Round Two, Begin

Before heading back to the inn, they stopped at the public bathhouse to wash off the grime and fatigue.

Master finished first, swung by the market, and returned to the inn. He borrowed the kitchen to start preparing dinner.

The inn staff pitched in, so it went quickly.

Alexia and Azu ate what Master prepared and promptly collapsed into sleep.

The fatigue had clearly caught up with them.

They needed rest to recover from the damage, too. Good thing he'd picked up meat.

Elza had been a seeded entry, so she didn't look all that tired.

She'd be entering the fray starting tomorrow, but judging by the bracket, her chances of winning looked slim.

Her opponent was Darz.

Elza's showing in the one-on-one fights had been better than expected, but a monstrously strong warrior like him was a different story entirely.

He was clearly on another level from the other Spartian warriors.

Azu and Alexia had already put up impressive performances, so Master figured it would be fine even if Elza didn't push for a win.

He'd also bet one gold coin on Alexia, incidentally. Doubled his money.

Elza washed the dishes spotless, let them dry, and returned them to the inn.

"Don't you need to sleep?"

"I'm not that tired."

She said it like it was nothing and went ahead to boil water for tea.

A tea with a clean, refreshing aroma.

Just the thing to help him unwind.

The two of them sipped their tea in silence.

Time passed quietly. Not an uncomfortable silence.

Every once in a while, a moment like this isn't so bad, Master thought.

The tea ran out.

He looked to the window. It was dark outside already.

Drowsiness was creeping in.

"Am I pulling my weight properly?"

They'd borrowed the inn's lamp, and even that wasn't free.

He'd been thinking it was about time to turn in when Elza murmured it.

Elza's demure phase had lasted all of five minutes after he'd bought her. She'd gotten comfortable fast and settled into her true personality.

So the idea that she harbored that kind of insecurity was a genuine surprise.

He'd assumed that aside from Azu, whom he'd been too harsh on at the start, none of them carried that kind of worry.

"No one with a cleric at arm's reach would ever think she wasn't useful."

"Hehe. That's what I thought you'd say."

It had been a confirmation, nothing more. She'd played him.

Her face was already smiling. She'd known his answer before she asked.

Master felt like he'd wasted his time actually thinking about it.

"You've got a match tomorrow. Get to bed."

"Yes, sir."

He snuffed the candle.

Darkness swallowed the room.

The sound of someone wriggling under sheets.

Elza settling into bed.

Master decided to sleep, too.

He woke in the middle of the night with an odd feeling.

Azu was right in front of him.

She'd probably woken up at some point and wandered over half-asleep.

He considered waking her, but she was exhausted. It felt wrong to disturb her.

Soft, quiet breathing.

Looking at her now, she was still a child.

An angelic face in her sleep.

At her age, she should've been helping around the house, playing and having fun.

Adventurers her age weren't unheard of, but they weren't common.

Her body had slipped out from under the blanket, so he shifted it over to cover her.

Master closed his eyes again and slept.

"Don't throw me away."

He thought he heard that.

The next morning, the weather had changed drastically. Rain.

The colosseum was open-air, but a mage had put up a barrier to keep the rain out.

Raindrops pattered against the barrier, filling the arena with a steady hum. Every seat was taken all the same.

Master managed to secure a spot near the front.

The very front row had been too fiercely contested.

Azu had been using Master as a body pillow when he woke, and prying her off had eaten into their time.

Once Azu woke up and grasped the situation, she'd apologized profusely.

These days, Azu was far stronger than she looked.

Strong enough that Master couldn't have pulled her off by force.

The announcer-slash-referee took the stage.

With the enlarged tournament bracket displayed behind him for the audience to see, he declared the start of Round Two.

King Grace was already in his seat from the previous day, watching.

Probably weighing whom to recruit.

Round Two, Match One.

Seeded entries joined the action from here.

Light warrior Azu versus Spartian warrior Banzan.

Banzan was the Spartian warrior who'd been alongside Azu during the preliminaries.

When a foreign warrior had fixated on Azu, Banzan's intervention had essentially allowed her to advance.

But right now, that was irrelevant.

Azu took a deep breath and focused on the match.

No room for sentiment. She had to give it her all and deliver results.

The referee declared the match open.

Banzan advanced in classic Spartian fashion: shield up, lance ready, closing the distance.

The closer the shield came, the heavier its pressure grew.

The shield was large enough to cover Azu entirely if she crouched a little.

The pressure on Azu was immense.

A single shield bash would probably knock her out of the ring.

Dodge the shield, and a lance with more reach than her sword would follow.

On top of all that, her opponent was simply the stronger warrior.

So flinching meant losing.

She had to press the attack somehow.

Pull back, and she'd be steamrolled. Azu understood that.

She recalled the footwork she'd learned from Teftos.

Those nimble steps made Azu's already agile movements even faster.

The instant Banzan took one more step forward, Azu broke into a sprint.

She closed head-on, then changed direction at the last moment.

She shifted to Banzan's flank, but he instantly swiveled his shield to face her.

Like a fortress.

Without ranged options, Azu had no answer for that defense.

Azu swung her sword with all the speed she could muster.

The shield deflected the blow.

Even with the Sealed Sword Grungaus's power behind it, the shield took nothing more than a shallow scratch.

Banzan shoved the shield forward to ram Azu, so she pulled back.

The lance thrust that followed, she redirected by striking it with her blade.

Distance opened between them again.

Inch by inch, Banzan closed in once more.

Azu swallowed hard to wet her dry throat.