THE INTER-FAMILIES TEAM COMPETITION
THE INTER-FAMILIES TEAM COMPETITION
"Aren't you going to fight with your teammates?" Rinna asked me about my absence from all my scheduled fights.
"Those fights don't concern me much", I replied to her.
"Yeah, you do not need to gain favor from the elders like those people", Cassandra said to me.
"Are you really going to boycott this competition? Then we shouldn't have come here", Chash asked me.
"We still can come to enjoy a fight on the spectator's seat", Meera told him.
"I suppose so", he replied.
"The magic of these competitors is much stronger than usual. They must have taken some bloody drugs", Sara told us about the stronger than usual competitors in the competition.
"That could well be true", I responded to her.
"Is that the reason you are not fighting? Because the competition got stronger due to a potion. That is cowardly", Ratatouille said to me smugly.
Suddenly, a group of people walked into our room.
"Oriese, why haven't you been in the ring, I thought you are competing?" Conjurer Iras asked me.
"I'm the passive type. Violence is not for me", I replied to him when Iviar spits on the floor to disagree with me.
"You should take care of your hygiene", Illiwyn scolded Iviar who quickly cleaned his spit with his dirty shoe.
"Why did you ask us to come here? Will something bad happen here?" Eless asked me.
"It is a paid vacation to watch the competition", I replied to her.
"Are you sure? I'll order the expensive delicacy", Epius asked me.
"Order anything you want. The tab is on me", I replied to the Control Freak.
"I don't mind having a vacation if it's all paid for", Anitor added.
"We'll still have to charge you for the usual mission fees though. We could have spent the time on a mission", Iras told me.
"Of course," I replied to him without complaint.
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"We've lost two matches in a row. How can the other families be so strong", a teammate asked the captain.
"It is strange that all the other teams have much stronger contestants this year than last", the captain replied to them.
"All of us were eliminated in the last two rounds of fights, we are short of players", a teammate complained to them.
"And our reserve player hasn't turned up yet", another said.
"He must be afraid of losing that is why he didn't turn up", the captain said to them.
"Coward. He wasted one of our good slots", another added.
"The match is starting soon. Will the teams select your competitors", the referee asked the teams.
"It is unfair, our idiot reserve didn't show up", one of the players complained to the referee.
"The Mithridocus team has no more players, you should just declare the match", the captain of the Demetriodes team shouted to the referee.
All the players on the Mithridocus team were defeated. They couldn't field a player to continue the competition.
Suddenly, the reserve player of the Mithridocus team showed up, leaping into the arena from the viewing pavilion munching on a skewer of roasted meat.
"I represent the Mithridocus team", I told the referee as I walked to the arena without greeting my teammates.
"Who does he think he is?" a teammate asked our team as the whole team was furious with my arrogance.
"He thinks he is the Bully in this competition", the captain of the team replied to them.
"Let him fight. See how he shames himself", a teammate told the team as the others agreed noddingly.
The captain of our team did not object to me fighting for the team.
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The rules of the competition were simple.
There were three rounds of matches, and each team must bring out no more than five teammates during each round to compete. Competitors who were grounded or thrown out of the arena were eliminated from the match and could not be called again.
The team with the greatest number of uneliminated players at the end of the three rounds wins.
Initially, I didn't want to fight in this competition.
But I soon discovered that most of the competitors in the competition, besides the team from the Mithridocus family, had elevated levels of magic. Everyone else was much stronger than the Mithridocus family team.
It was queer and pointer to a conspiracy.
I needed to test the competitors' strength myself and see what I can discover about their queer.
"Huh, your team is only sending you out. Do you think you can fight with us, one against five?" the captain of the other team asked me arrogantly as I walked toward them.
"Hey, he is the Bully of Starri city", another of my opponents said to them.
"Let's see if he is a real Bully?" a third opponent asked.
Suddenly, I spoke to the audience in the viewing pavilions.
"Let me show all of you, how a Bully bullies the weak", I told them to the anger of my opponents.
"You do not look down on us, bastard. I'll see how you..", one opponent advised me when suddenly I appeared behind his back.
"Bully's Backstab"
I pulled him by his neck before I threw him out of the arena to the shock of all the spectators and even the judges. The elders and patriarchs of the families watched with horror at the efficiency of my attack.
"One down, four to go", I said to my opponents.
My opponents were shocked by my sudden attacks and would no longer treat me lightly. But their caution meant nothing to me because soon, I was at the back of another opponent, before I threw him out of the arena too.
"You, are cheati…", another opponent tried to accuse me but before he finished his sentence, he was also out of the arena.
In the end, it was only the other team's captain who remained in the arena after only seconds of fighting, after arrogantly questioning me before.
"This is going to become the quickest round match in this competition", a spectator commented on the viewing floating pavilions.
Even my teammates watched in shock at my fighting prowess. They would no longer complain about my lateness but would instead cheer for me from now on.