Chapter 365: Prepared
Olive was more nervous than she cared to admit. The crowd roared all around her and the members of Phoenix Circle as the three of them made their way back out on to the arena floor. It hadn’t been all that long since the melee rounds had ended, though she’d had more than enough time to recover what little energy she’d spent.
She just hadn’t been expecting to be called up in the literal first normal round of the tournament. And against the Kererus Coalition, no less. Olive could feel sweat prickling against her palms and her heart pounding furiously in her chest.
“Nerves again?” Elias guessed as the three of them arrived upon the arena and came to a stop a few paces away from the edge.
“Yeah,” Olive said. “This is just a whole lot more attention focused on me than I’m used to. It’s really unnerving. I don’t think I’m built for tournaments like this. Dungeons are way better.”
“We actually rather like the attention,” Elias said with a sheepish chuckle. “It makes me feel alive, you know? And Maeve has always been a performer. I wish she could perform to the full extent of her abilities… but I don’t think that’ll ever be happening in the Kingdom of Lian.”
Olive nearly asked why before she remembered that Maeve wasn’t a human. She was a monster. Even though the three of them had spent so much time together practicing for the tournament, that fact continued to slip from Olive’s mind.
It was getting harder and harder for her to even keep a distinction between monster and human so much as enemy and ally. Maeve didn’t speak, but aside from that, she acted just like anyone else did.
The same was true for Lillia. She’d have included Madiv in that assessment as well, but truth be told, the vampire was definitely a bit odd. Olive was pretty sure that had absolutely nothing to do with the fact that he was a vampire and more to do with the fact that he himself was just weird.
The Adventurer’s Guild really slipped one over all of us, didn’t they? I just wish I knew why. I don’t get what the purpose of any of this is… but I suppose that doesn’t matter right now.