Ch. 181: The Cheering and the Wizard
Though they brilliantly earned their victory, Igni and his group were already relocating to go see Estea’s match in a different field.
Igni: “There’s no time between the matches, huh…”
Yoori: “Yeah, it looks like it. But they said it’s only for the first day. Since there’s a lot of students, they have to execute these matches as efficiently as possible.”
Igni: “So the schedule will be easier tomorrow?”
Yoori: “Yeah. Having less individual matches will play a big part.”
Igni chatted with Yoori as they headed for the spectator seats to cheer on Estea for her match.
Yoori: “Most of the students from 1st years to 3rd years are participating, so the first day is going to be really busy.” Igni: “Oh… yeah, that makes sense.”
Igni did not know how many students were enrolled in the Rolmod Wizard Academy, but it was not a small number. Though some students are Support Types, most would be participating in this [Competition]. That’s why the schedule was so crammed today.
Yoori: “But Igni, you only need to participate in the last match so don’t you have a lot of free time?” Igni: “But someone has to go cheer on their friends, right?” Yoori: “Ah, I see. As expected of you, Igni.”
Yoori was puzzled as Igni hurried, but Igni simply turned back to him with a huge smile.
For now, Igni planned on cheering on all of his friends, and he had to meticulously scrutinize the Tournament schedule to lay out his day’s plans.
Igni: “Once this match is over, Iris will be starting her match on a different field, so we’ll have to hurry to make it on time.” Yoori: “I guess this crammed schedule makes it difficult for the people cheering too.”
Igni: “President Miru was laughing and saying, ‘But there won’t be many people cheering anyways.’” Yoori: “Yeah, that’s true. There’s not many people here.”
Yoori glanced side to side to observe the small crowd.
Yoori: “But that means if you have a lot of friends, you would have a hard time making it to all their matches, right?” Igni: “I’m not sure. I think most people are too focused on their matches to even think about going to see other people’s matches.
Since Igni was in a special bracket, he had time to spare. But for the rest, this tournament was composed of several hundred people trying to complete their matches within 3 days. So of course, Day 1 of the Competition was jam packed with back to back matches. As Yoori said, the majority of matches would be finished after Day 1, so starting on Day 2, the schedule will be considerably lighter. So for anyone trying to run around and make it to all the matches on Day 1, no one knows if that’s even possible.
Yoori: “Oh! Igni! The match is starting!”
Unlike the various types of fields prepared for the Class Competition, the Individual Competition fields were quite bland. It was a small area where 2 opponents can face each other.
There, Igni saw Estea and her opponent facing one another.
Looking at Estea’s face, Igni could tell that she was quite nervous.
Igni: “Estea! You can do itー!”
Yoori: “Miss Estea! Do your bestー!”
Startled, Estea looked around quickly and saw Igni and Yoori in the spectator seats. Seeing their faces, she let out a breath of relief. Soon afterwards, she turned to face her opponent. Her face was no longer petrified with nervous fear.
“Match, begin!”
The teacher gave the signal, and Estea and her opponent initiated their Spell.
In the next instant, giant stone structures erupted from the ground and surrounded Estea’s opponent and stopped.
A few seconds later, the girl fighting against Estea surrendered.
Yoori: “......huh? It’s over already?” Yoori seemed puzzled at the sudden outcome.
Igni nodded reassuringly to him.
Igni: “Looks like it. That’s Estea for you.” This is probably the clearest example of being unfairly matched.
With supreme power, overwhelming talent, and unbelievable speed, the match ended.
Estea dispelled the stones and both her and her opponent bowed towards each other, and the match was over.
She then trotted straight towards Igni.
Estea: “MーMr. Igni! I didn’t know you would come!” Igni: “Yeah, I wanted to come cheer you on. Congratulations on your first victory.” Estea: “ThーThank you…..very much…. I, I can’t believe you would come to my match….and Mr. Yoori, you too.”
Yoori: “Hahaha. Well, our match didn’t last that long.”
Estea: “Oh, I see. But you both surprised me! I would have thought you both would still be fighting in the Class Competition.” Estea’s assessment would have been correct for any other class. Igni’s class finished their match in record time. Even so, there’s no way for Igni to know how much time other Class Competition matches take, so they had no way to know how irregular their match was.
Estea: “Mr. Igni, do you have plans after this….?” Igni: “I was going to go see my other friends’ matches.” Estea: “CーCan I come too?”
Igni: “Yeah, of course!”
Igni figured the more people there were, the better they were able to cheer on his friends.
Igni had no reason to refuse and accepted Estea’s suggestion unhesitatingly.
Estea, a little embarrassed, mumbled her thanks to Igni.
“Oh, Igni! There you are!”
And a young purple-haired girl came and sat on Igni’s lap.
Igni: “Oh, hey Sara. Did you just wake up?” Sara: “No, I woke early. But they wouldn’t let me out.”
Sara turned her face towards Igni as she spoke.
Igni: (Couldn’t get out? Is Sara talking about her room?)
Igni tilted his head to think.
Sara currently resides in the basement of the Wizard Academy. It was a measure to prevent her from transforming this area into a [Demon King’s Realm] if her Magic spun out of control, and the school was assisting to prevent that.
But that room requires going through security gates to go in, but Sara should be free to be able to leave when she wants.
Sara: “So, these…Knights? There were a lot of them. And when I was leaving, they asked me a lot of questions.”
Igni: “Knights? Why would the Knights Order be there?”
Sara: “Dunno. But they said they were protecting me.”
Igni: (Huh? Protect Sara from what?)
Igni now tilted his head internally even further to wonder.
It’s true that in the Rolmod Academy basements, a lot of experiments took place.
And it’s true that the Rolmod Wizard Academy has many secrets that would affect national security, so they had to take extreme measures to ensure that no breaches occurred. But up until now, the security they had in place was sufficient in preventing any disasters.
Igni: (So why would they feel the need to place the Knights Order now?)
Sara: “And today, the person guarding me said, ‘Tell Igni I said hi.’”
Igni: “Me? Who was that?” Sara: “Someone called Howell.”
Igni: (.........oh, him. Oh yeah, he was part of the Knights Order….)
Igni recalled the details about Howell quickly.
But since it was about a guy, Howell had been completely forgotten.
Yoori: “Oh! Igni! The next match is going to start soon!”
Igni: “Oh! We need to hurry!!”
And picking up Sara in his arms, they all ran to see the next match.
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