Chapter 6:
The King of the School Year Competition
FINALLY, THE DAY OF THE King of the School Year Competition arrived. The event wasn’t just important for me; it was important for the whole Stardia family.
“Let us all support my dearest brother today,” Alice said, looking meek. “We must ensure that he can reign victorious.”
Everyone got up and stood in a line while I walked past and gave them all a hug—my mother, sister, Olivia, and Tigerson. It wasn’t much, but LP was LP. It had been smart of Alice to suggest it. After I hugged Tigerson, my father bashfully held out his arms.
I smiled. “Oh, I’m good.”
“Why?! You hugged Tigerson, even though you wouldn’t get any LP from it!”
“It’s an important bonding exercise.”
“Oh, so you don’t want to bond with me? I see how it is. Fine. It’s not like I care…”
“Tell me, Father, did you bathe yesterday?” I asked pointedly.
My father whistled silently. From his reaction, he hadn’t bathed in three days. And besides, exchanging passionate hugs with my father wasn’t the most appealing proposition.
“I have no doubt that you’ll win, Noir,” Olivia said. “I mean, you are a disciple of the great Olivia, after all. Really, the only one you have to watch out for is Emma.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Oh, how would I know? Just make sure you don’t lose your wits to Emma’s sex appeal!”
Yeah, I still had no idea what she was getting at. Maybe she’d given Emma some kind of advice. Either way, everyone came to the front door to see me off.
“My dear boy, if you win, we’ll have another way to promote the store,” my father said. “You understand how important this is, don’t you?”
“Yeah, I get it. I do want to win anyway, you know. I’m off.”
“Have a nice day!”
Father was planning to run a sale when I won, claiming that items from the shop had helped me to become King of the School Year. Personally, I was more interested in the rights associated with the title—and the enchanted prize.
I arrived on campus and headed directly for the school yard. The competition would take place there, inside the school building, as well as on the roof. Low-lethality magic was permitted in the yard and on the roof, but not in the building. Weapons were allowed inside, but only so long as you took care not to damage the place. Sword-users were using wooden swords, bow-wielders had arrowheads that were less likely to cause injury, and every other weapon had similar safety options. After all, we didn’t want anyone to die.
“First-years, are you all here?” the vice-principal asked from the stage.
The principal was away on urgent business, so he was filling in. Today was just for the first-years, and he looked over us all.
“Welcome to your first King of the School Year Competition. You all know the rules—if the badge on your chest touches the ground, you’re out. Consider this a dry run for your future heroics.” Then he finished with an unexpected shout: “Fight like your lives depend on it!”
I couldn’t tell if he was trying to get us fired up. It made him come off as more unstable than anything. I found it a little unsettling. The badges had been distributed and affixed to our chests, and concealing them was against the rules. If your badge hit the ground, you were out. But if someone took it from you, you were safe—so long as you got it back. If someone did steal your badge, they had to fix it to their chest along with their own. Why did that rule exist anyway?
Ms. Elena whistled with her fingers. “One minute until the competition begins. Take up positions wherever you like. I’ll be your referee, but I won’t interfere unless there’s cheating.”
All of the teachers were watching, so flagrant cheating would be difficult. On that note, using weapons that weren’t sanctioned by the school would earn you an instant expulsion, so I wasn’t about to use my enchanted items.
With close to two hundred students present, it was hard to tell where anyone was. Everyone looked serious, keeping their distance from each other. Then the starting signal sounded, birds flew across the big, blue sky, and the entire student body moved at once. Some made a break for the building, and some tried to hide, while others attacked immediately. Little battles broke out across the yard.
“Hiyaaaaah!”
Someone came at me with a wooden sword. I blocked it with one hand and used my other to fire a Stone Bullet at their feet.
“Eeek?!”
“I’ll be taking that.”
I smacked my would-be assailant’s badge off his chest, and it fell to the ground. The badges were only attached lightly, so it didn’t take much to remove them. I’d have to be careful not to lose mine doing something stupid. Then, before I knew it, I was surrounded.
“You’re in S-Class, aren’t you? No hard feelings, but we’ve gotta take out the strongest players while we’ve still got the energy to put up a fight.”
I’d never seen these five, but they seemed to be from lower-ranked classes. I hadn’t even considered this kind of tactic—working as a team to eliminate the strongest, then duking it out between yourselves at the end. It was clever.
“Are you all ready to fire?”
“Yessir!”
Well, that didn’t sound good. We were out in the school yard, so spells were permitted. I hastily made a box of Stone Walls.
“Get him!”
I heard them fire off Stone Bullets or something similar, but the wall just about managed to protect me.
“Phew, that was close.”
But now my own defense had me kinda trapped. I’d have to wait for the walls to disappear.
“Dammit, what do we do? Go after someone else?”
Yes, I thought. Do that.
But my hopes were crushed.
“Wait, it’s open on top. You go check it out.”
I could have closed the top off if I wanted, but I deliberately left it open. I could hear one of them moving around outside. The real question was whether he’d just peer over to assess the situation or come in all guns blazing. I heard a thud, like he’d kicked the wall.
“Hide all you like, it’s not gonna save you!”
He’d used the wall for leverage—jumping over the box and firing a skill down from above. It was dangerous to stay put, so I jumped straight up. I had A-Grade Jumping, so I soared over his head easily.
“What the heck?! How can he jump so high?”
I fired off a four-inch Stone Bullet, aiming for the badge on his chest and knocking it to the ground. As I landed, I fired off a second shot at one of the others, but he managed to dodge out of the way. I quickly closed the distance between us and grabbed his badge with my bare hand, tossing it aside.
“Three left, huh?”
“Don’t let him spook you! Did you see how small the Stone Bullet was? He probably isn’t very good with spells.”
Actually, I can just control it. I fired off an almost two-foot diameter Stone Bullet at the guy’s feet, and he frantically jumped aside—diving to the ground. The impact freed his badge from his shirt, and the other two fell just as easily. They were probably in D- or E-Class.
“Well, that was a good start,” I said. “And my badge is still safe—”
Wait. I couldn’t believe my own eyes. Where had my badge gone…?