Long Wait Ahead

Massive. That was the first word that popped in everyone's heads when they arrived at the colosseum. Although this wasn't their first time seeing the place, they had been outside when registering so they didn't know how big the inside looked. Kies thought that it would only be the outsides that were impressive since this was a colosseum where battles happened and everything inside was bound to get dirtied by sweat and blood, but he thought wrong. The walls of the arena were made of shiny white stone and there were also a bunch of statues lining the edges of the entire place. The seats were still empty but Kies saw that it could hold hundreds of thousands of spectators when everyone did arrive.

Kies spotted a crowd of people near one of the walls when they entered and pointed at it. "I think that's where we need to be." Everyone went to the end of the line and waited patiently for their turn. It took some time, but when it was their turn, they showed the people in charge their tickets with their numbers on them.

"5555, 5556, 5557, and 5558... Interesting. I think it's pretty clear that you four registered together, isn't that right?" the woman checking in charge of checking the participants asked them.

"That's right," Sirks told her.

"Well then, good luck," the woman snickered as she handed them back their numbers.

Kies found it rude but Sirks shook his head, telling Kies to not say anything about it. They left the counter and went to find a seat far away from the rest of the fighters as they waited for things to finish up.

But before they could, the woman called them again as they were just about to walk away. "Wait, I forgot. I need to check for magic equipment and stuff. Come here." The four turned and walked back to her. She pulled out a clear stone and held it close to everyone's body. Surprisingly, the stone didn't react to Kies' cloak, nor did it react to the fragment Iris had. Or maybe it did and they didn't know.

"Okay, you're free to go. No magic here," the woman told them after she finished checking them.

The four turned and found some seats a good distance from the crowd so they would be disturbed.

"What was that about?" Kies asked Sirks what the woman's deal was when they were far enough from the crowd.

"What? The stone or her reaction?"

"Both."

"The stone is used to sense magic items. As for how it didn't go off when it got close to you, I don't know. You should know your own items more than me."

"My cloak is resistant to magic."

"That explains it."

"And her reaction?" Kies asked next.

"Her reaction was normal."

"It is?"

"Though there are no rules prohibiting it, coming to the tournament as a group or team is looked down upon," Sirks explained to him. He nodded his head to the left of him and Kies looked in the direction too and saw that several of the other fighters were looking their way. Most of them were lone fighters but there were a few other teams, with most being teams of two. And unlike them, Kies saw that they were the only ones hiding their faces. "We stick out like a sore thumb because of these masks," Sirks tapped his mask with his finger.

"Yeah, it's basically a big, 'come get us' sign," Iris added.

"I was hoping that they would ignore us, but it doesn't look like that will happen... We're going to get targeted pretty hard in the first two rounds..." Sirks sighed. The fighting hadn't even begun yet and it was already going to be a rough start for them. "And looks like that bast*rd's here too..."

The three of them followed Sirks' gaze and saw a man in messy clothes. He was talking to a couple of other people. Kies recognized him as the mercenary that Sirks fought against for his test. "Did something happen between you two?"

"He's the one."

"The one?"

"Iris."

"Oh." Kies turned back to Iris. He couldn't see her face under the mask but he could tell that she was furious at him. The same applied to Wompa and Sirks. The three of them really looked like they were going to murder him before the fight even started.

"Do me a favor, will you, hoodie?" Sirks asked Kies.

"Hoodie?"

"Yes, it's not like we know your name. Hoodie is the perfect fit considering how you never take off that hood."

"I guess. Anyway, what do you want me to do?"

"If you get matched up against that guy, I need you to break his bones. And if you can, I'd like you to specifically break the bone in between his two legs."

"Ah... I'll... see about it." The mercenary didn't realize that the four of them were staring at him with ill intentions. He was happily chatting away with his other mercenary buddies and was too busy to notice them.

"Alright, him aside, we need to look at the other opponents. Especially the ones that have their statue outside." Sirks started to look around at the crowd for any familiar faces and spotted a couple. He pointed them out to the rest. "Over there, he got second last year. Even though the tournament was a huge disappointment with all the fighters lacking in skill, he's no joke. And that one, we have to pray that none of us gets matched against him. He's not a pushover either. D*mn, he's here too..."

Sirks went through ten or so different people until he was finished sizing up the competition. Kies didn't pay attention to anything he said since he was occupied doing something else. While Sirks was explaining the competition to them, Kies was looking through the crowd for the person that apparently won the tournament several years in a row. Luckily, he didn't find him. However, he did find someone suspicious-looking.

There was a person sitting far away from them, who was even further away from the crowd than them. They had a cloak on just like Kies and it was brownish-yellow like the sands. Kies had a heavy suspicion that the person might be one of the thieves that Nell wants him to apprehend, but he couldn't do anything right now. He couldn't risk blowing their cover.

The cloaked person suddenly turned his head and stared back at Kies. The two of them locked eyes for a moment before Kies turned away. There was without a doubt in his mind. That person is most definitely a thief. When he has the chance to, he will report this to Nell and have the guards handle this.

"Ha, the tournament has been a joke the past few years and suddenly all these big names appear this year. What luck. It's almost like fate is against us too," Sirks unhappily said when he finished going over the competition.

"Does that mean that we're in trouble?" Iris asked.

"Yes. It means we're in big trouble. But it's still possible to win. We just need to get past the first rounds."

"And after that?" Kies asked. In his opinion, the first round was the easiest. All he needed to do was run around and watch as everyone else got rid of each other. It was the third round that he was worried about.

"We'll talk about the plans about what to do after if we can make it through. Remember, we're going to get targeted," Sirks reminded them.

The conversation ended there as a horn blew loudly into the colosseum, grabbing everyone's attention. It seemed that they finished checking all the participants. Everyone watched as a man walked up the stairs and turned around to announce what was going to happen.

"Listen up! Because of the last-minute change, we didn't have the time to make rosters. So instead, we're doing something very simple. Participants one to hundred, get your a*ses down there right now. The tournament starts now!"

"Wait what!?" Kies looked up at the sun. There should still be some time before the tournament starts. Kies saw that many of the fighters were outraged by this sudden turn of events and were booing the announcer.

"I don't care what you all think! We have over ten thousand of you here competing! So get down there or you're disqualified!"

This angered the crowd even more but they couldn't do anything about it. It was true that there were too many participants and that they needed to start earlier so that they could get through all of them. They were not expecting this many people to sign up, and even after disqualifying all the ones that didn't make it here in time, there were still over ten thousand participants from the looks of it.

Ten thousand divided by one hundred... At the very least, there were going to be a hundred battles happening before they could finish the first round. This was an unbelievable number. Ten people would make it through per battle, so in the end, there will be one thousand people for round two. It was still an unreal number for one on one matches. After all, they needed to weed out the competition until there were only 24 left.

This was going to be a mess...

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