They could hear drums playing above them and an even bigger crowd forming to see the finals.
"Are you ready ? I know i am ! Give a round of applasue for the finalists of our 50th tournament !!" Such a crowd was formed that not all of it could be contained inside the arena's stands. The shouts of excitment and clapping of hands could be heard even outside walls of the building.
"And this final will be one of the best from what i can see. And its all thanks tooooo" The drums started beatint faster and faster "Prince Charles from the right side !" Fireworks shot out as Charles stepped out to the arena. "And guildmaster's masked pupil !" Another barrage of fireworks lit up the sky as Alice stepped out from the other side.
Both the young mages looked at each other. Alice took of the mana restraining bad off of her hand and stood in her hybrid stance. Charles took off his cloak and wielded the massive staff. The big crystal on top off it glowed with a blue light. Alice remembered what that meant from his first battle. She was ready to cast air on herself and dodge it.
"Let's starr the finals !" The announcer shouted.
As he finished saying that a massive beam, the same one as in Charles first battle. The crowd thought that the battle will for sure be over but they saw that Alice dodged most of it. She limped towards Charles, it seems that even with the knowledge what kind of attack it will be and aie support, the speed was too hard to fully dodge. She ran towards him thinking that there has to be a cooldown on such a powerful ability.
"You misscalculated" Charles said as his staff started glowing once again.
Shocked Alice couldn't dodge it so she created layers of walls between herself and him. As the beam got casted the walls crumbled under its power and hit Alice again. But thanks to the force that they could block Alice wasn't knocked out. Alice casted a barrage of spells from above shifting his focus from charging another beam to getting rid of them. In that time she closed the distance between them. She was now close enough that he didn't have enough time to charge the beam up.
She punched him in the face and started blasting spells at him. He tried defending from them but in close range Alice had more experience. She thought that she got the upper hand but she suddenly felt strong pain in her core, in thay moment he pushed her away and blasted her with a beam in a point blank range. She fell to the ground defeated losing the tournament.
"And with that ladies and gentlemen the 50th tournament concludes !!!!" The crowd cheered for prince Charles as he was crowned the winner. Alice was taken to the infarmary and when she woke up Monika was there watching over her.
"I'm sorry" She said feeling bad for having put her through this.
"It's okay master. I don't mind at all... minus being refered to as your pupil" Alice said.
Monika chuckled "Thats the part im not sorry about" She pat her head "I will make sure that you get compensated for this"
"Thank you" Alice walked with her towards the banquet thrown for the winner. It was a grand party with all the contestants and VIPs eating and drinking together. When they saw alice they took a toast for her 2nd place. It was a great party where music played, the food was good and the booze hit right. Not that Alice knew the last part because her master forbid her from drinking.
"You are too young to do that. Wait 2 more years and i will allow you"
Alice was bummed about it but she couldn't argue about her reasoning. Throughout the night the party grew more and more intense as everyone have gotten very drunk. Alice saw Charles who barely stood on both his feet.
"It was a good match" She told him "I didn't expect that you are able to use that massive attack so often"
The drunk prince said "It's because i can't, I risked losing with each attack"
"How so ?" Alice was curious but he was too drunk to carry the conversation any longer.
She spent the party by eating the food and watching people drink. But when she saw that Monika was starting to puke from the amount of alcohol she drank. Thats when Alice decided to call it a day and took her back to the mansion.
"Come on master let's go" Alice tried to move her but she was whining like a little kid.
"No i don't wanna ! Give me a piggy back ride and I will !!"
Alice decided to humor her master's childish request so they can finally go home. She picked her up and excused herself outside. It was already dark outside and it took the young girl a long time to get to the mansion, when they got there she took of her mask. She took her master off of her back and Monika asked.
"Was I heavy ?" Her eyes watery and her expression sincere.
"Ye very much so" She answered bluntly, getting weakly hit in the back in the process.
"You weren't supposed to say thay"
"Just go to sleep master. You are too old to act like this. Even under the influence of alcohol" It took some convincing and promising to not leave her for Monika to finally go to sleep.
"It feels more like a nanny job than being her studeny" She thought to herself while going to her own room. Before she went to sleep she decided to check if everything is fine with her core. She focused her mana around it and felt something weird. She couldn't put her hand on it but when she tried activating her rend it was obvious what that was. There were 2 different flashing lights emiting from her core. She jumped when she realized that and ran to the training ground.
...
When Monika woke up in the morning she went to check on Alice and to thank her for helping her get home. But she couldn't find her anywhere in her room. She decided to check the training ground and saw Alice covered in sweat focusing on something so much that the drool forming in her mouth was dripping on the ground.