Kian Goldmaul POV

  As we’re exploring the city, Thaddeus stops us after checking the time.

  “It’s 2 p.m.,” he says as he puts his phone back in his pocket. “It’s time to check the tournament location with Kian and Nico.”

  “We will be going to my house if so. After you finish, come over,” my grandpa says and motion for my parents to follow him.

  Thaddeus nods, and we split up.

  We go there via a monorail. This time, it took longer to arrive—a whole forty minutes.

  After getting out, I notice we’re at the edge of the city. After that, we walk for another four minutes.

  We arrive in front of what seems to be a military base inside the city. After verifying Thaddeus and Ophira’s identities, we enter and walk toward a three-story building.

  After entering, I already notice many ‘Giants’ with their kids. Among them, I see Spiro too.

  Thaddeus and his wife start talking with the others about casual topic.

  After another ten minutes, we head upstairs and enter a sitting area that seems to be a big meeting room.

  As we sit, we wait for a few more minutes.

  I look around with my head, noting the people here.

  There’s a lot—more than I thought. Many of them brought two kids too, like us.

  “How many pillars are there that came?” I ask.

  “Four. There are four of them if you include Thaddeus,” Ophira says.

  “You should recognize Spiro if you didn’t forget him. There—that one over there, the one sitting on the third row in the fifth seat from the left. He’s an archer, so he’s around the same height as Thaddeus.”

  I look in that direction and see a person with slightly long dark hair.

  “He was the one who suggested this event.”

  “As for the fourth one, he hasn’t arrived yet. He’s a spear user.”

  I nod as I ask, “By the way, what will we do today?”

  Thaddeus answers me this time. “They’re going to explain the rules and to meet up. We just finished talking, and it’s just the rules and the number of contestants that are left.”

  We wait for another three minutes as the seats are finally filled.

  “That one is the fourth pillar. The one seated in the second row, sixth seat from the right.” I look in that direction and see him. He has brown hair and is taller than the people around him. That’s all I can see from this distance.

  Just a few seconds after, someone climbs the podium. He’s in his fifties, has horns, but not among the ones Ophira pointed out, so he’s likely a semi-pillar.

  He turns on the microphone. “Intruding on my military base suddenly, huh? And for a kid tournament on top of that.” He says it with an annoyed voice.

  So he’s this base commander.

  He sighs before continuing. “Anyway, the tournament will be held digitally using the VR in the military base. I had to bring different ones so they can use it.”

  The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.

  “The rules are simple. Each parent will enter using the machine their children’s ability, physical strength and weapons. The fight itself has no rules beside trash-talking isn’t allowed. Anything else is allowed, including trickery. After all, real battle doesn’t have laws.”

  “This tournament will not be recorded or live-streamed by an outside party. As for you, you can only record your kids’ matches.”

  “The tournament will be between kids of the same age and gender, so no twelve-year-old can fight a ten, eleven, thirteen… years old, and no boy can fight a girl.”

  “Well then, this is the rules. I don’t want to bother doing useless talks when you guys are the ones who planned this and not me.” He says the last part annoyed.

  “Go take your kids to familiarize themselves with the Virtual machine. It’s in the same building the military VR are. Well then, that’s it.” After saying that, he turns off the microphone before going down from the podium.

  After that, we stand up from our chairs and leave the meeting room.

  We head toward a different building, and I see what seems to be the VR stations.

  Thaddeus takes me to one of them.

  “To use this, you have to wear those specialized clothes that detect your movement and relay pain. After getting hit, get in this treadmill and wear the helmet.” he explains.

  I put on the clothes. Although they seem slightly bigger than me, they still adjusted themselves to fit me comfortably.

  I get in the weird-looking 360° treadmill.

  I pick the helmet and see a cable extending from its front.

  “Put that cable end inside your mouth,” Thaddeus says.

  I put on the helmet, and after that, I put the cable end inside my mouth just like Thaddeus instructed.

  It feels weird, I think to myself.

  After doing that, Thaddeus clicks a button on the computer that’s connected to the helmet. The VR stops showing the outside world and instead shows a white screen with text that says, “Your information is being put. Please wait.”

  As I wait, I hear him clicking the keyboard, probably putting in the information.

  As he does that, he asks me questions about what magic my dad taught me.

  After a few minutes, the text disappears, and instead, I see multiple menu.

  On one of them, it shows my skills: my physical strength, Veythar consumption, my core stage, and all the weapons and magic I use, beside The Fool’s Line.

  I look at the other menu, which gives me multiple options. Fight other people is locked.

  I click at the scenarios option. It shows me multiple other options.

  War scenario is locked, with multiple others locked as well. The only ones that aren’t locked are Animal fighting Scenario and Human NPC fighting Scenario.

  I choose and click at the animal one.

  After doing that, countless races and different breed appear in front of me. Being unable to decide, I click random and choose the Normal difficulty.

  After doing that, I appear in a field area and get the option to change the area if I want to.

  I keep it like it is.

  After doing that, a bird half my size appears thirty meters in front of me.

  I withdraw my bow and insert my sword into the ground.

  I put an arrow on the bowstring while waiting for the countdown to finish.

  As a text that says “Begin!” appears, I immediately shot the arrow.

  I say boost while looking at the arrow. The first one misses, and I say boost for the second time, which this time boosts the arrow.

  Because of my earlier mistake, the arrow misses the bird, and it starts to fly, rushing at me.

  I shoot another arrow. This time, I’m able to boost it on the first try, and it hits the bird’s right wing.

  It free-falls directly toward me, and I side-step while dropping my bow and holding the sword.

  I slash toward its head, but it misses as it dodge, hitting its right wing instead.

  It rushes toward me and attacks my legs. I barely dodge it, but it still leaves slightly deep scratches on my legs.

  It hurts a little—as it’s just like the pain I feel from over-scratching a spot. Seems like the clothes are realistic. I did see the option to increase pain level in the menu, but it’s locked as well.

  I rush toward it before it’s able to turn around, cutting its head off.

  Normal difficulty seems to be easy—likely because of my age, and so it chose something a kid with my skill can deal with.

  After that, I chose two more normal ones, easily beating them without getting hurt this time.

  After that, I chose two hard ones. I won both of them too, but not as easily as i get hit a bit.

  I chose the impossible difficulty one and lost. I didn’t try again, as I had no way to harm it.

  As for the human NPC, it’s the same case. The impossible one just had a shield and offensive military magic, which made me lose almost instantly.

  Chapter End