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Prologue
“Hey, don’t you think she was pretty cruel? Did I do anything that bad?”
“You did.”
“You made way too many people hate you.”
“Honestly, I hate you too. I’d rather you went somewhere else already. I’m only with you because you said you’d treat me. This is a one-off.”
“C’mon, don’t be so cold... Fine, I’ll be careful from now on...”
Еṅú ṁ ǎ .ǐ d
If there were winners, then there were also losers.
The preliminaries of Altoire’s martial arts tournament had come to a close. The winners remained on the tournament island while the losers left on the next available airship. Only those associated with the tournament were allowed on the island now.
Dilarang mengopy novel dari Enuma.id.
The losers first returned to the capital. Many of the fighters had come from afar to make it to the tournament. Unless they had a specific reason to flee, there was no need for them to leave the country immediately. As a result, the adventurer’s guild was flooded with people. Tables were filled, drinks were being ordered every second, and conversation never faltered. Business was positively booming.
Most of the talk was the competitors reflecting on what went wrong during the prelims, though, so the atmosphere of the room was gloomy.
“I have no right to keep calling myself an adventurer...”
“It’s your own fault.”
Ŵ ê b n̂о́v́ èl Е́n̊ü m̌_a
“I mean, hey, look on the bright side. Getting your ass so thoroughly handed to you has gotta kill the bloodlust toward you, surely.”
“True. Anyone who was after your head probably doesn’t feel the need to chase you anymore. I still want to, though.”
The one who stood out most, though, was Avan, the adventurer who’d probably had the worst loss of the prelims—maybe the whole tournament, as he now complained to his fellow countrymen, tears in his eyes. Every table was talking about roughly the same thing.
Put bluntly, it was a bunch of losers gathering to lick their wounds. If they were here, they had lost. All of them had been eliminated in prelims. A few of the patrons hadn’t competed at all. There wasn’t a single winner among them.
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The two tygre brothers had been so confident in themselves before the prelims and yet now here they were, sighing to themselves all huddled up in the corner. They were big, looked strong, had a ton of people rooting for them, and had been increasing in popularity, especially with children. It had filled them with so much motivation.
And yet here they both were, eliminated before the tournament truly began. They’d have been happy if even one of them had made it through, but alas.
W̊ е b nо̃ ṽе̄ l̄ .E n.u mа
“Oh yeah, where’s Headsplitter?” one of the brothers asked.
“He said he’d get in the way if he drank indoors, so he’s outside. There’re some other guys with him, even some regular folk. Seems we’re causing quite the commotion.”
“Seriously? Well, I guess there were about ten thousand people eliminated.”
Only about three hundred fighters had survived to see the next round of matches and all of the losers had been ejected from the island at once. There was nowhere near enough space in the guild for all of them. Of course, there were those who had already returned home, but they seemed to be in the minority; most were sticking around, curious about how the tournament would end.
“Planning to enter the losers’ matches?”
“I’m good... Seeing who got through to the main matches was enough to discourage me.”
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“I get you. Leeno’s bad news. Is she even human?”
“No clue. Her match with Avan was insane. She had to have been holding back against everyone else she fought against.”
“Didn’t people say that she entered the bare-handed category because she’d win too easily with a weapon?”
“And she’s the leading favorite to win bare-handed too. Monsters really do exist, huh?”
These were the conversations that could be heard all across the capital. The guild alone couldn’t hold all the losers, so they gathered anywhere they could. Add in the regular public and the chatter was deafening.
All at once in the streets of Altoire, those left with the dishonorable title of loser drank into the night, succumbing to volatile moods swinging from tears to anger.
Wеb n о̃_vе l Е n.ǔ m а́
In all the chaos, Altoire, a city that never slept, became a city that couldn’t sleep for three whole days.
“Bring him away.”
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The release of the lamenting losers onto the royal capital had affected even the underworld. The current head of the Altoire Qilong, Dao Zanxi, led efforts with the other underworld residents to deal with those getting rowdy and violent in their inebriation. Anyone who approached the back compounds or started fights had to be dealt with.
For the most part, they beat the offenders to a pulp and flung them into dumpsters. Polite and respectful treatment wasn’t a thing around these parts. The only thing the gang had to watch out for was to not cross the line into lethal force. Once the troublemakers sobered up, they would go home without causing a hassle.
A man clad in black silently appeared next to Dao as some drunken idiots were brought from one dark space to another. “Sir, a letter from the head house.”
“From the head house?” Dao repeated in surprise.
Еñu̇m a .ĭd̊
“Yes, sir.”
“Understood. Continue your surveillance.”
The moment Dao took the letter, the black-suit disappeared. Dao remained where he was as he opened the envelope and read the contents.
When he was done, he let out a deep sigh. Thank the gods. That’s one major concern out of the way.
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The contents of the letter had been simple: “We have completed our business here, so we shall be taking our leave.” That was all.
Dao knew that the main house had been in Altoire—they had been kind enough to come to this side of town to make their greetings, but they didn’t get any more involved with them than that. Though they’d had a little run-in over the summer, that had already been dealt with. At least it had, as far as the Altoire Qilong was concerned. But then elites had arrived in conjunction with the tournament and even participated in the preliminaries...
W̌ ёb̂ n̊ о́ṽе̊ l Е̄ n̄ u ṁ а
And now, they’d returned home.
Dao could make an educated guess as to why they had been here, but in that case, it wasn’t something for them to get involved with, so he’d delved no further. If he did, there was the risk of collateral damage. He wouldn’t dwell on the identity of their target. There had been no deaths during the prelims, so there was no need for them to get involved.
In any case, those cancerous menaces had returned home. There could be no news more delightful. Now they had the joys of dealing with the foreign guests here to visit Kaffes Jacks. That was why security around the warehouse district had gotten so strict. Had the main house still been here for them to potentially end up clashing with, it would’ve been troublesome.
“The rest is down to Anzel, I suppose.”
Everyone knew that Kaffes had bet fifty billion krams on Anzel. The outcome of his fights would greatly affect not just Anzel or Kaffes, but Dao too.
No, not even just them. The outcome of Anzel’s fights would affect the whole of the Altoire underworld. If Kaffes were to suddenly disappear, there would be an immediate battle for the emptied seat. Either foreign powers would try to advance on their territory or a full-on war would break out between everyone in the underworld.
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Had Anzel lost in preliminaries, then things would’ve stopped there—but he’d made it through. This was where the bet would be locked in. There was nothing more Dao could do beyond watch how things turned out.
Actually...there was one thing he was still curious about. Just remembering it left him feeling uneasy.
Asuma Hinoki, the Kenki, the Sword Demon, another man who had made it through the preliminaries... Just looking at him brought the memories back. It brought back the memories of that little girl who clearly hadn’t even been a teenager. It brought back the memories of that little girl who’d infiltrated the Umbral Arena, taken down the Kenki with barely a sweat, and then toyed with Dao and the other Qilong members with him.
Dao had tried so hard to forget about her, but he just couldn’t—seeing the Kenki brought those memories back unbidden. He had no idea who she was and he’d never seen her since that day.
Was it humiliation or awe that he had felt?
It had been both. She had been so young and yet so strong. The Qilong were members of the underworld, but they still trained in a similar manner as a martial artist. It was hard to walk out of a situation like that and not feel frustrated.
Е̊ ň.uḿa . і̂ d
That girl had been stronger than anyone he had ever met before. Vastly stronger than even those from the main house. They could fight her a hundred times and still never have hope of winning.
Where was that kid now and what was she doing? Would she get involved in the tournament?
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Dao didn’t want to bump into her. He couldn’t help but feel as if everything would be over for him if he did. He desperately prayed this tournament would end without him ever seeing her again. If it had to happen, he hoped it would at least wait until after the tournament.
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