Chapter 198: Spilling Blood Commentary
———Karra———
<10: 14 am>
*Kick* *Slash* *Grab* *Smash* *Kick* *Tumble*
He kicked her, hit her with his scythe, grabbed her by the head and slammed her face into the dirt, then kicked her away one more time.
She quickly got back up and ready to keep fighting despite getting multiple clean hits coming her way. Clearly still have some energy left in the tank.
Not that there is much left. There is a clear limit in sight. A lot of spells were being exhausted which can clearly be seen in the entire playing field being cleared out and only having a few piles of rubble around to indicate that there was a convincing scenery of waterfalls not too long ago. The environment was destroyed very quickly, and I do wonder if they should just make them more durable than they would realistically be if someone on their level could easily clean the place up and leave nothing but pebbles and dust.
**Dash** *Clash*
Despite all the damage being dealt to her, she can still fight and keep up. There is a pretty clear dynamic here of why these two were chosen, maybe Wiina knows about it in clearer detail.
Exchanging attacks with their incredibly large weapon that seems unwieldy for so many people, they use them like they are lightweight weapons and keep swinging and dancing around them.
*Swing* *Clash* *Swing* *Clash*
At some point, the fight became much easier to read. The speed of the battle decreased more and more so that anyone could easily observe the fight at this point.
Both of them retreated and started gathering power. Both of them are clearly going for a big attack to finally end this fight which is slowing down significantly. This next attack might be what finally ends the battle at hand.
**Dash** **Slash** *Thud* *Tumble*
They both ran past each other with their weapons swung. They both quickly tripped and tumbled onto the ground rather anticlimatically. It’s unfortunately not quite like in the shows with a dramatic pause before the effect became apparent.
“<What a trade! It looks like both of our fighters are out! Could this possibly be a draw?>” Principal Mana shouted out.
Both of them are clearly still conscious and attempt to get back up. That kind of trade can be quite deadly compared to just standing there and taking the hit.
Lrem stood back up first. Standing still as she tried to recover from the attack. It looks like there are actual cuts on her body. The dog guy also stood back up, having a clear cut on his clothes as well.
“It’s already decided.” Gregori muttered as both of them turned around to face each other.
*Dash* *Punch*
Before he could properly react, Lrem dropped her sword and ran towards him with a punch right to the gut and caught him by surprise. His body is being lifted up by the fist digging deep into his stomach. That looks extremely brutal and he loses the grip on his weapon as his body tensed up and his hand opened unconsciously.
*Kick*
She then followed up with a kick to the chin, there were droplets of blood coming out after the attack. The crowd gasped loudly as they noticed the bleeding.
*PUNCH* *CRASH*
She then gives him another knuckle sandwich right to his stomach and sends him flying towards the invisible wall that he bounced off and falls to the ground.
“<Brutal! It looks like we have our winner, folks! Give it up for her!>” Principal Mana said as the crowd cheered, albeit way less loudly than one would expect, probably due to how brutal that finishing blow was. Lrem definitely didn’t hold back on that one, not that she can’t afford otherwise, considering she is also running low on fuel.
Rico walks towards the playing field and starts healing the downed scythe user. Isn’t there already an automatic healing system in place? Does she need to come out and do it herself?
“<No need to worry, we’ll heal him up right away and make sure he got all the care he needs. We’re not some barbarians doing things the old fashion way, after all.>” Feels like that is being targeted at someone, but I don’t really know who.
“Did people forget all sorts of failsafe they have in place?” Gregori said, clearly rather annoyed at people being so needlessly worried.
“I don’t think most people are thinking rationally in front of blood.” Orrel chimed in. “If anything, it would be worrying if their reactions aren’t subdued.”
“We fought here a couple of times already, no way most people don’t at least know that much.” Qyunda said before she resumed eating a bunch of marshmallows.
“Cut them some slack. I don’t think the majority of the students here were even present for that.” Jeyst said, giving them the benefit of the doubt.
Meanwhile Lrem also walked off and followed Rico and the dog guy she carried over her shoulder. It probably looked rather humiliating to go through all that effort to be carried out like that while clearly in quite a slump.
“I can kinda see why the previous batch were all at a much higher level…” I muttered while I was observing. At such a high power level and durability, even strong flashy attacks only bothers them for a bit, and since they have to fight conservatively so the audience don’t completely lose them, it means there is a limit to how much they can do. At an extremely high level it just becomes a game of endurance more than anything else since their options are limited outside of just waiting for the timer to run out.
“Yeah. Unlike the previous group of people, they don’t have the endurance to last up to the time limit.” Gregori summarized. “It does stop the fight from being a slog the moment everyone realizes it isn't gonna end. Also the bigger playing field does help in giving the fight more breathing room.
Alright, let’s order some more stuff here… Huh. There is the schedule for the next fight in the corner. In about twenty minutes. Let’s get some more ice cream.
“<Okay everyone. We got two more battles scheduled for the first half of the day. Please check the timer on your screen and make sure to not miss anything!>” Principal Mana said.
“So why did he lose? He beat her down multiple times, didn’t she?” Jeff asked as everything was being cleaned up and the murmurs quieted down.
“Endurance is the main thing. I think the problem with his fighting style is that he believed that she is in the same ballpark of power as him, which isn’t exactly incorrect, but…” Orrel said before silently contemplating, probably wondering how long he should explain this for. “Much like in a game, there are points allocated into each stats, it’s just invisible to our naked eyes and hard to quantify and understand. In this case, she is overall more durable and harder to wear down over time. In his case he looks to be more of a jack of all stats, probably with greater agility and dexterity. It’s not simply that, of course. He expends a lot of energy throwing out all kinds of exotic spells like that reflection spell. Those are powerful but probably burn through his mana pool rapidly, and those are probably the only things that seriously hurt his opponent in any way. Those strings of attacks probably don’t do as much as he hoped despite how brutal it looks. In contrast, that swordswoman is very conservative with her usage of powerful spells and attacks, and her hits are more focused and devastating. If we were to dumb it down, it looks like he never fought someone on his skill level until now, which is why some of his actions seemed a bit wasteful and more performative. Dumbing it down ever further, he lack the experience the other one seems to have.”
“It’s a shame, really. It would’ve been more practical of him to play it safe rather than expending so much stamina doing chip damage.” Gregori chimed in. “His odds were nowhere near zero, but it is what it is.”
“By the way, have we seen that lady somewhere before?” Kenni suddenly chimed in after being uncharacteristically silent for a long while, probably because she was way too distracted with the food options.
“Looks familiar, but I can’t really be too sure.” Gregori said, clearly not interested. Looks like they don’t quite make the connection even if her disguise during that stream was rather lackluster. Still, should she even be going around in her usual attire at this place? There might be someone who recognizes her from all her photoshoots in the past if they look deep enough. “We can look into it later, not that I think she is from these parts anyway.”
“So it looks like there’s a bit of time before they start. Now what?” Jeff asked. He is getting impatient already?
“Just eat and wait. That’s what I’m doing.” Qyunda said while roasting her marshmallows with fire magic. She also has crackers and chocolates on her table. “Kinda sucks to just wait around doing nothing, but hey, it could be worse, like being buried in school work.”
“Oh please, it’s not like those things are hard anyway. Feels like a formality at this point.” Gregori said. I mean, there are some harder questions in there in the tests, but I guess for someone like him it’s all too easy. Many of us still get a few questions wrong.
“Opting out of thinking hard is good in my book. Those assignments always stressed me out.” Jeff chimed in. Of course the guy with the worst academic score of everyone in class would say that, not that he was ever at the risk of not getting passing grades anyway. “By the way, where is everyone at anyway? Could’ve sworn that last time we were all seated close enough to each other.”
“No idea. Everyone just sorta moved around with no idea of what’s going on.” Malk replied. “I mean, there was no announcement of any of this until all of us walked into the school’s campus. Who are we missing in this group anyway?”
“Well… There’s Jass, Sixson, Seni, Wers…” Jeff said before looking around to make sure he isn’t missing other of our classmates. “Everyone that hasn’t talked for a while isn’t here, basically.”
“You could’ve worded that a little bit better.” Gregori remarked. “But yeah, less than half of our class is grouped up. Admittedly, we don’t always come in a group, and I’d imagine that someone like Jass and Sixson might not want to be in the middle of a crowd. Maybe they are in one of the seats on the higher level that look less filled up.”
“Could’ve sworn we already talked about grouping up in the group chat, right?” Jeff asked.
“If everyone had read it first before finding a seat, perhaps.” Orrel chimed in.
There is a bit more complication to that when it comes to Wiina, but obviously I can’t talk about it. They are gonna be left hanging on that for a long while.
Let’s see here… Still a good deal of time left, and I already ate all the ice cream already, but eating anymore might upset my stomach… Let’s just go with a glass of lemonade then. I don’t need to eat anything for a while.
“So does no one know who that dog guy was either?” Jeff spoke up, and the others simply shook their heads. “Guess we really have zero idea on either of them, ain’t that something.”
“Considering they didn’t even grace us with their names, it’s like they know how much commotion these fights would’ve caused. There are even people streaming it from their seats.” Gregori mentioned while looking at his phone. Considering we found that there were people doing that after the last arena event, it’s not all too surprising.
…Actually, even though this place is a lot bigger, it feels like the place is more filled up than I thought, is it because of the place being opened for others or something? I think I heard something about that during the initial announcement.