Yes, strong people were well-liked, be them man or woman. In my last life, I was...probably insanely well-liked. Not that I could remember. In this life, I was insanely well-liked by Lynokis, so it had to be so. Whether that made me happy or not was a different problem.
Though, looking at them now...no one here is really that strong. You need to get a little stronger if you want to be popular too, Jinatan. Isn’t fighting your specialty? If you don’t get stronger, you’ll die before you get popular. A monster will gobble you right up.
There were two women here who did catch my eye, though. One was Tohaulow, the blue fox beastkin, and the other was...Lestra, I believe her name was.
Tohaulow was likely a Hero candidate from the Heroic Star Assembly. There was no way for me to confirm it, but she and her partner were the only Slengradd fighters who had made it past the prelims, so that basically served as a process of elimination; I’d like to think a Hero candidate wouldn’t be eliminated so early.
The girl’s body was slender but clearly well trained. Beastkin had naturally stronger bodies, but I could tell that she hadn’t relied solely on that. Right now, she appeared to have burnt herself on her tea, and was sticking her tongue out.
Lestra was a famous adventurer known for her unparalleled skill. She was a beautiful woman with distinctive pointed ears that marked her as a descendant of the elves. The textbooks said that full-blooded elves no longer existed, having died out over time. Elves had been known for their proficiency in magic and Lestra was no exception; she didn’t fight through physical force but with strategic use of spells.
All people were born with mana, but the aptitude for magic was a different story. Magical aptitude was not something viewed as very important in Altoire; rather than build themselves around something that not everyone could use, Altoire chose to focus on magic tools and machines powered by mana itself that could be used by anyone with a decent supply of mana. As a result, magic was no longer seen as a necessity. Labor workers eventually became more desired than magicians as businesses began using, for example, skiffs or mana-powered machinery. This was also how magivision had come to be.
That wasn’t to say there weren’t other countries that were magic-based societies. If I recalled correctly, we had been taught in class that the Noble Kingdom of Harvelheim valued magic and tradition. Then there were countries much farther out... What were their names again? The Divine Magilight Kingdom? The Kingdom of the Night? Something like that. They weren’t countries mentioned in textbooks, just sometimes by teachers when they were rambling, so the names hadn’t stuck in my head.
I could sense incredibly strong mana from Lestra. Magic was a fundamentally different kind of power than what I had been trained in, so I wasn’t all that learned in it. Though, regardless, I could still tell that I would easily beat her in strength.
Magicians should never be underestimated, though. A strong magician was no joke.
I hadn’t marked Lestra during prelims and I was pretty sure I hadn’t caught any of her matches, so I had no idea how she fought. It seemed unlikely that she stood out above the rest if I hadn’t heard talk of her performance, but the fact that she had made it through to the next round regardless convinced me that she had been holding back just enough that she could still win. Magic was often quite dramatic, after all.
She had to be one of those fighters who excelled in the small tricks—and that just made her all the more crafty.
She was certainly a fighter I was curious about.
Recording continued as scheduled. Unsurprisingly, the women were well-behaved. They had their body measurements taken using the provisional fitting as a guide, and then the second measurements were finished without issue.
I suppose we’re done here now? Should we go back and record the boys again?
“Excuse us.”
Just as I was considering what our next move would be, six people dressed in white entered the room.
“We are the tournament’s medical team.”
The one who had spoken was the most respected doctor in the Altoire medical circles, Drisla. He was a middle-aged man with looks that could rival Bendelio’s—though Bendelio’s face remained undefeated in its distinctiveness. I’d spoken with him a little during an Occupation Observation episode with the nurses. He was a very polite man who spoke with children just as he would anyone else.
“Just to be safe, we will be carrying out medical checkups of all the fighters in the tournament. We must ask for your cooperation as this should be considered mandatory. Should you have any small injuries, please let us know—we will happily heal them with our magic.”
Ahh, they’re taking advantage of all the competitors being in one spot. They may as well catch them all here while they had the chance. The staff must have wanted them to be in tip-top condition for the main matches. I absolutely felt the same.
Oh.
My eyes locked with one of the doctors on the team. She was that magic physician I had met down in the Umbral Arena who had stuck Lynokis’s arm back on. I’d seen her on the island before prelims started, but I didn’t think this would be where we’d bump into each other.
This...isn’t good, huh? I was getting the sense that my cover was blown. Her eyes hid so much of her emotion that I had no idea what she was thinking, but I could tell that she was seeing right through me. If anything, the look she was giving me was sharp.
When we met in that underground arena, I had been in a disguise with dyed hair. It was a few years ago now too, and we only met once. I’d grown over that time and was fairly sure I gave a very different impression than I would have back then.
And yet, she still remembered me.
Then again, maybe I shouldn’t be so surprised—I’d remembered her, after all, and I barely trusted my memory to even recall what I ate for breakfast. In which case, it wasn’t strange at all for her to have recognized me.
Eyes as cold as they were calm, the doctor looked away from me as if nothing had happened. Whether she had recognized me or not, it didn’t look as if she intended to make a big deal about it, so I deemed it fine to leave her alone for now.
“While we’re here, did anyone start a fight?”
What? A fight?
“If nothing happened, then that’s perfect. It’s just that there was a little squabble across the way, so I wanted to check.”
The medical team must have already visited Hildetaura’s or Reliared’s group, maybe even both. Did that mean something had happened? A fight, at that? Now I’m curious. I really want to know what happened.
With this many confident martial artists in one place, it was hard to think there wouldn’t be at least one of them who didn’t behave. Besides, we martial artists were fools who could only evaluate others by whether they were strong or weak. Wanting to test our strength against another was just a natural impulse. If both parties felt that way, then butting heads was natural.
If two martial artists wanting to test their strength were left alone in a room... Or, uh, many martial artists wanting to test their strength were left alone in a room, fights breaking out were a given.
C’mon, guys, did you get into a fistfight? Did you have a proper brawl? An incredibly messy and chaotic brawl with so many of you that you started losing count? Did you draw blood? If you didn’t draw blood, it doesn’t even deserve to be called a brawl.
It all sounded so fun that I decided I would ask about it on the flight back.
“The hell’s your problem, asshole?!”
“Huh?! The hell’s your problem?!”
Now, what was the cause of the fight? When the hundred competitors were brought to a different hall, they were then told to further split into men and women, and it was then that a part of the group decided to cause a fuss.