Walking The Talk

"What? What do you mean it is possible!? Are you planning on selling yourself as a slave or something?" Sirks asked her.

"What!? No! What's wrong with you!?" Iris crossed her arms across her chest defensively. The two sisters gave Sirks a look of disgust.

"Well, excuse me, but I don't see any other way we make that much money in a month," Sirks said in his defense, though it wasn't very good.

Iris points at a wall and everyone turns to it. On it is a piece of paper with the words, "Tournament" written in big bold letters.

"Oh right, it's around this time of the year again, isn't it?" Sirks grumbled and rubbed his chin. Even though they were in the midst of a war against the demons, Otane was still hosting an event like this.

"The summer tournament..." Kies reads. He skims through the page and finds the information that he is looking for. "First place receives..." Holy... The first-place prize was an impressive amount of money. It was still a little under what they needed, but if they all enter and one of them gets first place while someone else gets second or third place, then they would have more than enough.

"Wait... You're not thinking what I think you're thinking, are you?"

"Yes, I am!" Iris cheerfully said with a big smile on her face.

"Are you really going to suggest that we partake in the tournament!? We would get slaughtered!"

"We have to try, don't we?" Iris points out.

"Uh-huh. We want to try and see how it feels to have our bones broken and our skulls caved in, right?"

"Come on, it'll be fun," Iris excitedly said. "Also, if one of us can get first place then we only have to do a little bit of hunting and escorting to get the rest of the money to meet the goal," she pointed out as well.

"Do you know who we're up against?"

"No. Who are we up against?"

"The best fighters throughout the entire continent! We stand no chance!"

"Yeah, with that attitude we stand no chance. But if we believe and try, we could just win it."

"..."

Sirks waved his arms around at all of us. "Tell me then, who here do you think has a chance of taking first place? I know for certain that I sure as h*ll don't."

"Hm... Yeah, we don't stand a chance, but what about him?" Iris looked at Kies.

Kies raised an eyebrow. "You want me to get first place?"

"Yeah, your fighting style is not one that any of us has seen before. You might be able to catch everyone off guard with it. At the very least, you can win the first few with no problem at all."

"What do you mean my fighting style is one that none of you have seen before? I've only actually fought once in your presence and that was when we first met. How would you know?" Kies pointed out.

"I mean, you can switch between a greatsword and that two-sided sword right? That means you should know how to fight with a sword like that, and we have never seen anyone fight with a sword like that before," Iris explained how she knew.

"Oh."

"I mean, you do know how to fight with that right?"

"Yes, but I prefer not to."

"Alright, then we have a chance. You just need to hide that as your trump card and pull it out during the last fight and destroy the guy," Iris told Kies her plan.

"I'm not sure if that will work," Kies truthfully told her. "Against experienced fighters, it would only catch them off guard for a split second and if Kies missed that window, then he would have to fight them normally.

"Not you too! Come on! We have to at least try!"

"Try? I mean sure, I'm fine with the idea. Just don't expect me to have a guaranteed shot at first place," Kies told her. He was completely okay with joining the tournament but he didn't want her to expect too much from him.

"That's what I like to hear. And you?" Iris turned to Sirks, asking for his approval.

Sirks sighed and thought about it for a second. "Ugh, fine! Let's do it. It's like we have any other way of getting the money," Sirks mumbled.

"Yay! Let's get everyone registered! This will be fun!"

Iris took the lead and brought everyone to a giant colosseum near the center of Otane. It looked old and was decorated with marble statues of various warriors in different poses. "Who are they?" Kies asked out of curiosity if they were based on actual people or just randomly created from the sculptor's imagination.

"Them? They're all statues of the previous winners of the tournament. You can tell how many times they've won from how many gold bands they have on them." Kies looked at the statues again to see what she was talking about and saw that a few of them had gold bands at the base while the majority of them didn't. There was one that caught his attention and Kies asked Iris about it.

"That one with the base completely in gold, whose is it?" Kies pointed at the one and only statue with the entire bottom covered in gold. Looking at the face, it looked a little familiar. Has he met the person before?

"Oh him? He's from Silverfield. I don't know what his name is, but he was the one that defeated our reigning champion and improved everyone's opinion of the Silvians because of it. He's a master swordsman and also a mage."

So he was from Siverfield... That made sense why he felt a sense of familiarity when he saw it. "just how many times did he win?" Kies asked.

"Enough to have the entire bottom plated in gold," Sirks replied, not really answering Kies' question. "But to really give you a number, I think it's five or six years in a row."

"In a row!?"

"Yes, in a row. It's almost scary how good he is. He bends the field with his earth magic and forces the opponent to play by his rules."

"I see."

"Well, I don't think we have to worry about him though. He has stopped participating in the tournament since he has no need to anymore. With all the money that he has won, I wouldn't be surprised if he brought the palace with that. Though I heard that he is working as a royal guard now. I don't get him. If I had that much money, I wouldn't work a day in my life anymore."

"Heh, that's only if you can get that much money," Iris told him.

"Hey, you never know. Just like how you think he can actually win the entire thing, I also have my dreams."

"It's not a dream! It's possible. Haven't you seen it? Recently, the fighters are getting worse and worse. All the strong ones disappeared or something..." Iris grumbled.

"Wait what?"

"It's as she says," Sirks explained to Kies how the tournament the past two years has been very underwhelming and the prize is a lot less than it had been because of it. "The quality of the fighters are not the best... It's mostly old warriors trying to prove that they still haven't lost their touch, which most of them have."

"Oh." From the sounds of things, Kies might actually have a chance at this.

"Alright, that's enough talk. Let's go register already," Iris clapped her hands.

"We're all joining, is that correct?" Kies asked one more time for confirmation.

"Yes. Four people have better odds than one right?"

"You have a point but wouldn't you get recognized?" That was what Kies was scared of. If they get found out then there is no way they can partake in the tournament.

"Don't worry. I can just cover my face with something."

"I see. Can you get me one as well?" Kies asked her.

"Uh, sure. Anyway, registration is right there. Let's go." Iris points directly in front of them, There was a huge gate with a desk on the side. There were a couple of people lined up but by the time they got there, they were done registering and they didn't have to wait.

Kies walked up to the desk and was greeted by a big bulky man. He examined Kies for a moment before saying, "You're quite scrawny. Are you sure you want to do this? If you're one of those people who desperately need the money, there are always other options." The man sounded genuinely concerned about him but Kies shook his head.

"I'm sure," he tells the man. He was grateful that he gave him a heads-up but he knew what he was doing.

"Okay then... Just write your name here," the man pushed a piece of paper across the table and gave Kies a pen. "Um... Do I need to give you some sort of identification?"

"No. In fact, you don't even have to register with your real name if you don't want to. Just write something and I'll give you a ticket with a number."

"Then can I leave it blank?'

The man looked at Kies confused but said, "Sure. But you will be called by your number instead."

"That's fine."

The man handed Kies a slip and he looked at the number written on it. He scribbled it under the most recent name and handed it back to the man. "5555. That's pretty easy to remember. Lucky you." That meant that there were 5554 other people who also registered for the tournament. Was the tournament normally this big? It sounded like it was going to be a bloodbath.

"Are we done?"

"Yes."

"Really?" Registration was really this simple? Was there a reason why they didn't even need a form of identification or something? Oh well, it was better this way.

"Yes. It looks like it's your first time registering," the man observed. "Do you want a brief rundown of the fights?" the man offered.

"Sure?" It wouldn't hurt to know what he needed to do.

"Alright. The tournament starts in three days. It lasts two weeks and there are three parts to it."

"I'm listening."

"The first part is the mass elimination rounds. Since there are too many participants to have everyone go against each other one on one, you will be bunched into groups of a hundred or so. It's the toughest round as only the last ten standing are allowed to move forward to the second part."

"Okay." It didn't sound that bad. All Kies needed to do was to avoid fighting anybody and everybody. He just needed to last until the final ten.

"You're not allowed to use your own weapons, armor, or any other equipment nor magic during this round. You will be supplied by the colosseum with their stuff. In order to pass, it's a matter of pure skill and some luck," the man also added.

That was pretty reasonable. The last thing that people wanted to see was someone who made it through because of their superior equipment. And as for magic, Kies guessed that they didn't want to see a couple of mages team up during this round and eliminate everyone, forcing parts two and three to only have mages.

"If you do manage to survive the first part, part two is when the individual matches start. Basically, everyone will be put against someone else in a duel. The winner advances and the loser is thrown out. You don't have a second chance. In this part, you will have to fight multiple battles in a single day so that they can eliminate everyone else until they're left with the final 24 contestants."

Everything sounded good so far. "Go on," Kies told the man.

The man stopped for a second and raised his eyebrow. "You really think you will make it past that huh?"

"I might."

The man laughed. "Ha, I like your confidence. Well then, part three is the same as part two but you will only have one battle per day. It's a one on one duel with the winner advancing and the loser getting dropped. It will continue like this until it reaches three people. Then, all three will be pitted against each other in the arena."

"Huh?" The final three would have to fight each other at the same time? "Why is that?"

"Well... Because it's an odd number. We have no way of deciding who goes against who without making it unfair to the two who have to fight first."

Kies did the math. 24 to 12 to 6 to 3. He is right. "Oh." It would be an odd number and it would also be unfair to the two who have to go first since the person that didn't go would be guaranteed second place even if they didn't deserve it. He didn't understand why they chose 24 as the number instead of 32 which will lead to a one-on-one at the end, but he guessed that they had their reasons.

"Well, that's it. Seeing how you're so confident, I'll be keeping an eye on you," the man tells Kies. "Don't let me down. Show me that you're more than just talk."

"Don't worry, you'll see." Kies thanked the man and walked away from the registration desk. He saw that the other three had already finished registering and were waiting for him.

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