Chapter 67: Chapter 63 – The diminished luck

“How…?”, I couldn’t process the wonder happening before me, my eyes were mainly aiming at the object residing within Grays hands.

A golden chalice, one of the quested items we had to find during the challenge. The one we had in hand prior the end of the challenge was destroyed.

“After you left me together with the ‘other guy’, he got scared out of his life and ran away.”, he explained in a tired voice whilst releasing a weighty sigh, he had some cuts and bruises on his body, though they weren’t serious, they were bad enough to be recognizable.

“I was having a conflict with myself as to whether I should follow you two, or go after the guy who ran away.”, Gray as much as me, didn’t know his name.

‘So, you even gave thought about going after me, you really are a considerate guy.’, my vision of him slightly increased.

“But then I remembered who you were with and ran away together with the other guy.”

‘I take back what I thought’

“I followed him, while trying to talk to him, you know, to calm him down. Then suddenly, we fell down into some ruins.”

“He suddenly started muttering in a creepy voice, it almost seemed like he was chanting death spells, I reached to him and calmed him down.”

“He lost all his confidence the moment you two ran off, and gave up. That’s why he ran away, and we ended up in that ‘ruin’ where we found the golden chalice.”, he finally finished his explanation without too many details.

“I’m going to spare you the details of what happened inside the ruins, let’s just say that I’ve escaped by a hairs brea—“, Gray became speechless by what happened right before him.

“Hey! What are you doing? Don’t hug me out of nowhere.”, he said, flustered by my sudden approach.

“Thank you.”, were the only words that came out from my mouth. “Thank you, so much.”, Gray stopped resisting realizing what I meant and sighed.

Had it not been for him, I wouldn't be able to save the twins, I couldn't be ay more grateful to him.

“Do you really need that money so much? What are you even going to use it for… oh yeah…”, he remembered a previous conversation we had.

'Oh no, I told him that I was going to buy slaves!'

“Maybe I should’ve left this thing behind.”, he had a look of pity in his eyes, his voice and expression were cold as ice.

I told him my true intentions the day I was going to register for the tournament, I think I still haven’t made myself clear on that.

“Wait, you got it wrong.”, I wanted to tell him about my circumstances but he refused to listen and continued glaring at me as if I was trash at its finest.

‘Right when I decide to tell you the truth you treat me like this?!’, I told him the truth because that’s the least I could do as a friend.

Gray placed his arm on my shoulders “I’ll forget what I heard that day, because that’s what friends do, isn’t it?”, he had a smug look on him, it was as if he wanted to say those words for a long time once again.

‘Since I owe you, I’ll let this one slide! I’ll tell you the truth some other time.’, I gave up making excuses since he already made his mind about me, and so his mental image of me worsened.

“Anyway, what happened to the other guy?”, I mentioned the nickname I gave to our last team member.

“Oh, he’s right there”, he pointed towards the corpse lying on the ground, which I had only noticed now. “Is he dead?”

“I’m not dead.”, the corpse raised a finger to show a sign that it’s alive and well, despite the very fact that he looked like a corpse. “The corpse talked!”

“I told you I’m not a corpse, but I might as well be because this is as far as I’ll reach!”, he stood up, his equipment and clothes were dirty, and there were some scorch marks here and there.

“It’s good to see that you’re well.”, I tried making pointless conversation. “Do I look well to YOU! Why did you even ditch us?! You promised you’d stay with me!”

“Correction: I promised you wouldn’t die, and look: you’re still alive.”, I remembered what I had promised him at the start of the match. “But what if I had died?!”

“But you didn’t. And that’s what matters.”, I wouldn’t deny that there was a chance that he could’ve died, but thinking about it now won’t change anything.

“Hello.”, someone greeted me from behind, I turned around to see whom this person could possibly be. “Oh, it’s you.”

It was the leader of the team we had found within the stronghold. They helped us without making much of a racket so that they wouldn’t get caught.

“It seems we didn’t make it, huh.”, he said in a pained voice even his eyes were saddened to an extent.

“…”, I didn’t have any words to say, they helped us from their own will, If I had apologized it’d be stupid considering what the match was about.

“Welp, I guess there’s nothing we can do about it.”, he sighed. “So what did you come here for?”

‘You didn’t simply come here to make me feel bad about myself, did you?’

“I came here with a message from our other team members including myself. ‘Make sure to win this tournament, for our sake.’.”

I was taken back by his words, I couldn’t speak as much as a single word since nothing came to my mind at the moment.

“Since we couldn’t get qualified, we decided that it was better to cheer you on instead.”

“But why?”, this was the only sentence that came to my mind at the moment, I was the reason why they didn't make it in the first place. “I think they’ve told you before, didn’t they? It’s because you helped us, if we’d simply turn tails and run without repaying you we couldn’t live with ourselves.”

‘Is that really just it?’, I thought that maybe there was a greater reason, but I guess my expectations have been betrayed.

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“I repeat once again, the teams holding the treasures step forward and present yourselves.”, the announcer warned once again.

“It seems you guys should get going, make sure to win!”, he cheered me on, while walking away back to his team.

“Thank you.”, I thanked him, and he turned around smiling, and then completely disappeared from my sight, being engulfed by the crowd of adventurers.

“We should get going.”, Gray was the first one to move forwards whilst holding the golden chalice, that could be mistaken for a holy grail.

I moved forwards to the open space where the three other teams stood.

“These are the qualified teams!”, the crowds whole attention was moved towards a single place on the arena, while the other adventurers weren’t even spared as much as a single look.

I looked to my left and saw ‘him’, the one known as the ‘Berserker’. I still had bitter feelings about him, but thinking about it now won’t change anything.

‘Blaming him won’t do anything, it would be childish of me to do so.’, I already had decided that I would pay no mind to what he did.

The only thing that did change however, was my feelings towards him. I’ve grown a distaste towards him, but at the same time I grew some respect as well.

‘He may be as his title suggests, a ‘Berserker’. But he is still a ‘A’ class adventurer.’

“Hey! Aren’t there supposed to be five teams winning teams?”, a adventurer who seemed to have realized the odd number of people standing in front of the arena.

“Yeah! Weren’t there supposed to be five treasures to be found?! Did they finish the match before all five have been found?!”

Adventurers started to speak up about the oddity of the result of this match, even among the crowd some people started argument about the match.

“Silence!”, a monotone yet loud voice rang out across the whole stadium, the tone of the person seemed irritated and tired.

“Uh-um, as all of you know after all the treasures have been found the match would be finished.”, he explained. “The reason why there are only four teams remaining, is because one of the items have been broken.”

The adventurers became even more furious to his answer. “That’s unfair! Couldn’t you at the very least pick one more team at random?”

“We purposely made the treasures with a certain durability.”, the moment he said that all the items turned to particles of light like what had happened inside the marble.

“The items had different durability's and statuses. Especially since they were only illusions that had a physical form.”, he continued his explanation.

The items we had to find were made to be breakable, it was part of the challenge as a whole.

“The possibility of it breaking was part of the match, I wish all of you to understand.”, he finished his explanation, and the adventurers left the stadium with distaste, while clicking their tongues in irritation.

“Now, I congratulate all those who have passed, now we’ll be moving onto our final match!”, the tired man passed his microphone onto his partner.

“Finally he let me have the spotlight…”, his partner muttered in a low voice so that it could not be heard.

“Our final match will be the same one as every year, it remains unchanging but still entertaining as always!”

“The Fighting Tournament!”, the crowds excitement increased even further upon the match that had been spoken about.

“All of you will be going against each other in a one-on-one battle. The winners will be moved onto the next match against a winner of another match, your opponent will be chosen depending on the pairings.”

“Now for the rules, they are simple. Believe me, I was surprised myself.”, he took out a piece of paper. “These are the rules: You are allowed to use anything within your disposal, however coming up to the seats and asking people to give you a weapon is forbidden.”

“Why was I so specific, it’s because this was actually the case… last year…”, he lowered his voice in shame, remembering the course of events of last year.

“You are to fight within the arena, if you exit the arena you’ll lose. That is all!”, he finished explaining.

“Now as for the pairings, they’ll be decided after our short break…”, the people in the stadium became disappointed, despite it being expected especially considering the tournaments mechanics.

“… just kidding! We’ve already determined the pairings, these will be your opponents, contestants!”, suddenly a huge panel appeared hovering over the stadium, he caught everyone off guard and surprised us all.

The panel had the classic knockout system written in it, the winner of the first round will be facing another person who also won the first round and it’ll go on like that until only one winner remains.

“This year we have sixteen contestants, and only one of you can win, however for now we’ll do a short brake, I can tell by your expressions that you are tired. Those injured in any way shape or form, please head to the infirmary.”

I thought about the rules before looking at the panel. 'Anything within my disposal, does that mean we could bring anything to the stadium and use it like potions or magic items.'

I finished concluding my thoughts about the rules and moved onto searching for my name within the panel, my nervousness was increasing as I skimmed through the names, to the point where I subconsciously skipped all the other names thus only aiming for mine.

"Hehe~", I released a small laugh upon reading the name of who my opponent was. "It seems that the luck was aimed at me instead, Gray no hard feelings, okay?"

Gray fell to his knees, he had tears forming on the corner of his eyes. “No… way…”, he read his name next to mine, thus determining what would happen.

We were up against each other in the first match of the fighting tournament.