Chapter 40. Upset

“Morning everyone.”

“How come you didn’t wake up on your own today, Ken?”

“Genesis, do I look like the type of person to stay nervous long enough to wake up on my own two days in a row?”

“Nope, you look like the type to never get out of bed unless a cute girl sweet talks to you.”

“I would prefer more than just sweet talk but yeah, I did well enough yesterday so whatever happens today happens. Hopefully I put up a decent fight against Clare and maybe she will talk to me again.”

“When are you going to give up on her? Maybe she just doesn't love you anymore.”

“Well Seraphina, if any of you stop having feelings for me, better say it to my face instead of ignoring me. As long as she acts the way she does now, I will assume she is just being her stubborn childish self.”

“I bet he is only acting this way because Clare is his favorite. If one of us doesn’t talk to him for half a year, probably won’t even remember our name anymore.”

“Emma! Don’t encourage them please!”

As the group headed back to the stadium for day 3 of the tournament and the final day for the students, Ken was ready to get through Luke’s goons and have his first chance to be close to Clare in months without her just walking away and ignoring his attempt of communication.

After getting a light meal backstage, Ken resumed his domination against Luke’s goons but he did notice the improvements compared to day 1. Unlike those he had beaten on day one, at least the ones that made it to day 2 seem to have some basic knowledge on keywords and are much faster at reacting and some made Ken sweat a little about having to take damage. But all in all, no matter the level of enhancement or how strong their spells are, the lack of actual combat practice made them easy targets for Ken to easily overcome.

After a small lunch and some fun bantering with the girls, Ken was back at the stadium ready for his first match in the afternoon against none other than Clare.

Walking onto the arena with the crowd and everyone around the world watching and Lucia hyping the match up, but all Ken could see was the beautiful elf girl and her lack of emotions.

“Been a while since we talked Clare, you stopped showing up to the dining hall, I think those commoners who depend on you are worried about getting bullied again.”

Instead of getting a reply, an ice blast flew past his face and impacted the protection wall before it exploded into pieces.

“You know Clare, I don’t want to believe it’s the case but if you actually no longer have feelings for me, tell it to my face and I will leave you alone.”

Rapid ice blasts and fire balls flew at Ken’s face instead of a response but Ken was ready for her attacks, Ken suddenly dashed at Clare at full speed that shocked the elf princess.

“Explosion!” Ken shouted as he went for a full powered swing with his broadsword that created a massive fire blast on contact.

Barely able to block in time with an ice shield, Clare’s emotionless expression suddenly changed. Shocked and surprised at Ken’s speed and power because she refused to watch any of his matches up until now, she was more angry at the fact that if he hadn’t shouted out his attack, she would have taken the full forced blow but him shouting out his attack was just enough to allow her to instinctively put up a ice shield just in time to block the hit.

“Good! You can still look at me with emotions. I rather you get mad or upset than just look at me like I no longer exist.”

Realizing that Ken is no longer the same boy who couldn’t even conjure a fireball, Clare focused her full attention onto the battle instead of worrying about her feelings.

While Ken was able to keep up at first, the difference in skills eventually showed up especially with Ken’s stubbornness to always announce his attacks. With him shouting out fire blast, ice bolt and wind slash over and over, it was easy for Clare to counter, especially with her better overall abilities.

After time was up, Clare was declared the winner while Ken didn’t manage to land a single clear hit.

“I have gotten pretty strong haven’t I Clare. Another semester and I think it will be a tossup who will win.”

Giving Ken a harsh glare, Clare walked off the arena without a word as Ken waved to the screaming crowd.

“Are you positive the princess is in love with him? Doesn’t it seem like she is giving him some pretty mean stares.”

“Dad! I told you he came to the store and ordered a cake saying love you forever to the princess! And now that I see them fight, I have no doubt she loves him! That is the look a girl gives her lover when she is angry at him! They must have had a fight, I have never seen the princess show this sort of emotion ever before!”

“Should you be this happy to see the princess having a fight with her lover?”

“None of my friends believed me when I told them the princess was in love with a human! Even yesterday after I told them he was the one! They just laughed at me saying I am lying but this for sure proves it!”

As people around the world watched the matches eagerly with different agenda, the tournament came to a shocking end for the second year students.

After winning three tournaments in a row, the final match between Clare and Luke shocked the elves while the humans cheered loudly as Luke was declared the victor after the match was called when the time limit was reached.

Clearly upset by the decision, Clare could be seen arguing with the referee that announced the decision while those at home only got to witness Luke waving at the crowd with his dreamy smile and handsome complexion.

“She definitely derailed after the fight with you.”

“Yeah yeah yeah… Everything is my fault.”

“Lovetta! Don’t blame my Ken when the drama queen was the one who’s been so hard to deal with all semester!” Alice shouted, defending Ken as she just happened to arrive to hear the exchange.

“I am not blaming Ken! I am just saying that Clare was definitely distracted after their match.”

After some back and forth with Emma and Seraphina trying to keep peace, the day eventually came to an end and the group said their goodbye to Alice while staying in town for a nice dinner at one of the stalls to celebrate Lovetta making it to the top four once again.

“What did Luke say to you after he won? You looked pretty upset and got in his face pretty fast.”

“Oh, nothing much, just the normal taunting but I got angry when he was making fun of you. I really hate him.”

“Lovetta, you need to stop getting angry whenever he makes fun of me, he is trying to rile you up so you would do something stupid so he could get you expelled.”

As the group chatted, the night came to a natural end just like the rest of the tournament. Unlike where Clare got upset by Luke, the open tournament saw no upset at all and once again, Zishell faced off against Julius and eventually won to retain his status as the top hero.

With all of his training, Ken was finally able to pick up minor details in the slowed down fight to see the minor difference between Zishell and Julius.

“I think Zishell is slightly faster with his enchantments! Is it just up to natural talent and training how fast you can activate your spells and enhancements even with keywords?”

After verifying that no one knew for sure, Lovetta, Seraphina and Indra all offered to ask their father when they returned home and as the group chatted, Lucia popped up out of nowhere for the interviews before the tournament wrapped up.

“Hello Seraphina! With another easy victory, do you think you will ever run into any issue going forward?”

“Nope! I am confident that I will reach my goal of becoming the number one hero and don’t foresee any obstacles that can prevent that from happening.”

“Confident as ever! I am sure your fans haven’t forgotten about your other goal, is that one still on track as well?”

“Actually, my dad was super against it! But he will eventually understand or I will just have to elope with Ken!”

“KEN! Did you hear what Seraphina said? She is so in love with you, she is willing to elope with you.”

“Yeah, I am more worried about her dad though.”

“Love aside, you really showed up for the tournament like you promised and I have to say, I am impressed! How do you feel about your performance and what did you think about the upset?”

“I think I did alright, if I had gotten luckier with the bracket I felt I could have finished in the top 4, but it’s what it is, I will just try again next semester.

As far as the upset in the finals, Luke and Clare are no doubt the top two in our year and are rather close in skills so I don’t really feel it’s that big of an upset as much as one didn’t perform up to their ability.”

“You think you can beat them?”

“Not making any promises so don’t hold me to it but I think by the end of next year, I should overtake them both.”

“You heard it here first! Ken has just declared that he will be the one to win the tournament for the class of 2000 by the end of next year! Thank you always for the interviews and we will all be looking forward to your future performance.”

“That Lucia, just goes with whatever narrative she wants.”

After some more interviews, Lucia eventually got to Clare and asked the questions all of her fans wanted to know.

“Hi Clare, sorry that you lost in the finals today, can you share with us what happened out there?”

“I wasn’t feeling the best in the finals and while I felt I still won, I won’t argue with the results.”

“Did something happen? Are you injured?”

“No, it’s not physical. Just some personal stuff going on that I hope I could get resolved eventually.”

“Personal? Is it romantic?”

“I am not going into the details, but I’m sure I will be back in form at the next tournament and win.”

“What a drama queen. All she had to do to resolve this is to tell you she is not interested in you anymore and move on with her life.” Alice commented as another tournament came to an end.

“I TOLD YOU ALL! That giant girl is trying to steal our princess’s man and that’s why she was giving him the stares and wasn’t in form!” Joining her friends to watch the final day of the tournament, the girl who served Ken the cake was adamant to prove that she was telling the truth.

After the tournament ended, the group went back to the castle to get dressed and get ready for the banquet.

“I miss Cecilla so much, I hope she shows up at the banquet.”

“I hope she doesn’t show up ever again and has already found love with another man.”

“Genesis!”

“What! Just because I am not as mad as Clare that you slept with her doesn’t mean I have to like it!”

Remembering the words from Bruce the butler, Ken could fully understand what he meant and just how hard it’s to balance life with multiple love interests.

Arriving at the banquet, the group packed trays full of food and got a nice huge table on the second floor to enjoy the meal, a nice view of the important group upfront while also having a great time chatting with the acquaintances that joined them for the banquet.

“Hi Ken, how have you been?”

“ROSE! You came to say hi!”

Dressed in a pure black dress with elegant gold patterns that covered her entire body from neck down and wearing a pair of fancy white gloves, with only her face showing, Rose looked absolutely beautiful just as Ken told her during their initial meeting.

“Who is this Rose, Ken? Where are all those random girls popping up from?”

“Don’t be rude Genesis, I ran into Rose in Yelwraek, she is the daughter of Sylvester Gilliam!”

“The fourth ranked hero? She doesn’t have a tail like a lizardman?” Seraphina wondered.

“I guess your girls are pretty just like you claimed. I wasn’t going to talk to you but after hearing your interview, I felt like I wanted to check up on you to see if you are doing alright.”

“Wow! You could tell something was up with me? Well, you heard what Clare said right? We are basically dealing with the same issue. Going through a rough patch you could say.”

“Oh, so that’s why you were in Yelwraek, now it makes sense how you were able to get in. I hope you will be able to have it resolved soon.”

“Not likely, Clare caught him sleeping with her sister on her birthday! That’s the kind of guy Ken is. You should probably stay away from him or he will end up making you regret falling in love with him.” Genesis added, glancing at Rose suspiciously while trying to persuade her to stay away from Ken.

“Sleeping with one Yelwraek princess while making another one mad? I guess that would be something difficult to overcome.”

“Enough about that, I will figure something out eventually! Let’s change the subject! How have you been, Rose?”

Deciding to stay and chat with Ken and the group at Genesis’s dismay, Rose ended up chatting with Ken and the rest late into the night about her current studies, asking about Ken’s relationships and many other topics and it wasn’t until her father showed up that Rose decided it was time for her to leave.

“So you are the boy my daughter had fallen in love with. Not sure what she sees in you but if you ever make her upset, I will turn you into a corpse to eternally be a summon of mine.”

“Dad! Who told you I love him! Stop making things up. It was nice talking to everyone. I hope you resolve your issue Ken. Don’t know when I will see you again but best of luck!”

With that, Rose rushed away with her father. Noticing how late the night was, Ken and the rest decided to call it a day and wished everyone a good break and headed back to the dorm. Disappointed that Cecilla never showed up, Ken was least excited to visit a new part of the world while he spent a while with Alice during the break.

“Ken, what did you do for her to fall in love with you after one meeting? Now you have one of the top heroes marked you as a target.”

“Emma, all I did was bump into her in the city, chatted for a while. I literally did nothing that would make a girl fall in love with me!”

“Right, like how you did nothing to Cecilla and then you two ended up sleeping together.” Genesis added.

Knowing that nothing he says will please the girls, the group reached the common room as Ken stayed quiet and as they reached his dorm, Alice was already waiting impatiently.

“Alice! Ken got himself a new girl! The daughter of the fourth ranked hero came by during the banquet and her father said he would turn Ken into a corpse doll if Ken makes his daughter sad.”

“Alice! Don’t say anything, don’t ask questions, I will explain later. Good night everyone! I will miss you all very much. Take care and we will see everyone soon!”

Not willing to explain everything to Alice right now after Genesis couldn’t keep quiet for a second, Ken wished the girls a great break, give each one a big hug and a kiss except for Indra who he just hugged and as the girls left, Alice activated her teleport artifact while clinging onto Ken and the two disappeared from the dorm room and reappeared in the castle grounds of the Vespera kingdom.

Author Note:

Hi everyone. 40 chapters in! Thank you all for reading the story so far! From the feedback from the different sites I have been posting on, I know my writing isn’t that great and since I have only been writing for a few months and doing it as a hobby to tell a story I want to tell, I don’t really have that much extra time to improve the way I can tell the story or improve my ability to be more descriptive hence why I got very interested in AI art. While I certainly want my story to flow better, the only solution I have come up with is to change the narrative from 3rd person to 1st person but obviously that can’t be done right now. My draft is up to about chapter 50 and I hope I can close out the first part of the story by chapter 65ish where a change in narrative won’t be so jarring. So my goal right now is to get the first part of the story finished and we will see how it goes from there! Also playing around with a second story in first person narrative in the mean time to practice and once I get a few more chapters done, will post that to see how it goes.