If we look at mine and Vena’s stats, I have a far higher strength/attack than her, but even then, I can’t use the hammer as well as she can. I’m guessing that it has something to do with her class being berserker. Well, whatever, we need to continue watching the matches. As of right now, there have only been five of the thirty of us to fight so far. I imagine there’ll be one more match involving Abbott or another slave not currently present, as that would make the bracket even.

We watch through another 11 fights, most lasting significantly longer than the three of ours, due to how similar in strength many of the contestants are. Weird, it’s almost as if we’re the protagonists in a manga or some shit. That’d be pretty cool, actually. Finally, we arrive at should be the last fight of the preliminaries. However, I can’t see anyone who hasn’t fought yet. “Ah, it seems a few of you are wondering where the final contestant is, no? Well, that is unimportant, just know that you will face them eventually,” Ivan says with a wink, a cheery smile present on his face.

“Now, all of you here may choose to discard your current weapon and select a new one, or you may continue as you are. All of you that would like a switch, please follow me.” The nunchucks are nice, but seeing my other opponents’ weapons, I’d like something with a bit more blocking power and rigidity than nunchucks, so I follow our Evil-Gandalf into the storage room.

As soon as we enter, I pick out a nice staff and leave for the stands again. I sit back down next to Vena and Tobias, and we sit in silence as we wait for the next fight. Slowly the eight or so people that chose new weapons walk back to the stands with their items. “I wonder who the last person is,” says Tobi, breaking the miasma of silence that had settled around the three of us. “I don’t know - pyon, but as long as I get to fight them, I’m happy - pyon!” I have to talk some sense into her. “Vena you gotta calm the fighting spirit within you, or you’re gonna end up killing someone,” I say. “Fine - pyon,” along with a terrifying death stare, is the only response I receive.

“Finally, we move onto the second round! For the first fight, we have Vena Carrier against Michael Kinger! Give us a good fight, you two!” Immediately, Vena’s battle-eyestm reawaken. She turns around excitedly, hopping on the balls of her feet. Her tail is twitching madly, and her ears are about as high as they can go. “Good luck - pyon.” A (relatively) gruff voice comes from behind us, where a boy rabbit-kin stands, holding a pair of curved swords.

Vena and Michael make their way down into the pit, and the familiar “Ready? Begin!” sounds from Ivan’s mouth. Vena rushes forward again, likely activating her dash skill, and swings a crushing blow toward Michael’s head. It’s the same move that immediately finished the high-agility cat-kin Cory not too long ago. However, her hammer hits only air, and she corrects the spin before dodging the downward slash from one of Michael’s swords.

The two rabbits size each other up, respect evident in their eyes, as well as shock. Wait, I remember this guy. He nearly killed his opponent with insurmountable speed and unmatched cruelty. I hope Vena can win. Just as I think that an attack comes from Michael, it’s a crossing attack that makes use of both of the swords he wields. Unfazed, Vena steps forward and drives the top of her hammer into his jaw, and he flies a few feet back before falling over, unconscious.

“Oh my! What savagery! Although, that is to be expected from the men of beasts.” Ivan’s commentary is starting to get on my nerves. It was fine in the beginning, but it’s slowly becoming a racist rant about our species as a whole. I may not have been a wolf-kin for very long, but I still dislike it. Vena frowns too, and climbs back out of the pit looking less than satisfied. “Ugh, I don’t like him dissing us so hard - pyon,” she mutters.

“Yeah, I don’t either. I know we’re slaves, but do you have to be a racist dick Ivan?” Tobi and I both launch into a rant about Ivan’s shittiness that has us all laughing by the time we’re done, which isn’t until the end of another fight. “Next, we have Tobias Saunders against Nayomi Faith!” “Wait, Nayomi? I have Spanish with her, I didn’t know she was here,” says Tobi, to which I respond with a warning not to be hesitant because he knows her.

Tobi walks down into the pit, followed by Nayomi, an owl-kin (wings out the back, and arms out the side) equipped with a crossbow and quiver of arrows at her hip. Shit, this is gonna take a long time, isn’t it? The fight begins, and Tobi immediately rushes forward, dodging the first shot from Nayomi. As he closes in, his form shimmers out of sight, and Nayomi flaps her wings, lifting up off the ground. Damn, I’m super jealous, I wish I could fly.

Suddenly she grunts in pain and falls to the ground, bleeding from the side, where there’s a painful-looking cut. Tobi returns to visibility, and so does his bloody knife, lying on the ground near where Nayomi fell. “Shit! Nayomi are you okay?” I can hear Tobias yelling in the ring. Luckily, it’s just a cut, with no internal damage, or at least that’s what Ivan claims. “I will heal her,” Ivan announces, “simple healing magic is enough for this, although it will be painful.”

He says something that I can hear due to my very nice ears, but that I can’t understand. Suddenly a green light emits from his hands, and the cut in Nayomi’s side fades away. I hastily memorize the words he used, committing them to memory in case that healing spell will ever come in handy. We finally saw our first real magic, not that piddly camouflage shit that Tobi does, or the fucking “door opening” magic. I need to learn more.