Scarlet

The remaining time left in the first round ends up being really boring, as all I’m left to do is sit in the corner and watch other people battle. Which isn’t really saying much, considering I’ve already fought everyone of significance in terms of combat prowess in here. Aside from Viper, of course. But I would be defeated in an instant if I tried fighting her right now.

Eventually I just sit up against the wall and close my eyes, not even watching the fights anymore. I don’t go to sleep, since there are way too many people here to do that and I don’t trust almost any of them even a hundredth as far as I can throw them. And I’m pretty sure I can throw them pretty far. But I do take the time to rest my eyes.

Because I’m pretty sure I’m gonna need the rest between the rounds.

After all, even if we aren’t being physically affected between duels, it is a pretty big mental strain to continuously battle for dozens and dozens of duels back to back, just constantly being aware of everything needed to fight.

At some point I begin humming a song I remember Cynthia singing to me back when I was a kid. A lullaby of sorts, mostly for the times when I was just way too overwhelmed. Both by my own forced overworking myself, and the constant stress of distrusting others and dealing with the treatment orphans receive in general.

It’s a relaxing tune. One completely at odds with the air of the dome filled with the sounds of people chatting about the duels going on. Some of the people are even chatting about me right now, with a few straight up daring others to go up and talk to me.

There’s even one group that’s trying to pressure some poor shmuck into asking me out on a date.

And another that I’m gonna remember for later because they’re talking about sneaking up on me at one point to touch my ears. Or at least, they were until someone mentioned me biting their fingers off if they tried. Which has me smiling.

Until I hear someone mention how cute I am when I’m smiling with my eyes closed.

Then I start scowling instead. Still with my eyes closed, of course. And still humming.

After who knows how long, I finally hear Tar’s voice in my head again, “You finished the duels?”

I stop humming.

Yep. A while ago in fact.

“Probably for the best that you get some rest before the next round begins,” Tar says, and I just lightly nod my head at that.

Then an awkward silence ensues.

Eventually I go back to listening to the other students’ conversations again. But fortunately, most of them seem to have moved off of the subject that is me and started talking about the second round by now.

Although why there are people having conversations during this round is beyond me when they clearly haven’t finished all of the duels they could be doing.

“Not everyone is a battle maniac like yourself,” Tar says, making my eyes snap open before narrowing.

How rude. You don’t call a lady a battle maniac.

Tar just laughs at that and says, “You? A lady?” Then he laughs again, his voice echoing in my head in a very annoying way.

I huff at that before rolling my eyes and closing them again.

Silence passes – between the two of us in my head at least – for a while.

Say, do you know just how many fae are currently in this dome?

“Almost every human here has a fae currently with them,” Tar answers, surprising me slightly. “What, you thought the other fae could travel between realms as often as I do?”

Wait, they can’t?

“No, they can’t,” Tar answers before proudly declaring, “that is a power reserved for fae royalty! Everyone else can only return once every week or so.”

Interesting.

We fall silent again.

Eventually the rest of the first round passes without much more happening, with the only event of any note are Denise walking up and joining me against the wall at one point surprisingly without saying a word – likely due to being tired. Since as it turns out none of the other students manage to get anywhere near as many points as me because a lot of them are already exhausted mentally and begin declining duels, or others are too afraid to fight. Then there’s the fact that no one else here dominates the other students enough to win all of the duels they do participate in.

Makes some sense though seeing as all of the people in this room are only between 18 to 22 years old for the most part, and they're all newly contracted Guardians who were just civilians afraid of the demons a month or two ago.

As soon as the time runs out, we’re sent back to the main auditorium through another wave of fog that has me ending up back in the seat I was in before being sent to the first round. And just like when we left, the rules are up on the screen behind the vice-headmaster who is standing on the stage alone. But only seconds later, the screen behind him changes to show two different things – one being the rules for the second round, and the other being a massive list of people, their grades, Classes, magics, and their point totals.

The only people who are shown on the list though appear to be the top one thousand. And even amongst those, most of the names are too small to read, so we can only really see the top one hundred which are shown in larger text.

And I can’t help but look through them starting from the top, just searching for my name. And surprisingly, I actually do find my name at #22 on the rankings.

Holy shit. How did I beat out so many Class II students? And even some Class IIIs!

“Well, remember that the first round was set up purely between those at the same class and category, and you got a bonus 50 points for challenging everyone in your dome and coming out on top in each challenge, whether through winning the duel or being declined entirely,” Tar says, making me quickly understand before he even finishes talking, “and I doubt many of the Class IIs were able to dominate their groups like you did, much less the Class IIIs. Where they will excel is after this point, in the second round.”

I can’t help but grimace at the thought of competing against Class IIs and even a couple dozen Class IIIs.

Although at least the Class IIs and IIIs get nothing from killing me. In fact, they’d be penalized for it, and I’d actually be rewarded and respawned from it.

Just annoying that my only chance at getting a higher ranking is to go around killing the other students of Class I. But I guess that’s not much different from what I did in the first round, and they won’t stay dead.

“Remember that you can just hunt the Class I demons and build up a bunch of stacks before attacking the students as well,” Tar suggests, making me nod my head in agreement.

I just wish the timer on the stacks would reset when I got new stacks. But you did say that that’ll probably be a future benefit to the skill, right?

“Yeah,” Tar answers right away, only for us to both focus on the vice-headmaster when he begins to speak.