The match had already started, and all the players were sitting in the front seat of the arena. Seemingly, they were waiting for their turn to fight the champion.
However, Zach. Aurora, and Aria, were sitting on the skene beside Aquitius’ the sixth.
The rules of the duel battle were simple: get the opponent to surrender or immobilize them; killing the opponent wasn’t an option.
So far, ten players had already fought with the champion, and only 20 minutes had passed since the event started.
The champion was making the player surrender within one to two minutes.
It wasn’t as though the players were weak or low level, but the champion was simply more robust than them.
“Hehe!” the sixth laughed. “My champion is the best.”
Zach scoffed inwardly and thought, ‘If the champion defeats everyone within minutes, then I will have my turn in no time.’
The sixth was sitting in the middle, on a big throne that had shark’s heads around the edges. The sixth’s wife, Rilu, was sitting on the left, and Aria and Aurora were seated beside her. On the right, the sixth’s daughter— Aquarius, was seated, and Zach was sitting beside her.
The champion defeated yet another player as the people watching the battle applauded for the champion.
“Yay!” Aquarius clapped and jumped on the throne.
Zach was surprised to see that, but he didn’t care to ask why she was happy.
After the champion won a few more battles, the sixth glanced at Aquarius and asked, “What do you think?
“Yes! I want to marry him!” Aquarius asserted. “He is so strong!”
“…” Zach was speechless, not because of the conversation, but because of seeing Aquarius agreeing to marry the champion just because he was strong.
There was a custom, that the princess of the kingdom must marry the strongest champion.
‘So typical…’ Zach thought to himself.
In the next 30 minutes, the champion had defeated 12 more players. Making the number 28 wins and 0 loses.
Then, a player wearing shining armor and a glowing sword walked into the arena. Zach couldn’t see the player’s nickname or level because he was far away.
‘I know they say, don’t judge a player by their equipment, but he seems to be a high-level player.’ Zach sneered and thought, ‘Although it’s not like— Don’t judge a player by their level, since I already fought a level 69 player once, and it was easy as… fuck…’
Zach stopped on his word when he saw the player’s fighting style. It was as though the player had a lot of experience with swords. However, that wasn’t the only thing he was surprised about.
The sword art the player was using looked awfully familiar to Zach for some reason, but he couldn’t remember where he had seen it before.
‘Uhh… I think… I have seen Aurora use a similar sword art style…’
Zach glanced at Aurora and noticed she was as shocked as he was.
‘Is it someone from her kingdom?’ Zach wondered. ‘Or perhaps, they were taught by the same masters?’
Zach stopped thinking when he heard a loud clunk noise from the arena.
The player had tried to stab the champion, but the player’s sword broke.
‘The champion’s body is harder than I thought…’
The player retreated as the viewers applauded the champion.
Zach turned to Aquaris and asked, “What’s the name of your champion?”
“Uhh…” Aquarius turned to Aquitius and asked, “Daddy, what’s his name?”
‘She doesn’t even know his name, and yet, she wants to marry him?!’ Zach exclaimed inwardly.
“His name is… uhh…” Aquitius stroked his beard and tried to remember the champion’s name.
“…” Zach face-palmed himself and muttered, “What’s wrong with these people?”
“Ah. I remember now!” Aquatius turned to Aquarius and Zach and said, “His name is Starlord.”
‘He is a sea creature, right? So why the fuck is his name Starlord? I would get it if he was a starfish or something, but he is a mix of merman and a scorpion!’
Zach stopped thinking and caring about the champion and the battles. He quietly watched all the matches and learned as many moves of the champion as he could.
Sure, he was going to fight him in the last, but that also came with an advantage. One of the major advantages was that Starlord would be exhausted by the time he fought Zach. And another was Zach would be familiar with most of the Starlord’s attacks.
However, that was if Zach got a chance to fight Starlord.
In the next 30 minutes, Starlord had defeated yet another ten players.
‘Starlord’s speed is getting slow. Most likely, he is running out of stamina. But there are still nine players left…’
“So…” Aquitius turned to Zach and asked, “Have you decided which one of you three is fighting my champion?”
“Hmm?” Zach was confused as to what Aquiius was trying to say.
“You three are in a party, so only one of you is allowed to take part in the event,” Aquitius stated.
“But others…”
“Yeah. There were a total of 48 players excluding you three, and some of them were in a party of two or three members.” Aquitius looked in the arena and said, “This is the last player. After that, any of you three shall go and fight my champion.”
‘Well… that’s actually good.’ Zach stood up and cracked his fingers as though he was warming up for the battle.
‘Now, I won’t have to worry about Aurora getting hurt.’
Zach was happy. However, his smile vanished when he glanced at his left and saw Aurora staring at him with a knowing look on her face.
“…”
“I will go,” Aurora demanded.
“There is no need to. I will handle this in no time,” Zach reassured.
“I will win in 1 second!” Aurora asserted. “I will use my skill Lyda strike and kill him in…”
Aurora covered her mouth as her face turned pale when she realized what she had just said.
Up until now, Aurora has only been fighting the monsters and killing them mercilessly. However, Starlord was a living creature.
She realized that killing Starlord would mean killing a life. And besides, in this event, killing was against the rules.
***
Total players in the game 403621.
0 new players logged in.
123 players died.
===
Author’s Note- Harsh reality of surviving is to kill or be killed!
