White Bear paused at the question before speaking out, “The fate has guided us—”
“Human speech, brother,” said Angor. He kept pretending to be of cold temperament but with a little extra impatience this time.
White Bear scratched his head in a silly manner. He thought Angor was agitated for real. “Because, uh, I’m wearing a couple set with your bird. That’s the guidance of fate.”
Couple set? Bird?
Angor was taken aback. Then he looked at Toby, who had been standing on his shoulder.
Toby chose different clothes to wear every day. Greya prepared countless selections for him. Today, Toby was wearing a fluffy animal costume, but it was not a bear. The bird was dressed as a white otter.
Considering Toby’s miniature figure… the pair of adorable otter ears did look like a bear.
Toby was also shocked at White Bear’s words. The bird dashed in front of White Bear and kicked at him in rage.
A claw mark was left on White Bear’s face. The force of the kick pressed him against the wall, which further proved how much burst power Toby had gained.
Then, Toby tweeted and chirped at White Bear non-stop. It was as if it was cursing at him.
“Well, that’s an otter costume, which is… different from your bear one,” Angor explained in a sympathetic tone. “Also… my bird is… a ‘he’, and it just rejected your couple proposal.”
With that, Angor called Toby back and turned to leave.
A moment later, White Bear struggled to climb upright while still being a little afraid of the violent bird. After considering a little, he took out a short, black cane from his animal costume and placed it on the floor. The cane stood upright, without anyone to support it.
White Bear closed his eyes and chanted some strange words. Magic ripples slowly spread from him.
When the ripples reached the standing cane, the cane fell down and pointed to the direction toward which Angor just left.
White Bear scratched his head again. “But I was right. The fate DID guide me to him.”
…
Angor chose another spot to meditate until an announcement told him to join the stage.
He felt tensed since this was his first battle. When he walked in the player passage, he kept breathing in rhyme to adjust his heartbeat.
“Oh my. This milk kid really came for his first battle in his life?”
“Aw, look at his face. He’s gonna have a really bad time.”
“You saw Blackjack? I didn’t see him anywhere.”
“He’s already here. Check out the passage at the other end.”
Angor walked out of the passage and saw that the audience stands around Arena 7 was already filled with people of various ages. Almost everyone was cheering “Blackjack!” in unison. Some frenzied female fans even moved seductively with their bodies being over-exposed.
Before Angor climbed onto the stage, he saw a figure already standing on the other end of it. Considering how the audiences were directing their excitement toward there, that must be his opponent, “Blackjack”.
And it seemed Blackjack had quite a fame around here. It was rare to see an arena so full of onlookers in Level 1.
The glass screen above the arena showed their names.
Baron Milk VS Blackjack. Match starts in: 4:59.
A portrait was also shown along with Blackjack’s name. It was a man wearing a black gentleman top-hat and a black monocle.
Angor’s name, on the other hand, only had a black shadow beside it along with three question marks, which obviously meant that his information was not fully updated yet.
“Blackjack’s portrait kinda dressed like the professor. Maybe he’s a fan of Sunders?” Angor looked at the screen and thought to himself. Apart from the different color of his monocle, every piece of clothing on Blackjack basically copied Sunders’ style, which gave Angor a really strange feeling.
When the countdown reached 2:59, the screen showed something else: Fighters On Stage!
Angor took a deep breath to suppress his stress. Then he whispered to Toby, “Stay alert and don’t attack him at first.”
Toby tweeted and left his shoulder to circle in the air.
“Baron Milk? Such a weird name.”
“I think he’s just a kid. Look at his body.”
“Maybe a little girl? Hey, look! Blackjack is all worked up!”
Angor walked up to the stage slowly. With the black bedsheet covering his entire body, people could only take guesses according to his overall size.
“Fafafafa!” Blackjack suddenly put a palm over his face in an exaggerated manner and let out a series of strange laughter. “Lady luck favors me today! Fafafa! A chick is my opponent. Let me snap those pathetic wings of yours! Fafafafa!”
Angor was totally dumbfounded at those embarrassing words. How could someone even speak like that in public? When he heard about the name of his opponent, Angor thought “Blackjack” was a serious and composed participant as compared to those kings or lords or something. But he was wrong! This man was worse! A psycho!
“Lord Blackjack! Go break his wings!” The audiences cheered in even more embarrassing manners.
What was more, most of the audiences were now mimicking Blackjack’s pose—they covered their faces and laughed maniacally.
Angor glanced at them and felt as if the embarrassment was going to materialize in reality.
“Lord Blackjack, enough with that boring kid. Come and break my wings, sweetheart!” Some shameless female fans of Blackjack teased.
“Fafafa… Fear me! Tremble before me, chick!” Blackjack taunted again.
Angor tightened his hood and made sure it would not fall off. He then looked up at Blackjack and inspected the man.
Blackjack was pretty tall. Angor’s own head only reached his neck area, so he must be at least 1.9 meters. His body was slim. To go with his black top-hat, he was also wearing black tuxedo combined with white undershirt with a lace collar. There was a red and black checkered bow-tie at the collar.
From what was exposed on his face, Blackjack looked decent. No wonder so many women fell for him.
Just… he might have a problem with his brain given the way he talked.
Blackjack kept taunting for a while. Even if he was playing a distant and wordless character, Angor thought he should at least reply a little.
Angor humphed. “You think you can become him if you copy his clothes? What a joke.”
None of the audiences understood what Angor meant. Even Angor was not sure if Blackjack could comprehend those words. He just spoke like that to improve his image; by pretending that he knew everything about his enemy.
The audiences remained silent for a while. Him? What was Baron Milk talking about?
Blackjack, however, quickly put on a completely different expression. “Who the heck are you?! How did you know my deepest secret?!”
Angor was speechless now. Your deepest secret? What’s going on?
Blackjack’s expression shifted. In the end, he squinted his eyes and displayed a really wicked look.
“I was only planning to pluck your nails one by one and remove all your limbs. Since you know my secret… I’d rather you die!”
Angor remained speechless. What’s his problem? Is his secret all about copying Sunders?
…
When the countdown reached zero, the magic-inhibiting array on the stage was lifted. Angor felt his mana flow returning and quickly began constructing a spell model.
But Blackjack moved faster.
The man revealed an eerie smile and took out four cards from his pocket.
“Fafafafa… Card, Kiss of the Tongueless.”
A beautifully crafted card was tossed into the air. A shadow of a tongueless individual suddenly emerged from the card and covered the area above Angor.
“Quickened spell?” Angor immediately thought about such a word. The shadow’s immediate effect caused Angor to panic a little.
The shadow was not really fast, which somewhat soothed Angor’s panic. He thought it was just some kind of attacking spell, so he quickly moved aside. However, instead of attacking him, the tongueless shadow only stayed afloat above his head while kissing the air like mad.
Angor looked at the worming lips of the kissing shadow in disgust and cursed in a low voice. That was when he realized he could not speak anymore.
He recalled White Bear’s words; that Blackjack could seal someone’s voice to prevent his opponent from surrendering. Previously, Angor thought it was only a sound-related spell, not such a… bizarre-looking trick.
Angor controlled his mana flow fluently. Seemed like the tongueless shadow only blocked his voice and nothing else was affected.
Blackjack noticed Angor’s panic and revealed another cold smile. He picked out another card from the three cards he was holding.
From a quick look, Angor saw a man with a really long tongue whose neck was tangled in a rope printed on the card.
That looked like something that could hurt or restrict people, and Angor did not wish to experience it. Before Blackjack could throw the card, Angor quickly reached under his black robe and released a golden light beam which pierced the air and reached Blackjack in an instant.
The light beam was too fast. Blackjack already noticed it, but his body could not react in time since he was not a Bloodline wizard.
The beam pierced Blackjack’s left arm. Blood splashed out quickly.
Blackjack yelled in pain and knelt on the ground. He held his wounded arm and looked up at Angor. “You know Quickened spell?? That’s impossible!”
Angor humphed again to maintain his arrogant image, but he had already begun to build another cantrip model in secret.
Blackjack looked at the giant hole on his arm and clenched his teeth. He took out a card decorated with the image of a flower-watering goddess. The card melted into a warm puddle and slowly mended his bleeding wound.
“Thank god Baron Milk is such a newb who doesn’t know he should finish me off when I’m down. Fafafa… Once I patched up my arm, I’ll grind you under my heel!” Blackjack frowned and cursed. He now felt both lucky and a little anxious.