The System Declares a Tournament
I woke up to screaming.
Not my screaming, for once, which was nice. Progress. Character development.
No, this time it was the magical campus alarm system having a full-on existential meltdown above my head. Runes flashed red. Sirens wailed. The sky literally blinked, and a deep, system-coded voice boomed across the dorms with all the elegance of a caffeinated banshee:
"DUE TO EXCESSIVE GLITCH INSTABILITY, BALANCE PROTOCOL 9.6B HAS BEEN TRIGGERED."
"COMMENCING SACRED DUEL INITIATIVE: TOURNAMENT OF ECHO-TOUCHED HEIRS."
"KAEL OF HOUSE VIRELLE—YOU HAVE BEEN ENTERED."
Pause.
"...YOU MAY NOT OPT OUT."
Ah. Fantastic.
I sat up in bed, bleary-eyed, one sock on backwards, hair fighting gravity, and stared directly at the fourth wall.
Hey, readers? Remember when I said I didn't want a harem? Or a magical destiny? Or a prophecy tournament where people try to kill me for being a metaphor with legs?
Turns out the System heard that.
And responded with: "Sucks to suck."
Five minutes later, I was half-dressed, covered in toast crumbs, and arguing with Spoon.
"You can't be serious."
"I am extremely serious," Spoon said, adjusting a tiny coach's whistle around its metaphorical neck. "This is the opportunity of a lifetime."
"You're a spoon."
"And you're a glitch-marked pseudo-deity with a God Complex™ and no cardio. We all have our burdens."
Fluffernox, my illegally fluffy familiar, floated by holding what looked suspiciously like a half-eaten scroll.
"What's that?" I asked.
"Your official tournament summons," said Spoon.
"…That he just ate?"
"Look, the System uses edible parchment now. Very eco-friendly. Not our fault the cat's a paperwork vacuum."
"I never signed anything!"
"No, but you glitched reality, joined an illegal midnight cult meeting, and emotionally destabilized three noble daughters in one semester. So… close enough."
We arrived at the Great Hall, which had been spontaneously transfigured into a Tournament Announcements Arena. You could tell it was important because it had extra columns and a dramatic magical fog machine.
Nobles. Professors. Random bystanders. Everyone gathered around a floating scoreboard that listed the Echo-Touched Duelists.
And right there, shining in suspicious golden light:
#7: Kael Virelle – Status: "Unwilling. Dangerous. Stylish."
Spoon whistled. "Wow. They gave you a style stat."
"They what?"
"Oh yeah. Look." Spoon pulled out a scroll. "Each participant gets a stat sheet. Yours says:
Charisma: 97
Luck: ?
Sanity: lol
Magical Echo Resonance: [ERROR: VALUE TOO CHAOTIC]
"And under weaknesses: 'Emotionally repressed. Susceptible to dramatic monologues.'"
I looked at Fluffernox. "You definitely ate the part where I was supposed to say no, right?"
Fluffernox burped and summoned a butterfly made of contract fire.
"…Yeah, okay. Checks out."
"Why is there a tournament, anyway?" I asked, trailing Spoon as we left the hall.
"To balance the glitch," Spoon replied.
"That doesn't explain anything."
"The System is improvising. Like you. Only with worse comedic timing."
Great. So now we're not only in a death tournament—we're in a system-mandated performance review.
Apparently, the Echo Monastery keeps a record of every anomaly caused by glitch-marked heirs. The system had tallied my lifetime contribution as: Too Much.
Also listed in the report:
Number of dorm enchantments broken: 5
Number of fiancées emotionally confused: 3.5
Number of magical relics accidentally snuggled with: 1
Number of times Kael has said "I'm fine" while actively bleeding: 47
The tournament rules were, predictably, insane:
Each heir had to duel another Echo-marked heir in a best-of-three round.
Matches could be magic, memory, or musical theater. (Don't ask. Just pray I don't get that one.)
No lethal intent. But "accidental metaphysical unraveling" was "acceptable within bounds."
"Does that mean we can die or not?" I asked.
"Yes," said Spoon.
"Helpful."
Later that evening, I found myself standing in the old observatory-turned-training room, staring at myself in a cracked mirror.
"Hey, inner me," I whispered.
Yes, Kael?
"What if I lose?"
Then you'll probably die, embarrass your ancestors, and trigger a minor apocalypse. But don't worry, statistically, you're due for a miracle.
"…That wasn't comforting."
Neither is a sacred tournament of glitch-deities, but here we are.
Spoon poked his head in. "Training montage time?"
"I don't montage."
"You do now. Cue the music."
Cue: a magical phonograph playing a remix of inspirational bagpipes and chaos violin.
Turns out, Spoon was a ruthless coach.
He made me duel enchanted furniture. Practice spellcasting while being heckled by sentient garden gnomes. Meditate upside-down while Fluffernox sat on my chest and purred aggressively.
At one point, I shouted, "I'm going to die!"
Spoon just threw a book at me. "Then die dramatically. You have a brand now."
The night before the first duel, I sat under the stars on the monastery roof.
Belladonna joined me. She didn't speak. Just sat.
"You heard?" I asked.
"I did."
"…You think I'll survive?"
She tilted her head. "You're Kael. You'll mess it up, say something stupid, cry internally, nearly die, and then accidentally win. As usual."
I smiled. "Thanks for the vote of confidence."
She stood. "Don't die. I'll be very annoyed if you die before I get to stab you myself."
"…Romance is weird in this world."
Next Time on Yes, I Was Reborn. No, I Don't Want a Harem. Stop Looking at Me Like That:
Chapter 61 – "Kael's Past Life Log-In"
Kael dreams again. This time, the past logs in. His old name. His last words. A broken deal with the divine DMV known as the Reincarnation Tribunal. Turns out, our beloved mess wasn't supposed to return at all. Echo magic glitched him into this world.
And now… the bill is due.