Chapter 45 Round 2

“Are you kidding!? You shouldn’t even be in the army in the first place! Don’t you know who these guys are? They are our enemies! E-ne-mies!”
“And yet you are with them…”
“I…”
Josiah wanted to say he was qualified because he was strong to endure and decided enough to turn against them when the time came, but knowing Lenny… She was the exact same.
“You clearly need me around. I’ve been watching your test. You always injure yourself. Didn’t you know bathing the weapon on blood to withdraw more power is bad both for you and for the item?”
“Yeah, but… How am I supposed to outfight people who clearly also do the same? This is an important test. It’s a special occasion.”
“Liar. If you do this now you do this always. I know.”
“…”
“You need someone to support you over your wounds and dumb decisions.”
“… Look… Let’s talk about this later, ok? I need to prepare something to eat and rest for the fight in the afternoon. I’m going to be the first one to fight.”
“Ok. Later you tell me you accept me as your partner.”
“… And you still need to hide.”

As expected, Reeve won his first fight and advanced to the second round, just like Josiah did.
Josiah himself never was much the ‘showoff’ type, but being the only nine-year-old in the group, and being the one who ended up rivaling the promising son of the lieutenant… After Reeve’s fight, it’s to be expected that everybody was anticipating Josiah vs Reeve at the end of the tournament.
It wasn’t exactly heavy anticipation; everybody there believed they had chances of going to the final, but speaking of the subject was really unavoidable.
‘Imagine if Josiah went against Reeve in the finals?’ ‘I wonder who’d win.’ ‘I guess since it’s official the result would strike pretty hard on the upper scale of the army.’ ‘If reeve loses, I wonder what will the lt. think?’
Josiah overheard those kinds of things during the lunchtime, coming from the mouths of the colleagues.
“No wonder Sgt. Koda wanted to get everybody away from the reserve for the third phase.” Josiah spoke with a sigh, as he got his meal from the line and went back to his tent. He made sure to serve himself extra so he could share with Lenny.
“Everybody is walking around. Don’t talk or make noise, ok?” He told her, as he brought the meal inside.
“Who’s your opponent?”
“Hey, don’t talk, I said! It’s some guy named Lawrence…”
Josiah had seen the results of the first round on the board, earlier. Judging by the results, the second round on that afternoon would go as follows:
1) Josiah vs Lawrence
2) Douglas vs Teagan
3) Reeve vs Dave Johnson
4) Yvonne vs Austin
“Is he strong?” Lenny asked.
“He… Well… He’s got some tricks on his own.”
“After all it’s a theme, right?”
“What?”
“Having a trick. Sargeant Koda must have made the tournament thinking of tricks.”
“Why do you say that?”
“If not so, he could have prohibited the usage of bloodbound skills. Also; if he wanted clean fights there would be no need for hours of preparation after each round.”

Lawrence’s eyes reminded Josiah of his own. They were sharp and focused, livingly staring at the opponent while he figured a way of dealing with him.
It was time. The first fight of the second round was about to start. Josiah was carrying his sword and Lawrence was standing still on the other edge of the burnt circle, staring back at him with his crossbow in hands.
The whistling sound market the beginning of the second round.
Lawrence already fired the bolts at Josiah the first thing. Josiah dodged them with a seemingly exaggerated tumble roll to the right side.
‘This move…’ Lawrence’s eyebrows frowned.
Josiah stopped the motion midway and started advancing to the opponent. Lawrence fired once more, just to be sure.
Josiah used the roll forward jump to dodge them. In the eyes of a spectator, it was too much movement to dodge a simple straight bolt.
‘This guy… He knows what’s up.’
‘That’s right…’ Josiah thought while in motion, ‘Lawrence pretends to fire the bolts but in fact, he has some bloodbound weapon hidden within. I suspect it’s either too small to be seen inside his closed hand, which is also holding the crossbow, or it must be piercing his body from somewhere else. When he was fighting earlier, I noticed he waves the arm differently while the crossbow is shooting, which is an awkward thing to do while just pressing a trigger and aiming for a straight shot. I believe he swings the invisible weapon and the weapon itself pierced Watt’s body from the distance, like my long-gone dagger used to do.’
Josiah and Lawrence got to a closer, mid-ranged distance. Josiah could already challenge him with his sword.
‘…That’s why if I want to dodge his attacks… I need not only to pay attention to the trajectory of the bolts but most importantly, I need to dodge to the opposite side of his right hand…’
Josiah could have gone for a straightforward sword trade, but he imagined any of the other participants would know how to defend from a simple wave of attacks at that point. As Lenny pointed out, the tournament seemed to be about tricks, so Josiah wanted to use tricks whenever possible.
He once again drew his (fake) dagger out with the non-sword hand and waved heavily at Lawrence’s body.
Lawrence was caught off guard. Anyone who’d lived by Josiah’s side the eight last months would learn to fear the attacks of Josiah’s famous dagger. Lawrence jumped backward with a cross-blocking position. He imagined he’d reduce the effect if it hit the plate on his armor instead of the actual body.
Seeing Lawrence so focused on the bait hit, Josiah used his rapier power to enhance his feet and stomped the floor, causing a lot of dirt to come upward. It was similar to Watt’s enhanced weapon, except that his power wasn’t enough to crack the floor, of course. He could only cause a massive smoke of dirt to come up.
But it was enough. Lawrence had his eyes shut for a moment, on which Josiah took the advantage to wrap his legs around him and immobilize the arms. The good old bare-handed Thomas style. One of the first moves he learned in his childhood.
Lawrence dropped his crossbow and Josiah forced his body to the floor. Seeing he didn’t have anything else, Lawrence had to accept the loss.
“Ok! Next two!” Sargeant Koda shouted.
Josiah wiped his forehead while leaving. He noticed the tall Douglas was paying close attention to his fight before joining the arena. Douglas gave him an interested look while they crossed paths close to the burnt circle. Doug mentioned:
“Good fight. I like the dagger attack.” He said.
‘That’s bad… He noticed my dagger doesn’t even work.’ Josiah thought.
Douglas and the female soldier Teagan stepped up on the small arena.
‘I didn’t receive much damage this time. I know Lenny told me to rush back to the tent after so that she could treat me, but I guess watching a couple of fights before shouldn’t hurt.’ Josiah thought.
The whistling sound was heard.
Teagan had a short sword in each hand. She charged in relentlessly. Douglas had one sword of his own. More like a scimitar. He was holding it pointing down.
‘That scimitar… It isn’t bound. It’s a human-made item. Can he really do it just with that? I can sense a lot of blood power coming from Teagan…’ Josiah asked internally.
Douglas never tried to parry or to dodge, he kept pointing the sword down until she was close enough. Josiah noticed that’s not what she expected at all. She got a bit reluctant for a second but charged in, anyway. The way she waved the swords on her dual-wielding style made clear she wasn’t on the slightest about defense.
‘Those bracelets around her wrist. The bloodbound power comes from them. The swords also have a bare minimum, but I suspect they should be at level 4 or less. The bracelets emit far more power. Judging how she doesn’t have anything to defend herself, doesn’t wear armor and attacks like a berserk, I suspect the bracelets hinder her immune to direct attacks in some way…’
Had Douglas not noticed the same, he’d try and parry the attacks, but instead, he just delivered a single blow to Teagan’s arm. Of course, she didn't try to protect. She took the hit, expecting her bracelet to do the work.
But Douglas wasn’t aiming to hit her arm, the wipe was meant for surgically removing the bracelet out.
“Uh…?” When Teagan noticed it was too late.
Douglas withstood the only attack he received in the fight, and then the bracelet was gone. Douglas then threw his heavy body surrounded on armor to hers, which had nothing. She couldn’t withstand the weight and the bracelet couldn’t do anything.
“Interesting… So he is the kind who studies the enemy before joining the arena…”
There was some more violent action on the floor, but Doug’s skill overcame Teagan’s with ease. After a while, Douglas was declared the winner of the second fight. He was Josiah’s next opponent.