by Pegaz
When he arrived into the thick of the town, everyone who saw him paused and stared. John had made sure there was nothing out of place this time—he was not naked or covered in blood. Seeing nothing wrong with his appearance, he walked towards one of the people and started talking.
“Hello,” he smiled as friendly as he could. “I’m from out of town and was wondering why so many people are wearing armour here. Is there an event on?”
The man was still slightly shocked. “Er, yeah, this is the preliminaries of the new tournament that will be in the capital at a later date.”
“Oh, a tournament. Can anybody join?”
“The minimum rank with the guild is C. Each town is holding a preliminary round, and only the top five people get to go to the capital. There are so many towns in this kingdom though, that the main tournament will have at least 8,000 people taking part.”
“Okay, how do I join the tournament then?” John had to join, there was no question. His target was in the capital, and winning here would get him a free ride there. Plus, he might as well enjoy himself on the journey. “Do I need to register somewhere?”
“Yeah.” The man pointed to his left, where John saw the Adventurer Guild of this town. “Over there.”
“Thank you.” Then, John added, “But could you tell me why you were staring at me when I walked in?”
The man’s lips curled into a wry smile. “It’s your armour,” he said with a slight chuckle. “We can see a six-pack, so the metal’s either too thin to be useful, or it’s a fake and underneath is flat, ahahah.”
John looked down. It was true that his armour was made from thin materials. It clung to his abs like wet paper. However, he knew the defence on this armour was top notch.
“Guess, someone’s going to find out the hard way,” he muttered, a bone-chilling smile appearing on his face. The man he was speaking with felt a shiver make his way down his spine. “It’s strong though, trust me.”
And so, John left the man behind as he entered to Guild hall to register.
Chapter 19
Tournament
John registered for the tournament and was given the number 948. When he read it, he concluded that this tournament was rather huge, and not the little event he thought it was.
He’s given a parchment which had the rules and a few other pieces of information on it.
1. No deliberate killing.
2. No using Life Power.
3. You are only allowed to forfeit inside the ring and not before.
4. Any weapon is permitted.
5. Any armour is allowed.
6. A team of judges will review accidental deaths.
7. If there is no forfeit, then the match is not over until you are able to do what would have been a fatal strike, or your opponent is either knocked out of ring or unconscious.
There is only one ring in the towns other than the capital, so it will take a while to get the final five; please be patient.
The final five will have a friendly match to sort out the ranks of the team going to the capital to compete.
Please tell a member of staff where you are staying so they can tell you when to go to the arena.
Pretty basic stuff. John read over the document a couple of times. But, yeah, this could take days or even weeks to find the final five. Guess, I can relax for a while then.
He went back to the guild staff and asked for a hotel that he could go to with a room available until the competition ended. He added that price wasn’t an issue. The woman behind the desk batted her eyelashes up at him while writing the address of the hotel down.
John just smiled awkwardly, grabbed the note with the address, and left.
I’m still not comfortable getting close to a woman in that way… not since her. I wonder if she was also reincarnated. Well, even if she were, it could be thousands of years ago on any of these trillions of planets. This awkwardness is the reason I kept camping outside the cities before I became an immortal.
Feeling down, he headed to the hotel recommended by the guild staff. Wanting to forget his past, he quickly checked into a hotel room and went to sleep.
Nine days later, John was still feeling a little down in his room. All he had done over the past nine days was eat and sleep. His routine was interrupted, however, when a guild staff sent word that he would be fighting today.
Heading towards the designated location, John could see hundreds of people outside the arena, lining up to get inside. There were even some scalpers selling tickets.
John followed the staff through the crowd to the combatant’s entrance which had six guards at the gate. When he went through the doorway, he saw close to a hundred other contestants were waiting inside.
He was told by the staff member that today was for the fighters assigned numbers 901 through 1000 to fight. The maximum amount of people allowed in the tournament was a thousand—John had barely made the cut-off.
First was a one vs one battle. The top 500 would move onto the next round. These 500 people would split into teams of five, and the last man standing would go through to the next round in three days’ time.
John’s first opponent is number 953.
An hour later, the crowd were completely seated inside the arena to watch the fights. The staff started calling out the numbers of the two people who will be entering the ring to fight. The rest of the contestants were able to see the fight through holes in the walls. John stood there and watched the fights until, eventually, his own number was called out.
John walked through the arena doors and into the ring. He looked around, finding it similar to what the Roman colosseum used to be like. The middle of the colosseum was all open, though.
The arena was packed full. There must be hundreds of thousands of people inside the seating area, watching these fights. He noticed at the middle of the arena seats what seemed to be a VIP area. From what John could make out, well-dressed nobles were sitting there.
He looked over to the opposite side of the arena, and a young man had walked out of the arena doors, holding a sword and shield. John estimated he must be in his teenage years, maybe 17 or 18 years old. To John’s left, a man was fully armoured and holding a big shield with the letter R on it. John assumed it was the referee for the fight.
John put his hands behind his back like when he walked into town. He approached the middle of the ring, then waited for the start of the match. His opponent also walked toward the middle, stopping roughly 30 feet from John.
The referee stood in the middle of them, turned to John and shouted.
“Ready?”
John nodded.
The referee turned towards the young man and shouted “Ready?” and the young man nodded, too. The referee’s hand lifted up, and the tension in the ring increased. The crowd hushed, the air heavy.
“Fight!”
The young man charged at John. In his left hand, he held a wooden shield before him, and in his right hand, a sword. John moved his left hand to his side, made a fist and timed it to punch the shield.
BANG!
The shield collapsed into pieces, the force pushing the man back. Somehow, though, he remained on his feet the whole time, causing John to smile. His opponent eventually skidded to a stop. Taking a moment to catch his breath, the young fighter held his sword up. That’s when the crowd started cheering very loudly.
John did a little showboating by putting his left fist up in the air, causing the crowd to get louder. However, he kept his right hand behind his back and clenched, where he was determined to keep it for the duration of the match.
The young man charged at John again, using his sword this time. He attacked without any rhythm or proper footwork. John could tell he was just randomly swinging.
John moved his left hand to knock the sword out of his opponent’s grasp, causing the young man to lose balance and fall on all fours. After the metal piece flung onto the floor, John picked it up and pointed it at the young man’s neck. The second he did that, t
he referee shouted “Winner, 948!”
The crowd roared once more.
John flipped the sword over and held the blade, handing the hilt back to the young man. His opponent looked at John for a second before taking the sword, seemingly discouraged by the loss.
“Swinging a sword like that is useless,” John walked up to the fallen youth and gave him a hand, “unless you’ve got proper form and footwork. What you did was no better than swinging a stick, hoping to hit something. Even if you had landed a hit, it would have done no real damage.”
The youth’s eyes widened as he grasped onto John’s outreached hand.
“You need to find a master of the sword and ask him to teach you. Even the basics should be fine.”
After helping the boy to his feet, John turned and walked away.
When John got back to where all the other combatants were, he checked everyone’s strength. They were mostly mortals, but there were a few immortals in the mix. The highest ranked person among them was Rank 2 Level 2 though, so he wasn’t too worried about his odds.
After a few more fights, it was time for the five-person team portion of the competition. John was in the tenth and final group.
He watched the matches and found some skilful fighters. The tallest person out of the lot was a 7-and-a-half-foot giant wearing a full metal plate. He used a two-handed sword that was just as big as himself. Every swoop of the blade created a gust of wind that sent his other four opponents into the air. However, at the end of the match, the heavy-hitter was knocked out from behind by a smaller opponent, someone much faster than him.
Then, it was John’s turn. He and the other four people walked into the arena, each entering from separate gates. When John got into the middle, one of the men looked at him.
“You didn’t use your right hand in the last fight,” he said. “Were you confident? Lazy? Or… are you injured?”
John stood with his hands behind his back. He turned to the man who asked the question and moved his right hand to let the other people see it.
“Do you really want me to use this?”
Chapter 20
The Unseen Fights
The four people in John’s group took one glance at his fingernails, and a feeling of death suddenly assaulted them. Upon absorbing the system’s first Sin via the two men and the woman in the restaurant, his fingernails became claw-like. They were like daggers, completely black ones.
These claws weren’t long enough to stop him from making a fist, but he didn’t know if they would keep growing as he became stronger. Maybe, they would eventually hinder him. John’s theory was that the sins he gained were placed there, and if he were to convert them into Life Power, his nails would go back to normal.
John put his right arm behind his back again and got into a horse stance. His left hand was in front of him, not in a fist, but in a relaxed palm out manner.
The referee shouted, “Start!”
The four people who were still in cold sweat looked at each other, nodded, and proceeded to surround John. It was like they had planned on ganging up on him from the start.
John checked their strengths. Three were immortals, and one was mortal. He dashed to the weakest first.
A lot of people think it’s best to get rid of the strongest first, but if you can’t take him down in one hit then it’s useless. While you’re fighting a person you can’t defeat quickly, the other people will gang up on you from behind. That kind of thinking will get you killed.
The weakest man started drawing his sword from the sheath at his left hip. John thrust his left palm against the hilt, holding it in place. His arm was now in front of the man’s face. He bent his arm a bit more, his elbow hitting the man’s temple. The man started to fall unconscious.
John let go of the sword and picked the man up by the nape of his neck, turned around, and threw his body at another opponent to his left.
Utilizing the cover, John dashed to the person closest to him on his right, away from the person he threw the body at. Using the momentum, he did a flying knee kick. His target did not expect this move, so it landed straight onto his unsuspecting face. John saw a tooth fly into the air as the man’s head was jolted backwards. Another one unconscious.
When his right foot landed back on the floor, he turned towards the second man of the group and dashed towards him. In retaliation, the man swung his spiked mace down at John’s left shoulder. However, John’s lightning reflexes kicked in and he redirected the weapon’s path away from him. Then, with an open palm, he smacked the man’s chin, causing him to drop onto the floor.
John turned to the last man. The man in question was seeing to one of his fallen comrades, a little thrown off by the sudden flurry of activity. Coming to his senses, he tossed the unconscious body to the side and charged at John.
This man was the strongest in the tournament, as far as John could see. He was a Rank 2 Level 2 Immortal. Since no Life Power was allowed, John could relax a little. However, he still had to make sure to keep an eye on his feet and shins.
The two ran towards each other and stopped when there’s an arm’s length between them. Making eye-contact for a brief moment, they started throwing punches.
The man threw a straight, and John redirected it. He threw a punch back, and the man blocked it. Move after move, they each matched each other’s actions.
They were in a stalemate for almost a whole minute, when they both suddenly stepped back. John was breathing normally, but the other man was breathing heavy.
John smiled. “Warm-ups are over now, right?”
The man shook his head, put his hand up, and shouted.
“I forfeit.”
“What? Why?” His forfeit had shocked John.
“It’s obvious you’re stronger than me,” he said plainly. “You can fight longer than me too. In that short exchange, we both already know the result of this match. You haven’t even used your right hand yet!”
The referee pointed at John with an open palm and shouted. “Winner, 948!”
“You didn’t have to forfeit you know.” John had a sour taste in his mouth. “Even if you were going to lose, we could both get fighting experience from this spar.”
The man just shook his head and walked away. Medics were coming into the ring with stretchers for the other three people. Still dissatisfied, John turned around and left the arena.
He went to a staff member and asked about the next fight. The next round would start in three days. This was to give all remaining one hundred people enough time to rest and heal. If, by the three-day waiting period, anyone was unable to continue fighting due to injury, the runner-up of that person’s group would go through. John thought this rule would start trouble. The winners would be targeted for sure.
That’s when John’s started overthinking again. If the guy who forfeited knew about this rule, then surely he would try to injure John using Life Power, which was prohibited in the arena. Tricky bastard.
Suspicious, John made sure no one was following him as he walked down the street and into an alley. Under proper cover, his mask changed into his previous disguise. He settled on naming his disguise Jonathan. It was an entirely different name to his on paper, but one he would respond to with no hesitation.
Smug, he went to the Adventure Guild in this disguise and registered a new ID.
Name: Jonathan
Age: 17
Rank: H
He didn’t open a bank account under this name since that would be too suspicious. Walking out of the building, he went to the same hotel and paid cash for a smaller room on the 1st floor. He stayed there for a few hours, lying down and using Life Vision to check the movements of everyone in the hotel.
Sure enough, in the middle of the night, John saw a person climbing into a window. The only problem was that he couldn’t tell if it was the window of his other room or not. The strength of the person was Rank 2 Level 2, so there’s a 90% chance it was the same guy he beat in the arena. Seemed like his opponen
t was coming to injure him, just as he’d guessed.
The only problem was that this man’s Sin level was almost nonexistent. He wasn’t here to kill John but to injure him to advance in the tournament. John had no killing intent toward him, just slightly annoyed of the inconvenience it caused him.
Three days and two nights soon passed and each night that man was waiting for John inside his room. To avoid the encounter, ‘Jonathan’ just stayed inside his small room. The only time he came out was to eat.
When it was time to check out, Jonathan walked out of his room and went to the front desk. He paid in cash for the extra nights stay, then headed for the arena.
He was going to change out of his disguise in an alley on the way there, but it occurred to him that the man could be waiting for him anywhere in the city. As alert as ever, he decided to change out as close to the arena as he could. John thought about fighting the man and getting it over with, but it was just not worth it. He would get nothing but peace of mind and that wasn’t worth the trouble of removing his disguise.
When John got close to the arena, he saw the man waiting for him. Knowing his disguise was perfect, John walked past him. The man had no clue who he was.
Tension gone, he got close to the combatant’s entrance and changed his appearance one piece at a time. First, it was the nose, then the lips, eyes, ears and chin. By the time he entered the building, only his hair was left. He gave the staff his regular ID and walked in.
The only people who saw him with fake hair were the guards, and they all laughed at it. They knew that contestants were often assaulted for their spots in this portion of the contest, but they’d never seen anyone wear only a wig to distract their attackers before.
Chapter 21
Attacks
John sailed through the one-on-one fight, and then the group fight that followed. He became one of the ten finalists. The other contestants were all mortals, which meant he just had terrible luck in the first round.