Chapter 14. Tournament Part 3

Similar to the first two days of the tournament, Genesis showed up alone to grab Ken and the two headed for the stadium to grab some breakfast and got ready for the matches.

Day 3 of the tournament started in a similar fashion to day 2 except more people showed up in the student section and many ended up sitting on the stairs due to lack of seating.

Since the stadium is fully sold out, those that entered the tournament and lost could either stay backstage or join the rest in the stands. Of course, they would either need to have someone give up their seat, have a private viewing area like Clare's family or, like most, sit on the stairs either in the student section or with family members in other areas around the stadium.

With the majority of the matches already over, the arena got divided into much bigger rectangles compared to yesterday and each group consisted of significantly fewer contestants so each group could get more focus.

For Ken's group, all three girls won their opening match easily once again but when Clare got called up again, she ended up facing Lovetta. Every match Clare has had so far has been heavily commented on and with a much smaller group now and the fact that she is facing the only person to have a higher score, this match drew in a lot of attention.

When Lucia introduced Lovetta, the beastman cheered loudly and when Clare got introduced, the cheers exploded from the elf section. For Ken, since he knew the two had been practicing with each other for almost 5 months, he was eager to know how they would match up and was excited to finally see a high leveled match.

The fight started fast and explosive with Clare firing fireballs like she had been doing to every other person she fought so far but unlike the rest, Lovetta easily dodged the spells and charged in straight at Clare.

For the first time in this tournament, Clare had to get defensive and before Lovetta could get close enough to strike, ice pillars appeared to block Lovetta right in her tracks and forced her to change direction, so she wouldn't crash into an ice pillar.

Even though weapons are allowed and used by many students. Since no enchantment on those weapons is allowed out of fairness for those not as well funded, neither Clare nor Lovetta used any of the academy provided weapons up to this point.

In Ken's view, Lovetta is definitely at a disadvantage due to the nature of her abilities and needing to get close while Clare could freely attack from any distance due to her spell heavy ranged fighting style.

"If Lovetta used a sword or something she could have had a longer reach and be able to get closer to Clare. I wonder why she had only been fighting barehanded when we had been taking all those weapon mastery classes all semester, and she had been doing rather well with a sword." Ken wondered out loud.

"You can ask her later, I'm not that good at studying or fighting even when I tried so hard for all those years. I am just meant to be a housewife and look pretty at parties" Genesis answered playfully while squeezing Ken's arm tightly.

Turning his attention back to the fight, Clare definitely had the upper hand the longer the fight went on. No matter how fast Lovetta moved, Clare is able to defend with ice pillars to make Lovetta change direction and slow her down and avoid having direct contact while also able to fire spells that begin to make contact with Lovetta more often.

After the 10 minutes with up, while neither could finish the other one off, Clare was declared the victor which surprised no one since everyone could see the damage she had dealt but along with the beastman section of the stadium, Ken cheered loudly for Lovetta who was the first to provide Clare with a challenge.

Sometime later, Alice and Clare both won another match and soon it was time for lunch when the three joined Ken and Genesis for a few minutes like they had been doing on a daily basis during the tournament.

"So why didn't you use a sword, Lovetta? I thought if you had a weapon, you would have put up a much better fight against Clare." Ken asked curiously.

"Well, I never saw Clare cast those ice pillar things before, so I didn't know what was going to be her defense. I thought a weapon would slow me down, so I went barehand hoping to catch her off-guard with speed. But yea, If I had something, I could probably at least get a few hits in instead of not able to touch her at all." Lovetta answered while pondering the result of the match.

"I guess Clare hasn't had to use any defensive magic so far, so you were unprepared for those pillars. You will do better next time now that you have more information to work with!"

"Whose side are you on Ken? Why are you giving her tips on how to beat me!" Clare asked angrily.

"Remember what I said about you needing a rival? I am on both sides and want to see both of you be the best you could." Ken answered truthfully.

"I already have a rival and doesn't need anymore! But it's fine, it's a good learning opportunity for you to see how actual combat works."

After lunch, since Lovetta was now eliminated, she decided to stay and watch rest of the fights with Ken and Genesis. Even though at first she refused Ken's offer for his aisle seat and wanted to sit on the stairs instead, he talked her into taking the seat while Genesis protested.

As the field got smaller, by the time it got to the top 4 matchups, the arena was only divided into 2 fields that allowed a large area for the contestants to show off their abilities.

Both Clare and Alice made it to the top 4 for the first-year students while Xandrian also made it for the 3rd year and Dimitri for the 4th year students.

When Clare and Alice stepped back onto the stage for their match, for the first time in the tournament, Alice went with a spear as her weapon instead of fighting barehanded like she had been doing so far.

Unlike Lovetta who solely relies on her physical talent, Alice is well versed in both elemental magic and physical enchantment just like Clare. With her superior strength and speed due to her race and the fact that she could always push Clare's buttons to make her agitated, Ken could see how Alice might be Clare's toughest fight yet.

The match started like every other match for Clare where she started blasting fireballs at Alice trying to make it into a ranged battle where she is the most comfortable. Not wanting to play by Clare's rules, Alice rushed towards her like Lovetta was doing but at an even faster speed.

When Alice got close, ice pillars shot up like they did in the match against Lovetta but instead of dodging and slowing down and changing her direction, Alice simply crashed into the pillars while reaching over with the spear trying to get a hit on Clare.

While the strategy seemed to play out well in Ken's mind, the fact that Clare is strong and fast herself made the extra reach seem pointless. No matter how fast Alice charged, the ice pillars were able to slow her down enough where no matter which direction she tried to attack, Clare was always able to get out of harm's way.

Minutes passed as Alice kept trying to get a hit in without success while Clare kept up her superb defense while also waving in attacks in-between that chipped at Alice's protection.

As Lucia announced that the match will end in 60 seconds, Alice went all out with her chase and instead of repeating the same pattern as she did for the first 9 minutes, before clashing with the ice pillar, she suddenly created a large ice shield of her own and disappeared from Clare's view and before Clare knew what happened. A flaming spear flew straight at her head at speed so fast Clare barely managed to react in time to cast an ice shield that defected the spear just enough where she was able to reduce the amount of damage taken to where she is sure to win the match as long as she stays on course and remained calm.

"Ouch, I bet Clare didn't take that well. First time she took damage the whole tournament." Ken observed, knowing how childish and competitive Clare is behind her calm royal princess persona.

Just as Ken predicted, getting damaged did not sit well with Clare and instead of keeping her calm and just wait for the timer to expire and collect her win. Clare suddenly charged at Alice looking for a close-range brawl.

Before Clare could track Alice down, the match was suddenly declared as over.

"What do you mean! There is still time!" Clare shouted at the judge, losing control of her calm persona.

"She surrendered." The judge said calmly.

Still heated and confused, Clare looked around and saw Alice smirking while waving at the crowd as Lucia announced the outcome.

"Yikes, Alice just had to go and make Clare even more angry. Why can't they just get along." Ken wondered out loud.

"Let's pretend you are madly in love with a girl, but Xandrian and Dimitri are also madly in love with her. Are you going to be all buddy buddy with them and just pretend everything is well? Or will you try to somehow do what you think will get you the best chance of been with the girl and make the other two give up?" Genesis asked.

"Big assumptions that they are both madly in love with me. Have we even been friends long enough for that to happen? Now you are making me rethink a lot of things." Ken answered while pondering at the example Genesis provided.

"I don't think you should worry too much about it for now if you can't understand their feelings, just keep been the peacemaker between them so things don't get too heated.

Eventually, they will either have to accept each other and get along or one of them will realize you just aren't worth the trouble and leave. Either way, I am not going anywhere so you can't get rid of me even if you want." Genesis replied confidently.

"No matter how many girlfriends you end up getting, I am not leaving either." Lovetta added.

"Lovetta! The goal here is not to encourage him to go collect girls." Genesis snapped at her.

With all matches finished except the finals, Lucia announced a quick 15-minute break for the finalists to get ready and provided the order for the final 6 matches.

This break allowed the gambling halls around the world to have plenty of time to get their bets in with the proper odds assigned to each match. Even with Clare's popularity, the last match of the day belonged to the 6th year students and it's for good reasons.

Even though Clare is by far the most popular student due to her looks, status, overall potential and how much Lucia is hyping her up. The fact remains that she is still a first-year student which means that the level of the match is still far from exciting or top tier no matter how much Lucia hypes it up. It made sense to Ken that a match between two 6-year students who are at master level abilities should get the spotlight and be the finishing match to end the day.

The first final is between two 2nd year students who put on a decent show and the winner is a huge lion beastman from the kingdom of Kirksawald. The 2nd match featured Xandrian and to Ken's dismay, Xandrian put on a pretty impressive show and won easily for the 3rd year finals.

While both Clare and Lovetta are quite impressive with their scores and are on par with the 2nd and 3rd year in their numbers, in actual combat, it was clear for Ken to see that they both lack the experience and how to utilize their skills to its max potential.

The 3rd match featured Dimitri and a 4th year lizardman and with his vampiric strength and high-level enhancement, Dimitri displayed some superior level of combat that made Ken dread the thoughts of getting crushed like a bug if they didn't have the protection from Clare.

The 4th match was won impressively by a 5th year human from Darrumburgh and even though Ken had no clue who he was before the tournament, Lucia praised him highly every day and from the way she is talking him up, he might be one of the upcomers that will be a threat to take one of the top 10 spots in the future.

Ken made a mental note of the name Vincent Aguirrane and what he looked like as Lucia started to announce the participants for the 5th match.

No surprise, Clare was introduced again to the cheers from the elves and the human section cheered loudly when her opponent was introduced.

Luke Darrumburgh is a handsome young man with shoulder length blonde hair, deep blue eyes, tall, fit and extremely smart. He happened to be ranked second overall just behind Clare and while he is not a direct lineage to the throne, he is the son of a duke and also the nephew of the current king of Darrumburgh.

While Clare is known as the ice princess who wanted no interaction with anyone before Ken broke through her icy walls, Luke since day one behaved like a proper noble who talked to everyone in a formal manner and was always seen with a group of highly ranked nobles and royals and is without a doubt, the most popular and desired man for the first year girls. One can say, he is the exact opposite of Ken when it comes to reputation and rumors amongst the class.

"I don't like him; he is too fake." Alice commented while walking over to Ken and sat down next to him on the stairs.

"Congrats on been the first person to damage Clare. But you really need to stop trying so hard to make her mad."

"I am just teasing her as a friend! You do it to her all the time!" Alice answered slyly when hugging onto Ken.

"I tease her tactfully to lighten the mood, you try to rile her up and make her mad because it's funny to you. So no, our intentions are completely different. Anyways, I doubt you will stop even if I ask you nicely. So why do you think that Luke guy is fake?" Ken asked, changing the subject since he knew Alice wasn't someone who would change her ways so easily.

"He acts too perfectly. If you haven't noticed, even for children from noble and royal families, they are still young, and most will act completely differently at school when they are away from the family responsibilities.

He acts exactly like how a properly trained noble doll would act at parties. There is no personality in his actions, so I am positive it's all fake.

And no, I don't tease Clare and make her mad because I think it's funny. I do it because that is the real her and I want her to let her true self out instead of having that princess facade up all the time.

Oh, but I do like to make her mad by been intimate with you so her would get jealous, I find that funny." Alice answered smugly.

The match between Clare and Luke was an exciting one that exceeded Ken's expectation for a pair of 1st year students and the fact that a Yelwraek and Darrumburgh were placed in the bracket to meet in the finals didn't seem suspicious at all.

Instead of going barehand like she had done so far, Clare came out with a bow and a quiver of arrows while Luke was equipped like a standard swordsman with a long sword by his hip.

When the match began, instead of shooting fireballs like she has done the whole tournament, Clare aimed an arrow at Luke and when she released, the arrow flew so fast Ken was sure she enchanted it somehow and moments later, it exploded on impact when it reached Luke.

"I didn't know Clare used a bow. We are going to have some words when she is done." Ken claimed.

When the dust cleared, instead of been damaged by the exploding arrow, Luke was fully protected by an earth shield that negated any damage.

Not stopping, Clare kept launching arrows at Luke that would explode or freeze on impact, but Luke was always fast enough to protect himself just in time and his spells are strong enough where even the powerful arrows couldn't penetrate to cause any direct damage to his protection.

Just when you think the match is a stalemate where Clare couldn't get through Luke's defense and Luke is spending all of his energy defending. Luke suddenly abandoned his defensive tactics and started charging at Clare, seemingly getting used to the speed and trajectory of the arrows.

Dashing between the ice pillars at great speed and precision, the fact that Luke got to study Clare's fights seems to have come in handy and he was able to predict the placement of the pillars and managed to keep up his speed instead of slowing down and seems to have the upper hand as he began to chase Clare down.

Even though Luke was able to get pass Clare's ice pillars at first and seemed to have caught on to the pattern but when he was finally able to catch up to Clare and about to swing his sword, he was knocked back suddenly and took some heavy damage.

Turns out, Clare was keeping a few secrets of her own and in addition to ice pillars that acted as obstacles, when Luke went in for an attack, she hid some earth pillars that shoot forward at a 45-degree angle instead of straight up like the ice pillars.

Not expecting any offensive pillars, Luke was caught off-guard and combining the power and speed of the spell and his own momentum, the single hit did critical damage where all Clare had to do now was to dodge around and defend and it would be an easy win.

Instead, it seems she was still agitated from the match with Alice and instead of defending and getting an easy victory, she tosses away her bow and quiver and went aggressively after Luke as he staggered back from the sudden impact.

Since he is a sword user, she conjured an ice sword as she got close and while he managed to defend against her blows, she pushed him relentlessly without stopping and eventually after trading blows back and forth in an all-out sword fight, Luke's shield got destroyed and Clare was declared the winner to the cheering crowd.

The last match was between a pair of 6th year, a lizardman and a giant. Like the vampires and werebeastman, the giants are a small sub race that's so rare most average person would never get to see one, but at this academy, even the rarest of species have a few representatives, the likes of Alice and Lovetta just blends in better than a giant.

With Alice sitting next to Ken, she explained that while vampires are up to twice as strong in all physical aspects compared to an average person. Giants are on average twice as tall and 5 to 10 times as durable and powerful, but their speed is on par with an average person.

"They were so powerful as front-line foot soldiers in war for both defense and offense that every country hired any giant they could and eventually, their male population declined so much that the whole race almost dead off from lack of men.

Even after two thousand years of peace, their population is still very small and within a few isolated tribes. Due to the fact that all of their strongest warriors went off to war, they say that giants from thousands of years ago are even stronger than the ones we see today."

The match was very entertaining as the lizardman dashed around at speed so fast Ken could only see blurs and was in control for 8 minutes while slowing chipping away at the giant's defense and his protection.

However, the moment he slowed down just slightly after going all out for 8 minutes straight, one swing from that giant that caught the lizardman was enough to determine the outcome. The blow was so powerful that even though it only grazed his opponent, it stunned the lizardman enough for the giant to get a full on second hit that immediately ended the fight.

"Wow he is so freaking strong, I don't think there is any giant in our year, why isn't there more of them in the academy when they are so strong." Ken wondered.

"They aren't all like him Ken, he is one of the few giants today that has high potential. Just like us vampires, due to how small of a population we got reduced down too. Even after we rebounded in population and our city can compete in size against the largest in the world.

Why do you think the capital city for the likes of Yelwraek or Darrumburgh can produce hundreds of selected each year while there are like 10 total vampires currently attending.

You saw the selection and heard what the headmistress said right. The original few vampires left, and the small population of the giants left were mostly of low potential individuals.

Even after thousands of years, the overall population is still very average and that's why Dimitri can be so cocky and confident about marrying me since high potential vampires are so rare and for us to be this close in age, I am sure he thinks it's a guarantee I will eventually end up marrying him." Alice explained while the group watched Lucia give the final congratulation interviews for the winners.

"Well, don't marry him. I don't like him at all." Ken said bluntly.

"Who should I marry if not him? Can you be more specific?" Alice asked seductively.

"Anyone you want expect Dimitri or Xandrian. Those two are terrible, I see how they treat the people around them and how they are constantly harassing us."

"You better work your butt off Ken, it will be hard to convince my parents to let me be with you especially with Dimitri showing up and winning tournaments."

"Better start looking for a new soulmate Alice, I don't have any big goals or dreams. Just want a decent job and make enough money and live a simple life."

"You know, if you don't aim higher, all the girls will leave you and you will end up all alone."

"Nope, Lovetta and Genesis both said they won't leave for me anything." Ken answered jokingly with a smirk.

As the pair kept going with their friendly bantering while totally missing out on the interviews, Lucia gave the final congratulations to the 6 winners, and updated the crowd and those watching at home.

What they all have been waiting for, the open tournament where the best of the best will be battling it for glory and newcomers that show up and leave their marks will begin tomorrow and for the next 3 days, they will get to see what the best in world had to offer in combat.

After the speech, the crowd began to dissipate but Ken and the group sat around and chatted while waiting for Clare to finish up. They didn't have to wait long before Clare walked up the stairs and joined the group.

"Great job on winning Clare! I didn't know you could use a bow though. Why are you keeping secrets? Aren't we best buds?" Ken asked.

"I thought you were smart Ken? didn't I tell you who trained me." Clare replied.

"The great hero Zishell right." Ken replied while trying to think and it suddenly hit him.

Since he was a little kid, Zishell and Julius had dominated the tournaments and how could he have forgotten that the elf hero specialized in ranged attacks and is a master with the bow.

"No wonder your calm fighting style focuses on ranged attacks. But it doesn't work that well does it, whenever you get mad, seems like you forget all about keeping the range." Ken laughed.

Chose to ignore Ken's taunt due to her obligation with her family, the friends chatted for a bit before Clare and Alice left to join up with their families while Ken, Genesis and Lovetta left the stadium to enjoy some delicious food that Lovetta had graciously continued to pay.

After enjoying their dinner, the three wandered around town chatting and laughing and when they eventually returned to the academy, it was time to turn in for the night and call it a day.