“It’s that little chicken shit bitch again!” said the noble.

“Her luck has run out. She’s facing two level 16 fighters from the same guild,” replied the noble’s suck-up of an attendant.

“Yes, they are both from the Race Track Guild. They will know how to work together, and their combined levels are six higher than hers than her level 26. I have a plan to pay that bitch back for making me lose money!” the noble sneered.

As Tamako stepped into the arena and assessed her opponents, she again heard and ignored the comments from the crowd. A moment later, It didn’t surprise her when she received a System message.

System Message:

Arena Quest: The two level 16 fighters must dismember both arms and both legs of the solo fighter before killing her.

Reward: Ten gold if you win

Accept: Yes/No

Spectator Funding: Pending

Opponent (s) Decision: Pending (10 gold divided equally by all team members)

Tamako was about to call out to the other fighters to discuss the Quest when the System message updated.

Opponent (s) Decision: Accepted

Spectator Funding: Complete (10 gold contributed by spectators for quest reward)

This quest required all the affected fighters to accept it, or it would be declined. When her opponents noticed the Quest update, and her still-pending acceptance, the short-muscled fighter yelled dismissively at her, “If you accept the quest, we will dismember and kill you quickly.”

The taller female fighter then snarled and threatened, “If you don’t accept, we’ll still dismember and kill you, but we’ll do it real slow, shorty!”

The quest only required her to win. Tamako thought, “Why wouldn’t I accept? Maybe some fighters would refuse such a gruesome quest if their opponent didn’t accept?” Tamako inwardly laughed at the two idiots before accepting the quest. Jen and Sam had watched the previous matches of her opponents, and Tamako felt confident in the fight against them based on her AI’s assessment of their skills. However, she also remained cautious in case they too had hid their true skills in previous matches.

This time the crowd remained silent while waiting for her to accept or decline the quest, but as soon as she accepted, the crowd again exploded in an uproar of excitement and a frenzy of new bets.

After five minutes of Tamako fighting almost purely defensively, the short one’s stamina was running low, and he yelled, “What are you scarred? Fight dammit! If you don’t quit messing around, we’re going to kill you slow little girl!”

The tall woman was kneeling on the ground panting as well, and screamed, “No. To hell with giving her anymore chances, we’re going to cut her to ribbons before we kill her.”

The guy’s comments pissed Tamako off, she thought, “Why is everyone calling me little and tiny! I’m taller than he is! He’s the size of a dwarf!” However, she didn’t lose her cool. Tamako’s AI guided her through the match with the two arrogant idiots perfectly. She would block or dodge with just the narrowest of margins. She even took a couple of shallow flesh wounds to keep up the facade. It surprised her that these two were level 16. Her AI estimated they put most of their stat points in agility, but they didn’t have an overclock ability to allow their minds to keep up with their actions. They could move extremely fast, but had to stop when transitioning to a different type of movement or direction.

Tamako watched the tall woman attempt to covertly grab two fistfuls of dirt from the arena floor. A moment later, they both charged her. The man arrived in front of her almost instantly, but he slowed down to bring his sword up and feint a strike at her shoulder. If his intentions were not so obvious, it could have been a devastatingly-fast killing blow.

Just as he feinted at her shoulder, the woman arrived, throwing two large handfuls of dirt in her face, creating a small dust cloud. Tamako blocked the man’s sword when he “unexpectedly” changed directions to strike at her thigh. She then pretended to get some of the dirt in her eyes and to stumble, while kicking up a veritable dust storm, making it impossible to see what was happening.

No more than two seconds later, Tamako and the tall women had moved out of the billowing dust cloud. Tamako had another small bleeding wound on her thigh. The tall woman was looking for her teammate. Then, as the dust and dirt settled down, and the man’s headless corpse became visible, the woman screamed, “You lucky bitch!” and charged.

Without fighting off both of them, it was easy for Tamako to pretend to use the strength of someone with a greater level, but with a lower fighting skill, to beat down and kill the tall woman.

Most of the crowd screamed in anger at Tamako. The noble man said, “It’s disgraceful watching someone with no fighting talent win like this!”

A woman dressed in more jewelry than clothes said, “Her family must have paid for her to be leveled up, but she was too lazy to train her skills. Pathetic win!”

Jen heard another man quietly ask his daughter, “What do you think?”

She replied to her dad, “A win is a win, right?”

He smiled at her thoughtful question and said, “Yes, that is true, but what do you think of the tiny woman’s injuries in the battle?”

The little girl understood when her father questioned her like this, that he wanted her to stop and think critically before answering. After a brief pause, she hesitantly said, “Her wounds are superficial, and probably will not cause any problems in her next match. She also quickly killed the man when no one could see what was happening, but then it took her a while to beat down and kill the tall woman. She could have just been lucky, but there is also a chance she is pretending to be weaker than she really is?”

“Are you asking me a question or is that your opinion?”

The little girl lifted her head and looked her dad in his eyes and confidently said, “that is my opinion.”

“That’s my daughter!” he said proudly to her.

Jen thought to herself wistfully, “I wish my parents treated me like that when I was a kid. Well, maybe not the part where we’re sitting together watching people kill each other in an arena.”