Beam POV: Day 94

  Current Wealth: 197 gold 1 silver 17 copper

  We were at the arena by the evening. None of us were fighting, we were all into the next round anyway. We all had to show up, regardless, to watch the King. It was as easy a victory as ever, and my eyes apparently hadn’t improved enough for me to see much more than I had before.

  They hadn’t improved, and this time there were only fifteen other people, not thirty, for him to be pitted against. Each round I had narrower chances of not being thrown against him.

  “Don’t suppose we’ve gotten any last-minute surges of experience?” Solitaire asked, aiming his question at Shango. Shango, for his part, actually did take a look. Then shook his head.

  “Yeah.” Solitaire sighed. “Things can never be that easy, can they? And you all call me crazy for wanting to build an anti-material rifle.”

  In fact, we all called him crazy for actually building one back on earth, when nobody wanted to kill us, let alone anybody with superpowers. Bringing those sorts of details up, though, was never something he appreciated, so I just bit my tongue.

  We were back at the house soon after, and busy. Solitaire disappeared into his now-off-limits section of the place, and we all steered well clear to avoid getting caught up in whatever explosions or other calamities he might unleash next. Deliberately or otherwise. Argar and I, on the other hand, had our training.

  There were three days between each round, we learned. Shango was quick to tell us why- so that the wealthy could save a bit of money by letting themselves heal naturally after magical aid, while the poor were given too little a reprieve for their body’s natural repairs to make any difference. Bastards.

  Helena was still recovering, and she would be for a good long while, but she seemed to heal quick regardless of what she said. I still felt a bit awkward looking at her, never sure what to say, and more awkward still when she started heading upstairs to spend time in Solitaire’s “laboratory”. Still, if she had an issue with living in a constant state of near-incineration, she expressed no such thing to anyone else. And it wasn’t like her absence was felt in the training department, either. We had Magnus and Arthur now.

  The former was good- as good as Helena maybe. The latter just ruined the fun for all of us.

  I’ll be the first to admit, I’d gotten used to being the best. Back home on earth nobody in the entire world could actually match me, and barely a few could even challenge me. On my worst day, I’d lose to a few on their best, but for the most part I was uncontested as a winner. In Redacle, I was less of a big deal. And I’d known it. There were people in this world who could cut down trees with a haymaker, and I definitely wasn’t one of them just yet.

  Arthur wasn’t, either, but he was a damn sight closer to it than me. Than any of us. Even all fighting at once, Argar, Magnus and I were disadvantaged in a match against him.

  Twenty two Strength, Twenty two Toughness, twenty two, really, in everything physical. And he was a duelling champion to boot. Not as good as me, not quite, but…Good. Good enough that whatever fractional edge in skill I had- and it really was smaller than the advantages I’d enjoyed on earth- was offset easily by the sheer physicality he could wield.

  At one point, Argar and I both shoved against him at once only to be forced back in a single move. Magnus swung from behind, and missed even as Nightne started to move halfway through his swing’s completion. We encircled, coordinated, and found ourselves confounded time and time again.

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  Really, that sort of sheer power just wasn’t fair. And having Solitaire helpfully let me know that Nightne could probably have benched over four tonnes, somehow, only made things sourer.

  Because as strong as Arthur was, as fast, as tough. He wasn’t nearly equal to the King on a physical level. And that left me more terrified of round three with every damned sparring match we fought. It seemed only to spur Argar on, though.

  And that was what gave me the drive to train even harder. Couldn’t have the giant asshole getting better than me, could I?

  Elizabeth wasn’t a fighter, nor was she in recovery, but that was by no means cause for her to go without work. Solitaire and Shango put her right into the busy business of finding out more about our potential enemies in the next rounds. Specifically, more about the Challenger, and more about Aja the Pithound. We didn’t bother with the King, for two fairly big reasons. The first, of course, was that virtually nobody knew anything about him, except that he was an outsider to the city who showed up only for the tourney. The second was that whatever we learned about him, he’d probably still eat us alive in an actual fight.

  I was level sixteen, which was a good amount of progress from when the tourney began, but it wasn’t nearly where I needed to be. And for the first time since learning of how we could grow stronger, I felt jealous of the native Redaclans. Argar, at least, could improve himself by just exercising. I was stuck killing.

  After one particularly tough training exercise, in which Arthur had nothing short of bullied the rest of us with a training stick while we played defence, I found the Knight taking a seat beside me and looking over. I’ll admit, I actually didn’t know a huge amount about him. The parts of Redacle I’d written had never featured characters like him- he’d always been more of a mid-tier, not a real powerhouse, and I liked my shonen anime style fights.

  Then again, knowing little about someone already meant I was starting with more knowledge than I did in most cases. Arthur Nightne was a legendary hero, a truly brave man, and a renowned example of chivalry and heroism. That was a start.

  “You’re getting better each time, I know it.” He told me. It felt strange, to be met with such unwavering friendliness, but strange in a good way. I let the smile grow across my features.

  “I’d say the same, but we’re really not giving you much pressure to.” I noted. Arthur laughed, the sort of easy laugh of a man perfectly confident in himself, and still genuinely pleased to be recognised.

  “Don’t feel bad.” He assured me. “I’ve always taken to the sword well, and I worked hard to get where I am. But don’t treat me like some great measuring stick, either, there’s far better warriors than me, somewhere out there.”

  In fact, they weren’t nearly as rare as he was seeming to imply. The King of Blades, for one, but I knew for a fact that Arthur wasn’t a top ten fighter in our entire setting. Even if I hadn’t, I could’ve inferred as much from fighting him.

  A half-tonne bench press wasn’t bad on my part, and my shoulders still throbbed where they’d almost been wrenched from the sockets blocking his swings, but if I’d sparred with one of this world’s best, bones would have broken. Instantly.

  “Like the King of Blades?” I asked instead, deciding it would be kinder to direct things to a more local threat. Kinder, and more immediately relevant. I’d yet to actually get Arthur’s opinion on the King, and his was an opinion I valued a lot. More, I realised, than anyone else’s. My brothers were clever, but they weren’t fighters, not trained ones. Arthur was. And he was a genius of a trained fighter at that.

  His face scrunched up, suddenly tense. Without the helmet I could clearly make out tanned, handsome features sitting on top of a square jaw, and below a pronounced brow. Brown eyes rippled like pools of chocolate while he considered the question. God, he was such a damned hero, it was almost embarrassing to be sat so close to him. Who’d written this walking cliche again? Shango, obviously.

  “The King of Blades is better than me.” Arthur said at last. “Much better. I’ll be honest, I don’t like your chances of beating him as you are. I wouldn’t like them, even if Magnus, Argar and myself were permitted to fight him at the same time alongside you.”

  It was a stark way of putting it, but not a wrong one. I happened to agree with his assessment.

  “What have you noticed about his technique?” I pressed, hoping, at least, that Arthur’s eyes would have caught more than mine. It seemed I was in luck, he paused for another think.

  “Good.” He replied. “Very, very good. Mechanical, practised. But…Hm, how do I put this. It’s old. More experienced than talented.”

  I thought I understood, taking his meaning and running with it.

  “You think he’s getting on in his years, then?” I prompted. “Some greybeard with decades of fighting under his belt?”

  There were ways to exploit that. We’d not seen many Stamina stats raised that high in this world, perhaps for understandable reasons, and if he’d followed suit with that trend then a man past his middle years, or even well past them, might find that a critical weakness. Endurance diminished faster than raw speed or power as someone aged.

  Arthur, though, still seemed far from confident. He just shrugged again.

  “I think you’re best looking for other fights to prepare for, that might actually yield some fruit.”

  Once again, he wasn’t wrong. I headed for Elizabeth. With luck three days had been enough studying time for her.

  If it wasn’t, I had a nasty surprise waiting for me tomorrow.