“Hey Isabel, are you doing all right?” I ask.

“What makes you ask that?”

“Well, you don’t look your usual self, and our next match is against, you know…”

Isabel sighs, I guess I was right on the mark. After the battle against Eli, we decided to head straight back to our room to rest. Usually, Isabel would be all giddy after a win, but right now, she was deadly silent.

“Let me ask you this: What’s my usual look?” Isabel asks, dodging my question.

“Angry, grumpy, and annoying,” I respond.

“You jerk!” Isabel angrily, grumpily, and annoyingly retorts.

The rest of our party members burst into laughter as Isabel attempts to land heavy punches on me.

Finally, Hilde holds Isabel’s arm back with tears still in his eyes from laughing.

“It’ll be fine,” Hilde starts, “I know you wanted to face Aquaria later into the tournament, but don’t you think winning the group stages comes first?”

“Of course, I do, and I’m aware that this is a must-win game for us since Aquaria also won her match today,” Isabel pauses, “It’s just, we’ve been dreaming of this moment ever since we got our magic affinities.”

I guess I understood how Isabel felt, getting your magical affinities must be a pretty big moment for the people of Spirinall, and an even bigger moment to participate in the Summoner Games.

I wonder to myself, after my encounter with Luna, would I be able to raise my shield against her?

I shake my head; it would be unfair to Luna to disregard her efforts by not going all out. Sure, we both are from Earth and new to Spirinall, but I’ve grown up with multiple media and video games about Fantasy worlds.

The idea of Spirinall and this whole other world may not be entirely new to me, but to someone like Luna who’s lived a fairly normal life, this is completely something new to her.

Luna may have the level advantage, but she’s still something of a beginner when it comes to fantasy worlds, and I don’t want to look down on the effort she’s making to adapt.

I may be a lower level than you, Luna, but tomorrow, I’m going all out.

* * *

I was feeling pretty confident. After all, we had defeated Aquaria’s party once before, and I had faced off against the duo of Luna and Aquaria in Eskal. I knew that my fire would be strong against Luna’s wooden golems, and I was confident that Roy was the better fighter against Lev.

All my confidence and bravado quickly disappeared when Luna instantly slammed her staff into the ground, causing the stage to shake violently.

The audience gasps in shock as the ground cracks up and out of the fractures come up a ginormous hand made out of wood.

“What a shocking surprise! We’ve never seen Summoner Aquaria’s party pull off this trick before!”

Luna waves her staff downwards, and the gigantic wooden hand turns into a fist and slams downward.

“Everyone! Get behind me!” I yell.

I swallow down my shock and quickly make my way to the front of my party and raise my Scutum shield high up into the air. The wooden fist slammed against my shield, despite the impact bringing me down to my knees, I was able to hold my ground.

“You’re not the only one with new tricks, Rin,” Luna smirks.

“Incinerate!” I shout.

Flames burst out from my shield, and naturally, begin spreading all over the fist.

I feel the weight of the fist getting lighter against my shield as it begins to burn to ashes. However, as soon as I relax my arms, Lev dashes straight toward me and swings his sword.

I raise my shield on instinct and block Lev’s iron Langes Messer. Lev uses his momentum from his first strike and spins around my shield, facing his body towards my side. In the shock of Lev’s sudden spinning side step, I leap and roll out of his way.

As I complete my roll, I hear the sound of metal clashing against one another. I look up to find the iron Langes Messer of Lev’s crossed with the golden Arming Sword of Roy’s.

Golden sparks fly off each other’s swords with each clash as the two sword-wielders engage in an intense duel.

“Rin! Behind you!” Liz shouts.

I turn around to see nothing at first, but a second later, Leo materializes out of thin air with his daggers in a raised position a couple of inches above me.

I completely forgot he could turn invisible!

“Tsk, so she’s got a sensory trait.” Leo clicks his tongue.

Although I was given the heads-up from Liz, I would be too slow to raise my shield to intercept his daggers.

As I brace for a painful experience, chains begin circulating my waist. Leo and I both look down at the chains in slight confusion, and when the chains come to a stop, we’re able to see a bear trap attached to the end of the chain.

Realizing what was about to happen, I change my Scutum Shield into the smaller Parma Shield and aim the edge of my shield toward Leo’s chest. He easily blocks my attack with one of his daggers and attempts to stab me with the other dagger, but I am instantly pulled backward with tremendous force away from him by Hilde.

Somehow, I manage to land on my feet beside Hilde.

“Thanks for that.” I cough.

“New orders from Summoner,” Hilde whispers to me, “You are to subdue the Elf mage, right now, it looks like she’s trying to summon the energy to create another giant fist.”

“What about you guys?”

“Although my chemistry in battle with Liz is better, she is the only one who can sense Leo’s presence. I’m going to support Roy to make things easier for him.” Hilde answers.

I nod, but as soon as I nod, Hilde starts dashing towards Roy to help him, with his chains still around my waist.

“Wai-!”

At first, I thought Hilde was being completely clumsy and forgot I was still entangled with his chains, but as soon as Hilde reaches Roy’s back, he swings his arm that had me tangled in chains.

I feel a bit of whiplash as the chains loosen up and launch me in the air.

Being sent flying into the air was quite an odd experience, however, as soon as I see where my trajectory was heading, I realized what Hilde had planned to do.

Hilde had launched me towards the opposite end of the stage, where Luna and Aquaria both were. I almost laugh at the craziness of Hilde’s plan and the fact that it had worked.

Prepare yourself, Luna, your opponent is me.

Naturally, anyone would notice a human with a shield being launched into the air towards them, and Luna was no exception. Her eyes widen in shock as I began closing in on her at a rapid pace, but my mind was wondering just one thing.

How am I going to land!?

My body begins to tense up and my arms begin flailing for anything to hold onto other than my shield. Unfortunately, there was nothing else in the air to hold on to, and I came down crashing onto the stage.

“Ow, ow, ouch,” I mumble as I slowly get onto my feet.

“I probably shouldn’t be the one asking this,” Aquaria looks at me, obviously trying not to laugh, “but are you alright?”

“Y-yeah, I’m fine, let’s just get this over with.”

While Aquaria was covering her mouth with her hand, Luna looks at me with concern. To be honest with you, it was quite embarrassing, and in an attempt to forget my terrible landing, I charge straight for Luna.

Luna’s expression of concern turns back into seriousness as she waves her staff at me. The ground cracks in front of me as the upper body of a wooden golem erupts from the floor attempting to grab my legs. I jump backward and raise my shield. The wooden golem climbs up from the crack on the stage, and the audience delivers an “ooh” of awe at the size of the golem.

I had to agree with the reaction of the crowd, the wooden golem was much larger than the ones she was able to summon the last time we faced off against one another.

I smiled, maybe it was because I considered Luna to be one of my friends in this new world, but I couldn’t help but feel a bit proud of her. I looked her in the eye, and she was smiling back at me.

That’s a good look Luna, but, even if I’m a lower level than you… I won’t let you beat me!

I begin sprinting towards the golem, and the golem, in turn, roars and charges at me. The golem raises its fist and slams it towards me, and although my first instinct was to run away, I managed to force my legs to jump upwards and onto the arm of the golem.

I change my shield into a Scutum Shield and set my shield ablaze. I dig the edge of my shield onto the golem’s arm and begin dragging it as I run up its arm. The golem roars in pain as its arm burns away to ashes.

Finally, I make it to the head of the golem, but as I raise my blazing shield to deliver the final blow, the golem uses its remaining arm to grab onto my leg and throw me onto the ground.

Although my body was burning with pain, I somehow didn’t appear to have any broken bones.

I cough up some air as I climb back onto my feet. My knees felt like they wanted to give out, but I stood my ground. I stare down at the golem and raise my shield.

“Incinerate!” I yell as I begin sprinting for the golem with a flaming shield in hand.

Once I had gotten close enough, the golem throws a punch at me. However, I had no intention of stopping and blocking his punch, instead, I parried the golem’s fist away from myself and continued running past the golem and straight for its summoner.

Luna quickly picks up on my intentions and tries to summon another golem between the both of us, but all she managed to summon was an arm out of the ground before I burned the golem attempting to crawl out of the crack.

By now, the one-armed golem had turned around and was now chasing after me, but I was already face to face with Luna.

“Forgive me for this!” I yell as I force myself to deliver the edge of my shield onto the stomach of my fellow earthling friend.

Luna crumbles onto the ground with a groan, and I fight the urge to instantly get on my knees and apologize to her. I face Aquaria’s Summoner, who for the first time in a while, had an angry expression on her usually cheerful face.

Wait, the Summoner is right in front of me!

I force my attention on Aquaria as I begin charging toward her with my shield ablaze. Once I reach her, I swing my shield with full force, but Aquaria quickly ducks down and rolls under my shield.

“What? Did you really think I would just take it?” Aquaria scoffs.

“I would’ve greatly appreciated it.” I turn around.

After finally turning around, I’m able to see the main battle once again.

Roy and Hilde were working together to land a hit on an exhausted-looking Lev, while Liz had her hands occupied by Leo who gave up on being invisible and was facing her head-on.

Things looked extremely dire for Aquaria’s party ever since Luna got knocked out, but Aquaria herself showed no signs of surrendering. Suddenly, my mind recalls a memory of what Isabel had mentioned before: “Us Summoners are not allowed to use our spells before the quarter-finals.”

Fine, if Aquaria doesn’t want to take me head-on, I won’t bother if she can’t!

I run past Aquaria who had expected another attack and begin charging for the already exhausted Lev.

“Lev! Look out!” Aquaria calls out from behind me.

Lev turns his head slightly to the voice of Aquaria, but all that did was leave an opening for Hilde to catch him by surprise with a bear trap to the thigh. Lev grunts in pain as he attempts to remove the trap, but with both of his hands working on the trap, I manage to land a clean hit to his back with my shield. Lev collapses right in front of Roy, who raises his sword in the air.

“We’ll fight fairly one day. I swear it on my title as a knight.” Roy softly whispers to Lev as he brings his sword down.

With only one Spirit left conscious, Aquaria raises her hands with a sigh.

“Well played, Isabel, you win again this time.” Aquaria smiles at her best friend across the stage, “I surrender!”