Chapter 346: Claws on Schedule

———Karra———

<1: 36 pm>

“<I sure hope the little incident didn’t give any brave soul a scare. The fight will continue on and nothing brings glory quite fighting a formidable opponent like this one!>” Rico said as almost everyone returned to their seats. It seems that the incident has been resolved, or postponed, I don’t really know. Wiina hasn’t given me the scoop yet.

“So what was all that for? Did they seriously not plan all that?” Jeff said while scratching his head. Can’t blame him for thinking it is all part of the plan, that kind of incident has no precedent until now.

“Doesn’t seem to be.” Orrel answered. “The fact that nothing happened does mean they manage to contain the issue, but I’d imagine that any similar attacks in the past were subdued before it became apparent.”

“Still, for anyone who could sense its ability is no doubt terrified. Hopefully something was addressed, at least.” Qyunda remarked. I doubt it’s going to stay a mystery for too long. They have a bunch of elephants that need to be addressed, but none that ram into them like this. If nothing else I should get some clarification from Wiina personally. If nothing was publicly addressed maybe I could try stirring the pot a bit.

“<With everyone including our champion fully rested and ready to rumble, let’s see who our first challenger will be! Will they grab the juicy points and mysterious rewards? Perhaps something unbelievable for those who can persist against her onslaught and give her grief? Who’s to say if anyone is up to the task!>” Rico said to hype up the audience and get them thinking and anticipating. No one on our side really feels the urge to fight her just yet, probably in part because picking a fight with her is easier since… you know, we’re all friends and can talk to each other without feeling tense around her, part of a group chat and it’s not like asking her stuff is gonna make her aim for our heads, even if her words make it sound like that on more than a couple of occasions. “<Come on now, don’t be shy, show the world what you are capable of!>”

Now if there isn't anyone challenging her after a long period of time then they could step in, but everyone is more of an observer's mindset at the moment.

“<Oh! Looks like we got our first challenger for the afternoon, let’s see what the fresh face is capable of!>” Rico commented as another weak fighter joined the arena. It’s weird to call them that when a weak student can easily maul an average adventurer, but the guy below isn’t impressive at all, even weaker than some of the other mediocre students who step up to the plate.

“Off to a bad start.” Malk uncharitably remarked as the fight began. Like with the other weaker fighters, he can mostly just try to play defensive so as to not instantly lose to Emmie’s onslaught that she no doubt is holding immensely from going too far.

“It’s a nice warm up for Emmie, at least… or maybe not.” I said before quickly retracting it. For her this is probably akin to trying to not squish a random bug on the side of the road, that’s not exactly an exercise. “Anyway, what were you guys doing during the break? See any signs of that monster or anything else?”

“If only it was that easy…” Gregori said with annoyance. “With how it disappeared into nothing its master is probably around here, but I didn’t see any new faces while simply walking around.”

“Probably got apprehended by the faculty members. I don’t think any struggles came about since that thing wasn’t pulled out, so perhaps a negotiation of some kind.” Orrel speculated. “If a fight were to break out the town could be destroyed as a byproduct, that’s how strong that monster was, and it hasn’t really done anything outside of knocking on that barrier.”

“You’d think it was scripted with how it coincides with the lunch break just right after someone finished fighting.” Useph pointed out.

“I am of the opinion that it was coincidental.” Orrel replied to that minor conspiracy. “There are a lot of variables in this event they simply don’t have the benefit of hindsight for, so creating that kind of conveniently timed entrance is not really practical.”

“...But we’re talking about people who can do something beyond practical, right?” Gregori pointed out.

“Indeed, but there is a difference between doing something at incomprehensible speed and trying a plan that would be practically impossible to foresee and account for without actual future vision.” Orrel argued. Aren’t we just talking about a performance that at best would be delayed? I know we’re talking about a perfect dynamic entrance but it doesn’t seem that important to get it correctly. Are we all really that bored right now?

“He’s already down.” Useph remarked with a dull tone, paying some attention to the fight while the others were discussing trivial matters or on their phone, or eating.

“Jeff, what the heck are you sending in the group chat?” Nicks said in a reprimanding tone. Let’s see here, he even pings everyone in the group as well as if to be extra annoying.

“Big bird sighting. I bet we can learn a bit more about that.” He explained himself. Can’t he at least wait until the event is over? I guess there’s not much to pay attention to, but it’s quite awkward to have a discussion between multiple people when the stadium is still quite loud just by the fact that there are a lot of people. It’s easy for someone’s voice to be drowned out in this environment during the group conversation compared to a one-on-one conversation where they only need to focus on one voice. Also, some of us are seated very far apart from each other, this is far from an ideal chatting spot, extremely awkward, even.

“Can’t we talk about this later?” Useph said, also annoyed by his attempt to get everyone to talk about a single topic in a pretty bad location.

“<Looks like our next challenger will not stick to usual weaponry we have seen so far!>” Rico remarked to the next person on the stage, a brown-haired girl with rabbit ears and two gauntlets with big claws. Seen her around before, and last I checked she is… not bad, actually. Luik can make short work of her, but she is among the strongest fighters in the school, so it’s not a point against her.

“Shouldn’t be a snoozefest.” Gregori remarked upon recognizing the person ready to face Emmie. A crazy remark to say even if it’s technically a compliment coming from him. I think we can all get a bit too judgmental despite the fact that no one who goes down there were acting like a joke aside from the first guy, it just isn’t very entertaining since we can fight at a much higher level even when playing around, so we’re in a bit of a bad mood one could say.

Still, some of us certainly are more sharp-tongued even when we’re in a good mood.

*Dash* *Clash* *Block* *Clang* *Evade* *Parry*

The speed of the fight is actually quite good, only second to what Luik has accomplished and certainly makes the rest of the challengers look more like extras in a battle scene. Perhaps a good comparison is something along the lines of the secondary character taken center stage once the big shots have had their turn, but that is obviously not a perfect analogy.

Anyway, it doesn’t look slow to me, so for the others it probably won’t either.

The long claws help give her the reach needed to parry the attacks from the bamboo sword. Her reaction time and speed is good enough to match Emmie blow-for-blow and make her avoid certain attacks so as to not let her bamboo sword get overwhelmed with damage. She certainly isn’t letting it be broken so she is allowed to be more loose faster.

“Those look like they could be snapped off so easily.” Malk remarked probably in regards to the giant claws. They are long and no doubt sharp, they are large yet thin, looking like it could fold under its own weight.

“One nice thing about magic combat is that you could reinforce otherwise impractical weapons to be more usable, and the larger amount of seemingly impossibly durable materials and new forging methods make every weapon a lot stronger than they were previously, which means more avenue for more exaggerated items like that.” Orrel remarked, probably just wanting to nerd out a bit with how little else there is to say about the fight even if she is putting up a decent performance so far.

“She has lightning powers, if I remember right.” Qyunda commented after a brief period of silence among us as the fight rages on.

“Hm.” I mumbled to myself as that reminded me of something. “It’s weird how lightning magic causes numbing sensation and a small burn patch at best. At least that’s how it has been for me whenever I get hit by one.”

“There are a lot of ways to guard against it when you are also heavily practiced in similar arts, even simply by instinct, though for someone who isn't proficient, then even a stray bolt might cause them to explode.” Gregori grimly replied. “It’s also just naturally hard to control as well, a lot is lost in the casting process unless you arbitrarily try to suppress and condense it which obviously turned it from genuine outburst of electricity to something akin to a normal projectile. I suppose that could be said about other types of spells that one would think would be naturally deadly or impossible to dodge or defend against. Beginner level spells lack the kind of lethality one would expect from a giant ball of flames or bolt of lightning. It kinda felt like cosmetics to a generic magic blast.”

“She’s probably not pulling that out since Emmie can probably tank it and waste her mana on trying something fancy.” Orrel speculated while neither side showed any use of magic.

“Speaking of which, does she even have enough stamina to last until the second phase?” Useph asked as the intensity of the fight remained the same. It’s less than what Luik can provide, so there is less stress on Emmie despite the tempo of the fight remaining very constant. It’s very likely that the fight might have stalled out for too long before it could even begin, and by then Emmie and the organizers would have already hastened the match to its end. This pacing can only be kept for so long until the audience gets bored. It has already been a few minutes of blocking and dodging…

*Strike* *Dash* *Slam*

Suddenly before any more of that conversation could continue, Emmie sent her flying with a sword thrust before catching up to her while still in motion and grabbing her by the head and slams her down into the ground. It was a very quick combo she pulled out to style on this girl specially. What’s gotten into her?

*Swing* *Leap*

She managed to twist her body just enough to shake off being pinned to the ground, swinging a gauntlet right towards Emmie and making her back off and continuing the fight. She hasn’t slowed down once things continue, so it looks like Emmie didn’t inflict much damage on her with that nasty-looking combo.

*Swing* *Evade* *Trip* *Strike*

As I was thinking that Emmie caused her to trip by simply kicking her foot after dodging another claw swipe, which gave her more than enough time to counterattack. She didn’t even need to do that, that was just for style points.

“Looks like Emmie is getting tired of her.” Gregori said before pulling out his phone. As far as he’s concerned the match will soon end, no need to anticipate anything else.

I guess that is as good a sign for it as anything else. The fight was starting to get stale anyway, so Emmie pulling out stunts like that means it won’t end anticlimactically by her simply running out of stamina.