<< The levels of ‘Thread Refining’ and ‘Thread Reeling’ have increased. >>

 

Upon the moment the announcement came to my mind, I finished attending to my clothes. I doubt I did any big change other than closing the gaps on it, but it wasn’t bad to say the least.

I pricked the tip of my blades, they were slightly dull but still usable I’d say. Albeit the cracks were nerve-racking, I had not let myself get bothered by such a trivial matter.

It was useless to think about it, at best doing something about it will change something.

‘Just a couple of more rounds, and I’ll be able to save them.’, this one thought was enough to settle down my nervousness, albeit I was still hesitant.

My match would begin in a couple of minutes, hence I was preparing myself inside the infirmary room for a little while.

What I mean by preparing was: just me visualizing my status, yes. For some reason looking at numbers makes me feel good in a weird way, it’s like seeing your bank balance go up in real time.

‘Who was that girl…?’, the dream kept haunting me from minute to minute, I couldn’t help it. My mind would sometimes slip towards that thought.

‘Get it together! Stop thinking about it!’, trying led to no avail, as I held my head in sheer pain to try and get rid of that thought when suddenly—

“Uhm, contestant Shiro, your match will begin soon, I think it would be appropriate for you to get moving.”, the nurse entered the room.

“Are you sure I’m alright to go?”, I asked her.

Some of the contestants were injured to point of no longer being capable of participating, though they wished to proceed, they were called off due to their states.

“Yes, there were no fatal injures, and the cuts and bruises have already healed.”, she informed me of my well being, and left the room in a hurry, probably had to tend to other patients waiting for her.

I inspected my equipment one last time, including my status. “I have to make new swords after this.”, I muttered to myself, released a short sigh and began exiting the room.

The moment I came out from the other side, I impacted against someone and fell to the ground.

“Ugh, sorry about that, you alright…?”, I looked right at the person between my arms, a person wearing cape covering its hair and ears, a mask to conceal their appearance and their whole body covered in black leather armor.

Due to its small chest and body, I couldn’t tell whether it was male or female. And it hiding it’s face was a factor as well.

It’s body fit almost perfectly under mine, it’s structure would be considered to be short, basically almost the same size as mine.

Upon the moment it looked at me, it began panicking, in a hurry it attempted to stand up, but it hit its head against mine yet again.

It fell back down, pressing its hand on its forehead writhing in pain.

“Uhm, are you okay?”, I asked again, also touching around the area I had felt a small pressure coming from.

I extended my hand to help it stand up, finally calmed down it took my hand.

It’s hands were sort of small and petite in human standards, they were almost same sized as mine.

It stood back up thanks to my support and instantly left, it must’ve been in a hurry maybe to go back to it’s seat before the match began.

“Well, that was that.”, I made sure to delete that weird moment out of my memory or else it would come to haunt me later.

 

 

 

Somewhere, outside of the stadium, three shadows were making a run for it.

“Damn it! To think a knight of the ‘Roundtable’ would be here!”, one of the shadows clicked his tongue in irritation, heavily breathing as he rand away from the approaching projectile from behind.

“What are we gonna do?!”, asked the third shadow in exasperation, the second shadow then responded. “It doesn’t matter if we’re caught or not, all we have to do is fulfill our objective.”

The other two shadows still sprinting full speed ahead within the alleyway, looked up to him in high regard.

“Would you three just settle down? I’m quite tired right now and you staying still for three seconds would make my job quite easier.”, the extremely tired looking knight asked a unmakeable request from his escapees.

“We truly do apologize, however that is not an option.”, the second shadow, politely declined his offer in a highly formal manner.

“Tch, then you leave me no choice.”, suddenly he disappeared, just like nothing.

“Where’d he go?!”, the first shadow asked, right before…

“You really should pay attention to what’s ahead of you.”, he appeared right before him, as if he had teleported.

The knight punched him in the stomach right before he could react to his sudden appearance, his fist plunged deep into his stomach, sending him backwards like a pebble thrown by a child.

“For God’s sake!”, the third shadow, the one who was furthest away, pointed his finger like a gun, a sphere of light formed themselves at the tip of his finger.

“Oh, that looks dangerous.”, the knight muttered, and in the next second he appeared before him, just like the previous one.

‘This speed! No… this is—!’, right before he came to a conclusion, an arm grabbed his face like a ball, and crushed him into the floor, shattering the stone pavement.

The knight let go of his head and turned around to face the last standing shadow. “Now then, it seems that the three of you have calmed down… or at least two of you seems to have.”

The second shadow stepped out into a small gap that sunlight shone through, revealing absolute white garments, albeit his face covered, just by the white garments and symbols written on them was enough to reveal that he was part of clergymen.

“Now tell me, why is it you were running away?”, the knight suspiciously asked, the bags under his eyes darkening even further.

“If I had to say it would be because a man suddenly appeared and persecuted us as if we were criminals in the light of day.”, his sound argument made the knight slightly frown.

“If you three ran away, that mean there must’ve been something weighing on your consciousness, or was there another reason?”

The white robed man answered. “That is not it, I believe anyone would’ve ran away if they were suddenly getting followed by a knight.”

The knight unsheathed his sword, his face reflected on the flat surface of the blade. “Wow, I guess I really do look frightening.”, he realized the bags under his eyes were frightening.

“I would rather have to ask you, why did you run after us?”, the white clothed man asked, steadily retreating, feeling threatened by the sword. “Because you three looked suspicious.”

The white clothed man became dumbfounded by the sudden answer, the two gazed at each other, trying to see if they were telling the truth.

“I see, so it was our misjudge that lead to this, though your reason is quite peculiar.”, he said, reaching his hand behind his back.

“Well, there is more to it, but let’s just leave it as is.”, the knight said, returning his sword to its scabbard.

“I’m willing to spare you, if you were to answer some of my questions. Don’t worry, I won’t invade any personal space you may have, after all that’s against the law isn’t it.”

The clergyman let out a small laugh. “How chivalrous of you to spare me, however—“, he took out from behind his back two circular objects, and threw them to the knight. "I don't any of it."

He instantly took out his blade out of instinct, and cut the two balls in half, almost perfectly shaped.

“Oh, you’ve got to be kidding me.”, he complained right the moment a tremendous amount of smoke spluttered out from the inside of the smoke bombs.

“This is quite old you know? Quite expected?! You know this type of cliché, don't you?”, the knight who’s experience was expected to be considerably extensive, sneered at his opponent.

The knight, with one move of his sword, cleared out all the smoke. “Here, you happy? Was this what you were expecting?”, the knight, full with the crap he had to go through the day, lashed back at the clergyman.

“Huh?”, the knight realized nothing had changed before him, on contrary to his expectations, the one knocked out clergyman was still present and the one behind the smoke as well.

“Well, it seems this is as far as I’ll go.”, he muttered in defeat, not really liable to be taken serious with his tone. “What did you do?”

The clergyman revealed a smirk like smile. “It’s already too, late.”

The knight looked behind him to see the third member missing, despite the short amount of time. He could no longer ‘sense’ him close by.

“Well, at least I’ve got something to report now.”, the knight chose to give up pursuing the missing one, thinking it was going to be useless now, leaving the remining two behind would be idiotic.

“Now, the two of you are coming with me.”

 

 

 

The spectators voices filled all corners of the stadium, the ultimate main dish was almost upon hand, that is why they could not contain their excitement any further.

The now successfully fixed arena, was now open for two people two fight solely. Albeit, it’s size was enormous for two people to fight, it was perfectly required due to the circumstances that were to come.

“Now for the next match before we reach the pre-finals, we have the contestant ‘Shiro’ who had successfully defeated the undefeatable opponent ‘Berserker’!”

“And his adversary, the ‘Masked Swordsman’!”, with not much detail, he revealed my opponents name.

Together with a applause of cheers, a black hooded figure climbed up to the stadium. It’s cape was fluttered by the wind, seemed almost like a scene from a hero climbing upon the stage. And its mask gave a mystic air about it.

‘Oh it’s that person from before.’, I remembered the sort of embarrassing situation from earlier this evening, I however chose to refrain from thinking thoroughly about set situation.

The sunset was almost to be at hand, so they chose to finally adjust the remaining matches for tomorrow, that is why this match was going to be the final of today.

Since there was no actual time limit given for the matches, they were allowed to battle for as long as the two of them remained conscious, or so to say alive even.

“Unfortunately, our dear second announcer won’t be present this evening. So I’ll be doing the rest of the job.”, he commented something that appeared to be unnecessary by the people’s reactions.

“Nevertheless, we shall begin the last match of the day!”

I unsheathed my two swords, without moving my gaze from my enemy. It did the same in return.

“The match between the ‘Masked Swordsman’ and ‘Shiro’ will begin!”