many people are watching…”

“Pesle very be clean!”

“Unless something happens, next round is yours, then,” Sofia confirmed with a thumbs up.

About halfway through the waiting time for the next round, Sofia got the ‘list of eliminations’, the four thousand and some names of everyone who had lost their first duel. She quickly scanned through it, and failed to recognize a single name.

No surprise there.

The second arena was a large moonlit clearing in a dense pine forest, cut in half by a shallow creek. The opponent was a beastman with large antlers and leathery skin. He piled-on some kind of soul magic buffs during the three seconds preceding the duel, while Pestle excitedly jumped in place on the other side of the barrier.

From the quality of the man’s items to his rather weak-looking spells, Sofia already knew how this was going to go. The numbers on the barrier counted down.

The barrier disappeared, and so did Pestle. The beastman, a hundred meters away, was suddenly sent reeling back. His left shoulder exploded, and his arm was sent flying over the treeline. He barely had time to cast an instantaneous wind spell, which, to his credit, actually struck the invisible fairy, but utterly failed at stopping her. His second shoulder exploded. The arm getting caught and eaten mid-flight, disappearing into the abyss of Pestle’s non-existent stomach.

The beastman managed to stop the bleeding of his arms, and prepared another attack, not even trying to dodge Pestle as he was much too slow. The fairy attacked for a third time, carving a round hole through the man’s chest as she flew through it like a cannonball.

“Stop playing with your food!” Sofia lightly berated Pestle, rolling her eyes.

“Pesle not playing!” the fairy yelled back while avoiding another wind attack. Though Sofia knew she was absolutely full of shit.

Finally Pestle decided to live up to her name and attacked seriously. Sofia struggled to even follow her movements with her mana senses as the fairy blasted through the poor beastman’s body several times a second.

Before long, splatters of red blood stained the entire clearing; Sofia and Pareth’s opponent for this round had become more air than flesh, and so much of his skeleton was gone that it could not even try to stand up as a thrall.

“And this, folks, is why we’re all glad the fae are no longer at war with anyone. Hopefully it stays that way for a long time,” Love commented before Sofia’s group disappeared from the arena once more.

[ROUND 2/13 - WIN]

“Pesle not play!” the fairy denied once again when everyone reappeared in the next waiting room.

“Sure, sure…” Sofia answered, “you’ve got some flesh still stuck between your teeth.”

“Ack!

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Again, nobody Sofia knew lost during this round, and the the third match soon came around, the arena changing for the familiar environment of the red sand desert.

The opponent was another elf, he wore familiar white clothes and an orange belt.

I’ll just handle this one myself.

Sofia stepped forward, quickly tying her black belt from the second trial around her waist.

The elf seemed both surprised and elated to see this, so much so that it seemed to make him forget the fear which was written on his face a second prior. He used the three second of preparation time to bow instead of anything else, and Sofia reciprocated.

That was as far as each other’s curtesy went. The moment the round started, the elf teleported right next to Sofia.

His punch never reached her. His bones were frozen in place. Sofia plunged a hand in the elf’s chest, cleanly fishing out and crushing his mana heart to bits. That was it for the third round.

[ROUND 3/13 - WIN]

After the awfully short third round, Saria and Cinthia reappeared in their spectator room.

“J̷̬͗ę̸̌ś̷̯ư̸̫s̸͈̈́,” Brant exclaimed, “This has to have been one of the fastest rounds ever.”

“Pretty much just what I expected,” Saria answered with a shrug, “tickets were free anyway.”

“Can’t imagine paying so much mithril for that, these guys taking the seats are crazy,” Brant continued, “Your sister’s gonna be disgustingly rich after that.”

“I got a good deal of money out of it myself, barely matters though, I just want to see her fight him already.”

“How are the bets looking for that?” Brant asked Cinthia.

“Hmmm, pretty divided, actually. Sorrow bet against her, even.”

“Wait, really?!” Saria asked in shock.

“Yes. Can’t read you the entire thing, but basically her thinking is that the money will help cheer Sofia up if she loses…”

“... I don’t know if that’s stupid or genius,” Brant commented, “probably a bit of both.”

The group kept chatting, and a few minutes later, received a notification about Sofia’s next opponent and the current ticket price, which was soaring up by the second.

“Ah shit…” Brant cursed under his breath, “What’d I do to be this unlucky. I didn’t sign up to get humiliated like that…”

At the bottom of a deep ravine, Sofia discovered her fourth opponent.

“Oh! That’s the hero guy from Saria’s team!” she told the skeletons, giving only a cursory glance to the illusory spectators seating in the galleries that scarred the sides of the ravine.

“Do Pesle need leg?”

“No need,” Sofia told Pestle, “this guy looks like a solid knight, look at his armor, I was thinking Pareth could take this one. Up for it?”

Pareth did not say a word, he dispelled his exalted exoskeleton, adjusted his size to be the same as the man on the other side, and summoned his weapons and armor of light to copy those of his opponent.

Love was flying over the arena and speaking but sometimes Sofia just could not hear her commentary, she guessed it was likely a feature intended to avoid giving advantageous information away to the competitors.

Oh wait! He’s actually sitting next to Saria. Hmm… I’ve not seen Tartaros or Sen in the public yet. Of course Sun is present every round. Leverle is here… Death isn’t, I think, but maybe that’s for the best. Lots of demons I’ve never met, though. Gotta wonder whose Apostle they are. Hmm, is that blue-haired woman a Dragon? She sure has weird horns; is that frown just a permanent part of her face or what?

Only one fae… He doesn’t look too happy either.

The Kleptras are easy to spot… I don’t know if that’s a good or a bad thing. It’s crazy that their human-adjacent form still looks that nightmarish… They should do like that person over there and hide under a veil or something. Actually, is that even a person or just a pile of blankets?

Ah! They waved at me… So there is someone under there. Sure are some quirky people in the higher filters.

How many skeletons? One, two… Seven?! The undead sure are wealthy. Richard isn’t here though… Too busy maybe? Oh, Valeure is here. Nice. Is that weird old man with floating robes next to her Wind, then?

Wait! Could that big hairy guy next to Cinthia be Hatred?! I wonder if mom will come… Oh, match is starting. Give them a good show, Pareth.

The sanctified grounds flared up before the three seconds buffer was even up, Pareth was taking this seriously. On the other side, the Hero cast a similar spell, lighting up the ground with even more holy magic.

His sword doesn’t look to shabby. Adamian steel coating it looks like. I wonder if that will be enough to damage Pareth.

The barrier came down, and, to Sofia’s surprise, neither side attacked. They stared at each other, lightly moved, adjusted their posture. Pareth took a single step forward and the man took a step back. In the end, it was the hero who attacked first. His lunge was fast, faster than Sofia could have managed with no buffs, but Pareth flawlessly deflected the sword with his own, and countered with a shield-bash. Shield against shield, Pareth was stronger, pushing the hero back, but one of his skills activated and helped him keep his balance and fight back.

This initial clash ending in a deadlock, after they were done measuring each other’s strength, they both started using their active skills.