Chapter 27: All Smiles
Alfred awoke the next day feeling prepared. He went through his usual routine for similarly laid out days.
After finishing his breakfast as swiftly as possible, he began refining diligently.
The amount he was dedicating to this activity was in no ways miniscule. Almost any downtime he had he spent on refinement. For this week in particular, this choice kept him away from his peers, which he thought could pose some issues in the future.
His usual canteen had some of said peers (from the Bear continent in particular). Some were talking in small groups, some were minding their own business in corners, and some were looking at him. It was a little annoying.
Still, the benefits for his current actions, in his mind, far outweighed the benefits of befriending a bunch of fellow slaves, even if they had the opportunity to become extremely powerful.
And before he knew it, Alfred and the others had entered the SE. This time, his master had brought the Grimoire with him after confirming that Alfred knew the importance of keeping it on someone.
In the SE, Alfred saw the few kids that had arrived there early were lined up by the door. Alfred too stepped into the line once he noticed the guards were looking at the kids who arrived with him expectantly.
Soon, the rest followed, prompting the guards to enter something in on their tablet and open the doors.
They motioned for the entire line to exit.
The pattern stayed similar to yesterday. Every SE was emptied of the kids it contained who all took themselves to the center of the colosseum. On his way there, he noticed two things.
The first was quite obvious, that being that every slave that was eliminated yesterday was missing.
'Probably in some hospital or in the medical ward,' he guessed.
The second thing he noticed was fifty well spaced and sizable circles etched into the ground. The divots were very thin, but he still took note. The more noticeable part about the circles was the pair of numbers inside them separated by a diagonal line. Only when he saw his number did he put the pieces together.
'Is this a mass 1vs1 tournament?'
Alfred did not watch the Adult tournament yesterday, so he had no clue if they had the mass battle royale or if they too had the numbers inside the circles, but he was at least sure that his guess was right.
"...~Contestants~"
Alfred left his thoughts and returned to focus on the announcer.
"...~You will find your slave number somewhere in the colosseum. Find it and stay there…"
Some slaves looked around in confusion, and others, like Alfred, immediately walked over to their numbers due to noticing it on their way over. A few lucky people were already on their numbers without realizing it.
Alfred looked at his opponent's number.
'7778…'
Alfred looked around and eventually saw a relatively tall and lanky figure from the Stag continent walking over to his circle, stopping on 7778.
The kid had pure black hair and thin eyebrows with a soft face. He had mono-lids, making him look East Asian which was uniform with the other slaves from that continent. The two eyed each other, but soon turned their attention to the announcer.
"...~Behind you-
Alfred's hair stood on its end.
-are your personal weapons. Take what you need…"
Alfred already saw what had happened behind his adversaries' back, along with the other slaves in his field of view.
That being a rack of weapons, some full, some empty, some only having one thing there, appearing without warning.
Alfred turned around and saw his weapons. Although he was surprised and terrified at the speed and silence of whomever placed them there, it still didn't stop him from grabbing short sword and small shield.
After turning around, he lost the presence of the weapons and rack. Turning around, his instincts were proven true.
'It's not like some impressive dragon or majestic god, or even a bullet. All of those I can react to by sight or sound to a certain extent. But for these masters… if any one of them so much as thought to kill me, I wouldn't even be able to blink before I died. I need HSM just to see them, but that won't do me good with avoiding a killing blow…'
He shook his head. 'Why would they kill me? At least, I shouldn't be that great of a target… right? Barely anyone should know that I even have a master, let alone the fact that it's Cysandoth.'
He shifted these dangerous thoughts into the back of his mind.
His opponent was holding sizable polearm, or '... Naginata…' as he remembers it. It's designs were rudimentary, but it looked solid and sharp.
The slave's already decent reach advantage was multiplied with his choice of weapon, but Alfred wasn't planning on letting him use it.
Then, without warning, once the last few slaves chose their weapons, the floor surrounding them began to sink!
Alfred decided to hold his questions for later, but he still took a second to check the distance down.
Once the floor was finished sinking, he estimated that there was a 25 meter drop. Not deadly, but he would definitely walk away with a few broken bones, if he could even walk after a fall like that.
"...~Once you finish your bout, you must stay put on your platform. Those who win with near fatal injuries will still move on to the next round and will receive medical treatment…"
The implications in his last sentence were quite clear-
"...~Killing is allowed. You may also surrender, choke, knock, or ring out your opponent to win…"
Ample pause was given for this information to sink in. Both Alfred, his opponent, and the others surrounding him focused in on their adversaries.
The slave from the Stag continent looked into Alfred's eyes and did a slight bow, which Alfred returned out of respect.
"...~Begin…"
The slave took a step forward as a slight initiation. His eyes widened when he saw Alfred arriving next to him swinging his sword towards his abdomen.
The boy placed his naginata in the sword's path, but that opened up his face for a shield bash.
"Nng!~"
Alfred's shield connected with his face straight on, producing a guttural sound.
With Nidas al-Djol, Alfred could freely manipulate both arms to fully exploit the true powers of dual wielding, overwhelming an opponent.
The boy did not take this attack standing still despite his nose being broken. He carried some of the momentum from the impact he took to take a step back. In the same motion, he let go of his high grip on the naginata and pushed the backside of the spear out at a seemingly awkward angle.
Alfred intercepted the naginata at the open stem, but was surprised to see the blade continuing towards his head!
'!!!'
Instantly, he snapped his body backwards, leaning almost parallel with the ground.
'Damn!'
Despite his reaction, the spear moved faster than his body could, and managed to open a sizable gash going along the middle part of his face from cheekbone to cheekbone.
Luckily, this didn't impair his vision. He widened his eyes to get a better field of view and without pause rotated his body and slammed the edge of his shield into the slave's open gut.
The boy could only spit out air as he had the wind knocked out of him.
He reacted by leaping back with all his power, heading towards the far edge of the ring.
'Chance!'
Alfred exploded faster than seemingly possible in his position, arriving at where he knew the boy would land.
Only then did the boy realize his mistake, but with a show of good talent and decision making, he swung to Alfred's right side, where his sword was located.
Alfred was forced to block this with his sword. In this moment, he understood the action. 'He's trying to force a knockout instead of a stab or his death… nice play.'
Without remorse or holding back, he took a solid step and threw a destructive haymaker straight at the boy's chin. He was still in the air at this moment, flying down uncontrollably towards Alfred's shield covered hand, and thus was unable to take countermeasures to the impact.
The moment the side of Alfred's shield connected with his chin, His entire body went limp and spun around rag-doll style. He still had momentum to fall off, but Alfred didn't need to do much as the body disappeared the moment it fell over the edge.
'I'm glad master told me off earlier… or that could have been me. Unless I have some way to get back to the ground on a moments notice, jumping will be avoided.'
Alfred touched the wound on his face.
'Tsk. I don't have enough experience. I thought cutting him off higher up would set me up for better aggression, but the stem was made of wood, so of course it could bend… I wouldn't be surprised if that flexibility was intentionally built into the weapon.'
Alfred shook his head and made his way to the center of his platform. Such a win was unsatisfying for him, but he was at least happy to have learned a valuable lesson.
He looked around, finding that he wasn't the first to finish. Seven, in fact, had finished before him. Some even got to witness his last attack, and flinched when he looked their way.
They were considerably more injured compared to Alfred, one person seemed to have to go up against someone with a blunt weapon, because his arm was shattered to a point where it bent at four places instead of one.
Alfred turned his attention to the other fights. One in particular caught his eye.
The boy from the Bear continent who smiled at him yesterday was fighting a kid about the same size as him. He was wielding two dual short-axes and the other kid had a rapier. Alfred saw seven light slash wounds on his arms and a hole at his guts, but he was still smiling.
Taking in their positions, Alfred knew that it was the kid with the rapier was on the loosing end. He had a terrified look on his face and was in an extremely defensive stance.
The smiling boy took an extremely low stance and began to drag his axes on the floor. Each step he took, the kid with the rapier took one back. And, before he could reach the edge, the smiling boy made his move.
He charged forward like a bull. Instantly Alfred felt his presence increase. One person in a standstill on the adjacent platform lost focus and looked at him, causing his head to fly.
Back to the smiling boy, he entered the rapidly retreating rapier kid's range. The rapier kid let out a decent thrust at the smiling boy's eye.
Sadly for him, the smiling boy tilted his head just enough to let the blade slide across his cheek.
He then began his massacre. First, he slashed the closest axe and cut off the rapier kid's main hand, and then sunk the other axe into his ribcage. After stopping the upward momentum of the axe that cut off the kid's hand, he plunged it into his skull, splitting it down the middle like a block of wood.
The body vanished that second before he could admire his achievement.
'A berserker… I wonder if that style will work out in the long run…'
Alfred lost interest once the fight was over, and went to find another interesting bout.
Behind Alfred's back, the smiling boy locked onto him and widened his smile. 'So… that's the lady who got a hit in on elder brother…'
"*Sigh*"
'It is a shame that I wasn't able to witness her this day…'
Weekly Power Status
-- Power
Ranking 
-- Power
stone