Finally, Amanda
Not much time had passed since Amanda and Erza finished up their duel.
The arena was still in the midst of being repaired, so the next match had yet to start. Fran didn’t really have much to do, so she ended up munching on a bunch of skewers as she looked over the tournament’s brackets.
「Next, Forrund versus Phillip.」
『I’m pretty sure Forrund’ll end up winning.』
We’d seen both of them in combat before, and as a result, more or less ended up coming to the conclusion that Forrund was just as monstrously strong as Amanda.
『Let’s hope Phillip manages to hold on and draw out a couple of Forrund’s cards so we can figure out what he’s got up his sleeve.』
「Nn. Wishing Phillip luck.」
Giving Phillip our blessings turned out to be completely pointless, as he’d ended up losing almost instantly.
Despite that, he was satisfied because he’d more or less fulfilled his goal by taking a few seconds to inform the audience of Barbra’s plight and requesting their aid before the match began. Namely, his voice had reached all the nobles that’d finally decided to start spectating because it’d come time for the quarter finals.
The day’s fourth and last match pit Royce, one of the Beast Lord’s guards, against Fermus, the Dragon’s Table’s owner. Their battle ended up being far more intense than I’d initially been expecting.
Royce’s strategy made heavy use of his ability to teleport both with and without his Dimensional Gate. He combined his ridiculous magic-based mobility with the natural agility that most Rabbitkin just happened to have in order to outmaneuver his foe while attacking with Earth-based spells. I couldn’t help but feel a bit frustrated at the fact that he was clearly better at teleporting than I was. He would also make occasional use of Moonlight Magic in order to reflect his opponent’s attacks. His ability to make it seem like he could do it without exerting much effort made him appear ridiculously difficult to deal with.
Royce’s fighting style was incredibly impressive, but Fermus’ completely trumped it in terms of how much it shocked me.
_______________________________________________________________
General Information
Name: Fermus
Age: 63
Species: Human
Class: Magic Threadmaster
State: Normal
Status Level: 68/99
HP: 436
MP: 669
STR: 231
VIT: 201
AGI: 412
INT: 327
MGC: 339
DEX: 681
Skills
Espionage: Lv 5
Dismantling: Lv 8
Flame Resistance: Lv 8
Wind Magic: Lv 3
Crisis Detection: Lv 8
Presence Detection: Lv 6
Steel Thread Techniques: MAX
Steel Thread Arts: MAX
Bind: Lv 7
Harvesting: Lv 6
Muffle: Lv 6
Resistance To Abnormal Status Conditions: Lv 6
Commerce: Lv 5
Vibration Perception: Lv 8
Vibration Strike: Lv 6
Twin Sword Arts: Lv 8
Thread Manipulation: MAX
Short Sword Arts: Lv 3
Throwing: Lv 9
Lasso: Lv 4
Magical Thread Creation: Lv 7
Knowledge of Magic Beasts: Lv 3
Magic Perception: Lv 5
Water Magic: Lv 6
Cooking: Lv 8
Trap Disarming: Lv 5
Trap Detection: Lv 5
Trap Creation: Lv 8
Reinforced Threads
Orc Killer
Vigour Manipulation
Nulled Sense of Pain
Thought Division
Magic Manipulation
Innate Skills
Threading
Unique skills
Dragon Genocider
Titles
Natural Enemy of Scaled Beings
User of Steel Threads
Orc Killer
Dungeon Conqueror
Dragon Genocider
Magic Thread User
Magic Beast Annihilator
Equipment
Monarch Whale’s Beard War Threads
Dragon-Eating Spider’s War Threads
Lighting Dragonfang Shortsword
Imperial Wrath Armour [1]
Dragon Wing Mantle
Ring of Poison Nullification
Deodorizing Earing
_______________________________________________________________
Looking at his status page told me he used threads and all that, but completely failed to inform me as to just how versatile he could be. I’d only been expecting him to be able to use about ten threads simultaneously, but I was way off the mark. His ability to manipulate magical energy freed him from the one per finger limit and made it so he could control over 100 at once.
Fermus’ weapons would take on many forms as they chased Royce around the arena. They’d become swords, walls, and nets upon his command. He also had a bunch of his threads strewn around the arena. They were placed in such a way that they were capable of functioning kind of like alarm system, one that prevented him from losing track of Royce regardless of where the rabbitkin ended up teleporting.
It went without saying that Fermus was still taking a fair bit of damage. His threads were extremely powerful, but they weren’t capable of stopping the massive rocks Royce would hurl his way. He’d also occasionally tank a few hits when Royce engaged him in close combat, as the rabbitkin was definitely the better of the two when it came to that particular aspect.
Despite that, Royce wasn’t able to tilt the match in his favour. The arena was far too small. It prevented him from escaping Fermus’ range, so he eventually ended up getting caught in and ripped apart by the older man’s weapons.
「And the winner is Fermus, The Dragon Hunter! His strength has yet to fade despite retiring from adventuring! That’s someone that’s had their name in the records for three years in a row for you!」
Fermus bowed elegantly as he waved to the crowd, a set of actions that probably would’ve seemed conceited had he not looked nearly as accustomed to them.
『He sure seems strong.』
「Nn.」
『Hmmm… I’m not really all that sure how we’re supposed to handle him given how little room there is inside the barrier.』
And with that, the quarter finals ended up coming to an end.
Tomorrow’s two matches would be Fran vs Amanda and Forrund vs Fermus.
『Well, looks like we’re going up against Amanda.』
My guess was that she probably wasn’t going to be holding back given how she’d acted back when she sparred with Fran. If anything, she seemed more like the type of person to do the exact opposite and go all out in order to demonstrate her respect.
Man, I never would’ve thought that we’d have a chance to duel Amanda with both us and her going all out. She was the same rank as the foe we’d just defeated, but I honestly wasn’t all that confident that we could actually beat her. To me, she was pretty much an avatar of strength, quite possibly because we’d been pretty weak back when we’d first met her.
「Will still win?」
『Yeah, I know. We can’t let ourselves be stopped here if we actually want to win this whole damn tourney.』
「Nn!」
「Woof woof!」
The way Urushi barked almost made him seem like he wanted to make sure we hadn’t forgotten about him.
「Urushi, do best too.」
All of the day’s matches had ended, so many of the other spectators began leaving as we thought things through.
『We should probably leave too.』
「Nn. Will go visit Erza.」
『Right. Yeah, we should.』
He’d really helped us a whole bunch, so I figured we might as well pay him a visit and attempt to cheer him up seeing as how he’d ended up losing, and in a pretty showy way at that.
We headed over to his room in the sickbay after asking a nearby clerk about his whereabouts. There, we found him sleeping atop a bed, still unconscious.
I realized after we got a bit closer that his expression was actually a rather happy one.
「Ahhhnnn… Mfhmmmmm…」
He tossed and turned towards us and revealed that the expression on his face was in fact a lewd one.
「Ughhhnnnnn… Kufufu…」
Bits of drool were dripping from the slovenly smile that decorated his face. I honestly couldn’t tell whether or not he was actually feeling down.
『You doing okay there Fran? Not feeling disgusted or anything?』
「Why?」
『Uhhh, don’t worry ’bout it. All that matters is that you’re feeling fine.』
「What do? Wake up?」
『Well, he seems like he’s fine from an emotional standpoint, so we could kinda just leave him be.』
「Got it.」
And so, we ended up doing exactly that. We left Erza as is and made our way home.
***
The night came and went; the semi-finals quickly came upon us.
「Get ready people, cause the semi-finals are about to begin! Today’s first match is going to be one of the rarer ones, a duel between women!」
Fran was greeted by a series of cheers louder than the usual ones as she stepped onto the stage.
「This match’s winner will have the chance to move onto the finals. The loser’ll instead have to compete for third place!」
We were already all buffed up, and Fran was even in her awakened state. She could maintain the state for about an hour so long as she didn’t cast Brilliant Lightning Rush, so there wasn’t any issue with having her use the skill prior to the match’s start.
「In one corner we have the C ranked adventurer that’s taken the tournament by storm and even managed to take down an A ranker with her absurd skills! I present to you Fran, The Magic Sword Girl! Actually, scratch that. From here on out, let’s call her Fran, the Black Lightning Princess!」
Oh shit, the Black Lightning Princess? Now that’s one hell of an awesome nickname. Good job caster dude!
「Her opponent will be an A ranker that’s done nothing but put on a show of overwhelming strength time and time again, a woman whose beauty has put her well ahead of Hundred Blade Forrund in terms of popularity. Ladies and Gentlemen, please welcome one of our country’s mightiest and most famous, Amanda of Hariti!」
As one could expect, more people cheered for Amanda than they did for Fran. The only reason that the we had ended with more cheers than Goldalfa last round was because most people would prefer choosing cute girls over beast-like men.
The innate beauty that came with Amanda’s half-elf blood was not something to be underestimated. It’d even caused a decent portion of the women in the crowd had even begun referring to her as their “elder sister” as they cheered her on. [2]
「Hey Fran. I never thought we would end up having to face off against each other like this.」
「Feeling same way.」
「I won’t be holding back!」
「Nn!」
Both fighters flashed each other fearless smiles as they drew their weapons and readied themselves for battle. Though their smiles appeared rather sweet, they were in fact attempting to intimidate each other. Under the surface, the two had already long devolved into nothing but a pair of carnivorous beasts.
_______________________________________________________________
[1] Imperial wrath is a term associated with dragons because Dragons are often considered to be super high tier beings in asian mythology. Interestingly enough, this term is translated as “outrage” in Pokemon. Definitely one of their better translations.
[2] This is what lesbians do in Japanese media.