"…"

Everyone was staring at Harrison, completely baffled by his behavior. They stared at the blond loli for a few seconds, and then turned back to their captain.

"Why are you asking a middle school student to take part in the match tomorrow? She's not even a student from our school."

"But…" Harrison protested against Pearl's objection. "…what else am I supposed to do? We're supposed to be copying Battle Frenzy. This is where w.a.n.g Zhong sends Amelia into the scouting stage, and she rekts the a.s.sa.s.sins from the so-called ranked academies so hard that everyone either feels as if their faces got slapped or they start expressing their surprise over how such a talented genius actually came from a supposedly 'trash' school like Jing Tian Academy is. You know, the usual Chinese webnovel clichés."

"Get serious!" Pearl snapped, hitting him in the head. Harrison winced.

"Sorry."

"Sorry about that." Sheila was kneeling next to the utterly confused girl and comforting her. The blond middle school student continued to gape at us for a while, and then nodded and left. She was still completely bewildered over what had just happened.

"Besides, didn't the TO already say that they are not doing that scout stage, tank stage bulls.h.i.+t?" This time it was Craig Carlson, who was folding his arms as he watched our great leader. "It's just five free-for-all matches in five different maps." He then raised his hand and grinned broadly. "I volunteer to take the first map."

"Sounds good to me." Harrison nodded. "We'll go with that then."

"I'll take the second map," Theodore added after a while.

"Leave the third map to me," Cody said darkly, leaning against the wall and almost disappearing into the shadows. We all glanced at him, startled. As always, he erased his presence so easily that we almost forgot that he was here.

"That's settled then." Harrison glanced at me and Bu Fan. "The fourth match will be either one of you then."

"Ugh…let Richard handle it." Bu Fan waved his hand dismissively. "I'll do my part in the finals instead. I don't want to give away my magic and trump card just yet."

Harrison glanced at me, and I shrugged.

"Fine with me, unless someone really wants to partic.i.p.ate."

"No, I think it's safe to say that you should handle the fourth map." Pearl giggled. "Just in case anything goes wrong and we're desperate for points."

"Hey! What's that supposed to mean?!" Craig complained. "You think I'll lose?"

"n.o.body said that."

"Now, now…" Dong Fang Yue Chu quickly cut in to placate everyone before it could escalate into a fight. He turned to Harrison. "And you'll be responsible for the captain match at the end, right?"

"That's correct."

"Then I guess we should start preparing for the coming matches, right?" Dong Fang Yue Chu s.h.i.+fted his gaze across each of us, almost as if he was challenging us to object. None of us did, of course. We all knew how important preparation was.

However, Harrison cleared his throat uncomfortably. Conjuring a holographic screen with his smartphone, he waved for us to take a look at the matchups.

"Um…that's precisely the problem, guys. Not only are we not told the specific maps, we have no idea who the representatives are for the other teams. Not unless we spy on them, but even so there's little point, given how over fifty teams are partic.i.p.ating. There's no way we'll be able to gather the information in time, and learn each and every partic.i.p.ant's magic, fighting style and abilities. Suffice to say, we are going in blind."

"This is really meant to be a free for all, huh?" I sighed. Harrison nodded grimly.

"Yup. They are trying to keep us on our toes and surprise us. Expect the unexpected, deal with twists in real-time, and all that. It'll be very difficult for us to prepare if we don't know who is partic.i.p.ating in which round. We won't be able to come up with adequate countermeasures."

"We still have to come up with a strategy, though," Theodore pointed out.

"Of course," Harrison conceded. "But we don't even know what the map would be…yet. They still have yet to announce the first map." He turned to our spear-wielding friend, concerned. "Craig, the pressure on you will be immense."

"I can handle it," the Crimson Spear Society president replied confidently. He grinned and thumped his chest. "h.e.l.l, that's why I volunteered to go first in the first place. If anyone can deal with this pressure and emerge victorious, it will be me."

"Good to see that you're as confident as ever," Sheila remarked with a smile. "But don't get complacent and underestimate the enemy."

"Hah! Who do you think I am? Just watch, I'm going to earn our first ten points!"

While Craig bragged, I checked the information I received on my smartphone. Out of the five hundred academies who partic.i.p.ated in the tournament, only half of them had survived elimination in whatever city districts they were a.s.signed to. Each city district originally had a hundred teams, but now each had a little over fifty teams left. And out of these fifty teams, only the twelve top teams would make it past the qualifiers.

So, in order to get to the top, we needed to ama.s.s as many points as possible. And to do that, our representative had to be among the last ten to survive in each of those maps.

This was going to be difficult. I wasn't sure about magic, but I knew I was pretty bad at survival games and all that. Whenever I played shooter games in my previous life, I would be among the first to die. To be blunt, I sucked at gaming. Strategy games were another matter – hilariously enough, I could survive among the longest in strategy games, because I was generally the type to turtle, tech up to the strongest units, and survive…

That didn't mean I won, though. Most of the time, I lost because I generally sucked. I was good at macro, but I sucked at micro and multi-tasking. I was always able to ama.s.s huge amounts of resources and build up a powerful army, but I was always vulnerable to timings, being flanked, and G.o.d-like micro from my opponents.

Honestly, I wasn't confident in surviving, because it seemed like the matches were more akin to free for all shooter games, where everyone was just gunning down whoever they saw. And I sucked most at those kind of games. Furthermore, if the opponent even had an inkling of what I was capable of if left to my own devices, they would strive to eliminate me as quickly as possible, before I could summon anything.

And right now, I would be left to fend for myself, with no teammates to back me up, no one to provide support and protect me while I cast my summoning spells. It wouldn't be like in the first stage of the qualifiers, where I had an entire team helping me out and delaying the foe while I cast my summoning spell at the back.

Summoning was only good when executed in a team. If this was a solo free-for-all play, then I was pretty much screwed.

"Anyway, we'll just return back to the hotel and discuss our plans there." Harrison glanced around to ensure that we weren't being eavesdropped upon. Not that any team would single us out and spy on us – they were all too busily discussing the new round of the qualifiers with each other to do anything that unethical.

Furthermore, there were plenty of other teams who were regarded more highly than us, and viewed as bigger threats. As far as the other teams were concerned, we were somewhat of a dark horse at most. No, we were not trash. n.o.body was that rude or disrespectful, not unless you were a reader like Meatb.a.l.l.s who dismissed characters as "mob" without even bothering to read on. Come on, have you ever met anyone in real life who went around calling people trash just because they weren't as skilled as them? I wasn't naïve enough to say arrogant people didn't exist in reality, but that was way beyond simple arrogance and actually plain stupidity.

At most, you laughed at people for being newbies (or noobs), and you scoffed at their efforts. But n.o.body actually went through the trouble of condemning other people as "trash" and went out of their way to humiliate them for no other reason other than because they happened to be the main characters. As such, n.o.body was going to bother eavesdropping and sabotaging us just to prove that we were "trash." Like seriously, who had so much free time and energy on their hands?

While we followed Harrison back to the hotel, pa.s.sing by teams who didn't give us a second glance (to be fair, we didn't spare them more than a few seconds of attention either – we were too busy for that), I caught sight of a familiar figure approaching us.

"Richard!"

"Redfield?" I recognized the red-haired mercenary immediately. He frantically approached me, waving me over.

"Great! I found you!" After he hurried over, he looked at my friends hesitantly before taking a deep breath. "Sorry, can I have a quick word with you?"

"Sure." Realizing that he wanted to speak to me in private, I stepped away and bowed my head apologetically to my friends. "Go ahead. I'll catch up soon."

"Don't take too long," Yue Chu joked. "The last time you said that, you were gone for seven days."

"I don't think I actually said that…"

"Geez, I was joking!"

Yue Chu chortled and smacked me across the back, pus.h.i.+ng me in Redfield's direction. Harrison nodded at me.

"Don't worry. Like I said, there's precious little we can do about our current predicament. Do whatever you need to do. As long as you'll be available to fight for the fourth map, that's more than enough. Even if something crops up, we'll just have Bu Fan take your place."

"Hey, hey!" Craig jumped up, looking from Harrison to me, and then glancing at Redfield with a raised eyebrow. "What's with all these ominous foreshadowing? You're talking as if Richard will be booted out of the compet.i.tion or something."

"Or at the very least, he will be involved in something that would that would force him to stay out of the tournament," Theodore murmured darkly.

I wasn't sure how to respond to their pessimistic remarks. These guys had been reading way too many webnovels. I was too amazed to muster up any sort of retort. Fortunately, before I could say anything stupid, Bu Fan cut in, outraged.

"What the f.u.c.k?! Then what was the whole point of making a special exception and reinstating Richard back in the tournament, nullifying his elimination and allowing him to partic.i.p.ate again, if he's going to be forced by some cheap, contrived plot device to miss out on the next round of qualifiers? Is the writer of this story high or something?"

"Hey, I resent that," I snapped, annoyed. But Redfield placed a hand on my shoulder and gently led me away.

"Sorry, but there's no point wasting your time arguing and making up retorts. We have more important things to worry about."

"Fine." I allowed him to lead me away, trying not to feel grumpy and whatever. "What's up? Why so serious?"

"Have you seen Ana?"

The question caught me off guard. I looked around, but saw nothing other than students from fifty academies milling around and talking to each other. Throughout the vast courtyard that served as a garden for the city hall, there was no sign of the green-haired ex-a.s.sa.s.sin. Not that I expected to see her amidst all the students competing in the tournament.

"No. What happened to Ana?"

"That's the thing. She has gone missing." Redfield paused as he tried to steady himself, but I could see that he was highly disturbed. "When was the last time you saw her?"

"Yesterday, after we returned from the Den of Dragons." I was starting to feel alarmed. "Why? What happened? Did something happened to Ana?"

"Well…yeah." Redfield took a deep breath before glancing around and ensuring that no one was listening in our conversation. Lowering his voice, he leaned in and whispered to me in a grave tone. "Her poison magic has gone out of control. I'm not sure, but I think she headed back out in the forest to die alone, before she can accidentally kill anyone with her rampaging powers."