ALL NOVEL CH.492 Adventuring Tournament, round 1
With the competing teams introduced, it was time for the first round of the tournament.
Ula, the announcer, announced the rules, but there really wasn’t that much to them.
You either had to get the opposing team off of the arena, pin or knock out every member of the party in place, or get the opposing team to surrender. Members that are forced off the arena may not return to the fight, but pinned or knocked out members can return to the fight, if they can be freed from their bindings, or recover from being knocked out.
Killing someone was a no go, and would get your team disqualified. Using equipment that wasn’t checked would get you either a warning or an immediate disqualification. Using spells that weren’t approved for the tournament, warning or immediate disqualification, depending on the spell.
Sadly that does mean that my Card Beasts won’t be able to use their duel disks, as they weren’t approved for tournament use. We could have gotten Eline’s shield duel disk approved, because shields really didn’t have limits, but it would have had to be checked, and I don’t really want to have anyone looking at the duel disks with that level of detail.
Einar’s sword duel disk is absolutely not allowed, because it has too much penetration, and Unika’s duel disk falls into the category of I’m honestly not sure if it would be allowed. It is realistically just a bolt launcher, but the ‘circular saw’ mode that it can do would probably get it banned.
The rules sounded kind of stupid to me. Because while they work for one on one fights, for a team fight, they aren’t nearly as good. I mean, a single activation of Swords of Revealing Light will win every match.
But who am I to judge? Of course my cards would win something like this instantly. There is a reason I put all the cards set on both myself and the Card Beasts to only activate if we were about to receive a lethal attack. I also swapped the set cards to things like Negate Attack and Waboku. No Mirror Forces for the tournament.
Speaking of Mirror Force. While I don’t have either, I feel that Storming or Drowning Mirror Force would just end the match immediately, because they would force all of the opponents off of the arena.
But yeah. My cards break tournaments. So I’ll have to have a chat with the Card Beasts, making sure they won’t use cards that will just instantly win them the matches. But I don’t want to limit them too much, because the cards are a part of their combat power, so if they win with their cards, it is still a victory.
Luckily their match was the last of the first round matches, so I have the time. But the first match is about to begin, so let’s watch it.
The first match started soon enough, and while I obviously saw the party beforehand, I didn’t tell you all about it yet. So now is as good of a time as any.
The fastest party in the preliminaries was the Narra Kingdom S-rank party that was with us at the Seaside Paradise fissure. Their party had four members, three S-rank, one A-rank. A swordsman, a guardian, a mage and a priest/healer. I don’t actually know if the healer can use Holy Magic, but they are focused on healing, support spells and so on, so I’ll count them as a priest.
And because of our history, I had a decent idea just how good this party was. So I’m honestly not surprised that they got the number one spot in the preliminaries.
They went by the name The Unicorns, despite the fact that only one member of their party was a unicorn. Yeah. Their healer is a literal Unicorn-kin. Evolved from Horse-kin, they are still two legged, like Horse-kin, but they have a twisted rainbow horn on their heads. And they have a racial version of Light Magic called Rainbow Magic. Kind of like how Einar and Eline have Dark Lightning as their racial variant of Lightning Magic.
Against them was the number eight team from the prelims. I didn’t know them, but they were apparently from Oroco city, so they weren’t too far from home.
That party had five members. Looking at their equipment, they had a spear guy, a sword guy, two guardians and a mage. Not a bad party, but they do seem to lack range. Oh, and they are all A-rank. And their party name is Burning Fighting Fighters, again, despite the fact that only three out of the five used Fire Magic.
Shame the match wasn’t very exciting. At first it seemed somewhat balanced, but The Unicorns simply overpowered and overwhelmed the Burning Fighting Fighters, and won the first match.
The second match was between the lightning fast team 3, and team 6, whom I know nothing about.
Team 3, or Hunters Eyes, consisted of just 3 members, two lizard-folk, both carrying twin-swords, and the last guy didn’t have a weapon at all. But he was a wolf-folk, so maybe he just uses his claws.
Team 6 was a more traditional team, with a guardian, two swordsmen and a mage. They went by the name Cat Lovers, and each member of the team was a cat-folk. Though I think at least two of them have evolved into a tiger-folk or something similar.
The second match took slightly longer than the first, mainly because of the excellent work by the Cat Lovers guardian Taunting the opponents into attacking him, leaving good openings for his swordsmen to attack.
Sadly it wasn’t quite enough, as the wolf-folk from Hunters Eyes eventually used some sort of werewolf form skill, which gave him a massive power boost, enough that he was able to yeet the Cat Lovers guardian out of the arena.
And without their guardian, the Cat Lovers lacked the skill to stand up to the high offensive power of Hunters Eyes.
Before the next match, I took the opportunity to visit the Card Beasts and told them not to just end the match instantly with Swords of Revealing Light.
Unika was all ready to promise they wouldn’t use it at all, but I told her that they could use it, but just don’t start with it. It shouldn’t be their go to way of dealing with problems, but instead a last resort kind of thing.
Unika agreed to my suggestion, but she then asked me to transform into my new wolf-folk race. I had no reason to refuse, but I decided to play a minor prank on her, so I used wolf-kin instead. … not that there really is a difference. The fur color on my tail and ears is just a bit darker when I’m a wolf-kin.
“... Brian I …” Unika stammered out, as she looked at me. She seemed quite flustered, and I can think of a few reasons for it, but I didn’t want to force her to say anything.
“Unika.” I said firmly, to bring her eyes back to mine. “Focus on the tournament for now.” I told her. “Everything else can wait for now.
“I … Yes. But after we win, you have to promise me that you … you will give me the time.” Unika said.
“Yeah. That is a promise. And you don’t have to win. Just do your best.” I told her.
I then turned to Einar and Eline.
“And you two. Do your best as well. That is all I ask of you.”
“Yes! We will.” Eline immediately answered.
“We won’t let you down, Master.” Einar agreed.
“Don’t worry about that, Einar. You already made me proud by qualifying in the tournament, and at number four at that. You are going against parties with way more experience, but despite that, you are the ones that made it.”
“Th-Thank you, Master.”
“... you know you don’t have to call me that.” I reminded him.
I know Einar and Eline both default to Master when they get emotional, so I don’t want to stop them from doing that, but I do still gently remind them that they don’t have to whenever they do so.
I transformed back into a human and left the room, so that the trio could have a moment to relax before their match.
On my way back to our seats, I ran across a betting table. Basically, taking bets on who would win. So of course I had to bet on the Card Beasts. I didn’t bet with too much money, only ten gold coins, but considering that the Card Beasts were the only B-rank party in the finals, the others were all A or S-rank, the multiplier for them winning was x100, so if they do win, I’ll get quite a bit of money for it. Which I will then give back to them, minus my own 10 gold coins I bet.
When I got back to our box seating, the third match had already started.
Team 2 was against team 7. Team 2 had five members, two mages, two guardians and an archer. Interesting team composition, seemingly focused on high ranked damage, while the guardians keep the backliners safe. Their party name is Explosive Muffins.
Team 7 had a spearman, a guy who dual wielded axes, a guardian, an archer, and a mage. So a versatile team, with the party name Death Blade.
Sounds quite aggressive, so I assumed their party would be as deadly as their name, but I later learned that they were the team my Card Beasts had helped during the preliminaries.
I don’t know how the match started, but when I got there, Explosive Muffins had two of their members already knocked off the arena, one guardian and the archer, while Death Blade had only lost their guardian.
And while losing their guardian did cause Death Blade some difficulties, their more aggressive battle plan went well against the high damage, burst style of Explosive Muffins. I think if lethal attacks were allowed, and if there wasn’t that allowed spells list, Explosive Muffins would have won. But with those limits in place, Death Blade was able to exploit the rules and eventually win.
And so, it was finally time for the match my Card Beasts would take part in. They were naturally up against the number 5 team, which had five members. 2 swordsmen, one of whom also had a shield, but not large enough to where I think he is a guardian. 1 spear lady, who had two spears, and two mages. Their party name, Star Line.
That means Star Line had only a swordsman with a shield for the frontline, which might be bad for them, but we’ll see.
The battle began, and immediately, both Unika and Einar let their tamed monsters out of Tamer’s Paradise. This meant that the team of three was suddenly a team of nine.
And as soon as he was let loose, Nio rushed at the opposing team. His first rush targeted one of the mages, and with Star Line taken back by the sudden appearance of monsters, the mage didn’t have the time to put up a defense, and Nio sent her flying out of the arena.
At the same time, Einar had flapped his wings and taken to the skies, while Eline was chanting a Lightning attribute buff spell, which when combined with Einar’s Dark Lightning skill turned him into a super effective taser.
And as soon as the spell was cast, Einar flashed forward at extreme speeds, using a mix of Flickering Step and Winged Flight to fly at super high speeds. He used his twin-swords, now crackling with lightning, to slash at the other mage, stunning him and causing him to collapse to the ground.
It took Star Line a few seconds to catch up with what just happened, but sadly that wasn’t time they had. Because Unika was aiming at their spear woman, while Fer and Rum rushed at the swordsman with a shield.
And to not leave him without a partner, the regular swordsman had to deal with both Lumi and Tuuli, Einar’s blizzard tiger and wind griffin. The two tamed monsters were somewhat used to working together, so they combined their magics to cause a super localized blizzard around the swordsman, quickly cooling his body to the point where he couldn’t continue.
“We - we surrender!” Called out the spear woman, realizing that with just two of them good to continue, her team didn’t stand a chance.
And with that, the Card Beasts won their first match, and it was the fastest of the first round matches.
After the match, there were some questions on whether or not the Card Beasts summoned monsters should be allowed. Naturally I didn’t even question it, as I had read the rules, and tamed monsters were allowed to be brought in, as long as you registered them beforehand. The same goes for summoned monsters. And yes, we did also register all of the monsters they can summon with their cards, just in case.
And no. You don’t have to have your tamed monsters in Tamer’s Paradise, you can just have them walk to the arena with you, but the Card Beasts decided the shock factor would be worth having them in the Paradise, and they clearly were right.
These rules were explained to the audience, and while some didn’t like the rules, there was nothing they could really do.
And that was it for the day. The first day of the tournament was done. Tomorrow would be the semi-finals and the day after that, the bronze match and the finals.
My group headed to have dinner with the Card Summoners, congratulating them on their win.
I made sure to ask Einar how long he had been able to combine Flickering Step and Winged Flight, and he admitted that that was the first time he did it without crashing into the ground.
I made sure to compliment him on that, followed by complimenting Unika for their battle plan, and Eline for her fast chanting in a stressful situation.
We then escorted them back to their hotel, before my group headed for the airfield, from where we would fly back to HomeBase for the night.
Yes, we took off from an airfield, even though we flew using skills, not a ship. Because otherwise we might get the guards after us.
