The announcer started the event, "Welcome everyone to the 150th annual Swordsmanship tournament, where every year we chose the best of the best swordsman in the school. This is a special year as no one other the swordsaint is present in the stadium this year".

Everyone turned to the direction she was pointing, the swordsaint was seated in a VIP seat a little further from us, although she was the friend of the princess she had to seat separately because of status, however she still had her special VIP seat.

She looked flustered when everyone was staring at her but she smiled and waved nonetheless.

The announcer continued, "This year we also have our royal highness princess Rosalia attending and we also have other distinguished students like princess Emily of the Kingdom of  Elderburg".

The students students looked in the direction of the respective pricessses and they smiled and waved.

Then the announcer continued saying about other things and then finally, "This year we have 16 participants so we will have 4 rounds, in the first round there will be 8 matches with two people fighting each other in each match, then the winners will face each other in pairs of two until there are 4 left, then those four will have 2 two matches in pairs , until the final two remain standing..."

"This screen will display the results", as soon as the announcer announced that, a huge screen materialized out of nowhere. The screen could only know the matchups and the final results but not the match, that live watching technology was still lacking.

This was also the reason why Bryan and his cronies managed to cheat in the original game as they had to only fool the referee but it didn''t work as Victor won anyway.

The announcer continued," As for the rules,  no magic is allowed, you can only fight with your sword skills, if you are found to be using magic you will be disqualified immediately, also no killing is allowed, the opponent loses if knocked out or not being able to move or surrendering or is on the ground with a sword pointed at them, the referee's decision is final...."

Yes magic is not allowed but that is how Bryan and his crony will try to cheat, I would have been the other crony but now it's replaced with another one, yes in the original game I would be the one to cheat but not now , he will be fighting and losing against Victor I can surely say that.

Then the matchups were announced and as I predicted victor faced against that crony, however I won't warn him cause he will win anyway, on the other hand I will be fighting Bryan a matchup not used in the game, I am sure he will cheat using magic as he knows he cannot win against me and also has a grudge against me, so I will use an anti magic spell on me just in case, it's not cheating if I am just preparing against an attack, right? right? Anyway I have no other choice if I don't want to have to deal with nuisance.

Princess Emily is participating as expected, her match is the 3rd match, Victor's is the 1st match just like in the game, yes the tournament started in the game with me getting clobbered by Victor, now another person will face that fate.

My match is last but I don't mind, I get to witness everyone else's performance after all.

There is a gap of half an hour after each match, giving players enough time to recover. They even have magic lights for matches to happen in the dark, those lights are very expensive, so much so that only very high class nobles and super wealthily commoners can afford them, as expected of an academy of this prestige.

The finals will be held tomorrow so I have to fight 3 matches today. I am not planning to lose this tournament that's for sure.

The announcement ended and the first match was about to start in 5 minutes.

The match was between Victor and a crony of Bryan named Edward.  Adrian was more or less aware how to match would go. Edward would use magic in secret to blind Victor at the middle of the match but Victor had a lot of experience as a former mercenary so he could fight with his eyes closed and sensing the opponents moves against weak opponents. So ultimately Edward will lose.

The two opponents entered the arena receiving moderate cheers each with Victor getting slightly better cheer.

The match began on the signal of the referee Edward charged forward as he knew he couldn't defend against Victor's attacks, Victor easily blocked the attack but before he counter attack, he stopped and he was hear and there as if seeing something but Adrian knew the truth, his vision has been blocked, so he trying to see the opponent, any other person would call foul play but Victor believed that battles tend to be unfair and winning despite hardships is a must for a warrior, his experience as a mercenary taught him that.

Adrian tend to believe that if he knows the enemy's plan, and that if the enemy cheats ,  he should do it too, after all winning is the only thing that's important, history is written by the victors.

Two different thoughts but both hold truth.

Anyway Victor used his senses to stop Edward's upcoming attack and then parried Edward's sword of his and then knocked him in the neck with the back of his hand making him unconscious.

The referee announced, "Winner Victor Goldberg". And the crowd was filled with cheers for Victor.

And that's how the first match ended. The princesses didn't look too impressed but Adrian knew that was cause they saw his swordsmanship which was unfortunate as it made them interested in him, he resented Victor who didn't have to deal with this bullshit and felt that Victor should him for taking over that burden. Adrian looked at the swordsaint and she was looking at Victor with interest, as expected he thought, "But she hasn't seen my performance yet, I will show her my performance and make her want to have a duel with me, yes she must want to, otherwise my wish to duel her won't come true".

With this Adrian made up his mind to perform his best.