The two men entered the arena and positioned themselves across from one another. Alexandre shifted on his feet, trying to judge how much freedom of movement he'd have. Despite all the fights that constantly occurred and damaged the arena itself, it was clear that the staff took great care to maintain and repair the battleground. Alexandre wouldn't have any trouble keeping his footing.
But as he thought about this, something caught Alexandre's attention. The atmosphere seemed to have shifted among the onlookers, and more and more people were packing the bleachers. Alexandre's phone vibrated and he checked it to find an announcement had been sent to all students—"Special duel event in the Hunter Academy Arena! Chetan Ambani vs William Walton!"
Moreover, the huge digital billboard which tracked all current fights looked different than it had a minute ago. While it had previously given information on several current and upcoming fights, it now only read, "CHETAN AMBANI VS WILLIAM WALTON" in huge, blocky letters.
In short, the arena was obviously doing everything in its power to make sure everyone focused on their match. Alexandre laughed out loud. "That bookmaker must be behind this," he said to himself. "Very clever move to try to get out of that bad situation I put him in! I guess it's good that he's taking me seriously." After all, if Alexandre won, the arena would owe him $200,000… something they definitely couldn't afford!
However, this raised a potential problem. Though Alexandre was wearing a surgical mask and his jogging hoodie, this wouldn't be adequate to keep his identity secret from the entire school paying attention to him… especially once William found out that he'd apparently been fighting in the arena while simultaneously asleep in bed after a huge dinner!
On top of the regular students, Alexandre also spotted several of the academy's professors among the crowd—Professor Omega and Jack Blades, among others.
For the very first time, Alexandre began to ponder whether he was making a mistake. In addition to the risk of being found out, it was certainly true that Chetan Ambani wouldn't go down without a fight. This wasn't going to be a free meal by any means.
Meanwhile, on the other side of the ring, Chetan was slowly beginning to understand what was happening. Usually, the odds for his fights were around 1. The fact that they'd now risen to 2.2 meant that someone had placed a massive bet on his opponent. There was only one reason why that would've happened… Alexandre had done it himself.
And the fact that Alexandre had been willing to put a huge amount of money on the line meant that he probably wasn't going to go down as easily as Chetan had hoped. Was this going to actually be his first challenge in a very long time?
Just then, a female Hunter in her forties approached the ring, along with a man holding a microphone. The woman was apparently the match's referee, and of course the man was Robert Pakerson, the arena's announcer.
Robert Pakerson raised the mic to his mouth and began to speak in an animated tone. "Here we are at the end of the evening, and what an event to send us off tonight! In one corner we have Cheton Ambani, the arena veteran known as the 'Rookie Breaker,' and opposite him, the mysterious first-year student William Walton! This newcomer comes from parts unknown and, word has it, has a great chance of winning against Ambani! How will the match turn out? Well, we'll have to wait five minutes and see! Don't forget that the bollards in the middle of the arena are still available for betting, but time's running out fast!"
The referee stepped forward between the two combatants and gave them each a stern glare. "Here are the rules! No lethal blows. Five minutes of combat maximum. Above all else, the match begins and ends with the whistle. If one of you so much as lays a finger on the other after the whistle blows, I'm taking care of you personally! Is that understood?"
The men nodded in affirmation, so the referee continued, "Right. The match starts in thirty seconds. Get ready!"
Chetan and Alexandre both summoned their linked weapons: Alexandre produced his black gauntlets and put them on, while Chetan drew two small golden swords that were very long but very thin.
Alexandre deduced that these blades belonged to either the Warrior or Thief class. With a few moments to spare, he performed a quick Pip-Boy scan and then checked out the screen.
╔════════Aurora Tactical System V0.23.1══════════╕
╟─╼[Character]
║ ╰╼ [Name]: Chetan Ambani
║ ╰╼ [Role]: Novice Hunter
║ ╰╼ [Affiliation]: Hunter Academy
║ ╰╼ [Guild] Utopia
║ ╰╼[LvL]: 15
║ ╰╼ [Tier]: E
║ ╰╼[Biology]: Hunter
║ ╰╼[Class]: Thief
╚══════════════════════════════════════╛
Alexandre smiled to himself. It seemed that his Perception skill was once again quite useful. Despite Chetan being a level above himself, he'd still managed to glean this additional information.
Then the students took up their fighting positions, waiting for the whistle and the start of the match. They looked straight into each other's eyes one last time. The world around them seemed to freeze as these two men with completely different worldviews faced each other.
The whistle blew.
At last, the duel had begun.