Sworded Affair-Chapter 237: The Odds are Good, the Goods are Odd

Chapter 237: The Odds are Good, the Goods are Odd

The remaining battles progressed largely in the same vein. Besides the singular grudge match, which ended in favour of the cultivator, each person chose to fight the one closest in ranking above them, which was the logical choice in the absence of additional information. As expected, Emma was left for last, and had to endure an entire fifteen minute wait before she got her turn.

“Finally,” her opponent grumbled when their circle appeared. “Let’s get this over with.”

[Lily Churchill - Level 19 Fighter]

Not quite the enthusiasm Emma was expecting from someone ranked so highly, though she could sympathise; she’d never liked waiting for anything, either, when she was young, and as part of an entire generation raised to the promise of instant gratification online, self-control was never her strongest suit. Her recent experiences had tempered that, just a bit, but the sentiment remained. Stepping into the circle, Emma summoned Epitaph to hand as the barrier formed, resolving to take this round more seriously than before, seeing as she was up against the closest thing to a peer that the algorithm could find.

Emma’s opponent, meanwhile, tapped a finger to the crystalline ring she wore, one that shone with familiar power, denoting it as one of the Emporium’s products, and its wearer as someone of wealth and means. All to be expected, this deep into the tournament bracket, or at least it was, until Emma got a proper look at her weapon of choice.

“Did you grab the wrong item?” Emma couldn’t help but wonder, staring slightly incredulously at the wooden sword, a theatre prop at best, if not a child’s toy. “I won’t attack straight away, if you need to switch.”

She wouldn’t have made the same offer in a serious battle, but this was still a competition at the end of the day, even if death was possible; mercy was very much the privilege of the strong, but strength, like all forms of measurement, was relative, and Emma was pretty sure, by this point, that she stood in the top percentile of Practitioners across the Empire.

Lily ignored the offer in favour of swinging for her head, and while the move was technically proficient, weapon blurring in a two handed blow, struck at a speed most humans would struggle to follow unaided, Emma still couldn’t help but feel that something was off. Epitaph battled the wooden sword aside with ease, a casual singlehanded swipe doing the job, in light of the complete mismatch of strength and weapon weight, leaving her opponent completely exposed; leaning forward and blatantly overextended. It was far too easy, against someone who managed to rank second so far.

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”Alright, what’s your deal?” Emma demanded, pulling back instead of striking the winning blow. “Some sort of technique that activates on death, for a surprise assassination attempt?”

It would hardly have been the strangest thing Emma dealt with, in recent days, but Lily only shook her head, a bitter smile on her face.

”Would you believe I need a lot of money?” She asked, righting her posture before launching another clumsy strike, one that sailed right past Emma, who wasn’t even dodging.

It wasn’t said outright, but between Lily’s words and actions, the subtext was as clear as day: match-fixing. It was often said that a sport wasn’t real until there had been at least one financing black hole, a match-fixing attempt and a sex scandal, and it seemed like tonight’s competition satisfied at least one of those three criteria, because Lily was being paid to lose. Most likely against Emma specifically, she reasoned, which would explain how someone powerful enough to earn second place would be so blatantly trying to throw it all away.

Emma was never much of a gambler, but she grew up in England, home of some of the world’s most fanatical sports betters, so shew knew how it worked; bets could be incredibly specific, meaning that a forfeit likely wouldn’t cut it; Lily had to pretend to fight, and be defeated in a seemingly legitimate manner for her to properly cash out, which presented a bit of a conundrum as far as Emma was concerned.

On the one hand, she could take the winning blow, takes the win as a whole, and pretend this entire sorry fiasco never happened. It wasn’t the simplest thing to do, washing her hands of whatever was going on in the background and moving to the next round, but part of her really didn’t want to play along with this. At the same time, she was far too pragmatic to willingly throw the match herself, losing out for the sake of fair play, or even worse, potentially falling for someone’s manipulation, if it turned out this entire venture was a gambit to make her give up out of a misplaced sense of honour.

If those were the only two options, Emma would have thought it over, and ultimately chosen to take the win, but fortunately, the previous rounds had already shown her an alternative.

“Most people could use a lot of money,” Emma quipped, as she activated Oversoul, and flew into Lily’s body.

It was one of the harder possessions she’d done, because say what you will about Lily, but the girl didn’t lack in willpower. The surprise factor helped, however, as Emma’s opponent hadn’t come prepared to face esoteric battle; whoever her patron was, it seemed that supplying accurate intelligence on Emma’s capabilities hadn’t been on the menu. Even so, it took a good minute or two for Emma to subdue the girl’s consciousness, asserting control over Lily’s body and raising her hand for the proctor’s benefit. fɾeewebnoveℓ.co๓

”It appears we have a draw,” Emma declared, her voice as dry as the Sahara. “I’ve taken control of Lily’s body, but she refuses to let me back out, and retains enough control to prevent me from harming her as well.”

This was a blatant lie, obviously, but from what Emma had seen so far, Master Europe was the sort to value honest competition, so maybe he’d be willing to play along, and poke a hole in an unsanctioned betting ring.

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