The first round soon came to a close, evidenced by Vex delivering the news of what the next part of the event would entail. They certainly made this tournament into a strange one…
“Well then…! The mage Malachai’s daughter, Selene Cross, is the only rat girl who restored her honor and is allowed to partake in the rest of the tournament! I just hope daddy dearest won’t get killed by the parents of the many youngsters his daughter murdered by her extreme act of treachery, hehehe!”
I glanced at the man and saw that Selene most certainly didn’t warn him of how she got to the final round. He was completely sidelined by the news. He now had ashen features and due to Vex’s words, stood to leave. He was sitting between his associates, some of whom likely lost their child on that day, so he was fearing for his life, or perhaps he just didn’t like the vibes.
“Let’s start the second round then, shall we? We prepared a real special one! There’s a little over two hundred of you left, and you’ll form teams of two. One frontliner and one backliner. Don’t start looking for your bestie because your teams will be formed in the order you were called for the first round, so our first valid backliner is Devil – yes, I know he is running around with a mean-looking black saber and not a wand or staff, but trust me when I say this, he is a mage! The first valid frontliner is none other than miss Wrath! Oh my~ What a power couple~! I must say, both of them are perfect fits for the Consortium, you might be looking at your future leaders right now folks!”
Jasmine brooded next to me when she heard her wingwoman pair me with another female in this manner. Vex betrayed her.
I couldn’t help but laugh at her antics. “You should already have a strong suspicion that I have a harem, right? I don’t practice monogamy, you wouldn’t be my only lover if we became an item, but in exchange, you won’t have to worry about competition because I go for all the women I want to have, so just be yourself and all will be fine.”
She looked up at me with questioning eyes as if I just uttered some complete nonsense, “I don’t understand.”
“What I mean is that if I accept you then I’m ready to give you my everything, you don’t have to worry about me falling for other women because that’s something that will most certainly happen but I don’t play favorites. Ghost is my first girl and I still love her dearly and will continue to do so for the rest of time, no matter how many gorgeous and amazing new additions my list of lovers get.”
She continued eyeing me as she understood the meaning of my words. “Hmm… So the doggy is the first? I honestly thought it would be Blade.”
“I’d known her the longest, but she took a while to fall.”
“I see… And how big is this harem anyhow?”
“I would say four and a half right now.”
“…? Half?”
“I’m currently trying to charm Solace, the healer of my team. I would say I’m nearing the finish line, hence she counts as half.”
“So you’re trying to seduce two girls at once. Quite ambitious.”
“Did you just count yourself as the second one?” I couldn’t help but chuckle at her shamelessness. “Shouldn’t it be the other way around? I’m courting a girl and another girl is courting me.”
“Hmph!” She snorted cutely, “when you say you don’t practice monogamy, I assume it only refers to yourself?”
“Yeah, my girls are mine and mine alone. I refuse to share. Is that an issue?”
“No. I just like to be as informed as possible, that’s an especially useful trait to have if you’re a merchant like me. I always imagined myself to have a single husband, polygamy is not for me. Sounds like too much hassle…”
“Heh, yeah. Sometimes they do get a bit jealous, but they’re all good girls so I faced no big issues thus far.”
Our conversation came to a halt when Vex said something interesting. Or rather, someone else did.
“Isn’t it unfair to pair the two strongest together?!” A man shouted, referencing how I was the most accomplished mage and Iris the most accomplished warrior. He seemed to be an obnoxious one, I don’t imagine many people had the galls to say their piece to a person like Vex, especially since she was currently representing the entire leadership of the Vesper Consortium. He received many glares and muted gasps due to his audacity.
Vex didn’t seem to find much issue with it, though. “Unfair? But of course it’s unfair! We are not aiming to hold the most competitively fair event here but the one that lets us select a handful or so extremely talented youngsters we want to nurture into being future pillars of the organization.
What did Devil and Wrath receive for being the biggest achievers in the first two rounds of the Trials? Nothing besides the ability to continue – something all contestants who appeared today did. If this was the real world and not an organized competition, they would be like members who were sent on a mission and came back with the greatest accomplishments. Don’t they deserve such a small reward as to be paired together?
Why would we give our most promising candidates unneeded difficulties? It’s not on them to prove that they are worthy of being Phenoms, because they’d already done that! It’s on the underachievers to prove that they are more worthy of it than those who were placed high on the list led by Devil and then Wrath!”
I liked the sound of it. If we were being fair to the competition, then I should be paired up with the frontliner on the bottom of the list, but then I would be getting punished by the Consortium for being the biggest achiever.
If I just sat back and relaxed up until now in the Trials, I would be lower on the list and then I would be rewarded for doing nothing by being paired with a strong frontliner. That made no sense in this setting. They wanted Phenoms, not some lazy minmaxers who could get to this point with the least amount of effort.