Today's weather was a bit cloudy as the finals of the competition were soon to begin. We ate breakfast together, starting with Jadar Wyvern steak.
The Royal Court's cook was introduced to us by the Tomboy Princess and did the cooking for us. It was emitting a fragrant smell and was amazing to start the meal. The way he cooked it turned the meat into butter before my knife. After eating several portions:
[Ability learned: Wyvern's Roar]
While being taken in by the taste, I learned a new ability. With this, I was able to confirm that my[Absorption]ability had evolved in some way. At first, I thought that the mystery would be solved like this, however, as expected I'm still bothered by something. I wonder if there are some learning conditions that depend on the food's age and to what extent do these new conditions go.
Due to the difference in the strength between me and the devoured, the requirement of needing to consume a large quantity isn't strange. It's quite possible that the time limit for each creature is totally different.
If that's the case, I might have actually gained something if I ate Velvet. Learning the abilities of an ancient, yet incredibly powerful man…
Well, I can't help but think I've wasted a great chance at something. Rather than cremating him at once, I should have tried tasting the other arm, but it's far too late to be regretting the past now.
With no other choice, I reluctantly gave up on Velvet and decided to test the limits during breakfast with the Jadar steak. Even if I'm unable to grasp the limits of this currently, I need to be able to gain a rough understanding.
After the morning's rough confusion, I decided to occupy myself through observing today's competition during my guard duty of the Tomboy Princess in the noble's private section.
The battles unfolded in a specially established arena with everyone present being quite flashy. For example, there was a fight between an old male [High Sorcerer] that was equipped with a mace and a young female monster tamer that was accompanied by a familiar.
The old man froze the entire arena with ice magic while the girl's leopard familiar turned into white flames and grew to the size of an elephant. The leopard's white flames melted the ice and approached with great killing intent as the old man attempted to counter with his mace.
Though, I should say that since killing is prohibited, the attack would be more fitting to be called intent to put him close to death instead. Although the young girl did fight hard, it was in vain as the lively old man ended up emerging victorious, despite being covered in wounds.
In addition, the high-ranking members of the two countries made a racket as their [Heroes] put their country's pride on the line and clashed head on. The bloodshed on both sides unfolded spectacularly.
As for the young Otherworlder, he was still in the competition after he used his hand cannon to blow away a [Master Swordsman] who had wielded 68 different swords.
Gah, seeing all this just made me want to eat everyone! If I were to display my thoughts, it would be seeing a large quantity of high quality dishes, the best quality ingredients, all arranged one after another. Though the battle between the Heroes overshadowed the normal battles, the magic used by the old man was top-class and the girl's familiar was probably great to eat.
It's a golden opportunity to kill them both. The spectacle before me is within my reach. However, I have to and must restrain myself. In addition to the general status quo that is currently keeping me restricted from eating, there is also a thing one must be aware of called timing.
Right now is not a good time, collecting information little by little on which targets are best is what I should be doing now as it will prove useful in the future. Still, my desire to eat all of them is almost at it's peak, so I suppressed it by eating plenty of food that was set out in the auditorium. Perhaps because it's the second day, there were many rare dishes that had been made specifically for me.
As the day turned to night, the Royal Capital was filled with magical lights, the competition's finals reached their climax.
In the end, two people out of the several thousand contestants were left in the competition finals. The first was the Kirika Empire's Hero of Roaring Thunder and the other was the Atarakua Demon Empire's Supreme Scarlet Commander.
In addition to being the next head of the Empire's grand nobles, the [Hero of Roaring Thunder], Artunel Bayard Rickenbar, is the third ranked in the Eight Great Knights and holds great influence within the group.
The Hero's presence is like a prince drawn in a painting, having the usual gender-neutral good looks with blond hair and blue eyes. She's wearing heavy silver armor and a mantle while wielding a double-edged one-handed sword. Having shown off her good looks by not wearing a helmet, the festival might have just received it's most high-pitched cheering thus far. Though, since the Hero is a woman, there were some dirty jeering from the men, but obviously they were ignored.
Next, the Supreme Scarlet Commander, Ballark Barak, is from the Atarakua Demon Empire and is the fourth ranked amongst the Six Supreme Commanders. He is a Midian with his entire body covered in a scarlet metal shell. The metal shell is something similar to an insectoid's exoskeleton and is the basic characteristic of the metal Midians, being both their main weapon and their personal armor.
Since it symbolizes the Midian, there are some differences between individuals and it's something each one of them holds great pride in. In the case of Ballark, whose form resembles an ogre, his dull scarlet metallic shell is covered in flames, acting both as his weapon and armor.
The intensity of the flames can be changed depending on his intentions. He had sharp spikes protruding from his big limbs and a long tail of fire that seared the ground. Also, although it's troublesome to use, a part of his metallic shell is capable of shifting into the shape of a sword. The temperature of the flames released were hotter than those of the Red Bear's.
The fight between the two was so intense that, in the conclusion, several of the magical barriers and magical items used to protect the spectators were destroyed. Many of the audience were surprised by the spectacle. However, thanks to both the Sternbild Kingdom and other countries' precautions, there were hundreds of barriers in place, so no one was injured.
The fight continued for approximately 30 minutes, thoroughly destroying the arena in the process. Because it was the last fight, it was quite intense since they weren't holding back at all. The arena is probably going to be out of action for some time.
In the end, the winner was the Supreme Scarlet Commander. Though they were able to totally rival each other in terms of ability, their affinities decided the outcome. The Hero of Roaring Thunder held the advantage of swordsmanship and speed. Since the Supreme Scarlet Commander was covered in a heavy metallic shell, one could say that the Hero was simply toying with him.
However, the Hero of Roaring Thunder's strongest attribute, her lightning attacks, capable of creating powerful oscillating waves, didn't affect the Supreme Scarlet Commander who had was constantly covered in intense flames.
He probably has something similar to [Complete Lightning Tolerance] or something similar as an ability, just as I do. That must be the case since the dense group of lightning strikes seemed to be erased as they made contact. With his metallic shell redirecting the oscillating waves into the ground, his armor that could resist many of the Hero's attacks played a major factor.
By the way, the Dark Hero participated as one of the representatives of the Sternbild Kingdom, the host country, but was defeated by the Hero of Roaring Thunder during the semifinals.
Though she fought from the shadows, she was eventually worn down and beaten by the swift lightning attacks. However, the Dark Hero's true strength lies in surprise attacks and techniques launched under the cover of darkness, so the outcome had already been decided when she had to fight her opponent head-on.
After two days of fierce fighting, the festival's end was marked by the King's oath, just as it had started. Afterwards, there was a banquet hosted by the King that continued late into the night with almost all of the 64 participants attending.
Kanami-chan and I attended it as the Princess' bodyguards along with the Boy Knight. Unfortunately, Redhead couldn't participate this time either, though both the Female Samurai and Gladiator King remained after the competition of course.
It was the perfect opportunity for the Tomboy Princess to discuss about several things that she couldn't mention yesterday. With that, we sealed our partnership, which was an idea brought up by her, giving both of us the authority to operate freely.
With many people speaking favorably of the mercenary corps, it looks like the advertising was successful. Using our fame as the replacement for business cards, we can tentatively accept requests from which we can lay the groundwork for infiltration and ability to then abandon them afterwards without problems.
After everything was over, I immediately went to eat a meal, picking up Kanami-chan on the way before parting with her again. There were similar dishes to before, and as I began to show my true nature as a glutton, and there were even some people who challenged me. Thus, my distraction has finally begun. During this time, all operations were being handled swiftly and quietly.