We Quit...

As the event finally came towards its conclusion, Eden began to notice a huge decrease in the number of contestants.

"Those should be the ones angered by the sudden revelation of the top spot, already belonging to the princess." Eden mumbled, "If not for the system's reward, I would have left the competition as well."

That was the truth. He believed that even though, he might have not have taken on the top spot, it was still going to be a great learning experience.

Though now, he knew that was impossible. Right now he just felt sad.

"Now for the top ten rankings, we shall select those primarily based on the damage output and then the overall capabilities of the weapon." The host spoke.

The audience and the mechanics, however, were not that enthusiastic as before. Sure they were exited, a little bit, but not quite what they were before.

And this was when they were going to name the top ten mechanics of the entire Dome Star Cluster.

The host, the general, and also the people in the enclosed room, they all expected such a reaction.

If the event had played exactly as the organizers had planned. After the final event when they named the top ten; only then were the organizers planning on revealing the princess identity.

They had no doubt about princess capability.

Should it have gone as they planned, it was going to be the most spectacular scene, in the entire Dome Star Cluster.

Too bad, it didn't go as they had planned.

All because one idiot went ahead, and started complaining about the incognito princess. He even went ahead and called her "Mental".

And the general had to ask the kid to ask for forgiveness.

Eden could only shake his head looking at the sparse number of mechanics near the stage.

"You stayed behind too, Huh."

Eden turned around looking at the person who spoke to him.

"So did you. Laffey" Eden replied looking at the person who was forcing a smile.

"I stayed behind only because of the bet," Laffey replied with a bit of sadness.

"After they rank from one to ten, you can still ask for one on one match, right?" Eden questioned.

"What's the point?" Replied Laffey, "We can't ask for one on one against the princess."

"Oh, and who was the second person that you mentioned?" Victor suddenly appeared.

"I have no idea," Eden replied. " I just know that both spots have already been taken."

If anyone were to look at the three of them, people would have thought that they were probably friends. None of them acted haughty as they did previously.

Finally, hundreds of military personnel came forward with the weapons made by the mechanics.

All of them marched forward and stood in a row.

Hundreds of dummy stood out from the floor of the hall, with sensors all over them.

Finally, on the green signal, every soldier pulled the trigger firing at the dummy.

Numbers appeared on the floating screen, above the dummies.

At the same time, the numbers were placed on the row alongside the name of the contestants.

The overall units for the weapon started from seven hundred until it reached all the way to three thousand units.

However, the name that appeared on the top rank was not that of the princess, as everyone expected. Instead, there was only one simple word.

EDEN.

Apparently, Eden had not entered his entire name on the competition. The second name also turned out to be one word.

Laffey.

Looking at the rank, both of them turned to each other. There were only five units difference between them.

"How?" Laffey suddenly questioned.

"Remember the modules I picked up before, those were higher tier modules," Eden replied making them remember his previous interaction with the princess.

"What about you?" Eden questioned back to Laffey.

He bought up two fingers, in-front of Eden, "I added two main modules and turned them into a single firing unit."

"Well, I lost" Victor too walked towards them.

"And I lost too," Laffey replied grabbing on the shoulder of his brother.

As they were talking, everyone turned to the third row, where the princess's name was written.

Looking at the results everyone took in a deep breath.

This result was not what everyone had expected, not even the general.

Even the princess's design produced an output of two thousand eight hundred only.

Victor's result was one thousand eight hundred units. Which placed him on the sixth rank.

Still, what everyone wanted to hear was what the host was going to say next.

Even though the host was shocked for some time, he quickly recovered and started speaking as smoothly as possible.

"Now for the final ranking, we shall have a match between from the top five contestants."

.....

"What?" One contestant questioned.

"Again another final match?" Another contestant questioned.

"Since when did the final match turned into two segments?" This time it was the audience.

Hearing the host, simply add another final match, everyone got pissed at the host for trying to drag on the competition without any shame.

"Didn't you already say that was the final match?" one of the audience spoke out.

"Wasn't that supposed to be the final ranking part." Another audience questioned.

Following them, other audiences too started questioning the host.

All of a sudden the entire hall suddenly turned rowdy.

"Have you got no shame? Dragging on the entire event?"

"Do you think we have all the time in the world, for you to just add one pointless event after another?"

"You already said the previous event was final, did you not?"

This was also a chance for them to express their dissatisfaction against the royalty, hence, when they got a chance, they started crushing the host.

Even though in reality, they were who they were really cursing at were the royalty.

Looking at the entire situation, all the mechanics knew they were doomed. Because they knew, even though most of the audience were just expressing their dissatisfaction against the competition. They were also hitting the royalty at the same time.

If the situation lasted any longer, the one who might be punished was not just the rioters, but also the mechanics themselves. The riots could be used as the cover to cover it up.

The host was merely reading out whatever the organizers told him to read. He had no control over what the organizers planned.

"It seems like the royal family will be forced to take action," the host whispered in fear.

Suddenly three mechanics walked forward and turned towards the host and the general.

It was Eden, Laffey, and Victor. In a single voice, they sounded out.

"We quit."