“I am Hyurence, the fourteenth king of Altoire.”
The opening ceremony had begun.
In an environment like this, much of the audience would rather the king hurried up—they couldn’t care less what he had to say. It was clear the man himself was aware of that fact, because his speech was quick and to the point. To summarize, he basically said, “I’ve already said everything I need to say on our previous broadcasts, so I won’t waste your time. I am thankful to all of you for helping bring this event to life. You don’t want to have to sit through a long speech by this point, do you? Let us begin.”
Even without any long-winded formality, it was a speech that made it clear he understood how his citizens felt. What an interesting king.
After the unexpectedly brief opening speech, he said, “We will now present to you a Wingroad flight formation. Direct your gazes to the sky,” and then stepped off the podium.
Boom! Boom!
After two blank cannon shots that reverberated through our stomachs, five colorful lines of smoke trailed through the sky: red, blue, yellow, green, black. The bodies of the skiffs and the uniforms of the pilots were all coordinated in color, and it was easy for anyone to see from afar that they weren’t the same types of skiffs used for manual labor.
“Young Master Neaaaaal!”
“Neeeaaaaaaaal!”
“Whoooaaaaarrrrrgh! It’s our priiiiiiiince!”
Thanks to the Wingroad program, everyone was aware of who was piloting those skiffs. High-pitched cheers filled the air, the occasional deep voice mixed in. I was proud of Neal as his sister, but I was a little worried by those deep voices I was hearing. What was that “Whoargh” all about? Why were they so enthusiastic about him?
After the smoke display, the five skiffs performed some acrobatic maneuvers and then flew away, leaving behind only their trails. I couldn’t judge the quality of their performance from a professional angle, but to the untrained eye, it was wonderful. At the very least, I didn’t think they’d made any mistakes.
Despite his age, and even at an event as large as this, Neal still managed to see his task through. As expected of the eldest son of the Liston family; with him around, our family would no doubt be secure.
Following the student team was the thirteen-member team performance from the professional Vanderouge pilots. There were so many skiffs swirling in flight patterns so complex that the audience’s eyes were glued to them the whole time. Thirteen whole skiffs were performing exhilarating moves from somersaults to steep descents from high altitudes that brought them close to the audience’s heads.
That’s the pros for you. I thought my brother’s team was good, but now I understand why they were deemed a simple teaser before the real thing.
It was at that point that Fressa suddenly passed in front of our crew. While everyone’s eyes were trained on the sky, the competitors fighting in the first round had stepped up to the ring. This was part of the performance in and of itself.
I imagined it was also because there were a lot of matches to get through both today and tomorrow, so they were trying to waste as little time as possible. In fact, that might have been the real motivation behind the king’s concise speech.
We couldn’t call out to her. We couldn’t disrupt the competitors who were so focused on the match in front of them.
The moment the formation flight ended, the audience looked back down and were greeted by the sight of the competitors already standing in the ring.
“Woooooooooo!” The arena shook with the loudest cheers of the day. There was no time to feel the afterglow or the lingering emotions from such a spectacular performance, but in exchange, the excitement wasn’t given the opportunity to die.
The first matches would now begin.
All right, it’s time for us to get to work. If we were going to move, it had to be now. I gave a signal to Bendelio and the rest of the production crew, and we moved up to the side of the ring—a space that allowed us to get a good view without interfering with the match.
And then, the cameras were up and running.
“Very soon, the first match of Block A between Freeze, the martial artist, and Gigzaras, the adventurer, will begin.”
The live broadcasts would be taken from the camera currently recording me and another fixed camera overlooking the arena. From this, there would be two varieties of program, one with commentary, one without.
The three crews would rotate commentary duties. First up was us, the Liston crew. Next would be the Altoire crew, then it would be the Silver crew. The junior crew wouldn’t be participating as they didn’t have the equipment for long shoots or live broadcasts, but they were allowed to help out as members of staff. They were probably being worked to death somewhere right this second.
By the way, it was currently a weekday, so school was actually still in session. Even though there were hundreds of students studying away, so many adults had abandoned their work just to spectate a tournament.
No, it’s rude for me to judge them like that. Besides, I’d heard classes would only be on in the morning, since they knew there was no way the children would be able to focus at a time like this. You can all enjoy it in the afternoon, kids.
Though some of us were free from classes all day, we were stuck working that entire time instead.
“As we can see, there is a clear difference in height, perhaps even greater than the difference between a child and an adult. However, the reason weapons exist is as a tool for powerless humans to stand up against those stronger than them—they are a culmination of our knowledge. Weapons are a factor that makes the result impossible to judge from aspects such as build and muscle density alone. One’s build is not the only qualifier of strength. Freeze wields a large knife, Gigzaras wields a club. For the first match...”
I stopped there, the words catching in my throat.
What should I do? I couldn’t say that I knew exactly how the match would pan out. The first match of the tournament that everyone had been waiting for was finally here. What good was it if we couldn’t keep everyone’s expectations high for the following matches?
But I was certain this would end in a moment. No matter what I said here, it would end in a flash.
There’s no time for me to worry like this. Let’s just go for it.
“For the first match, based on preliminary predictions, Freeze has the upper hand. Gigzaras is in for a difficult fight.” The moment I finished giving my thoughts, the referee stood between them and gave the signal to begin.
Fwoom! Crash!
The sound of something large careening through the air reverberated in our ears, and the impact of something heavy slamming on the ground vibrated through our feet. Gigzaras had been the first to strike, swinging his heavy club down with sharp precision.
Wow, not bad. That first strike had been released with the intent to kill.
Headsplitter Geeg, hmm? I remembered being very disappointed with his complete lack of drive back during preliminaries. I’d considered his loss completely natural back then. In fact, I’d thought he should just go home if he wasn’t going to seriously try.
Look at you, though. You can do it if you put your mind to it. If he’d just found his motivation sooner, he might’ve had the chance to perform in some stunning matches.
Unfortunately, he was paired up with the worst opponent.
“Guh?! Arghhh!”
The match had already been decided.
Fressa had dodged the strike from Gigzaras’s club and ran up the half-titan’s outstretched arm until she could jump behind him.
It all happened in a quick moment. Fressa had slashed Gigzaras twenty-two times in that brief gesture of her rotating around him. Blood spurted out from Gigzaras’s whole body—his fingers, his hands, his arms, his torso, his shoulders, his face, his legs, his back.