All 64 winners were teleported onto the stage in the middle of the arena.
They all expected to be showered with cheers and praises, so they all smiled while waving at the audience.
"BOOOOO!"
"You didn't deserve to win!"
"I hope you lose in your first match!"
Instead, all they heard was booing, and they saw people with angry expressions everywhere they looked.
The loud booing also silenced some spectators who were trying to support their friends or idols.
The 63 players were bewildered because they didn't know what Finn had done in his match, and they also didn't know who the target of the audience's anger was.
Finn knew what he had done, but he was as surprised as them.
'Hmm… This didn't happen in my previous life, so it's probably Leo who had angered everyone.'
Finn thought while looking around to see if Leo had also won, and sure enough, he was standing in the middle of the crowd.
'…Are you stupid? Of course, they must be booing you. I mean, to me, a win is a win, but what you did to that blonde girl probably pissed everyone off.'
Loki tried telling Finn that it was his fault, but Finn just shook his head, convinced that since his tactic had been used twice in this tournament, it wouldn't be that big of a deal.
So, he walked towards Leo to talk about the match while the audience kept shouting at him.
"Hey Leo! How was your match? Easy victory?"
"Finn! You also won? Let's go! We might get to fight each other again, and my match, well… It was mostly easy, but there was this one dude who tried to poison me by waiting in the gas, so I just jumped inside it and broke his neck. HAHAHA!"
Suddenly, Finn realized that something was not right.
"Wait… that player, he didn't have black spiky hair and black fingerless gloves, right?"
"Huh? You know him? Yeah, that was him! He was like a rat trying to hide in the gas, but I killed him so fast that he didn't even get to fight back. HAHAHA! It was a lot of fun!"
Leo was laughing, but Finn didn't find the situation funny at all. He now knew that the one who angered everyone in the audience was him.
When he was popular because of his fight with Raul, there were some people who wanted his information, but they soon gave up on him and went to someone else.
But being hated by everyone was completely different.
People who want to be recognized by Olivia, people who just hate how Finn won, or people who don't even know the situation but go with the crowd.
All these people will now be aiming for him in the game or by posting bounties on his head.
'Fuck! Now what?'
'Hmm… If you overwhelm your opponents and show everyone here that they should respect you and fear you, you might just escape from being hunted.'
Since he didn't want other people to despise his champion, Loki made an effort to assist Finn. He believed that once Finn rejected the gods, they would hate him, which to Loki was inevitable.
However, if Finn was to rule Earth, he needed the support of the populace.
'I guess… But that might not be enough.'
While Finn was planning what to do, an angel with two pairs of wings appeared above the 64 winners.
Just like the other angels, he was incredibly handsome, and this time he had 4 wings instead of 2, so he was probably higher ranked than the angels before.
"Silence."
The audience that was still shouting curses at Finn suddenly quieted down as if they had just lost their voices.
The angel used his authority to silence everyone in the arena with a single word.
"Now that the sixty-four players are decided, I will let the game system randomize the matches."
The white-haired angel with a short ponytail waved his hand, and 64 names written on a hologram appeared below him.
They started shuffling together, and with a clap of the angels hands, they arranged themselves into 32 matches.
"Your opponents have been decided. You will now be teleported into a room with a holographic screen, where you will have one hour to watch and study your opponent's match. After that, you will be teleported into the arena, where you will have your first fight."
A player raised his hand to ask a question, but the flying angel ignored him.
"There are no specific rules. The only rules you will have to uphold are Second Life's rules. The fights will all have a 10-minute time limit. If the winner is not decided before then, both of the fighting players will be eliminated."
The angel stopped for a second and then continued.
"...A player will win by either eliminating his opponent or making him step out of the arena. You can choose to surrender by shouting "I concede," and you will be teleported outside the arena. That is all."
Looking around the crowd of players below him, the angel arogantly scoffed as if he were thinking that his job of starting the tournament was below him.
His expression then quickly turned cold again, and with a flap of his white wings, he opened his mouth.
"May the strongest person here win."
After he was done talking, the angel covered himself with his wings and, with a flash of light, swiftly disappeared.
The 64 players were all then teleported into a small room with a chair and a screen where they could watch the recording of their opponents' match.
The entire recording would be a lot longer than an hour, but the players had a function to speed the video up to ensure that they could watch all the important parts.
All the huge screens in the arena had a countdown on them.
[00:59:55]
The audience that wanted to keep cursing at Finn was suddenly forced to take an hour break, so they all went on the internet to start their attacks on him there.
They knew that he was a player called Chained_Trickster from the victory announcement, so they started cursing his player name.
Meanwhile, Finn was already watching his opponents match, and he ended up with a rather easy matchup.
On the screen was a tall, buff man with short silver hair. He had iron armor and a huge iron shield.
The recording showed that Finn's opponent won by shield-slamming his opponents, and once they were on the ground without the ability to defend themselves, he used the bottom of his shield to crush their bones or split them in half.
"IronWall huh… Well, he does have high endurance, but his fighting style is weak against agile opponents, so this should be easy."
Chuckling to himself, Finn was happy that he could one-shot IronWall by assassinating him.
'If you want me to continue teaching you, then you will have to win without using your assassination techniques. This will help you not rely on them in your battles.'
But Loki was quick to shatter his illusions.
"What?! That's just unreasonable! The fight would have been so easy if I just teleported behind him and stabbed his weak spot!"
'That's precisely why I'm saying you can't do that. If you only assassinate everyone, then once you meet an opponent, you will have no choice but to fight head-on, be it because you have to protect someone or because his defenses will be impossible to penetrate with your daggers, you will lose.'
Finn quieted down and patiently listened to Loki's reasoning. He thought about what Loki had said and realized that Loki was right.
Also, his class, Moonlight Swordsman, would later give him abilities that lean towards a sword fight rather than an assassination, so he had to get used to it somehow, and what better time than the tournament where he could face other strong players.
With his fighting style decided, Finn needed to think of a plan to defeat IronWall because now he would have to do his absolute best if he wanted to win the match.
And after watching IronWall's match multiple times with a speed-up function, he finally found a weakness he could abuse.
"Look Loki, if I use this against him at the right moment, I will be able to beat him."
Loki, who was reading a fantasy novel that he had summoned from Finn's memories, looked up to see what Finn meant.
Then he smiled and started laughing.
'Haha! Good job spotting that. Now you just have to pull it off.'
---
[00:00:05]
"Five!"
"Four!"
The audience shouted, looking forward to the upcoming matches, mainly Finn's match because they wanted him to lose.
"THREE!"
"TWO!"
"ONE!"
"Welcome everyone to the bracket tournament!"
Suddenly, a female angel with two wings appeared in the middle of the arena.
She was the expressionless female angel that was in charge of Finn's battle royale, but her ice queen face was now gone and replaced with a smiling one.
"My name is Dina, and I will be your commentator for this tournament!"
"YEAH!"
"DINA!"
"PLEASE MARRY ME!"
Every male player cheered upon seeing the breathtaking angel smile at them.
Meanwhile, Finn had already been teleported with the other 63 players into a waiting room where they had screens that showed what was happening in the arena, and he was looking speechlessly at how Dina had changed.
Dina was chosen to be the main commentator for the God's Tournament that every god and angel would be watching, so she tried her best to appear cheerful and excited because she wanted to look the best in front of all the gods.
'…How can a person change this much in a day...'
But Finn kept comparing her to the past Dina, whose face muscles didn't even twitch.
Suddenly, Loki shouted as if he had an epiphany.
'Oh! I remember where I had seen that angel, Dina. She looks just like an angel that I have slept with in the past, but that was a long time ago, so she would have to be my grandgrandgrand-'
'Stop! Too much information! Let's just focus on the upcoming matches.'
Finn quickly shut Loki up and looked at the holographic screen, where two players appeared on different ends of the arena.
"Our first match will be Terrorizer against OneSwordMan!"
"WOOO!!!"
Dina shouted, and the audience cheered.
Terrorizer was a short, middle-aged man who glared at his opponent like he wanted to tear him apart. He was bald and had a scar across his right eye.
Scars were something you had to have in real life to have them in the game, so some people in the audience pointed at him and whispered to each other.
But most of the audience couldn't care less if the player looked scary. They just wanted an entertaining match.
On the other side was the OneSwordMan, who looked like a nice guy with his gentle smile.
He had blonde hair and a good-looking face.
Terrorizer kept glaring at him, but he just kept waving at the audience, not even bothering to look at his opponent.
There was a betting function in this tournament, and almost everyone was betting for Terrorizer since scarier looks equal higher skill in their opinions.
Finn already knew the outcome, so he bet all 20 of his gold coins on the player who had won in his previous life.
The arena itself was three times bigger than a boxing ring, and it had pillars, small walls, rocks, and other obstacles so that it wouldn't be just an empty arena since that would give an unfair advantage to some players.
"Both players, please get ready!"
Dina shouted, and OneSwordMan stopped waving and finally looked at his opponent.
Terrorizer had two short, crooked daggers that he held in both of his hands as he eyed his opponent.
"Begin!"
With a shout from Dina, Terrorizer rushed towards his opponent.
He saw how OneSwordMan won his battle royale by not doing anything the entire game and then appearing only to defeat the last person remaining, so he was sure that if he were to strike first, he would win.
OneSwordMan just remained in his place and raised his sword to attack.
Terrorizer arrived in front of OneSwordMan, but before he could dodge his opponent's strike and kill him like he had intended to do, his eyes were blinded by a bright flash.
"There it is! OneSwordMan's skill, Flash! It can blind his opponent by making his weapon shine! It sounds weak, but if used correctly, like right now, it can prove to be very deadly!"
Before Dina even finished her explanation, Terrorizer's severed head was already flying through the air.
THUD
Shing
OneSwordMan sheathed his sword at the same time as Terrorizer's head hit the arena floor.
He used his opponent's blindness to deliver a deadly horizontal slash with his sword, thus winning the match.
"The winner is OneSwordMan!"
"WOOOO!"
Dina and the audience shouted while OneSwordMan kept waving his hand with a gentle smile.
Some of the audience members were dissatisfied that they bet on the wrong person, but since they enjoyed the match, they still cheered.
Then, OneSwordMan was taken back to the waiting room, and two new players entered the arena while the obstacles moved around so that players couldn't get ready ahead of time.
Finn had also received an extra 40 gold from his bet, so he now had 60 gold in total.
He planned to use his knowledge to get rich, but this knowledge proved to be useless in the second match.
"And now for our second match, we have Blue Snake versus FightMe!"
The audience cheered for the two players who were called out by Dina, and the player FightMe, who was Finn's friend Leo, shouted at his opponent.
"Let's have a fun match!"