One of the mightiest songs a Leecher could ever sing was the Ninth Song of Destruction. It described a Leecher as a person who had the power to distort and destroy Stardust. 

All the knowledge about the Songs of Destruction had come from books. It had been a thousand years since this world witnessed the existence of a Leecher that could release that much power. 

Silence reigned on both contestants and enjoyers of the contest. No one from them was willing to take the risk of answering the question after Osriel lost two of his points. But Ariadne was different; she knew the answer to this question.

Perhaps the others also knew the answer, but what happened to Osriel had bewildered them. I must use that to gain an advantage over them.

Ariadne raised her hand, and the host, Lewis’ father, turned at her with a glint in his eyes as if he too was expecting her to fail. Their eyes looked the same. 

Each song in The Hundred Songs had four lines, but some had three. The Ninth Song of Destruction was one of the few songs that had three lines.

“The Ninth Song of Destruction,” she said, closing her lips as she prepared to sing the song. 

The hills of Galapahos had been emptied of grass

Spears, swords and shields laid discarded where the evergreens used to thrive

At night, the Final Soldier played his harp to remember his comrade’s life

Ariadne opened her eyes; the last syllable of the last line was still reverberating over the Great Hall. The silence was only broken when someone from the crowd started clapping. Ariadne turned and saw her father with Arissa clapping their hands in her direction. The crowd soon erupted at the sound of everyone’s admiration.

Today, the Ninth Song is called an Ornamental Song, meaning that singing it would do nothing since it had already lost its power. 

The game resumed. The next questions that followed centered on the different songs used by Emperors and Dukes to wage war or sometimes propose peace with each other. Ariadne was glad she could still remember almost everything about it. But she hated the fact of how annoying the history of their country was, endless wars, fragile peace, and treacherous pacts. Osriel successfully dominated the latter questions for this round. He managed to recover all the points he lost and also gain some points for him to be among the top scorers.

At the end of round two, three players had been eliminated, leaving only ten players for the next round. 

“We will have a ten-minute break before the third begins,” the host said.

Ariadne sighed and walked towards the table where Astram and Arissa sat. She was glad she reached it before her balance failed her. Astram shot her a worried glance before he signaled for Arissa to get a glass of water and something to eat.

“What did you ask of her?”

“I asked her to get that cake that you ate earlier,” Astram said with a smile.

When she heard it, Ariadne wanted to giggle at her father’s thoughtfulness. But if she did, she feared her head would fall off. The pain was unbearable, her temples pulsated, and she felt like something was scratching the inside of her head. Though she blamed no one but herself for this. During the game, Ariadne had to scan her memories to remember all the knowledge she had mastered in her previous life. And the result of that was a headache. Though she doubted if she could call it a headache, it was more like someone was splitting her head with an axe!

I had to minimize looking at my memories. I do not know what the consequences would be if I kept looking at it.   

Ariadne picked up her notes and skimmed through the things she had written. She specifically paid more attention to those words that she underlined. She was not sure what would be the topics for the third round; all she could do for now was to focus and hope that what she and Osriel had reviewed would prove themselves valuable.

Ariadne was mumbling to herself when a plate was moved toward her direction. She stared at the white cake and marbled at the freshly looking strawberry toppings, then her eyes wondered at the hand that held the edge of the plate. 

“I see you really like this one, so I ask Arissa to ask in the kitchen if they still have a cake like this, and it turns out it does.”

Ariadne stared at it, lost for words. “…thank you.”

“Now, you eat it and regain your energy.”

---

The bell rang. Ariadne put down her reviewers before she said goodbye to her father.

“Luck in the night,” Astram said.

Ariadne smiled at him and strolled toward the podium. The girl beside her smiled when she finally reached the participants’ area.

 “You’re quite familiar with the Leecher’s Song, Lady Ariadne.”

She blinked, then wore her sweetest smile. “I just like how most of them sounded solemn.”

“I couldn’t agree more.”

The remaining competitors and the crowd all waited in anticipation for the next instruction in the game. The host coughed before he started speaking. “We are now in the third round of the game. This time it would be a team effort.”

“In the first two rounds, if nobody knows the right answer, we could just skip and replace it with a new one. But this time, it would be different; we only have fifteen questions for this round, and you must answer it or receive a deduction. Every question that is answered correctly by anyone among the remaining players will grant a single point to everyone and two points to the competitor who answered it correctly… But if no one knows the answer to the question, each of you will receive a three points deduction. Another thing, every question in this round is a negative question. It means that if you get the correct answer, aside from getting two points, you will also receive a right to give a two-point deduction to anyone in the game.”

“We will also have a new rule for eliminating players. We will set the lowest possible score; if a player goes lower than that bar would mean an automatic elimination. This lowest possible score would change as round three progresses. For starter, the lowest possible point is negative seven.”

Ariadne had to take a mental note of everything that had been said; to sum it up, it was a group match but also an individual match. If someone answered the question correctly, they would receive one point, and two points for the person who answered it correctly. On the other hand, if no one from them responded to the question, they would receive a three points deduction, but if someone answered it incorrectly, that person would receive a two points deduction alone.

Ariadne could only sigh at the complexity of the game instruction itself. For this game, she decided to bring paper with her. Earlier, before the game started, she asked Arissa to list down the scores of the players. Osriel, Illyra, and someone named Akillo all vied for the first place. Thankfully, I asked Arissa to do this, I thought it would be just a simple negative point round, but it turns out it’s much more troublesome than I thought.

The host asked everyone in the hall for silence, indicating that the game was about to begin. He coughed and proceeded to say the first question.

When she heard the first question, she sighed in relief. Ariadne was glad she hadn’t stopped Osriel from his obsession with reviewing the legends. At some point, the reviewer given to him was somehow truthful. But it seemed that the goal of whoever gave that reviewer was for Osriel to be eliminated before the third round.

The host started the next question with a song. After hearing the three words of the first line, she immediately recognized what category of an Enhancer Song it was. 

The Third Song of Euphoria. It was one of her favorite songs among all other songs in the Enhancers Category, its tone was slow, and there were many vibratos in the singer’s voice as the song went on.

“The Third Song of Euphoria was believed to be composed by Veeron de Leorvin as a gift to Ellaris de Claneria. What is Veeron’s relationship to Ellaris?”

This was Ariadne’s favorite song, so it was natural that she knew everything about this. But still, she waited if Osriel would swipe his hand upward. She turned toward the boy and saw him mumbling to himself. Then a glint flashed in his eyes as his hand shot upward.

“Veero is the lover of Ellaris. In short, she has an infidelity with him!”

Ariadne suppressed herself from smiling. Though infidelity was not frowned upon before the Re-establishment of the Church, it was still an issue back then since Ellaris was the younger sister of Veero’s fiancée. She made a detailed compilation about this affair at the Imperial University. Most historians agreed that Veero and Ellaris had loved one another. But both the High Houses of Claneria and Leorvin did not agree about the relationship between the two. Veero ended up giving up his crown to his brother… their love was a tragedy even before it began.

She couldn’t help but think about how the story of the two ended. Veero and his brother were poisoned by his bastard brother, Kaelen the Kinslayer. At that time, Ellaris was on her way to a monastery where she would spend the rest of her life living in agony as she waited for Veero’s arrival. A week before Kaelen killed his brothers and parents, Veero sent a letter to Ellaris with a promise to save her. When she died, they found thousands of letters with Ellaris expressing her sorrows through the years as she waited for Veero. That sorrow slowly turned into rage and later hatred.

Ariadne couldn’t help but think about how her life ended in tragedy. But now she was given another chance to avoid the same disaster from unfolding, but the question: would she be able to avoid that path? Her mind dwindled on those thoughts far too long that she spaced out on the next question.

ErosFontel

I'll update something for tomorrow!