"Next up is the rising star, the unknown Alisa, versus 'the Immortal' Nathan!!"
My second-round opponent is a hardcore heavy warrior who goes by the epithet "the Immortal."
He's clad in crystal armor, carrying a well-polished greatshield and a crude mace.
With a full-face helmet on, his expression is impossible to read.
Nathan slams his mace into the ground.
From that spot, rocks jut out of the earth one after another in a straight line heading right for me.
I deftly dodge to the right, but the same thing happens again—more rocks bursting up to attack.
This time, instead of dodging the wave of rocks, I run along their sharply pointed tips straight toward Nathan.
I slash at him with the Twin Star Sword.
Naturally, he blocks with the greatshield, but I scatter additional star-shaped barrages that hammer into the shield with further impacts.
Then, after striking the greatshield several more times, the crystal shield slid off diagonally in two halves.
"...Impossible. You slashed the exact same spot multiple times with perfect accuracy? That can't be."
I have [Sword God], so of course I can.
If I wanted to, I could even shatter it completely with my Shield Break skill.
Well then, the show's over.
"Piercing Shock Wave!"
This is a technique developed against insect-type monsters with hard outer shells.
It's an internal destruction technique—the shockwave from a sword strike passes straight through the exterior to obliterate the inside.
"Guh! ...Forgive me, little sister. Forgive your worthless brother..."
Coughing up blood, its massive body finally gave out and collapsed.
"Guhhhh..."
I thought I heard a cry like that coming from the spectator box.
◇◇◇
If you make it past the second round, you're given two days of rest.
This is to let the participants recover to peak condition and to sort through the results of all the tournament betting so far.
And on the first day of that rest period, I was breaking into a certain noble's estate.
"This reaction... a basement?"
There was a response coming from somewhere below the estate I'd snuck into.
Sure enough, there was an entrance to a fortified, locked-up cellar that looked like a dungeon, but when I picked the lock with [Gentleman Thief] and ventured inside, I found Nathan chained up.
One of his eyes had been crushed, and his mouth was sewn shut.
His right arm was bent in a direction it should never bend, and his toes had been crushed flat.
He wasn't wearing any clothes, and his entire body was covered in dark bruises and scorch marks that looked like branding.
First, I used [Rock-Iron Magic]'s molecular decomposition skill to smoothly crumble the sturdy chains all the way down to iron powder.
And then—
"Regeneration Heal!"
A green healing light spread across Nathan's whole body, mending his wounds.
The fully naked Nathan pitched forward, but he quickly regained consciousness.
"Who are you?"
"We fought yesterday, remember? Oh, this is my real form. Also, I know they're small, but put these on."
It's my hard-earned day off, so I've reverted to Alan's form for now.
I take out my spare clothes from the item box and hand them over.
"Alisa, huh? So you were a man after all. I'm grateful. My old wounds are healed, too. But why did you come here?"
"Before you collapsed, you were saying something about 'my sister...', so I got curious."
"For something like that?"
"Yeah. You don't exactly look like someone who enjoys fighting, what with taking part in a noble's little farce like this. You'll tell me the reason, right?"
"...I'm nothing more than an ordinary commoner. I became an adventurer to earn daily wages for my sickly sister. Through some twist of fate, I once helped the master of this place, and from then on I was employed here. They even treated my sister's illness."
"I see."
"They apparently didn't want you to win at all costs. I was told 'Absolutely do not let them win!' but I failed, so this is where I ended up."
"! Your sister is in danger!"
"Don't come any closer. I won't drag you into this. Even if you could escape from here, you'd only be caught eventually."
"I'm not just gonna say 'okay, sure' and leave it at that."
"My sister's illness is incurable regardless."
"You're going to abandon her?"
"............"
"Well? Which is it?"
"I don't want to give up."
"That's what I wanted to hear. Now, let's go."
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Skills: [Reverse], [Divine Eye], [Sword God], [Phantom Thief Gentleman], [Dark Magic], [Rock-Iron Magic], [Holy Magic], [Space-Time Magic], [Blazing Magic], [Freezing Ice Magic], [Magic Hand], [Seduction], [Pain Relief], [Complete Status Abnormality Resistance], [Flame Spirit's Protection], [Phantom Demon]
Rank: Silver (Alisa: Gold)
Thank you always for reading 😊