“Lestra, you’re a magician, aren’t you?”
“I suppose. But that doesn’t mean I can’t use a sword, does it?”
Along with her magic, Lestra was using a rapier in this tournament. The rules didn’t forbid the usage of magic, so long as it wasn’t lethal. Spells with a large enough range that it could hit the audience were naturally also off-limits. Lynette wasn’t well-versed in magic, so she wasn’t sure of the specifics.
Very few of the competitors in the tournament used magic. Even attuned weapons like Anzel’s were a rare sight. Though that was partly because the weapon Anzel could summon was a blunt weapon with low lethality. It seemed likely there were many people with attuned weapons but were simply not permitted to use them due to the rules of the tournament; most would attune to lethal weapons, after all.
Honestly, it made Lynette wonder why Anzel had gone with a metal pipe in the first place. The nature of the contractual magic used for attuned weapons was that once you’d “made a contract” with a weapon, you could never change it for the rest of your life. Even if the weapon ended up bent, dented, broken, or even completely annihilated, it would always be summoned in the state it had been in when the contract was made. Depending on how you thought about it, it was actually a fairly useful type of magic.
But then why a metal pipe? People usually went for swords or knives, something sharp. A housewife may even make a contract with a kitchen knife she had just sharpened—it meant she would never need to sharpen it manually again.
“I’m up against Sauzan Flameen, huh? This might be it for me,” Lestra sighed.
“Have you been keeping an eye on him?”
“Of course. The result of an adventure is determined by the preparations one makes. Information gathering falls under that.”
It was the ironclad rule of adventuring. Lynette knew of it too, given her education.
“You’re...going to lose?”
“Mm-hmm. He’s my natural enemy.”
Lestra gave a cool smile and then walked off. What a beautiful lady.
“Her natural enemy...?” Lynette wasn’t sure what exactly the woman meant by those words, but she was very curious. It was like she already knew why she’d lose. No, she clearly did know.
It would still be a while yet, but there was a good chance that Lynette would eventually end up against Sauzan or Lestra. She prayed there was at least the slimmest chance of her victory...
Regardless, I cannot lose.
The Liston family was here to see the matches. Nia was here for work so that was different, but not only were her employers, the Lord and Lady of the family, here to watch, but so was Neal, her ward. Lynette had wanted to return back to the school in that break week to stay with Neal for a little while, but she’d ultimately decided against it. She’d become fairly well-known herself due to all the interviews that had been carried out. She didn’t trust that the capital wouldn’t become unnecessarily noisy with her around, so she chose to have some self-restraint.
Lynette hadn’t met with Neal for a whole month now. All she’d been able to do was catch glimpses of him from afar and watch him through the MagiPad. She was sure that Neal was missing her just as much as she was, that he wanted to see her again as soon as possible, to be protected, to one day have her become his most important lady that he must protect. The possibility was not zero, at least. That was better than nothing!
Even if the possibility was zero, she couldn’t just put on a terrible display in front of him. That would be even worse than losing in front of Nia. She wanted to remain his ideal attendant and become an ideal bodyguard only for him.
She could feel her motivation welling up inside her. Something warm had built up inside her chest. All it took was thinking about Neal to believe she could become stronger than anyone.
The first match of the tourney was already over.
“Please give a round of applause for our valiant fighters. We will now move on to the second match of the day.”
The competitors who had just fought left the ring and the next ones took the stage. This second match was the one I was most curious about today.
The Liston crew were recording from beside the ring yet again. The audience seats were filled and they were roaring with excitement. Hopefully, we could continue sprinting to the finish line with no issues.
The two contestants and the referee were already standing in the ring: Sauzan versus Lestra. A Hero candidate versus a veteran adventurer. So far, neither of them had particularly stood out in their matches.
To the audience, Sauzan was clearly hiding some big secret, and that was the part that had gained him popularity. He was the mysterious character of this tale. Said secret was probably his Hero candidacy as part of the Heroic Star Assembly. This attention felt inevitable—he was horrendous at telling lies. He was so bad at it I couldn’t tell if he was even trying to hide that he was a Hero candidate. It almost felt like he wanted us to find out. He was terrible at actually covering up his stumbles too, so he was always quick to fluster. So yeah, he was quite the funny guy, honestly. I’m not surprised that was his reputation.
His actual matches were also unexciting. He won so easily there was basically nothing to grip onto.