Chapter 53: Start of the Tournament
After these words, James smiled and stood up, turned to the young people and said, "Thank you for your stories, even if it was only for a few minutes, it was fun." and started walking. To everyone\'s amazement, he paid for the food he hadn\'t eaten and then left the restaurant with the Olympian duo.
"Sir, if you want, we can take you to one of the Olympus Guild headquarters." one of the duo said.
James shook his head after hearing this and then said, "No, take me to where the tournament will be held, I need to register, right?"
Hearing these words, the duo suddenly shook their heads and then one of them moved forwards while the other moved behind James.
"Let\'s stay in this position just in case sir, we\'ll have a long way to go, the guild headquarters is right next to it." the former Olympian said and with that, they set off.
James could feel the eyes on him as he travelled down the road, each member of each race looking at him and keeping their eyes on him. It was clear that no one recognised him, the fact that only two Olympians were accompanying him seemed to have caught their attention.
After a short time, James arrived at the registration area in front of the tournament grounds, James went up to the registration clerk, paid his registration fee and was about to give his name when the clerk stopped him:
"You don\'t need to tell me, sir, Mr Ronald told me you were coming a long time ago, have a nice day."
James shook his head and then asked, "Do you know exactly when the tournament will start?"
The attendant tilted his head and replied, "Two days sir, you\'re just in time."
"Very well, thanks," he replied.
James smiled as if he was satisfied with this answer and returned to the duo behind him and started to go to the headquarters of the Olympus guild. He was not planning to leave here for two days.
He knew very clearly that he had to wait here for a while.
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The day of the tournament had come. The clock read 11:50 in the afternoon. The sun was almost directly overhead and the tournament was only 10 minutes away from starting.
James just stood in the tournament waiting room and sat there with his eyes closed, wishing he could calm himself down, after all, no matter how strong he was, he desired to secure a decisive victory.
"Hey, you!"
Suddenly his eyes widened at the sound of a voice in front of him, a man was standing in front of him. He was a rather large man with a rough beard and jet-black hair.
"Yes?" James said, realising the rudeness of the man in front of him with just one look.
"That\'s you, isn\'t it? The warrior of Nyx, the only one who could choose the mother of the night."
The man spoke these words as if he already knew who James was, not as a question or curiosity, but as a desire to attract the attention of those around him, in short, with malicious intent.
"So what if I am?" James suddenly asked, his gaze not shaken one centimetre.
The man paused for a few seconds and then put his hand to his chest and said with great pride, "My name is Elian, don\'t forget that because I\'m the one who\'s going to kill you."
James smiled after these words and said, "I didn\'t know that killing was allowed in this tournament, good to know."
At that very moment, a voice was heard in the waiting room:
"Warriors who are waiting, please move to the preparatory positions, the tournament will begin shortly!"
James yawned at the sound of that voice and the sentence it uttered and then stood where he was, he had a small idea of how the tournament worked, the people in the Olympus guild had given him a small amount of information.
It would have been impossible for him not to have learnt, since Nyx had been practically badgering James with her words.
Which meant that James would have the right to go up when his name was called.
The waiting began and after a short time ended.
After almost twenty minutes of waiting, the voice from earlier was finally heard again:
"Umbra of Chaos and Rico of Light, please come to the arena!"
At the sound of these voices, James got up from where he was and began to slowly climb the stairs, he could hear the sound of cheers rising with each step.
After a short while, he felt the light hitting his face and he was able to see the arena in front of him, and as he stepped out the cheering grew to an enormous number.
"UUUAAAGGGHHH!!!"
"UMBRA I\'M YOUR FAN!!!"
"PLEASE SIGN MY BELLY!!!"
"LET ME BE YOUR SLAVE!!!"
Some of the chants managed to frighten even James himself, the races here had really strange personalities.
The fact that there was such a huge difference between the 5th floor and the 10th floor was not entirely wrong.
There were more races here and people were freer, even James himself liked it on a higher level.
As James looked around the spectator section of the arena he saw the people in the restaurant and raised his hand in greeting.
Young ones waited for a few seconds with their mouths agape at the sight of James and then each of them turned their heads away in embarrassment, embarrassed of course that they had met the person they gossiped about in the restaurant they went to every day.
When James saw his opponent, he bowed his head in respect and saluted his opponent, then he thought that Clarent would be too much for this tournament, so he took out one of the normal swords from his inventory. When he realised that Clarent had four swords in his inventory, he smiled and said, "Relax Clarent, if we meet an opponent worthy of you, you will show up."
The referee of the tournament smiled as he saw the two opponents take their places, and then he withdrew from the arena and raised his hand in the air.
"The 11th match of the tournament will be between Umbra of Chaos and Rico of Light. I wish the participants good luck."
As soon as the referee finished speaking, the hand he had raised in the air descended downwards.
This signalled the start of the tournament for James.