A Duel Between Soldiers

Everyone looked back at the fight and in the direction of where Sirks was pointing at. There were only a few contestants left in the arena. Kies counted exactly eleven of them. Only one more needed to be eliminated and the first battle will end. But for whatever reason, no one was making a move. And then he saw why.

In the center of the arena, there were two people facing each other with their swords ready. One of them had a red scarf and the other one was Rui. All the other fighters were too scared to get close to the two and were watching from a distance. They knew that spot was secured for the second round of the tournament. All they needed to do was not get involved in the fight between the two and have them eliminate the other one.

"We meet again Silverfield sc*m!" the soldier taunted Rui.

"Indeed we do, traitor." Rui coldly replied.

"Traitor? Who here is a traitor?" He threw his hands up, and waved them around, pretending to not know what Rui was talking about. "I don't see no traitors here... Unless you're talking about yourself of course."

"Don't play dumb. I know what your commander did. Just wait until we find the proof."

"Hmph, I don't know what you're talking about, but I cannot condone anyone slurring our commander. Prepare yourself... I will punish you for daring to say that."

"Oh, will you? Not even your commander can beat me, and you think you have the power to beat me? I find that very laughable."

"We'll see who is the last one laughing. Draw your blade, that's even talking with our mouths. Let's have our swords do the talking."

"My thoughts exactly."

The two of them readied their weapons and stood silently, sizing each other up. The temperature of the colosseum suddenly dropped and everyone began shivering, with the exception of Kies, Rui, and the red-scarf soldier.

"Don't you know, it's against the rules to use magic in the first round," the soldier warned Rui.

"Magic? I don't sense any magic here. Can you prove that I'm using magic? I think you might be losing it. Is it time to retire already?"

"Ha, not in a million years." The soldier tugged his scarf and the cold disappeared. The temperature went back to normal in a matter of seconds. "Enough playing. Show me what you got, royal guard."

Rui turned her weapon horizontally and thrust it at the soldier. He dodged the attack by moving back and countered by doing the same thing that Rui tried to do to him. He thrust his sword at the royal guard's stomach. Rui twisted her body and batted aside the sword while simultaneously moving forward, closing the distance between them until she was right on top of him. She swung her blade at the soldier's neck but the soldier ducked and the attack missed. He raised his arm and tackled her. Rui slid back across the sand and flipped her hair.

"That win against our commander was him letting you win. Don't let it get to your head. You're no match for us."

"Nice joke. I haven't gotten serious yet and you're already saying things like that?"

"Neither have I. Let me tell you something. Without your magic you're nothing. Don't even think that we're on the same level."

"You sure have a lot of things to say. Are those words really coming from your sword, or are they coming out of your a*s?"

Another this short exchange, the two went at it again. This time, the two hacked and slashed at each other without stopping. While the soldier was slower than Rui, he was stronger in terms of physical strength. Whenever Rui pushed him back a bit, he would regain that ground just by swinging his sword once and pushing Rui back. The fight continued like this for a couple of minutes and it really looked like it would just come down to a matter of endurance, but then something happened.

The whistle blew and the two stopped fighting. They turned to look at the referee who was now in between them and waved for them to stop fighting. Everyone in the colosseum was confused. The fight didn't end yet so why did the referee blow the whistle? Did one of them break a rule or something? No, that shouldn't be the case. There are thousands of people watching them and they would've noticed if anything happened.

"Over there," Sirks pointed at the edge of the arena. While Rui and the soldier had been fighting, one of the other contestants got bored of waiting and decided to take the opportunity while everyone else was distracted to eliminate someone.

"How dirty..."

The crowd booed the man who did that but he didn't care. He just held his arms up triumphantly without a care in the world.

"Whatever... That's the first battle done. Just fifty-four more left to go before ours," Sirks sighed. They still had hours to go before it was finally their turn to fight. Kies now understood why the organizations chose to start it one day early. The number of people competing was just too many.

"Lucky you. You get to continue to round two. But mark my words, I will defeat you," the soldier told Rui with a scowl.

"That's only if you don't get eliminated until then."

"Ha! Even though you say that, you know that won't happen. No one here can match me."

"Keep that ego up, see where it lands you."

"It'll land me in first place," he cockily told her.

"We'll see."

Rui and the soldier didn't look pleased about the outcome and neither did the majority of the spectators but there was nothing that they could do about it. The fight was over and that was that. If they tried to continue fighting then they would be disqualified as it was against the rules to continue doing so after the whistle was blown. The contestants were escorted out of the arena and the next batch was called down.

"Well, there's that." Sirks sounded disappointed about finding out who would've won, Rui or the soldier, but he didn't complain since it meant that they could get to their turn faster. The last batch of contestants appeared behind them and most of them left after finishing their battle. They didn't bother to stay behind and watch.

Looking at it now, Kies saw that there were barely any spectators in the colosseum. Almost everyone here was a contestant and there were only a handful of people who were here to just watch. Kies nudged Sirks to get his attention and asked about it. "Why are there so few people here if this tournament is so important?

"People don't usually come to watch the first round since it's boring. There's only so much fun you can get from watching people dogpile each other in massive brawls."

"Oh."

"Yeah, people start coming to watch when round two starts. And they flood in when it gets to round three."

"Got it." Kies got up from his seat.

"Where are you going?" Iris asked him, also getting up as well, ready to follow him.

"Outside. We have a lot of time before it's our turn so I'm going to go do some exploring."

"Then let me come with you," Iris suggested.

"Why? It's not like I will get lost. The colosseum is huge. You can practically see this place from anywhere in the city."

"That's true, but I just want to come with you. Is that so hard to understand?"

"Is there a reason?"

"Because I want to?"

"Why not just stay here? It's safer."

"But I feel safer with you."

"..."

Even if Kies told her no, he knew that she would follow him anyway. So he just told her, "Do what you want," and walked away. As expected, Iris followed him out of the colosseum. As it turns out, he wasn't the only one that chose to go do something else while waiting for his turn. There were a lot of contestants sparring with each other just outside the colosseum.

"So, do you have a place in mind?" Iris asked him. Kies didn't respond and just continued away from the colosseum. "Hey, don't ignore me!" Iris took off her mask since it wasn't necessary outside of the colosseum and ran in front of Kies to block him. She held her arms out and stopped him.

"Ugh... Why can't you just give me a break? Why are you following me anyway?"

"Cause I want to."

Kies shook his head and walked past Iris. "Hey!" Iris turned to catch up with him. "Are you always this cold to everyone?" Kies didn't answer her. "Ugh, fine. Can you at least tell me where we're going?" She deserved to at least know that.

"Mercenary's guild."

"What? But why?"

"I'm trying to see if I can get a job done before we're up." They had plenty of time before they had to fight and Kies didn't want to waste it sitting around and waiting for everyone else to finish. There were a lot more productive things he could be doing with his time and this was one of them.

"That's a terrible idea! Most requests take at least one day. We're going to end up getting disqualified."

"No, at least I won't. You will though if you continue following me." Kies could always just use his magic to return to the colosseum within a couple of seconds. He did the math in his head and estimated that he had at least four hours until it was his turn to fight. And after that, there were still more than five thousand people to go...

Just how many people signed up for the tournament last second? He thought that they were late since they signed up three days before it started but it turned out that it wasn't early at all compared to the ones after them. Thank God they were in the middle of the pack. He couldn't imagine how long they would have to wait if they had signed up even a day later.

"What do you mean by that?" Iris didn't get what Kies meant when he said that. Why would she be late but he won't be late if they went together.

"I have my ways."

"Right..." Iris didn't ask any further about it since she knew that he wouldn't tell her. She quietly followed Kies for a few minutes as they went around the city for a minute. Kies stopped next to a building and looked into it. Iris peeked into the building too. "Oooo, is there a girl you fancy in there?" She tried to follow Kies' eyes to see what he was looking at and her eyes widened when she saw that he was indeed looking at a girl.

"Wait..."

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