Today was the final day of midterms for the class. Today was the day Micky was dreading the most. Today was the day of one on one fights. Although adventurers usually fought monsters and occasionally bandits the best way to test levels of skill not [Skill] was one on one duels. The first round was going to be a round robin style with both select matchs that were good and bad matchups as well as random matches that could be anybody in the class.

Micky stood on the stage, it was him vs a warrior. Micky again checked that he and his [Bond]s would be healed should they get hurt. The adventurers had learned their lesson since last time and had dedicated healers for the job. It was kind of awkward for the actual healers since that should have been their job. However, two things, one: this way they could preserve their mana, two: the real reason was that some of the healers were flaky bastards that wouldn’t heal their opponents after ‘friendly’ matchs. It was well understood that healers might not heal you if they simply didn’t like your face sometimes, it was it’s own form of protection for a weaker type of class. However, that was that and this was this and they had one job!

Micky was thinking back to the last one vs one he had, it did not go so well. This time he had more companions. However, this was still a terrible matchup and he hadn’t even gotten into the ‘bad’ matchups yet.

Mags rawred in furry and gave Micky an encouraging look. She was right, he could do this, or at least there were healers on standby this time so that when he eventually had his face smashed in he would be healed quickly this time.

Micky stood on the stage and faced the warrior with a giant mace and little in the way of protection. He had a limited leather cuirass and a leather skirt to protect things and that was it. Micky didn’t like his odds. So he decided on his strategy. Standing on the edge of the stage Micky signaled that he was ready… barely… probably not… why was he here?

The warrior was charging, no [Charging]! Micky panicked but both Mags ad squishy knew what to do. So Micky Cast [Accelerate] onto Squishy with as many stacks as he could manage. By the time that happened the warrior was already ready to smash him into paste so Micky was dodging out of the way as Squishy and Mags pincered them from both sides.

Micky did indeed dodge, the mace, not the shower of stones that came after the mace had landed. But Micky was in life or death mode now, and it wasn’t the time to worry about the too much blood that was leaking out of him. So Micky cast [Enrage] on Mags while he ignored the warrior for now. He needed to bridge the gap between his monsters and the warrior and not the other way around. It might have been fine if he could start buffing beforehand, but that wasn’t allowed.

The warrior wasn’t going to let Micky go however, he was close, in his sights, in range of his already swinging mace! Micky only thought was, Oh shit, oh shit, oh shit! But that had been his mantra since he had gotten up onto the stage. The only difference was this had more of a cadence of panic and mild fear rather than impending doom.

Mags slammed into the warrior’s side pushing them offbalance. They simply used another skill to [Force] balance themselves and allow sure footedness. Micky had already dodged the mace in the moment of indiscretion though so the swing missed. The warrior seemed to be getting annoyed that all Micky was doing was dodging and buffing, but what did they actually think he was going to do?

The warrior activated their short range charge [Ram] to get to Micky again. But unlike [Charge] which had aim assist [Ram] was a straight shot, and Micky had already dodged out of the way by the time they activated it. With this, the skill actually took them further out of the way. But [Ram] could be used a few times in rapid succession. So the warrior used [Ram] again while Micky dodged.

Finally, the warrior used [Ram] for a third time, hitting Micky and setting him up perfectly for a downward swing. Micky got a [Weakness] debuff off just before he got a mace to the face and blacked out. But not before hearing the words “Winner!” Announced really loudly and the crowd chanting “Finish him!”

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Micky woke up groggy and in pain but still barely functioning enough to continue. This time they had enough potion to go around thanks to a certain alchemist as well as a dedicated healer that was really friggen busy.

A giant green hand slapped his back as he looked over at Prin. “Grats on your win!” She said.

Micky looked at her questioningly. Prin stated “After the mace to the face she was really close to the edge of the stage. So Mags just tackled them off of it. When you collapsed unconscious they were already off stage. It is considered a technical win. I know that last time it was to the ‘[Dead]’ or uncounsious and you just had to show that you had a victorious attack in order to win. This time they added technical wins as an objective because it is more of an adventurer’s thing, since sometimes we need to complete objectives over actually doing damage.”

Micky nodded but still didn’t really believe her. Winning over a warrior for him would be a miracle, any DPS really. Micky asked “But why were they chanting ‘Finish him!’ though?”

Prin said “Oh that’s because it was from a different fight. The one next to your’s got a bit heated and a nightmare underdog was barely holding on against one of the top twenty. So they were chanting that while the twenty played with him for a bit.” Micky nodded in understanding.

“If your that rambuncsios then get out of my healing area! I have more work to do!... So much more work. This guy isn’t even a person anymore, their a meat patty. He deserves it after he said that to a female fighter but really, how am I supposed to fix this?” Said the hired healer.

Micky got up and got ready for his next fight in the round robbin. Oh great, it’s an archer!...

Micky got over to the stage and Prin gave him a ‘good luck’. He was actually a fight behind because of the healing, but so were a lot of the other adventurers, so that wasn’t important.

The archer looked at Micky like they were looking at a slightly moving target, Micky didn’t disagree with that assessment. He moved Mags in front of him this time and Squishy rode on her shoulder. Squishy would actually be the tank this time since arrows ha a hard time hitting a slimes only weakness their core. However, if they were destabilized enough a slime would still die, but archers still had a problem with that as well since they dealt extreme piercing damage.

As ready as he will ever be and going in with more of a plan this time, Micky was feeling mildly confident that he would lose with grace. He quickly looked over at the other stages to see how people he knew were doing. Prin was fighting with confidence over on another stage. She was dodging in and out of range like the skirmisher she was, rare these days that she could play her class like it’s true role. There was the shield spartan that was simply bashing their opponent to the other side of the stage, it was kind of hilarious. Then there was the paladin, they took another approach and simply let the opponent attack them until they showed all that they were worth to the judges. Once that was done and they were confident they would ask them to leave the stage. Which they did, but the other was not willing since they were ‘winning’. That was when the paladin would ‘escort’ them off the stage. It was kind of brutal if you asked Micky, but they did kind of overstay their welcome...