"A-a-and that's it! Time's up!"
Raul Nord's magically amplified voice thundered across the dusty courtyard, cutting through the clash of training blades and the heavy breathing of the fighters.
Silence fell within the chalk-drawn circle, broken only by groans. Out of the forty who started, exactly twenty remained standing. The losers were divided into two categories: those who lay in the dust like limp sacks, unconscious from the blows, and those who gloomily brushed off their clothes, having been pushed past the saving line.
"We thank all those eliminated for their tenacity!" Raul plastered a professional, encouraging smile on his face, addressing the stands and the participants. "And to those who remained standing, I sincerely congratulate you on making it to the final stage! That was a truly heated and thrilling battle, wasn't it? And now, I pass the floor to our great..."
Nord faltered. Turning to the left, he was met with the absolutely sour, disappointed face of his Goddess.
Loki propped her cheek on her fist, while her free hand melancholically swirled the wine in her glass.
"Well, that was crap," she grimaced right into the broadcast crystal. "I asked for a show, and you guys put on a basic brawl. Lame. Just a dumb slugfest of who can out-push who."
Raul slumped. The adventurer's shoulders dropped, his enthusiasm evaporating at the speed of light. Having suffered a fiasco with his Goddess, he turned hopefully to the right, to the guest judge, praying to the gods that he would at least smooth over the rough edges.
"Ha-ha... Yes, our Goddess is indeed extremely demanding..." Raul said, swallowing nervously. "Rane, what do you say? You haven't taken your eyes off the arena since the first second. Did you see anything outstanding?"
The black-haired youth leisurely shifted his gaze from the frozen participants below to the host. His face remained impassive.
"Hmm," Rane tilted his head slightly. "By and large... I completely agree with Goddess Loki."
Raul choked on air.
"W-what?" he squeezed out in confusion.
"Evaluating individual skills in a meat grinder like that is practically impossible," Rane continued in an even tone, spreading his hands. "Every fighter has their own strengths. Some are good at dueling, some in support, some rely on speed. Locking forty people with different styles in a tight space... In that format, it really does turn into a circus. Absolute chaos where mass and brute force win out, with rare exceptions."
Raul, feeling the event sliding completely into a critique of the organizers, tried to save the situation with a nervous chuckle:
"H-ha-ha, well, it can get pretty cramped in the Dungeon too, so..."
"'With rare exceptions'?" Loki's voice sliced through Nord's attempt to defuse the tension.
The Goddess leaned forward. All her boredom instantly evaporated. Her crimson slit-eyes narrowed predatorily, digging into Rane's imperturbable profile.
She understood perfectly well who he was hinting at. Loki recalled the recent bloodbath. While the muscular hulks were pummeling each other, kicking up clouds of dust, a single white head had flickered among them. The rabbit. He hadn't even tried to attack. Not once did he raise his training sword to strike. Instead, he slipped between the tangled bodies, ducked under swings, and moved out of the trajectory of others' falls. He simply avoided conflict, forcing opponents to hit empty air or each other.
Rane allowed himself a barely noticeable smile at the corner of his lips.
"When you are in the center of a blind brawl and cannot predict where the next attack will come from," he said calmly into the microphone, "it's foolish to waste energy on offense. It is much more effective to focus all your attention on spatial control. To simply survive. That requires far less concentration than a mindless exchange of blows."
Loki snorted, waving her hand dismissively.
"Pfft. Slippery little fry. He just got lucky he didn't get caught in the crossfire. Pure coincidence."
Rane blinked slowly, returning his gaze to the arena.
"Perhaps."
Raul, catching the moment when a saving, humiliation-free silence hung in the air, decided to act immediately.
"Alright!" he barked, making some of the participants flinch. "Those eliminated, please clear the area! And we will move on to the final stage of the selection!"
Once the bruised losers had limped out of the courtyard, Nord activated the crystal again.
"To the twenty remaining fighters! You will now approach the administrators and draw lots. You will be divided into four teams of five."
A surprised murmur rippled through the crowd of candidates. Raul cleared his throat.
"Initially, one-on-one duels were planned," he admitted, glancing at the bored Goddess. "But, to quote Loki-sama: 'I'm not going to waste all day on this dreary spectacle.' Thus, the final stage will be held in the format of a team battle! Three five-on-five matches. The winning group earns the right to join the Familia!"
"Not a bad decision," Rane suddenly spoke up, nodding. "The ability to fight in a team is a basic survival skill for any adventurer. And for a large faction like yours, where expeditions consist of dozens of fighters, individualists without cooperation skills are simply dead weight."
Raul, whose ego as an experienced Level 4 seeker was pleasantly stroked by this well-informed remark, proudly puffed out his chest.
"Exactly!" he picked up, feeling like a true mentor. "You can be as strong as you want on your own, but on the Deep Floors, that won't save you! People who are incapable of quick coordination, who block their comrades' attacks or break formation, become the primary cause of death when encountering large packs of monsters! The Loki Familia needs cohesion!"
Loki lazily scratched her ear.
"Nah, nothing like that, I'm just really too lazy to sit here until sunset..."
"AND THEREFORE!" Raul barked into the microphone, panicking to cut his Goddess off before she destroyed all the seriousness he had built up. "The teams have already been formed! The draw is complete! Will the participants of the first match please get ready!"
***
Down below, in the shadow of the archway leading to the arena, it was bustling.
Bell stood, staring blankly at the small wooden stick in his hand. The number "3" was burned into the polished flat end.
He looked around. The stick had just been handed to him by the same uniformed girl who had brought him water in the infirmary. When Bell drew the lot from the wooden cup, did he imagine it, or did a very strange, expectant smirk really flash across her lips? Before he could process that thought, the maid had already fluttered off to the next group of candidates.
Sighing heavily, the boy twirled the piece of wood in his fingers. A team battle. He needed to find four others with the same numbers.
"Hey! Who's number three here?!" a thunderous bass voice boomed nearby. "Speak up, brother in arms!"
Bell flinched. The voice came from a direction where the concentration of testosterone in the air exceeded all permissible limits.
Swallowing the lump rising in his throat, he moved toward the sound on stiff legs.
There they stood. Four of them.
They were absolutely identical, bald-as-a-cue-ball, terrifyingly over-pumped meatheads. Their skin glistened with sweat and oil, and their muscles bulged as if boulders were rolling beneath them. They stood in a circle, grinning joyously and slapping each other on their immense backs.
"Fate itself has brought us together!" roared one, flexing his pecs.
"The Duga brothers are reunited! We'll crush these wimps!" echoed the second, showing off a bicep the size of Bell's head.
"We need a fifth! Where is our fifth number three?!"
Bell felt his left eye twitch. His breath caught. He shifted his gaze to his thin stick, then to this mountain of shiny meat, seriously considering snapping the lot in half and pretending he wasn't participating at all.
But he was spotted.
"Oh! Look! The white-haired kid! Do you have a three?!" the largest of the brothers stepped forward, looming over Bell like an approaching cliff.
"Y-yes..." Bell squeaked, feeling like a mouse before a pack of bears.
The brothers exchanged glances. Broad, good-natured smiles suddenly bloomed on their stern faces.
"Ha! He's just a tiny little guy!" thundered the second brother, slapping Bell on the shoulder with such force his teeth rattled.
"Hey, kid, don't sweat it!" the third brother struck a heroic pose, puffing out his chest. "Since the gods have put us on the same team, we won't let anyone pick on you!"
"Exactly! Just stand behind our backs and watch how real men carve a path to glory!" added the fourth, flexing his triceps.
They surrounded him in a tight ring, continuing to pull unimaginable faces and show off their definition. Bell stood in the very center of this bodybuilding epicenter. His lips stretched into a deathly, twitching smile, and only one thought beat in his head: What did I do to deserve this?
The sun beat down mercilessly on the courtyard. The stands held their breath.
"And so! We begin the first match of the final stage!" Raul's voice rang with tension. "Team number one, please enter the arena!"
Five fighters, armed with wooden swords and spears, stepped confidently into the circle. Judging by their stances, they were experienced, balanced seekers.
"And now... Their opponents! Team number three!"
First, the muscles came into the light. Four gigantic bald brothers, glistening in the sun, marched in sync, their mountains of muscle flexing with every step. They looked like a living siege engine, ready to trample everything in its path.
And right in the middle of this wall of flesh, barely moving his legs and desperately tucking his head into his shoulders, scurried Bell. Against the backdrop of the hulks, he looked like a terrified white rabbit that had accidentally wandered into a herd of rhinos.
A dead silence fell over the judge's tower.
Raul, having brought the crystal to his lips, choked and couldn't produce a single sound, blinking blankly.
Rane, whose face up until this moment had remained as impassive as a granite slab, suddenly snapped his head to the side. His shoulders betrayed him with a tremble, and a stifled sound escaped his mouth:
"Pfft..."
And Loki... The Goddess didn't even try to hold back. She threw her head back and exploded into absolutely inappropriate, hysterical laughter, pounding her fist on the table so hard her wine glass bounced.
"AHA-HA-HA-HA! What is this freak show?! FRY! DID THEY TAKE YOU HOSTAGE?! AHA-HA-HA-HA!"
Hearing this laughter rolling across the entire courtyard of the Twilight Manor, Bell Cranel trudged toward the center of the arena, internally weeping tears of blood and wishing he could fall through the earth straight into the depths of the Dungeon.