*Sigh*

"... Same old room. We meet again." Yuki said as he was once again greeted by the gloomy, plain, and sad white walls of the Preparation Room.

The Semi-Finals just ended and the Finals are about to start in a couple of minutes.

Yuki just won the last round, in other words, he won the Semi-Finals. Though it took him quite a bit some time, he still won in the end.

"... Haa~ Damn it."

Though for some reason, Yuki is not that happy about his last fight even though he won.

*Tut*

Yuki sits on a chair as he brought out his console and look at his Status.

"... *sigh* Five hundred MP, gone, just like that.

That's like... one week's worth of hunting." Yuki said in a regretful tone.

During his last fight with the Human, he spent too much MP than he's supposed to. The Human has immunity to Physical Attacks, so as much as he doesn't like to release his MP, he just don't have that much choice.

Yuki always seals his MP because he has some complicated skills that can activate on their own and eats away his MP. That's also the reason why some of his skills are not Activating because he always doesn't have enough juice to make it run, whenever it wants to activate itself. Which is pretty convenient for him.

But he is not sealing all of it completely, he always left a certain amount for some of the Spells he likes to use whenever he's hunting or fighting.

So, on his fight against the Human, he really need to release some of his MP to fight like a Magic Caster since he didn't leave enough MP to cast that many Spells, in fact, he's pretty much out already when he decided to release his MP seal.

Originally, he planned to end the match as quickly as possible, but he didn't expect the Human to be so tough. At first, he belittled him by casting only a bunch of Fifth to Eight Tier spells, but seeing that he's withstanding them, Yuki upped his game and start cast Ninth and Tenth Tier Spells, but at that time, the Human had started fighting back so the situation became harder for Yuki.

But in the end, he still managed to end the fight... Not after unleashing three Super Tier Spells and a bunch of Tenth Tier Spells, he also cast a lot of high Tier Spells along the way. All of that had drained him a bit too much than he expected.

If Yuki foresaw how the fight is going to end originally, then surely, he'll cast one or two Super Tier Spell without any hesitation in the very beginning and immediately end the fight right there. That way, he could have saved more MP.

But all in all, Yuki managed to learn something in that fight. A lesson that might be important for the future. That, he needs to decrease his edgy~ness in every fight.

"... I need to think straight and take everything seriously from now on." Yuki promised to himself, a promise that he'll just forget in a couple of minutes.

After all that, Yuki proceeds to Seal away his excess MP again. He doesn't want to fight anymore with his huge MP so exposed like this.

And besides, Yuki already saw his next opponent through the Bracket list. Yuki is so sure that in this upcoming fight, he won't need his MP. He's pretty confident about it.

"... The Finals is a free win anyway." Yuki said as a Magic Circle had appeared on his wrist, indicating that his MP was now sealed again.

"... Haaa~ I should celebrate later. Hmm, What food should I order?" Yuki said as he continue browsing through his Console. Wondering where he could waste his money on.

Yuki stayed like that for a couple of minutes until a sound had rung, grabbing his attention.

*Tut!*

A new notification had arrived and a window had popped in front of him.

[ Get ready. The Finals is about to Start. ]

"... it's about time already huh?" Yuki said after he read the content of the notification.

After a couple of minutes of doing nothing but sitting, Yuki noticed the timer above him.

[ 00:13 ]

It was about to end, and the next round, the final round, is about to start.

Yuki groaned as he slowly and lazily stands up from the chair. He then grabs his spear back from the inventory.

"... Alright, Let's win this."

Immediately after that, the timer hits zero and he disappeared into the preparation room... Again, for the very last time.

∆∆∆∆∆

Not so long ago, the winners of the Semi-finals for every World has been officially announced.

Each name of the Players that will compete for the Finals has been publicly announced.

The last round is already the next event and whoever wins this time, will be hailed as the official World Champion of the particular world they choose to represent.

In Niflheim, two names were displayed above the list of Players that will fight in the finals.

And obviously, Yuki's IGN is there. His name was publicly announced as a player that managed to reach and will compete in the last round.

When his friends saw this, they all have mixed emotions. Happy, Angry, Glad, and Jealous.

Happy, because they're happy for their friend.

Angry, because they lost and didn't even reach the semis.

Glad, because one of them who's originally from the Niflheim manages to reach the finals.

And Jealous, for very obvious reasons.

The venue for the Finals is the same arena that was used for the Semi-final round, but the difference this time is, there's a massive audience or crowd that will watch the fight, Live.

The water, where no one could go to, is the one that separates the Spectator area from the Arena.

Currently, the arena in the middle is still empty. But the Spectator area on every far side is full already.

The whole place is bustling with a ton of Players that came to watch the final round. The Final round here on Niflheim that is.

The majority of players that are here are the ones that were defeated in this tournament. They came to watch the two strong remaining players that manages to rise to the very top and beat all the players they faced.

On a certain spot in the spectator area, there's a group of Heteromorphic Players that are discussing something between themselves.

[ Bread Pitt ]: I knew it! I knew that Raizel-san will reach the finals.

[ Kentuckycriedfricken ]: Yeah, I kinda expected it already. He's the rank one for reasons. [😌]

[ Buh Buh Bacon ]: Well. He just got lucky.

[ Kentuckycriedfricken ]: Oh yeah! I heard you faced off against him at some point. How'd it go?

[ Buh Buh Bacon ]: Well... a pretty close fight. [🙄]

[ IYELLALOT ]: HAHAHAHA! Close fight my ASS! I bet you got your ass kicked together with you sh*t! BAWAHAHAHA! [🤣]

[ Buh Buh Bacon ]: You little b*tch!

[ Bread Pitt ]: Oi, calm down you two.

[ Kentuckycriedfricken ]: Anyways, I'm kinda disappointed when I saw that all Players that reached the Semi-finals are all Humanoids. Of course, except Raizel.

[ Bread Pitt ]: True. Even Demis didn't make it.

[ IYELLALOT ]: Yeah, that's also why I'm hoping that he'll kick this one's ass so hard that he'll feel it in real life.

[ Bread Pitt ]: Hey, that's enough. Look it's starting.

They all paused their discussions and focus their attention on the arena. The arena glowed for a moment and a lot of fireworks and unnecessary effects had happened before two magic circles appears on both sides of the arena.

After a moment, from the magic circle, two Players had arise.

Of course, this is Yuki and his supposed to be opponent.

[ IYELLALOT ]: WHOOUU!! BEAT HIS ASS!

[ Bread Pitt ]: GOOD LUCK RAIZEL!

[ Kentuckycriedfricken ]: YOU CAN DO IT RAIZEL!

[ Buh Buh Bacon ]: ... [😑]

Yuki's friends have cheered for Yuki, but not just them but many players that know Yuki had also cheered for him.

Yuki is pretty famous in NIFLHEIM, almost all Player in that world knows who Yuki is. Not personally but they know him because Yuki was trashing every PKers that came to Niflheim just to PK some Heteromorphics. So many Heteromorphic Players know him as their protector or some sort.

But the Audience was halved, the half cheered for Yuki and the other half cheered for Yuki's opponent. The ones that cheered for Yuki's Opponent were, of course, the Humanoids and some Demi-humans since, either they lost to Yuki or they are his victims. Either way, they all share the same feeling. They hate Yuki with every fiber of their being.

*Shouting FX*

The Crowd cheers for the Player they're rooting to win, they keep shouting towards the arena but actually, the two battling Players in it cannot hear them.

There's a barrier that surrounds the whole arena. That barrier prevents any audio that comes from the outside to reach the participants. It's all to avoid unnecessary distractions.

But the two participants, Yuki and his opponent, can see that the audience is cheering for both of them. It's just that they can't hear anything. They all know this already since they have already been notified before the event so they're not that surprised.

[ Bread Pitt ]: On another note, I'm pretty sure that Raizel-san can win this match easily.

[ Buh Buh Bacon ]: Huh what do you mean?

[ Bread Pitt ]: Look at his opponent. It's a Magic Caster, hehe.

[ Buh Buh Bacon ]: Oh~ Right. I see. What an unfortunate guy.

[ Kentuckycriedfricken ]: Haha~ Yuki eats Magic Caster for breakfast. That's the worst matchup.

[ IYELLALOT ]: Looks like Yuki won this already huh. *Sigh* Lucky bastard.

[ Bread Pitt ]: Anyway, that guy Is still a finalist, so probably he can still stand against Yuki.

[ Kentuckycriedfricken ]: Then, if that's the case. I would like to see how he is going to do that.

[ Bread Pitt ]: Then, let's just watch.

After that, they all stopped talking and focus on the arena where a match is about to start.

∆∆∆∆∆

After being spawned in the Arena, Yuki looked around him just for him to see a massive number of Players that came to watch the Finals.

He was in awe. He keeps on looking around, trying to see if he can spot someone he knows.

"... There's too many. Can't see those idiots."

He finally stopped looking around as he look in front of him and see the figure of his opponent.

"... A Magic Caster indeed." Yuki said, seeing the giant witch hat and robe that his opponent wears.

After a couple of seconds, a timer suddenly appeared above them, and start counting down.

They've all seen this many times by now and it's almost an instinct to prepare once the timer hits zero.

The Mage stand prepared and so Yuki too.

[ 10 ]

[ 9 ]

[ 8 ]

...

[ 3 ]

[ 2 ]

[ 1 ]

*IINNGGGG!*

The moment when the timer hits zero, the sound that indicates for them to start fighting has rung throughout the arena.

Yuki immediately rushed towards his enemy while brandishing his spear.

On the other side, The magic caster, just like Yuki, acted fast as he leap backward to gain more distance then cast an immediate spell towards his surroundings.

"... [ Maximized Penetrating Magic: Cliffhanger ]"

____________________________________________________________