Chapter 3: The Obligatory Tournament-Arc Commences in the Capital!

Part 1

"I apologize for the lack of space. Vanir-san's room is vacant, so I suggest having the Princess retire there. My bed is big enough for one more person, but I can't sleep with Aqua-san, or else I might perish by sunrise, and sleeping with Kazuma-san is out of of the question, for obvious reasons. The rest will have to sleep on the floor. Ah, but don't worry, those who have to sleep on the floor will be provided with bed sheets in the form of the magic blankets that didn't sell for some reason, even though they provide the great functionality of being able to hover two inches above ground."

So that was the situation. I didn't take into account the limited rooming accommodations of Wiz's store. If I had, I could've booked a room at a different hotel, or asked a friend for a last minute favor.

Then again, secrecy was our priority, and Wiz's stores were protected with privacy wards thanks to a certain distrustful devil.

In the meantime, it was a bit too early to retire for the night. With the lights dimmed, so as to deceive outsiders, we gathered in Wiz's room, forming a circle in front of a lit candle. We proceeded to, gently, interrogate the stow-away Princess.

"Why did you follow us, Princess Iris?" Megumin asked, her tone brimming with authority unfitting for a plebeian speaking to royalty.

Princess Iris was taken off-guard by Megumin's directness, but she was royalty, after all, despite some confidence issues, and faced Megumin's assertiveness with commendable dignity.

"I wasn't aware that Kazuma-sama would cast a teleport spell when I approached you all. I apologize for complicating matters with my inadvertent act, but I am, no matter how you look at it, the victim here."

"O-Oh. Yeah, I can see why you'd say that."

Not expecting to have the tables turned on her, Megumin faltered.

"As long as you understand," Princess Iris said, still maintaining her dignity and grace.

And suddenly our interrogation was concluded.

"So, what do we do now?"

Darkness brought up the subject we were delaying to address.

"My father is a rational man. If you all explain the situation, and if I testify for you, I'm sure that the punishment will be more-or-less alleviated."

It wasn't like we feared for our lives, considering what we had done for the country, but it was the 'more-or-less' part that worried me. Darkness and the others seemed to share my apprehension, as they all wore nervous expressions...except for Aqua, who had yet to comprehend the gravity of the situation.

"It's OK, it's OK. This country is indebted to the heroic efforts of the Axis-cult, of which I am the graceful goddess of. I'm sure he'll let us off with a stern, but harmless, reprimand."

Perhaps there was something to take away from Aqua's optimism, no matter how misguided and ignorant it was.

But when the hell did the Axis-cult do anything for this country?

I started to say, "Well, since we more-or-less got that settled…"

"We didn't even accomplish anything," Darkness said.

"...Since we more-or-less got that settled, Princess Iris here was really keen about hearing about our adventures. We have time to kill anyways...a recurring theme around here recently, I noticed...so why don't we entertain her, for now?"

We all took turns recounting our adventures, each of us providing our own perspectives.

Expectedly, some conflict about factual consistency arose.

"No, it was due to my resiliency against that masked Devil's possession, not your Explosion, that ultimately saved the day. Your Explosion magic didn't even kill that Devil. Even I survived without needing to be resurrected."

"Are you mocking my Explosion magic? Didn't I kill not only you, but the Devil King just awhile ago? My power levels during the Vanir Arc cannot even compare to my present form!"

"Please! Your Explosion wouldn't have done any damage if Kazuma didn't use Steal on the Devil King's armor! Need I remind you that the armor survived the brunt of a point blank Explosion, suffering only some scratches on the surface?"

"And what was your contribution to that fight, running away with Aqua? At least my contributions to this party is much more tangible!"

There was a stilled tension. And then they engaged, fingers interlocking as the top of their craniums clashed.

"One trick-pony!"

"Meatbag!"

Megumin, immediately overpowered, was sent sprawling to the floor. Darkness loomed over her, back hunched and fists tightly clenched, and arms, turned downwards, circumflex...the resulting cumulated posture resembling something simian.

I almost expected her to start beating her chest.

But Darkness regained her senses. She glanced around, and eventually made eye-contact with Princess Iris.

"...I've known Lalatina nee-san since I was young. To think that the dignified nee-san from before would turn to...this…"

"Ugh! This shame, this feeling of regret, but mixed in is the usual surge of pleasure evoked by my fetish! I feel like two dramatically contrasting facets of my personality are tugging at my soul! But unexpectedly, this philosophical dilemma feels kind of good?! Hnnnngggg!"

Iris looked blankly at Darkness. For a kid to make such a jaded expression was sort of depressing, and very telling. She said,

"Why is my personal circle of family and friends occupied by unrelenting perverts?"

Megumin, still on the floor, looked at Darkness and then me.

"I can definitely relate," she said.

And on that note, we called it an early night.

Part 2

The Princess was assigned to sleep with Wiz, even if Vanir's room was vacant. Darkness insisted that it was not proper for the Princess to sleep in a man's room, and it didn't help that this man was also a Devil. So I slept in Vanir's room while the others made do with the floor and the levitating magic blankets.

I couldn't catch a proper, continuous sleep in Vanir's room. There were many Vanir-like dolls decorating the room, and I could have sworn they'd all ominously laugh in the middle of the night, just as you were about to sleep. I was thoroughly frightened.

I left the room while praying to Eris-sama for divine protection. Even if there was a goddess sleeping in the next room, I felt much more comfortable relying on a goddess residing in another iteration of reality.

I went downstairs with the intention of resting my head on the sales counter.

"Tinder."

I let the diminutive flame hover over my finger as I navigated through the darkness.

"H-Hello? Is there anybody there?"

I shone the light to the voice.

Someone had already occupied my intended sleeping place. Princess Iris, wearing one of Wiz's spare nightgowns, which looked ridiculously oversized on the girl, had propped herself on a stool as she read one of the books on display.

"It's just me," I replied.

"Oh, Kazuma-sama. What brings you down here?"

"Can't sleep. You?"

She obscured half of her face with the book as her eyes shifted away from my direction.

"...I've been sleeping in the same quarters my whole life. I realize now that I can't manage to sleep in a bed that isn't the one I've grown accustomed to. I realize now how sheltered I've been until this point."

She was still pretty sheltered, even at this point, I thought.

"Kazuma-sama, can I make a confession?"

I gave her a thumbs-up.

"Go for it. But I must warn you, my strike zone is within two years, and as I am currently seventeen, I will only date girls as young as the fourteen to fifteen range…"

"Please don't be mistaken. It's not that kind of confession."

Naturally, I knew this. But teasing this easily flustered young lady was simply delectable.

"...This may seem kind of silly, but please don't laugh at me. Tonight, the short time I've spent with you, Lalatina nee-san, and everyone else, eating dinner with everyone, telling stories around the candle light, I think that...this may have been the best day of my life."

Coming from a young girl, this confession weighed heavily on my heart. Kids shouldn't have the capacity to reminisce yet. Only adults, who have long since shed their youth, had the right to say 'those were the best days of my life'.

"I must confess, this period of absolute freedom, doing things that don't necessarily have any consequence in the workings of this country, has been cathartic. To tell the truth, if I was a bit more willful, if I valued freedom over personal responsibility, I'd like to pursue this dream I've always had since I was young. More than anything, I'd love to be an adventurer, just like you, Kazuma-sama."

She gave me a closer look of the book she was reading. I directed the light of my flame to it. It was entitled 'The Chronicles of the Great Hero Satou: The First Devil King Slayer'.

"Oh? They made a book about me already?"

"No, Kazuma-sama. This book recounts the deeds of the Great Hero Satou, the original hero from long ago, who defeated the first Devil King."

That name 'Satou' was mentioned again. I figured this guy was some kind of big shot since the Devil King mentioned him, but I never figured that he'd be so historically significant.

"I want to be admired for slaying dragons, protecting civilians, vanquishing evil, based on my own merit and sacrifice and hardwork. I am admired by the people as their princess, but how did I achieve this admiration, by simply being born into prestige? When I think of people who achieve things by their own efforts, who start from nothing yet achieve everything, I think of Adventurers...I think of the great Satou-sama, the original hero...and I think of you…"

A chance manifestation of moonlight sneaking in from a transparent surface I couldn't locate, caught the Iris of that moment, her vulnerability and fragileness.

"Say, Iris, you know, I'm surrounded by all sorts of beauties."

"...Kazuma-sama, you officially ruined the moment."

With the dramatic tension ruined, the moonlight effect immediately dispersed.

"No, listen to me for a bit. I have pretty much encountered every archetype of female leads so far. The gentle, onee-san type, Wiz. The clumsy type, Yunyun. The energetic girl Chris. The main heroine, Eris-sama. Darkness is in charge of erotic scenes and Aqua is the sidekick character, and while Megumin is the closest thing I'm looking for, she belongs more in the 'loli' category."

"...I fail to see where Kazuma-sama is going with this."

Iris was slowly inching away from me.

"The point is, I'm still missing the essential little sister type."

I looked at her expectantly.

"Um, in terms of being a little sister, although I hate to admit this, but in terms of familial bonds, I can't deny that Jatis nii-san already has 'dibs' on me, in that regard."

"...I won't do creepy things like harvesting your bathwater."

"Well, that puts you over nii-san by a laaaarge margin. Can I call you nii-sama?"

I patted her head.

"I was hoping for 'onni-chan', though."

"Don't push your luck, nii-sama."

Part 3

It had been a week since we kidnapped the Princess of Belzerg.

The local police conducted a city-wide inspection, and search teams briefly surveyed the Wiz Magic Item Shop, but we simply had Wiz cast an Invisibility spells on us to visually elude the search teams.

In the meantime, I spent some quality time with Iris. We spent the day playing games, mostly the unusual chess variant Megumin was skilled at, where I initially won a long string of games using my sneaky tactics, but Iris soon developed a mean streak of her own, and began winning games using equally nefarious means.

Some part of me feared the consequences of possibly tainting the princess of this country by teaching her my admittedly despicable strategic methods. But it was fun to have a 'disciple', and Iris was a fast learner, and surprisingly possessed an affinity for my personal brand of tactics.

One day, as Iris and I were getting along as usual...

"Iris, it's time for your bath~!"

"OK, nii-sama~!"

"Don't you mean 'onni-chan'~?"

"Give it a rest, nii-sama~!"

As I provided my cute little sister with a towel and some toiletries, I felt the collective glares of some females, who were undoubtedly jealous of my new relationship with an imouto-type character.

"Disgusting."

"Lolicon."

"Humbert Humbert."

"...Kazuma-san, please, I'm tired of lying to the police. How much longer is this going to go on?"

The third-wheels, who patiently tolerated my playing around with Iris for a whole week, for the sake of granting the pitiful princess's modest whims to play with her onni-chan for 'just a bit longer', reached their respective breaking points simultaneously.

In response, I said, in an exaggeratedly loud voice,

"Yeah, you're right! Even though Iris is having the time of her young life playing with me, it's time we return her to her life of drudgery as the Princess of Belzerg. Even though she's just twelve years old and her only wish is to spend some time with her onni-chan, I guess we have to put an end to it all now!"

From upstairs, we heard something drop, and then the muffled sound of sobbing.

"...Uuuu~ *sob*, *sob*, nii-sama…"

Darkness was immediately upon me and grabbed my collar. She hefted me up until I was elevated almost to the point of my head hitting the roof.

"Y-You monster! Playing with a girl's heart like that...even if you are making her happy, it's because of your manipulations in the first place, you…!"

"Create Earth, Wind Breath."

I produced a pile of dust in my hands and exhaled at it with a strong stream of wind. The effect was like a blast of pepper spray and Darkness had to release me to attend to her affliction.

"Argggh! Come back here, you rat!"

I easily side-stepped her attempts at capture.

I prepared Create Water on one hand and a new spell I learned from perusing the many spell books on Wiz's store, Shocking Grasp, on the other.

"Anyone else want to mess with me? I'm no longered the underleveled scrub from before whose strength stats were drastically lower than even the mage, Megumin. If you think you have a chance against me, then go ahead and try!"

"This guy is getting way too cocky! Even though I can just cast Explosion and wipe you out anytime! If only we weren't in an enclosed space, I'd…!"

"It's not my fault you chose to specialize in such obscenely destructive magic."

"Insult Explosion magic again and I'll show you obscene when I shove my staff up your…"

As I was busy engaging in a war of words with Megumin, Aqua seized the chance and penetrated my zone of magical defences, achieving a close proximity where I couldn't unleash my magic without hurting myself, too.

For an idiot, she was surprisingly instinctive in combat.

"God Blow!"

A powerful strike on my diaphragm.

"Oooofff! I-Is...that...all you…"

"Goddess Requiem!"

"Ugoooooh~!"

I made a strange sound upon receiving a holy-magic powered uppercut on the jaw.

"Ah, p-please, Aqua-sama, your excess aura is affecting my undead form! I'm turning ethereal! At least let me gain some distance before you...ugoooh~!"

Someone else also made a strange sound.

Even though I levelled a lot, Aqua was still OP.

I blacked out.

Part 4

When I regained consciousness, I felt some sort of binding around my wrists.

When I opened my eyes, through my bleary vision, I saw the King, the Prince, Darkness, Iris, and her usual entourage.

We were in what appeared to be a lavish conference room. There were crystal laced draperies covering the windows. A long table, etched with inscriptions I recognized as elvish, stretched across the length of the room.

I was bound to a chair on one end of the table, the others were all at the other end, from afar, and they had varying looks of disgust, especially Darkness, all except for Iris, who looked at me with concern and pity and remorse.

Always ready to bluff, I said this.

"Oh, the memories I've lost over the past few days from being possessed by some kind of demonic spirit, have just started to return…"

"Don't you dare attempt to play the amnesia card! You are in so much trouble!"

And Darkness effortlessly called my bluff.

Darkness was the most furious I've seen her. But because it was Darkness, I couldn't take her seriously, and I unintentionally allowed my lips to curl into a mocking smile.

"Look at this guy, grinning so smugly even though he's at our mercy! Your majesty, please bring out the torture equipment!"

"...Lalatina, we don't have any such equipment."

"O-Oh, really?"

All the fire in Darkness's eyes was replaced by disappointment.

King Joethanael, from the other side, began walking towards me with slow, controlled steps. When he arrived, standing beside me, he raised a hand. I flinched away, thinking he'd inflict righteous fury on me.

"Father, no...!"

Iris called out to her father and attempted to move, but Claire restricted her movements...and quite enjoyed the physical contact while she was at it, too.

The king's calloused palm hovered above my head. I closed my eyes.

"Break Bindings."

The ropes around my wrists fell to the ground.

"The Hero of Belzerg should never be held in captivity. However, what you've done is a serious crime, Satou Kazuma. Not for 'kidnapping' my daughter, we all saw what happened, and we know it was an accident. But to think that you'd keep her hidden away for a whole week!"

I lowered my head in shame. I really screwed up.

Even if Iris was never in any danger, even if she was well secured in the company of high-level adventurers as well as a powerful former Arch-Wizard, even if she consented to stay with me, I still, technically, abducted an underaged girl from her legal guardians.

"...Raise your head, Satou Kazuma. It's not like you're that much older than my daughter, and I have chosen not to discipline her too severely. Even if we call you 'heroes', you're all just kids, in the end."

The King paused for some silent, but quick, deliberations.

"And as for the whole 'marriage' thing, I think I have a solution for that, too, a sort of loophole, but I'm not sure if you'll like it."

He glanced to Prince Jatis, who, when prompted, made his way to me.

"Here. Read this." Prince Jatis said, and handed me a document.

Section 34.5

...In the event that the Princess, or Hero, is adamantly reluctant to marry one another (evaluate on your own discretion, if this complication can be attributed to a tsundere act from the Princess, or if there's a love/hate sort of scenario going on) then an alternative option may be taken.

There will be held a martial tournament open to all who wish to participate, and the undisputed victor will receive the Princess's hand in marriage. The Hero must participate, of course, and his duty to marry the Princess will be consequently revoked, provided that he fight with his full ability. The sincerity of the Hero's will to fight will be tested by a magical item. *see legal use of magic items for investigative purposes (Section 11, Article 129).

Conversely, the Princess may nominate her own champion to fight in the tournament, and if this champion wins, complete authoritative power shall be given to the Princess in regards to marital matters.

I know, I know, totally cliche, I mean, a tournament-arc, really? But it's the best I could come up with. I mean, this job of creating laws is hard enough as it is and now…

"You can skip the rest," Prince Jatis said, "It just goes on and on. Trust me."

"My liege. Is it really necessary to resolve these marital issues with, what is essentially, gladiatorial combat? I fail to see the correlation between the two," Darkness said.

Reluctant to fight in a needless battle, I was quick to agree.

"Lalatina, as a young noble you should learn this sooner than later. Almost every complication can be rectified with some good old gladiatorial combat. Soldiers tried to pull a coup d'etat on you? Force them into gladiatorial combat. The next kin to the throne tries to assassinate you to gain power? Give him some rags, a rusty blade, then its gladiatorial combat with his fellow conspirators. Find a good, empty arena, shove all your problems in it, and make them gut each other alive. Gladiatorial combat. It's that easy."

"And it's good for the economy, too," Prince Jatis confided to me.

The King then said.

"Of course, it's up to you and Iris's discretion if you want to make use of this 'alternative', Satou Kazuma. But if you ask me, by the looks of it, you and Iris get along splendidly, otherwise this whole fiasco would have never occurred, no? Speaking of which, I hope you two didn't engage in anything 'premarital' during that unsupervised week?"

A flux of killing intent poured out from the King.

"No, sir."

"No, father."

Iris and I quickly responded to the negative.

"Good. But, just to make sure, do you two really have no intention of marrying one another?"

Iris and I looked at each other and we both smiled.

"Father, how silly. Why would I ever want to marry someone who is like a brother to me?" She looked at Prince Jatis. "And of course, that goes double to someone who is actually my real flesh and blood brother."

Prince Jatis let out a whimper.

"And as for you, Satou Kazuma?" The King said.

"Well, I wouldn't mind marrying Iris, to be honest," I said.

Six throats simultaneously choked on nothing but air.

"Just make up your mind already! Are you trolling us or what?!"

Darkness needed to be held back in the arms of Claire, and a Hold Person spell from Rain, and she still managed to make it halfway to me.

Iris blushed and looked at me longingly. "Nii-sama…"

I proceeded to explain myself. "I mean, come on, she's incredibly cute now, and I know she's going to grow up to be absolutely sexy in a few years. And out of every (mortal) girl I've met so far, she's the most rational and capable. So if I could marry a perfect girl like Iris, then yeah, why wouldn't I?"

"Then you mean to say…"

But…

"But if Iris wants to marry me someday, it'll be up to her, not because of some law, or because I happened to kill the Devil King. I fully believe that Iris has the capacity to achieve her desires through her own efforts."

"Nii-sama~!"

Iris gave me a tight embrace. I gently patted her head.

"No...unacceptable…"

Just when everything came to a heartwarming resolution, Prince Jatis muttered something ominous.

He said,

"Nothing in the laws say that a blood-related brother can't participate in the tournament! Hah! I bet no one anticipated that, huh?! I can't marry Iris-chan through normal legal means, but I will exploit this obscure loophole to accomplish the goal I've had ever since Iris-chan looked up at me with upturned eyes for the first time and said 'onni-chan'."

Iris, blushing, stopped embracing me and confronted her delusional brother.

"T-That happened when I was seven, didn't it?! Don't tell me you were lusting after a seven year old?! And I only called you 'onni-chan' because it was your birthday and that was what you wished for!"

From the other side of the room, Claire disengaged from her previous task of impeding Darkness and joined in on the escalating madness.

"I-I will also participate in the tournament!" And then she proudly said, "By the way, I aided the late Queen Belzerg in changing Princess Iris's diapers, so, in a way, outside of family, you could say I am, Princess Iris's 'first'?"

"First what?! I dare you to clarify!" said Iris, who just had her 'first' claimed.

Meanwhile, the King sighed and called for a servant.

"...Prepare the execution grounds. I found a couple of perverts amongst my ranks."

The situation quickly got out of hand.

And, somehow, I got roped into some kind of cliche tournament scenario.

Part 5

With the tournament scheduled in a week's time, we were invited to stay at the royal castle.

It turns out that, during the three days I had been knocked out, they transported me to the capital.

Aqua didn't hold back at all.

We were in my room, sitting in a circle, playing cards.

"Oh! I have the Screeching Cuckadoo. I will trade this for Aqua-san's Corpulent Ground Dragon, then."

Iris, ever the quick learner, won all the rounds following her short-lived string of losses.

"I don't wanna play anymore! Only Darkness would enjoy the humiliation of losing consecutively to a kid!"

Aqua threw her cards on the discarded pile. Megumin, who was just as mentally immature as Aqua when it came to games, did the same.

"If Darkness was here and heard that from you, she'd either beat you up, or be overcome by pleasure from your insult," Megumin said.

Darkness was occupied with her duties. And she was still pissed about the stunt I pulled with Iris. Aside from mealtimes, where we all gathered at the King's table, I hadn't spoken to Darkness since I regained consciousness.

"And I'll take the Metal Winged Peacock from Megumin-san, and this Raging Bat from Aqua-san...and I win!"

Iris didn't take any cards from me the entire game. And in our previous games, Iris would find a way to win without directly competing with me.

She was already at such a high dere-dere stage, and I had raised her flag only recently.

"Say, nii-sama, not that I don't enjoy playing with you, but shouldn't you be preparing yourself for the tournament?" Iris asked.

I gathered the discarded cards into a manageable hill before shuffling them into a pile.

"I've already purchased some Skill and Spell Books from a famous bookstore here, in the capital."

"That is not enough! Nii-sama must prepare for the battle with intensive physical training, and we must hone your martial skills while we still can…"

I pressed a finger to Iris's lips. "Don't worry about me. My style of combat might be incomprehensible to you, but I assure you that what I really need right now is emotional preparation, more than anything. And besides, what can I do in a mere week? Worrying about this and that won't do any good. And I can always cram the night before if I really need to."

"Cramming?! This isn't some kind of exam, nii-sama, you could actually get killed out there!"

While I was averse to dying and feeling physical pain, as long as Aqua was around, I didn't need to fear permanent death.

"...As talented as you are with tactics and reflexive improvisation during combat, let me remind you that one vs. one battle is a whole different beast, entirely."

Out of nowhere, Megumin decided to taunt me.

"I-I know that."

"By the way, the bettings odds heavily favor you since you're the so-called hero. You're actually the favorite to win the whole thing, but since I know, first hand, how much you actually suck, I betted a lot of money against you."

"Thanks for the vote of confidence, Megumin."

While I could admire her acumen for grasping an opportunity to make money once she saw one, I still couldn't help but take offense.

"Say, Kazuma, if you pray to me three times a day for the rest of this week, I might just buff you with enhancement spells before you need to fight!"

Aqua, another kind of opportunist, went ahead to shamelessly promote her religion.

Iris stood, and the sudden movement made the cards I piled collapse back into scattered heaps.

"I can't stop worrying about you, nii-sama! Please, I beg of you, do some actual training instead of loafing about for the entire week!"

She said that, but Iris was having the most fun 'loafing about'.

"Fine. I guess it can't hurt to exercise a bit, get the blood flowing. Do you have a training grounds somewhere?"

Iris smiled upon being counted on.

"I will do you one better, nii-sama! I will have some members of the military force spar with you! I'm sure they won't mind having this rare opportunity to face off with a legendary hero!"

I did not like the sound of that. But Iris was already starting to be heavily invested in this plan of hers.

"Hmph! With the way you've been neglecting me recently, don't expect me to heal you when a bunch of heavily armored knights demolish your ass!"

I tried to summon a retort, but I couldn't help but sense some truth in Aqua's words.

Well, whatever may happen, I resolved myself to uphold the standards Iris had set for me.

Part 6

"Snipe!"

I disarmed a knight from his longsword. This was the tenth time I disarmed him this fight.

"Get back here, you coward! If you have any honor at all, you'll fight me man-to-man."

He reached to his back, pulled out a javelin, and threw it at me.

But with my new magical item, Boots of Speed, I neatly evaded the attack, and fired of more arrows.

"Volley! Snipe! Volley! Snipe! Volley! Snipe!"

Firing three arrows concurrently, I applied the always accurate, thanks to my high luck, Snipe skill, to make nine arrows strike through to their target. His armor now resembled a porcupine, as more than twenty arrows had been lodged on the metallic plating since I initiated my hit-and-run tactics.

Panting for breath, the knight yelled "Action Surge!", and a red aura emanated from his body.

Now faster, and revitalized he rushed to me.

"Expeditious Retreat."

Stacking the base speed of Boots of Speed with Expeditious Retreat, I made it across the entire length of the training grounds, which was about half of a soccer field, in less than five seconds.

With his back towards me, I used the Lurk skill to add even more bonuses to the flank effect.

"Sneak Attack!"

The arrow shot, which usually struck and dented only the surface of his heavy armor, actually penetrated and drew blood.

"Argggh!" He fell to one knee.

As I notched my bow for another shot, Detect Magic alerted me of a catalyzed magical phenomenon to my left.

I tumbled to the side as a Fire Ball sailed past my previous location and created a melted crater on the ground.

The mage I knocked unconscious earlier was supported in the arms of a Cleric whose long robes I had tapered to a rock with a rapid succession of Volleys. It was surprising how he managed to free himself.

"Giant Fire Ball..."

The mage started chanting an Advanced Magic spell.

I used up the last of my mana, leaving only a sliver, and used a spell of my own.

"Counterspell."

The chanting was interrupted, the accumulated mana scattering.

Having expended my mana, I retreated to one of the giant boulders surrounding the training grounds, made sure not to activate the traps I set there, and approached one of the mages I knocked out earlier and bound.

"Ah, there's one of my human mana-potions. Drain Touch."

I placed my hand on the mage's shoulder and sucked up his vitality and magical essence. My mana capacity was replenished.

By the way, I had three more 'human mana-potions' tied up in other boulders, all of them surrounded by traps. The traps themselves took out an archer and another warrior, when they attempted to retrieve their comrades.

I made sure the trap mechanisms were still up to par and headed back to the battle.

Peering behind the boulder, I used Snipe on the priest, who was in the middle of using a Mana Recovery spell on the Mage. But, the Knight seemed to have anticipated this and dashed up and used an armored arm to take the arrow strike. The mage had her mana restored. The three of them formed a triangle formation, with the Knight at the head and the casters at the back.

I had been saving this combo for the tournament, but I needed a way to end the battle fast, as I couldn't rely on my human mana pots forever, and this might have been my only chance to get them all at once, seeing how they clustered together.

With this rationalization, I emerged from the boulder. "Create Water!"

Using forty-percent of my mana reserves to augment the spell, I unleashed a fire-hose like torrent of water at them.

As they recovered from the shock of being doused in high-pressure water, I casted the spell that would finish them off.

"Shocking Grasp!"

I touched the trail of water on the ground and a violent current of electricity streamed to my clustered training buddies.

"Guh-haaaaah!" x3

After being electrocuted for a good while, they finally collapsed.

I raised a 'V' sign to my adoring audience.

"Well, ladies? Try not to fight over the great me. There's more than enough to go around."

"Nii-sama…"

"Scum-zuma, in his natural habitat."

"...Never mind. I don't want someone like you as my follower. You can go ahead and pray to Eris."

My onlookers expressed their disapproval of my methods.

Well, what did they expect from me?

"Nii-sama, do you actually think that such scummy methods will translate into a tournament setting?"

Considering that I easily dispatched many of the the top soldiers of this country's military, I confidently answered, "Why, yes, I do."

"Nii-sama, there is a vast difference between a well-trained soldier, and one with an advanced class who has reached the level fifty plateau and beyond. My nii-san, Prince Jatis, is like an elephant compared to the insects you faced today."

Upon being called an 'insect' by their charge, the mage I took down twitched in her semi-conscious state.

Prince Jatis's had the advanced class Rune Knight.

It was a cheat class that shared the defensive qualities of Crusader, and the offensive qualities of Blademaster, while also possessing Runic spellcasting capabilities.

"While Nii-sama is excellent at utility and providing support for his comrades, and your tactical mind is a dangerous weapon, indeed, I am afraid that the sheer fire power my Nii-sama possesses will be more than enough to compensate for your versatility and mental advantage."

While Iris bluntly gave me a reality check, Megumin chimed in to provide her input.

"I have an excellent idea, Kazuma."

"What is it?"

"In the capital, there is a shrine dedicated to the goddess of new beginnings, Meril-sama. If you pray to it, and donate a generous amount to the cult of Meril, you will be enshrouded in an aura that will let you forget all your skills and reset your skill-point count…"

I could see where Megumin was heading with this. While I had to sacrifice my versatility and unpredictability, my main weapons so far, I could reset my build and potentially learn Advanced Magic, or some other high-tier abilities that might let me match Prince Jatis's sheer combat potential.

"...So what I'm thinking is, you could reset your skill points and learn Explosion Magic."

"Denied."

I actually let myself become impressed by something Megumin said. Never again.

"Ooh, ooh! There's a shrine of me in Alcarentia. I wonder what happens when you pray to it?"

Considering those Axis-cult freaks, probably nothing good, I figured.

We chatted for a bit more, with the three girls taking turns criticizing me, and then once Aqua healed the soldiers, we went back to the castle.

...

Chapter 3 END

Next Chapter: A Mysterious Hero Dominates this One-Sided Tournament!