Beyond M-Eclipse: Easy Mode LIVE

———Lynda———

<11: 32 am>

*Slash* *Punch* *Kick* *Punch* *Slash* *Smash* **Thud**

…Is the slugfest finally over? They were all out of steam and just traded attacks by the end.

“<Oh dear! It looks like another case of a possible draw? Could there be no definitive winner?>” Coach Wana said as the two fighters were on their knees. Compared to the first pair they are clearly struggling to even move an inch, let alone getting back up after all the attacks being thrown at each other.

Neither of them are getting up and Gwiyen loses the grip on her weapons. Their hands are twitching and trying to push themselves back up to no luck.

“<One… Two…>” She starts counting as neither of them are getting up. Looks like this might be a draw if neither of them get up on time. “<Three… Four… Five… Six… Seven… Eight…>”

Yeah. They’re not getting up at this point. Way too late for that.

“<Nine… Ten.>” She finished counting to ten, and neither of them are getting up despite still being responsive. “<Looks like it’s a draw, folks! We will have someone come pick them up and heal them in a bit, but don’t worry, they’re still alive, as you can see by their struggle.>”

“Well that was kinda painful to look at by the end.” Trener remarked. Their speed decreased a lot in the final few minutes, and more importantly, any strategies go out by the end. With the last two matches they didn’t really do that, just more of a mutual agreement to end it with one last attack, this match actually turned into an actual slugfest right at the end.

“They were also really strong.” Fiss commented. Well, that’s something you could say about every fighter so far. It’d be boring if they just brought some random schmucks to fight. Last time was maybe a bit too much, the fight was stalling out for way too long, and hard to follow.

“Yeah yeah. Of course they were.” I said dismissively before ordering another glass of milk. Cheers to liquid for the youth, tasty and used in so many dishes worldwide. “This should be all for the first half of the day.”

“<Alright everyone! And with that, the first half of the day is done. Expect three more battles in the afternoon! One in the afternoon and all of you need to come back here! For anyone who doesn’t want to go anywhere and enjoy the free food, do know that the cafeteria isn’t open today, all the food is here. Remember that the seats are locked so no changing, and please enjoy your free time in the gym or library or wherever you wanna go.>” Coach Wana announced, and I think I’m good. I’m just gonna laze around here. “<Also, the area will be available to play in until twelve thirty, not that you can do anything in it since all the customization is off for today. Alright, see you all later!>”

By the time her announcement is over, Trener and Fiss already left along with the majority of the audience. Some are still around, probably eating their food and lazing around just like I am. I don’t really feel like moving around right now or doing anything else.

…Glery is still here, of course. She is eating some fries and staying silent the entire time.

The air is still cold and the light of the sun shines bright on the arena. The terrain already dissolved away and left a flat playing field.

“You gonna speak at all now that most people are gone?” I asked Glery now that the place has become quiet. The murmurs are barely present and can hardly be considered background noise at this point. I see about… maybe less than a tenth of the audience present, which is probably like a hundred people or less.

“...What should I say?” She asked. I mean, just anything? Surely she got something to say after all those spectacle that we had seen.

“Anything. You got some opinions, right?” I asked, knowing that she tends to hold a lot of opinions to herself. She isn’t lacking in those, she just doesn’t want to say it publicly.

“...It’s fun. Feels like the power level went down each fight.” She finally said something, and I think that’s correct? It does feel like I am less overwhelmed each time, but that could just be me feeling more used to the spectacle.

“Is that like, a definitive feeling?” I asked, since I don’t really feel sure about it.

“Yeah. The power progression is going backward.” She said without a hint of doubt in her tone. Hard to argue against that when I already have a similar if less certain feeling. “I think the pair at the end might only be comparable to the students in the Perfect Class.”

“Huh? Seriously?” I wouldn’t have expected that. Never saw them pull out any strong flashy moves before outside of the obvious suspects. “I mean. Those guys are monsters, so I guess… Huh. Well… I would’ve thought they’d bring someone stronger than them, at least.”

“I don’t think they’re going to go weaker than them, I think.” She gave another opinion piece. It’d be ridiculous to go lower than that at this point. That much seems pretty clear. “I really am not sure who they are going to bring out at this point.”

“Hmm… I mean, they have only used two of their members so far, probably seeing a few more guests, right?” That seems like the main point of this welcome back party. Last time we recognized all but one person, that green lady. “Probably a few more faces that we don’t know about. You got some idea who they could be.”

“No way. Even the previous two picks are hard to understand. They lived extremely far from us if the locations they were spotted in is any indication. They could bring people from anywhere to this place if they wanted to.” She replied. That narrows it down to how many people exactly? “Besides, they don’t really pick on who is popular, just who is strong. Do you recognize the first pair at all?”

“I mean, I think I have seen that blonde lady in the news somewhere… The dog guy is a mystery though.” You would think someone with such a fancy hair color would’ve been talked about a bit more often. The superstitions around fancy-haired folks were already a lot before all of this, just imagine what it’s like in a world with magic.

“Very clearly. We have no way of knowing who is going to come up next. It’s pointless to speculate.” She replied. Alright then, if she wanna be like that, then it’s okay. “Are you going to stay here?”

“Yeah. I don’t feel like doing anything today. I was expecting to just go back to school work, but I guess we’re not doing that today.” Certainly a pleasant surprise, but it doesn’t stop the fact that I am coming in with pretty low energy. I don’t really feel motivated coming in today.

“I see…” She muttered without much thought. Unless I give her something to talk about she rarely yaps on her own even in such a quiet environment.

…How long until the next match again? One in the afternoon, right? That’s gonna be a long while, actually. More than an hour of waiting.

I guess I could read up on stuff I didn’t quite finish reading yesterday. There were a few things happening in the world that we didn’t really get to talk about, even if it’s quite interesting.

“Have you been looking into what happened to those conquered towns as of late? Feels like everyone is scrambling to understand what is actually happening.” I asked, seeing as that seems like one of the topics she mentioned she looked into yesterday.

“It’s been a mess. It looks like most people don’t have any idea what to do after taking over their local government and imprisoning so many people. It doesn’t help that no one has the ability to completely subdue magic users, it’s been a mess of people breaking in and out.” Right… Wiina is the only one that we know of that can seal someone’s magic. I doubt she’s the only one with how big the world is and all that. Less we forget, there was a sighting of someone fighting her on what seems like equal level.

“...Are those guys involved with the revolution at all? The last two, I mean.” I feel like those two probably got roped into it at some point, right? With how high profile they are.

“I believe the man in black armor had made his stance of neutrality, while the cat lady never said anything publicly. Both of the places they lived in are part of that movement. You know it’s bad when the big loud boisterous guy wants to steer away from it. He did say he would intervene if things get very ugly, to give him some credit.” She answered. Guess even they don’t want to get involved with that hot mess. Kinda thankful nothing like that happened where I am… I do wonder why it’s not a nationwide movement if the majority of the places have something like that. I guess considering not all operations went smoothly or even successfully, that should’ve probably been enough to guess why not everyone is doing it.

“Huh. Kinda glad we aren’t involved with something like that. If those guys are troubled, imagine how troubled we’d be.” If it happened in these neighborhoods then… Huh. What would happen?

“Anyone trying to cause a scene would’ve been brutalized by someone. Remember the purple snake?” Glery suddenly bring that up. Oh. That incident from… I think it was… four months ago? Maybe five months ago?

“Yeah. Who could forget what looks like a giant dragon coming out of the sky… What even was that thing, actually?” It came out of nowhere and disappeared the moment it gulped up the small army of gang members.

“There was no way to track where it came from or who did it. It’s still rather terrifying to even guess. It could be Wiina, it could be Rico, it could be anyone. No obvious suspects were at the scene.” She answered. Was there really no one there? “...I believe Karra was there, at least, alongside one other person, but they don’t look like they do so much as lifting a finger.”

“It does look like an eternal cold case with that one. Who knows how long it’ll take for magical forensic… thing to happen.” And that is assuming something like that can even happen. There seems to be a limit on how long the traces of magic can linger if it’s no longer active.

“It’s definitely one of the incidents that really makes it clear that this town is a place you really should never try to get involved with. There are way too many things scaring dangerous people off.” Glery said. Certainly something we could probably talk about for quite a while with how many strange things are happening yet none of it is really harmful… I guess there is that wrecked lab that we could talk about, if we really want to talk about it.

“...Aside from the lab and the snake rain, was there any big incident? Karra’s failed stream where Wiina rescued her doesn’t count, by the way.” And the snake rain thing was a global issue, that can hardly be counted, especially since so many people were out there eradicating them before they could even hit the ground.

“Uhh…” Doesn’t look like she recalled anything, and she’s way more thorough with these researches than I do. Heck, it’s kind of a miracle she helped me with so many projects for basically nothing in return. She’s a good friend all around, even if she’s kinda awkward.

“Nevermind then.” I said before ordering more drinks… This is gonna be the last one before I need to go do the thing. I am already pushing it with how many milks I drank. “...I’m gonna go in a bit. Try not to panic, alright?”

“I won’t.” She quietly said while I drink another glass of milk before logging out.