Sworded Affair-Chapter 238: The Beautiful Game

Chapter 238: The Beautiful Game

”Is that right?” The proctor considered her statement, stepping into the bubble with nary an effort, the space expanding to accommodate him without crowding Emma and her borrowed body. Master Europe stared at Lily’s still form, stroking his big, bushy beard as his face scrunched in exaggerated thought.

Emma didn’t believe his expression for a minute, because despite his eccentricities, Master Europe more than lived up to his title, and given the wealth of experience it implied, he was sure to see through such a mundane deception. More likely than not, he was just playing his role, and hamming things up for the viewers both in person and further afield, wherever the latter might be.

”Marvelous!” He declared moments later, his booming voice enough to rattle the floorboards. “It’s always wonderful to see such a display of determination, and dare I say it friendship blooming upon the battlefield. Very well, if this is your resolve, then I shall allow it! With the authority invested in me by the events committee, I officially declare this match a draw!”

With a clap of his hands, the barrier bubble popped, returning the trio were back in the communal hall, to the obvious bafflement of most of the bystanders, who were not expecting Lily to win. Emma emerged from her body before a misunderstanding could take hold, making the victory sign as she did so.

“It was a draw,” Emma emphasised, placing an armoured arm around Lily’s shoulder in a gesture of solidarity. “I was able to bind her, but she put up a great fight in the mindscape, and there was no progress on either end until the proctor called it.”

”Yay me,” Lily made the same gesture, though her tone couldn’t be more different, and her dead-eyed stare was a source of obvious amusement, a few in the crowd in particular laughing it up; Emma mentally marked them as the most likely to be in on the betting ring, because there was nothing more sports-like than the participants having their own hands in the pot.

“With that, the round of sixteen is concluded,” Master Europe announced. “That brings us to the final eight, which is where the most cheating tends to happen.”

Emma nearly laughed aloud at that, because either this tidbit was a response to her match, or it had been planned beforehand and the timing was brilliant; she genuinely wasn’t sure which outcome would be funnier, all things considered.

[I won’t spoil the truth, if you find it so amusing; feel free to ask Master Europe about it afterwards, he’s usually fairly transparent about such things, once the knowledge spreading no longer matters.’

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“Accordingly, I will be pairing the participants at my own discretion, arranging the matches in the way I find most entertaining,” the proctor continued. “Is this a perfect system? Of course not, but a perfect system doesn’t exist, so this is the best way to do it while avoiding obvious interference from outside. With that in mind, the pairings are as follows. Three two one go!” freēwēbnovel.com

A snap of his fingers, and Emma found herself in another isolated bubble, this time matched against a man as she summoned Epitaph in preparation for a fight. No, scratch that, she was actually matched against a woman. Or rather, this time she was matched against a boy? A girl? Emma blinked repeatedly, her brain glitching as she found herself unable to perceive what her eyes were seeing.

[Null Zone (Toggle: ON)]

It wasn’t until she released her anti-magic sphere around her immediate location that the effect cleared up, revealing a rather short boy with whom she was extremely familiar.

”Felix?” Emma blinked, because it was none other than her brother in the arena with her, purple emperor’s toga and all.

”In the flesh, so to speak,” Felix grinned, bowing for effect, as though basking in the roars of an imaginary crowd.

”I thought you couldn’t leave the dungeon, except in a broadcast.”

”That’s still mostly true,” Felix reassured her. “But the lines will start to blur, the more ambient mana the world has to work with, and it’s already loosened the restrictions enough since the first days for me to deploy a clone. Not easily, it took a lot of alchemy and resources to get this thing to work properly, but it’s enough to take it out for a test drive in disguise. I’ve done pretty well for myself, don’t you think? No real training or combat experience, just a few months ago, and look at me now, in the round of eight, beating back people who have been practicing since they could walk.”

”You’re talking to someone who was literally in the exact same boat,” Emma deadpanned, never too happy to listen to her brother boasting. “Get to the point, I refuse to believe you did all of this just to come brag to me.”

”Very true,” Felix agreed, reaching into his toga for something. “I’ve got an express delivery here, just for you.”

Maybe it was the familiarity, or paradoxically the oddity of the situation, but Emma leaned in, keen to see what her brother had brought for her.

“Sic semper tyrannis!”

[-100 Anima]

She took a knife straight to the head for her trouble, the dense material carving straight through her armour, seemingly unaffected by her Null Zone as well. Her retaliation came immediately, a horizontal swing straight at belly height, one that Felix dodged with an impressive display of limbo that could have made the record books in another era.

”A sucker punch? Really?”

”Playing fair is for suckers,” Felix laughed, righting himself as his knife vanished, replaced with a perfect replica of a Roman gladius. “Too bad it wasn’t enough to take you down, but I reckon I’ve got a fair shot, even with all the tricks you’ve managed to pick up.”

[Anima: 400/500]

Remembering the outcome of her first dungeon, Emma couldn’t help but concede that he might have a point there.

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