I was bouncing around the forest using aura step, leaving a trail of destruction in my wake. The forest looked like a typical pine forest, with a dry underground covered in needles and pine cones. I expected an enchanted forest filled with magical creatures, like the announcer had said, but, instead, I woke up in a forest that could have been near my hometown, it was so average.

Still, I decided to focus on what was truly important, the tournament.

I had considered taking a stealthy approach at first, but discarded the idea. There was just no way Cerion and I would find each other fast enough if I sacrificed speed for stealth.

When I looked over my shoulder, I saw rows of trees collapsing, unable to withstand the destructive blast aura step left with each use. Both the noise and the visual would lead people to me, but I was more than willing to test my mettle against any of the run-of-the-mill classers in this tournament.

“Let them come.” I murmured to myself.

Sure enough, a few minutes later, I heard someone call out to me.

“Hey idiot! Ever heard of not drawing attention to yourself?”

I looked over and saw a young man with a goatee, carrying a warhammer. From the smirk on his face, he hadn’t been deterred by my display, so I decided not to underestimate him. I shot towards him, arriving near his location in a flash. Before he even visibly reacted, I struck his skull with the pommel of my blade.

Instead of deflecting my blow at the last second, like I had expected him to, he dropped to the ground like a sack of potatoes.

For a moment, I just stood there in shock. I had expected another epic battle, but it seemed my opponent had just been arrogant, rather than strong.

A second later, his unconscious body disappeared. Teleported away, most likely. I didn’t receive any notifications regarding point acquisition, so I just continued my travels.

About five minutes later, a familiar cyclone of water erupted into the sky, somewhat near me. I recognised it as one of Cerion’s skills, and headed there.

During the past few minutes, I had encountered more participants. Some had tried to attack me from behind, others had challenged me outright and a few had tried to catch me off guard with a ranged attack. All had failed.

Jumping from tree to tree and approaching Cerion’s location, I figured he had undergone roughly the same experience, because right as I arrived an unconscious body was whisked away from the forest, with my friend just staring into space.

“I see you’re still alive, partner. Fought anyone notable yet?” I asked.

Cerion turned to me and smiled.

“No, I’m afraid not. Most contestants have been… mediocre.”

“Hah!” I exclaimed, “Your way of putting it is a little too kind, Cerion. They were all weak. Anyway, how do we create our team? Do we need to shake hands or something?” I asked rhetorically.

We walked up to one another, proving my theory to be true.

Event notification: Your team has reunited. Since you are the third team to reunite, you have been assigned team name A3.

Event notification: Contestant eliminated by your team! 50 points awarded.

Event notification: Contestant eliminated by your team! 50 points awarded.

Event notification: Contestant eliminated by your team! 50 points awarded.

…

Leaderboard:

Team A3: 550 points.

Team A1: 400 points.

Team A2: 300 points.

“Ah, shit. We didn’t get reunited first. Still, we’re in the lead for now. Team A1 might have gotten lucky, while team A2 seems to be a threat, seeing as they’re relying on eliminations like us.” I observed.

“More teams with our efficiency could still be separated. We’ll have to check the leaderboard as we go if we want to be sure.” Cerion added thoughtfully.

He was probably right, though. The mercenary-sponsored team made up of Karon and X were our biggest threat in this tournament, but that didn’t mean there couldn’t be any unseeded participants that were strong.

Cerion and I agreed to quickly continue hunting. As the event went on, other teams would become rare and rarer, after all. We had to hunt while our prey was aplenty.

~scene transition~

“Necromancer! Quick, notify the tou…” I cut off his scream with a kick to the head, sending his unconscious body sprawling. This was the third dumbass that acted like I was the devil because of my affinity. Did he really think that the royal family would be so weak that a normal necromancer could get past their investigations?

My sigh was picked up on by Cerion, who had just finished off the man’s teammate, an archer hiding in the bushes.

“Don’t mind them, Arthur. They’ll understand when they watch the recording back after the tournament.” he said, trying to calm me down.

I just smiled at his antics.

“Don’t worry about me, Cerion. I knew this would be people’s first reaction. Thank Helios this round doesn’t take place in the arena. I can’t imagine the audience’s first reaction. At least like this, they’ll be aware of the situation by the time the next round starts.”

Over the past three hours, we had hunted down as many single participants and teams as we could. At this point, all teams had been reunited, revealing through the leaderboard that there were only 180 teams left of the original 270, some of which only had a single classer participating. Thankfully, we were still in the lead on the leaderboard, though we hadn’t encountered any strong teams yet. It had become noticeably more difficult to find enemies after a while, unfortunately. We had struggled to find anybody, especially since people tended to run away after hearing us approach. With a wave, I pulled up the leaderboard.

Leaderboard:

Team A3: 1200 points.

Team A9: 1050 points.

Team A2: 950 points.

Team B5: 800 points.

Team A7: 750 points.

Team B2: 750 points.

Team C9: 600 points.

Team A1: 550 points.

Team C2: 500 points.

Team D5: 450 points.

One thing of note was the lack of letters lower on the alphabet on the scoreboard. It seemed that the stronger teams had reunited far more quickly than the weaker teams, who had to tread carefully if they wanted to traverse the forest.

My thoughts were interrupted by Cerion waving at me, trying to draw my attention.

“What?” I asked.

“There’s a new event happening! Look at your notifications!” he replied.

I quickly opened my notifications.

Event notification: The bounty hunt enters the second phase. Team names will now be displayed as titles above contestants’ heads, along with their point total.

Event notification: Point packages will now appear in the forest.

Their location will be marked by a bright white light in the sky, ten minutes in advance of the package appearing.

Point packages can have anywhere from 250 to 1000 points inside, which will be awarded to the team that touches the package first.

I looked over at Cerion and nodded. Wordlessly, we agreed that our goal would change from hunting teams to securing these packages. The point gain would be much higher.

First, we took to the skies with our movement skills, lifting ourselves above the trees. In the distance, we could see several white lights in the sky, which trailed down to the ground, where their respective packages would arrive in the near future. From the number of lights, it became immediately apparent that the leaderboard would be undergoing huge changes very soon.

“Some lights are bigger than others. Does that mean something?” Cerion observed.

“Maybe the valuable packages have larger lights?” I replied.

“Or… the more valuable packages have smaller lights, and are therefore more hidden.”

I shook my head.

“The more attention a package attracts, the fiercer the competition there will be. I think the former is more likely. Anyway, is it just me… or are all those lights pretty close together?” I asked.

“It’s… not just you…”

A few minutes later, Cerion and I were making good time towards the cluster of lights at the center of the forest. The packages were still 5 minutes away from landing, but we wanted to get close to the targets before they landed. I had to admit, the closer we got to the center of the forest, the more accurate the term ‘enchanted forest’ became. The trees became bigger and bigger, and warped into strange shapes. The unnatural flora of the forest was joined by equally strange fauna. The bugs around us had all started to glow in alternating colors, making me feel like I was living a fever dream.

“So how do you want to play this?”, I asked Cerion, “We could split up to double our point gain, though that carries with it significant risks. Worst case scenario, we’ll have to give up and restart.”

Cerion hummed in thought.

“You’re right, of course, but I also feel that if we were to take risks at all, now would be the time to do it. Doing it at the end of the event would be far worse, risk-wise.”

I grinned. It seemed it was time to show off.

A few minutes later, I was sitting upon a tree near one of the descending lights. Cerion had agreed to go for a nearby, smaller light, while I went for a bigger one to test our theory.

With [Weak mana sense], I could vaguely feel the gathering mana converge on an orb that followed the white trail to my location.

“Another 50 seconds, I think…” I muttered.

Before I could spring into action, multiple teams appeared out of the forest line, not noticing me. They were staring each other down and drawing their weapons.

If several teams came out into the open, that meant there would be several more staying hidden. It didn’t matter in the end. Unless a seeded team appeared, I was invincible, I thought to myself, grinning maniacally.

A second after I had this thought, skills of all kinds shot forth from the forest. Fireballs flying at different teams, purple arrows turning trees and contestants alike into pincushions, the ground tearing itself apart under the stress of competing AOE skills…

Honestly, I felt kind of left out. I knew I should just wait as long as possible and just snag the package at the last second, but… My pride wouldn’t let me.

I shot into the air and dropped down to the ground, slamming into it with a small use of aura step. I had to make an impression, after all.

For a moment, the fighting stilled, as all teams considered the threat of the new arrival. Some couldn’t even be bothered, and just focused their ranger attacks on me instead.

I didn’t hesitate to use [Dark blade Maelstrom]. Their attacks hit the spinning blades, and were just torn apart because of my superior mana.

Using my new intelligence skill, [Manifold processing], I kept up my maelstrom while drawing my sword at the same time.

My [Overloaded sword] arcs pierced through my own defenses and raced towards the stumped contestants. Most dodged in time, but some were hit full-on, and nearly cut apart in one strike.

Seeing the blood spurt into the sky, for a moment, I was scared that I had killed them, but they were teleported away before their wounds got any more serious.

The different teams looked at each other in fright, realizing that they were out of their depth. I thought they made a wordless pact to work together against the stronger target, me, because their next actions were to combine their efforts.

The skilled archer from before crouched down and pulled back her bowstring, charging up a thick purple bolt. Meanwhile, the flame wizard grew a giant fireball of his own. The different warriors charged at me, hoping to distract me, but their blades couldn’t cut through my maelstrom. Instead, I just advanced, leaving innumerable cuts on their bodies instead. Their armor served no purpose, other than looking pretty.

The havoc I was causing sent me into a fit of laughter. In hindsight, I was sure that feeling came from my affinity, but I couldn’t stop myself.

My behavior only unsettled my opponents even more.

“Are you even a contestant, demon?” the female archer asked.

“Am I a contestant, she asks!” I replied in jest. Instead of answering, I just continued to laugh, sending out a few more blade arcs at my opponents, sending more contestants back to the arena.

As I did so, a purple bolt of mana hit my defenses, fizzling out after coming into contact with my maelstrom. The fireball did much the same, causing their creators to look on, aghast.

Determined, they nodded towards each other.

Just when I braced myself for another one of their attacks, they surprised me by both speaking at the same time.

“Our team gives up.”

“Our team gives up.”

Their declaration caught me off guard, honestly. Still, I could understand. Tactically, it was their best option.

Their respective warrior-partners nodded and a second later the four of them were teleported away.

As they disappeared, the package touched down on the ground, allowing me to touch it.

Event notification: Package opened. 750 points awarded.

A few minutes later, I had wiped out the rest of the competition. It wasn’t surprising that most of the contestants that had remained hidden in the treeline hadn’t dared to come out after my display of strength. Most likely, they had left to find easier targets.

With a grunt, I looked for the nearest light to hunt down.

Meanwhile, back in the arena…